"Many outsiders look at a firing-over-speech and say it's just a private firm's decision. No public policy or First Amendment implications, right?," writes Walter Olson for USA Today. A longtime contributor to Reason, Olson is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute who blogs at Overlawyered.com and Cato At Liberty. He stresses that "hostile-environment law is not content-neutral. It plays favorites on topics and it takes sides in debates."
In the latest Reason Podcast, Nick Gillespie talks with Olson about the "Google Memo" case, in which employee James Damore was fired after circulating his opinions about diversity efforts at the search behemoth, and the debate it has started over free speech on the job, political correctness, and workplace diversity.