The amazing part is that she has to sue on grounds of race discrimination, since private employees have no legal protection in the U.S. from being sanctioned by their employer for speech on matters of public interest. (A public employee has some protection on this score--see the discussion of the Pickering test here.) Faculty at most private universities are in the unique position of enjoying the right to speak on matters of public interest without fear of sanction by their employer, thanks to the AAUP definition of academic freedom. But there is no reason in a supposedly free and democratic society that all employees should not enjoy some version of that right.
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