Juli Briskman, the Virginia cyclist who flipped off the presidential motorcade and lost her job last fall, doesn’t think we should be afraid to speak our minds.
That’s why she went to court Wednesday to sue Akima, the government contracting firm that fired her.
“I filed this lawsuit against my former employer today because I believe that Americans should not be forced to choose between their principles and their paychecks,” Briskman said.
Now you might think that Briskman does not have a firm leg to stand on, after all the 1st Amendment only protects from retaliation by the government, it does not force a company to keep you on if your actions embarrass them or make it untenable to keep you employed.
However the company that Briskman worked for was a government contractor.
Our right to free speech may protect us from punishment by the government, but it’s not clear whether it protects our jobs when our bosses don’t like how we behave.
But Briskman’s legal team of Maria Simon and Rebecca Geller argue there is a big difference in Briskman’s case.
"Akima’s actions — forcing Juli to resign out of fear of unlawful retaliation by the government — violated the basic tenets of Virginia employment law,” Simon said.
See, Briskman’s bosses didn’t take a moral stand against her action. They didn’t worry that an obscene gesture offends her fellow employees or sullies the good name of her company.
I wasn’t successful in reaching anyone at Akima for comment. But the firm is a government contractor, and it made it clear to Briskman that it was worried about retaliation from this administration.
“Defendant forced plaintiff to resign for the stated reasons that the photograph of her would have an adverse effect on its ability to obtain government contracts,” the lawsuit said.
THAT makes this case a little different from the ones where a neo-Nazi was fired for attending a rally, or a TV station fires an employee for sending antisemitic emails.
If it can be demonstrated that Briskman lost here job because her company feared retaliation by the government, that would indeed constitute a breach of her 1st Amendment rights.
Personally I hope she wins.
The right to flip off Donald Trump should actually be added as another amendment to the Constitution. And I bet a lot of other people would agree with that.
Source https://ift.tt/2Ix3jcB
