An attorney specializing in employment law would be helpful here. It is my understanding that since Missouri is an employment at will state, in the absence of employment contracts that indicate otherwise, employers generally may fire employees for any reasons, no reasons and even unfair reasons, as long as they are not illegal reasons. What constitutes an illegal reason in this type of situation?

#70 Those are such crappy examples.

1) I am sure the police chief would tell him to address it with a state senate or whatever legislative body is applicable.

2 and3) Both of these examples are done ON THE JOB! That is not the question. The question at hand is should an employer be able to discipline for stuff you say OFF the job.

#71

Laurie -

The at-will employment statute would not apply to Majerus because it only applies in cases where the terms of an employer / employee relationship needs to be ‘construed’, i.e. because there is no paper contract, or one that doesn’t cover these issues. I am quite sure that Majerus and SLU have an existing paper contract that has express provisions in it for termination and/or reprimand by the employer. Although the contents of that contract are obviously private, I would be amazed if it contained a provision that allowed Majerus to be terminated ‘for having private opinions that differ from his employer’.

Case law is pretty clear around firing employees for making statements regarding personal views. The employer has to prove that the employee is ‘damaging’ its business in some way. In other words, should the lawsuit that Majerus would inevitably file in the event of a termination ever get to trial, SLU would have to prove that ’significant numbers’ of students weren’t enrolling at SLU because they were offended by Majerus’ remarks (i.e. his remarks damaged SLU’s business to the point where significant amounts of money are being lost).

#69

Mike -

My parents are quite proud of me - thanks. They made a point of raising someone who could contribute to humanity by questioning and searching and never giving up looking for the truth, wherever I may find it. The great Jesuit tradition at SLU of examining both self and the world around me fit me to a T.

Interesting to juxtapose the Jesuit method against Ray (”Enlightenment? What Enlightenment”) Burke and his buddy in Rome who makes statements like:

“In the age of Galileo the Church showed to be more faithful to reason than Galileo himself. The trial against Galileo was reasonable and just.” - Pope Benedict XVI

Wow… what can you say?

I didn’t miss much at SLU - attended many excellent classes! On the other hand, yea.. I think I missed the class titled “Blind Obedience to a Self-Proclaimed Demi-god”… didn’t sound too interesting to me.

- Bill

Isn’t the important question here how this incident will or will not affect Billikens Basketball?
Have we not forgotten that SPORTS is the major St. Louis religion?

Speaking of annoying one’s employer: anyone else remember the day Harry Caray was fired, and was promptly photographed with a Falstaff in the press box?

For those unfamiliar with church history, and for the record, the Jesuits were suppressed by the pope in 1773 for various reasons (economic and political as well as intellectual), and not returned to full communion with the church until 1814. Being at odds with the local prelates isn’t a new thing.

There is, in my mind, a vast difference between speaking favorably about Coke on mike but off the job if you work for Pepsi, (that’s plain stupid. and asking for it — why not change jobs?) and what Majerus did (which is, for better or worse, political speech, and irrelevant to basketball).

St. Louisans interested in matters of Catholic faith ought to read more than just the Review — even other dioceses in Missouri do not have the arch-conservative bias we have here, not even thinking about more liberal parts of the nation and world. There is more than one way to be Catholic. The teachings of order priests do not conform to diocesan ones. In the end, we all have to find our own path to good — was Jesus a Pharisee or a Sadducee or a Zealot, or an itinerant preacher who was continually railing against the Jewish establishment of his time?

And for some reason, Jim Croce’s song, “You Don’t Mess Around With Jim” keeps running through my mind in regards to free speech. Sometimes you lose and sometimes you win, but just make sure the fight is worth it. Take that any way you want.

Greenbaum asks, “I’m eager for people to address the core question of this topic: Are there other circumstances when an employer would be within its rights to insist that its employees keep their personal views private if they conflict with the employer’s?”

I’ll try, but boy is it hard.

I assume that the coach is technically a faculty member at SLU. Don’t faculty members at SLU enjoy the protection of academic freedom? Not to mention freedom of speech.

It looks like Burke doesn’t know the difference between the university and the Vatican.

Perhaps SLU should recruit Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski. But then he would probably just cause trouble by going to church at St. Stanislaus.

Poor old Padre Burke. He just can’t win. And as long as God keeps putting a brain between our ears, he never will.

Burke again does nothing more than drive a deeper wedge between his church and its people. The Catholic Church is largely irrelevant to our society, and increasingly so, thanks to Burke and men like him. All for the better, I think.

A key point has been missed by all you long-winded posters.

That is the fact that Burke, as well as Majerus, should have the right of free speech. If Majerus wants to speak up about his political views, he has the right. By the same token, if Burke wants to criticize Majerus, he certainly has the right to do so, even if it is stupid.

Nobody has to pay any attention to either of them.

Let’s just get off their backs and get on with life.

Burke has a point. I entered SLU a devote Catholic. I left, three degrees earned later, confident in my atheism. If people are going to believe the out-dated dogma the Church has been peddling for 2,000 years, then they absolutely cannot be exposed to diverse ideas. When logic, reason, and intellect get invovled, the Church is not going to win. Burke just needs people to do as he says and think what he tells them to think. Then he can keep his fancy life.

I think most people would agree that SLU will not take disciplinary action and would be idiotic to do so, but the question of COULD they has a different answer: Of course they can. A normal employee without a contract would have no rights (so long as the employer is private, not governmental) to contest discipline including firing imposed. This shocks people, but that is what you get for getting rid of all the unions. Majerus isn’t a normal employee. He has a contract. If they are going to fire him for something silly like this, then they are going to still have to pay him, making it all the more likely that it isn’t going to happen.

SLU students and faculty have diverse views. Students do internships in which they help women access abortion and birth control. They learn philosophy that demonstrates convincingly that there is no god. The is a officially recognized campus organization to promote equality for homosexuals. Burke is clueless.

Suzyjax, there was no distinction in the topic of this post whether the view were made on or off the job. The SLU example was one that was off the job, but in public. However, this was just one example and a crappy one at that. In fact this example completely contradicts the topic since Burke is not an employer of Majerus.

Majerus can say what he wants, but you all must remember that free speech does not necessarily mean there are no consequences to your speech. Majerus could have called SLU a second rate University and that would have gotten him fired. In this case, he wasn’t making a direct assault on SLU, but he is contradicting one of the most basic and important issues to Catholics. He certainly can have those views, but bringing those views out in public when employed by a Catholic institution should have consequences. I predict a public apology coming that won’t retract his views but will instead apologize for embarassing SLU.

Burke is the leader of Catholics in this area. While his personality rubs many the wrong way, he is no Hitler like Tom and CeCe claim. His duty is to protect the interests of the church and he would have been failing in his duties if he didn’t respond.