Today’s Washington Post has a story on how social networking websites have adversely affected some D.C. area teachers (here). According to the story, several teachers with social networking sites (like Facebook or MySpace) have been suspended, threatened with their job, or fired because their sites are crude, racy, or defamatory.
Ought employers be careful of firing employees with social-networking sites?
I believe they should be very careful indeed.
Employers, particularly the federal and state governments who employ these D.C. area teachers, should tread lightly when it comes to social networking sites. The employer doesn’t just violate the employee’s first amendment rights (which the article seems to skirt because of a recent Supreme Court decision that held government agencies could fire employees if their speech harms the organization’s mission or function) but more importantly it seems to permit open discrimination practices usually forbidden by law.
Admittedly the story reads more like something out of a soap opera. The sum of angered and irrational parents and unassuming young faculty yields the most lewd and lascivious story the Post can conjure up. But something the Post overlooked in all of the cases was an important detail of the two most prominent social networking sites (mentioned earlier). The social networking sites include a space for those networking to post their religious views, their political views, and their race.
In the article, the author tells a story about an employer who looked up a person’s social-networking site during the person’s job interview. Employers are forbidden by law to ask questions like: “Do you have any children?” “How many children do you have?” “Are you married?” “How long have you been married?” “What is your political/religious affiliation?” and “How old are you?” Social-networking sites enable people to make their views, their marital status, their age, their sexual orientation, and their family information public. Employers who actively search social-networking sites may be interpreted as seeking answers to these questions. Just as in cases where employers have asked these questions and have been subject to legal action, so too should they be held legally accountable for searching social-networking sites.
Firing employees because of what they have written on their personal social networking sites may invite law suits. The social networking sites allow participants to post their marital status, religious and political views, and (in some cases) their race. Such questions are off limits to employers in job interviews; why should it be any different if prospective employers actively search social-networking sites for information about employees?
