Remember a while back when some guy got fired for harassing a reporter while she was live on air. (the "
**** her right in the
****!" meme.) The reporter chewed him out, the video obtained widespread attention, people found out who he was and where he worked, and his employer fired him. (I believe he was an engineer at Ontario Hydro or something like that.)
I see this as being very similar in principle to the woman who got fired for her disgusting tweet.
There was an incident where a guy filmed himself going through the drive through at a Chick-Fil-A and harassing the teenage girl at the window over the Chick-Fil-A owner's politics. The young girl came off looking like a champ, the guy came across as a self-righteous idiot, and the video went viral for reasons rather opposite to what the guy who made the video hoped for. People found out who he was, and he also got fired from his job. (I believe he was a software programmer or something like that.)
Did these people deserve to be fired for something they did on their own time and didn't have any direct impact on their work?
Well, once the employer's name is involved in the controversy it's a public relations headache for them as well.
Professional athletes and executives often have code-of-conduct clauses in their conduct that allow them to be terminated for bringing bad publicity to the employer. That might not be the case for the rank-and-file employee (although I believe the woman fired from CBS was indeed an executive level employee) but the bad publicity brought upon the employer might still make a case for "due cause" if these cases go to court.
-k