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“Do Laws Against Workplace Harassment Violate Free Speech?” By Eugene Kontorovich
This article probes the extent to which antidiscrimination laws interfere with free speech, particularly in the workplace set up emphasizing that there is little difference between Florida’s Stop WOKE Act and the civil rights Act of 1964. Kontorovich notes that one of the main dirty secrets of American constitutional law is the tension that exists between free expression and antidiscrimination law. In August 2022, this issue blew into the public sphere after Mark Walker, a federal district judge struck a law in Florida pertaining to the hostile work environments infringing on the First amendment. According to the judge, the liberty of an employer is violated if they are not able to make racially, essentialist, stereotyping, and deprecatory comments (Kontorovich, 2). Judger Walker ruled in HoneyFund v. DeSantis that the First Amendment demands “marketplace of ideas.” As such, employees that tend to have an issue when their boss makes disparaging comments regarding their race, they should argue and not sue.
It is likely that the Florida ruling could have posed a bold conceptual challenge for discrimination-employment laws. Worth noting, the ruling goes against the towering edifice of a precedent from the Supreme Court. According to the ruling, combating sexism and racism is significant enough to justify speech restrictions in workplaces. However, the stance of Judge Walker barely deserves credit for such quixotic position. The stance only protects only the widely accepted racial insults with corporate and elite academic settings.
Works Cited
Kontorovich, Eugene. “Do Laws Against Workplace Harassment Violate Free Speech?” WSJ, 25 Aug. 2022, www.wsj.com/articles/do-laws-against-workplace-harassment-violate-free-speech-stop-woke-act-desantis-dei-training-florida-legislature-race-11661340173.
