Good discussion today in the New York Times “Room for Debate” about Derek Fenton, the New Jersey Transit Authority worker who was fired from his job after burning pages of the Koran in a protest at the Park51 project, the “Ground Zero Mosque” (imagine me doing air quotes here) that is, of course, neither a mosque nor at Ground Zero.
Regardless of how silly I think the debate over siting of a religiously-affiliated community center is — would people complain about construction of a Christian church near the Oklahoma City bombing site because Timothy McVeigh was raised Catholic or because Terry Nichols converted later in life? — I’m still perplexed by the decision of a public agency to dismiss an employee for expressing his constitutionally-protected rights.
Which is to say, I’m no fan of Koran burning — or flag burning or cross burning, for that matter — but I’m even less of a fan of the government sanctioning speech it doesn’t like.
I think the points Eugene Volokh, Alan Dershowitz and John Eastman are well-made here. We had a lively discussion of this in my law & ethics of mass communication course last week, and after reading these additional points, I’m convinced that courts would not uphold the NJ Transit Authority’s firing of Fenton here.
My other point, a bit of a side note, is where’s the union? Is Fenton a contract employee and union member, as I would expect of a government worker in New Jersey? If so, why haven’t union leaders stepped up to defend the free speech of one of its members?
And how does all this relate to the Web? Well, think of it this way: Suppose Fenton spoke out against the Park51 project on a blog or on his facebook page — would that be a firing offense? How is that any different than burning the Koran while off-duty in a public place?
