In a victory for the rational, the tolerant, and opponents of First-Amendment sloganeering, Andrew Shirvell was fired from the Michigan Attorney General's office on Monday. I wrote about this last month, when the controversy blew up in the first place. As I said then:
His boss, Attorney General Mike Cox has lightly condemned the behavior as showing "immaturity and a lack of judgment", but also saying that becuase it's not on work time, Shirvell has a First Amendment right to say these things. In reaction to the order from Gov. Granholm to suspend him, Cox says: ""I don't know why she's so freaking irresponsible. ... she went to Harvard Law School," Cox said. "The civil service rules are a huge shield for free speech and she knows that." Cox's views reflects a broad misconception about the First Amendment held by, I'd argue, most US citizens.Cox apparently has reversed his position, saying
To be clear, I refuse to fire anyone for exercising their First Amendment rights, regardless of how popular or unpopular their positions might be. However, Shirvell repeatedly violated office policies, engaged in borderline stalking behavior, and inappropriately used state resources, our investigation showed.Ok, so this goes to both the reasons I suggested in the first place - the stalking was actually non-speech conduct and the speech part was not part of his job and constituted "conduct unbecoming a state employee, especially that of an assistant attorney general."
I have a bad feeling there's gonna be a First Amendment lawsuit soon, given how we all seem to misunderstand the thing and how willing people are to file poltiical stunt lawsuits (see health care constitutionality), but it's gonna be an easy case.
