Matthew Dowd, a political analyst for MSNBC, was the first high-profile personality to suffer consequences for commenting on Charlie Kirk’s shooting in Utah last week: During a broadcast following Kirk’s murder in front of students gathered at Utah Valley University, Dowd referenced some of the controversial statements Kirk, a strident conservative activist and MAGA supporter, had made in the past. “Hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions,” Dowd said. “You can’t stop with these sort of awful thoughts you have and then saying these awful words and then not expect awful actions to take place.”
MSNBC apologized for the comments and fired Dowd almost immediately.
Since then, the list of people who have been fired for sharing their views on Kirk’s legacy has grown exponentially. They include Karen Attiah, a columnist at the Washington Post; Charlie Rock, a comms executive for the Carolina Panthers football team, and unnamed corporate employees at Nasdaq, research center the Broad Institute, and the law firm Perkins Cole. Other companies that have suspended or dismissed employees over social media statements or public comments include American Airlines, United, Delta, Walmart, and Office Depot. Meanwhile, the number of those who have been flagged by organized online conservative activists for having made what they consider inappropriate comments has reportedly reached into the thousands.
Most of the statements about Kirk’s death that have landed people in trouble are pointed statements about the late activist’s extreme right positions on gun control, race and DEI, or on abortion, feminism, and LGBTQ+ issues. A few have gone further, celebrating Kirk’s murder or suggesting he brought it upon himself. But many of these comments explicitly condemn violence and the killing, while still taking issue with Kirk’s well-documented talking points. These cases have raised concerns about overzealous responses from companies, and left many companies unsure of how to proceed.
It’s a complicated question: Kirk was himself a critic of “cancel culture” who argued passionately for the importance of free speech. But as the guest host of Kirk’s podcast this week, Vice President JD Vance suggested that companies should take action against their employees for expressing opinions on Kirk’s death: “When you see someone celebrating Charlie’s murder, call them out—and, hell, call their employer.” Meanwhile, many progressives who cheered the firing of participants in the Jan. 6 rally that turned into riots are appalled by dismissals of Kirk’s critics now.
All to say that, for business leaders, the tragedy of what appears to be political violence (though the suspect’s motivation and political leaning remains the subject of speculation) has turned into a legal and reputational quagmire, raising complicated questions about how far employers should go in disciplining employees in an era when companies are also expected to support healthy debate and transparency.
Some employers and employees remain unclear about where the red lines are and what happens when they’re crossed, says Jonathan Segal, an attorney and partner at Duane Morris in New York who specializes in employment law.
But that’s not for a lack of experience. In the last two years alone, ideological divides have been exposed by the Israel-Gaza crisis, the murder of the UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, and other politically motivated violence and murders in the U.S.
The most important thing for companies to do is lay out a clear policy on speech, says Alison Taylor, a clinical professor in the Business and Society Program at NYU Stern School of Business, who says she’s watching in horror as the Kirk comments are reported and the dismissals play out.
“It should be clear to anybody working in your company what you can and can’t say online, and what your code of conduct is,” Taylor says. (And the policy should be easy to find, not something hiding deep within a company’s online handbook.) “If you are firing people on the basis of these comments and you haven’t put out that guidance, I don’t think you can get away with that.”
The limits of free speech at work
One reason employers need to be proactive about social media policies is that employees remain confused about their protections. “Employees still ask about their First Amendment rights,” says Segal, “but generally speaking, there are no free speech rights in a workplace.” In the U.S., most private sector workers are at-will employees, and private employers have the right to fire people over rules set by a company’s code of conduct, he explains. Only those who work for the government have speech-related constitutional protections under federal or state laws, and even they face some limits.
In most private workplaces, speech is not protected unless there is some legal principle that otherwise would shield employees from retribution, Segal said. (One example is a whistleblower comment about an employer’s conduct.) That doesn’t seem to be the case with the statements people are making about Kirk, he added.
Segal advises employers who are weighing their options following a contentious employee outburst to run through a series of questions to determine a course of action. Is the remark, on its face, encouraging violence or hatred? If so, the employer may face more risk for not terminating that person than for firing them, because of the message a company’s response sends to other employees and the public, says Segal.
It’s also worth examining who made the comment, Segal says. If it’s an executive or someone with more authority, they may be held to more rigorous standards, given that they’re more likely seen as company representatives and usually have employees reporting to them. The venue for the potentially odious comment is another relevant factor, says Segal. Some social media platforms, such as LinkedIn, more clearly tie a person to their place of work and reflect poorly on the employer.
But nuance also comes into play, especially when the statement is made outside of work or in the employee’s personal capacity. “Even if employees don’t have speech rights, per se,” he says, “how far do you want to go as a culture in admonishing people for statements they make outside?”
The importance of staying consistent
That’s the larger question that Taylor says has become “incredibly difficult” in recent years. “A company may have broad, consistent principles that would apply to, let’s say, expressing racist hate speech online, and also apply to celebrating a murder,” she says, “And I can understand that both those things shouldn’t be allowed, but the problem that we really mustn’t get into is inconsistency.”
Taylor, who also works as a consultant with large global companies, reports that one firm she is working with previously encouraged employee activism and took strong stands on Russia and Ukraine, as well as domestic movements such as Black Lives Matter. Now, some companies that previously went out on a limb are regretting it, she says. Worse, some have swung to the opposite extreme, taking draconian stands on employee communications.
“Regardless of what you think about Charlie Kirk, Israel, or DEI,” says Taylor, “it’s a terrible idea to look as if you shift in the breeze depending on who’s in power. That was a terrible idea in 2020 and it’s still a terrible idea in 2025.”
Still other business leaders who have refrained from switching positions have instead gone quiet, “afraid to stick their necks out at the moment on this question,” says Taylor. “So the general impression ends up being a little imbalanced.”
The bottom line: “This is a perfect moment to get principles in place and have an organizational-wide discussion.”
Here’s what else leaders should keep in mind:
Create guidelines, not hard rules. To avoid the grey areas of policing political commentary outside work, companies can create policies that simply ask employees to pause before posting instead, says Segal. He suggested: “What you say may be seen as speaking for the company; please think twice before engaging in social media of a political nature.” Employees should also be reminded that posting a positive message about a political or controversial figure may also suggest that you endorse those persons’ views.
Never take sides. Employers should be apolitical in when it comes to enforcing rules, says Segal. “If an employer is going to condemn and potentially terminate an employee for celebrating the murder or attempted murder of someone, they should do that whether the person’s on the left or the right,” he says. “That may not always go to legality, but that will always go to cultural credibility.”
Consider warnings or suspensions before terminations: Many of this week’s firings over Charlie Kirk have reportedly happened swiftly, without investigations or even conversations. But before terminating someone, an employer should consider taking less drastic action while sorting through the issues, says Taylor. “It’s a little bit like sexual harassment,” she says. “As soon as there’s an allegation and you say there’s zero tolerance, then you’ve kind of got a very blunt instrument—for a very complicated topic.”
Politics8 years ago