[FIRE] Rutgers caves to outrage mob: Prof. faces punishment for Facebook posts about white people

I think you are missing my point - The choice isn't by the employer, it's by the employee. Once you put something into the public domain in any shape or form, it is no longer a personal matter as it pertains to your job.

 

Thx for sharing this! Can't be dismissed as slippery slope nonsense b/c the slope it is a changing and students they are a coddled.

 

I don't know all the specifics of that case but my feeling is that kind of thing is incredibly wrong. It's like the PC police that wanted to edit Huckleberry Finn because of the N word. The book used to be banned because it "humanized" a black man and showed that whites and blacks could be friends and that black people deserved decent treatment

My belief is that you don't edit the bad parts out of history(or the present), you show that's how they were and work to improve it. That is different than those who believe that it should be accepted because it's no big deal.

 

It depends on the employer and what they see as acceptable and what is not. In other word, they have a choice when they set up rules of acceptable and non acceptable behaviors including those outside of work. If an action is murky and doesn’t fall into some predefined rules (common), then that’s exactly when the employer need to choose what to do. They can choose to treat an action as a (public) “personal matter” when it’s in the public domain. Meaning, it's private, I don't give a damn. Many employer do this all the time when they don’t care about your “socially norm” public social media postings. When it’s not norm or much worse and they become aware of it, that's when social pressure might push them to act... but again, that's a choice of the employer.

So, yes employee can limit or even essentially force an employer to make a decision about employee;s "personal matter" but it's always in the employer hand on the decision.

 

I have been taking a break from CF (works), and it's a great thing

There is no privacy today. Actually, there was never privacy (unless you are a hermit). Along what you said, being physically closer (local), people tend to know you more and unless you are truly an a$$hole or horrible, be more understanding when you make stupid statements. As distance grow, you lose that. It's normal human nature and there is no way human can evolve fast enough to keep up with the 5-10 years evolution of "closing the distance" gap - meaning social media now put everyone in the same room, but yet they don't get to know each other, subjecting them to judge based on all their own (usually non accurate) perception, bias and assumption. We end up with very quick public judgmental reaction to behaviors... there is less consideration for why and to try to understand others.

Anyway, being able to be yourself is a huge value to me. I get the socially unacceptable behaviors, but I like to think that's pretty limited to a very small segment of the population and so I think reacting to that for the mass is not useful. Plus, I think sometime ignoring people is the best course.