Is it Legal to Fire an Employee for Marching in a Rally?

After images of white nationalists rallying in Charlottesville, Virginia circulated on social media, the internet went to work to identify the participants.

Efforts to expose the white nationalists had immediate effects — online posts revealing their identities led to employers finding out that some of their workers had marched in Charlottesville.

As mentioned in Time, depending on the kind of job, a person can get fired for espousing racist beliefs if the employer feels it reflects poorly upon them. While those who work in the public sector or in a state that has protective laws for workers cannot be fired for expressing political opinions, non-union workers in the private sector exist at the whim of their employers.

Samuel Estreicher, director of the Center for Labor and Employment Law at New York University, stated “employers have the right to fire workers if they feel implicated in an employee’s actions.”