can you fire someone for being racist?

by Alison Green on February 26, 2025

A reader writes:

Recently, my company hired someone who was extremely racist. He worked with me on his first day, where he dropped an awful racial slur six times. I was shocked so did a little social media sleuthing and found his horrifying Twitter page full of xenophobic and racist tweets and posts. We fired him.

However, after speaking to a friend who is in HR, she said we couldn’t simply fire him for being racist. Now, obviously our lawyer and HR rep disagreed with that because he was fired. But what say you? Are racist posts and hate speech enough to fire someone? She seems to think we should have put him on an improvement plan first. I think at that point it’s too late and having a racist employee puts our employees of color at risk unnecessarily. I am proud of the way the company handled it, but she thinks we opened ourselves up to legal liability. She said his racism was apart of his “political opinion” and you can’t fire someone over their political opinion. But “racist” is hardly a political opinion, it’s hate speech. So, I won’t ask if we were “wrong” to fire him, but could we have potentially opened ourselves up to legal issues by firing him based solely on racist tweets and his racist comments said to me but directed at other people?

I answer this question over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here.

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{ 204 comments… read them below }

    3. LTR FTW*

      I’m glad.

      I worked for a dot com startup in the 90s that had a lot of, shall we say, inappropriate behavior going on. Fueled by alcohol a lot of the time.

      One night we were having a post-work hangout over beers and one of the managers went off on some kind of rant, and somewhere in there he used the n-word.

      The very next day he got fired. I was shocked, honestly. That place let so much stuff slide. But I was glad they had a line that was uncrossable!!!

    6. Reality.Bites*

      There are things where employees are allowed to have a policy of zero-tolerance.

      As a new hire on his first day, the idea that he’d have legal recourse for being fired is ludicrous.

    2. Ally McBeal*

      No kidding. Racism aside, an HR professional in the U.S. should know that, for the most part, anyone can be fired for any reason.

      1. DEJ*

        In the update to this one, the HR person did apologize to the letter writer: “She eventually apologized to me. She said that she was embarrassed and realized how poor her training was going at this job and she felt wholly inadequate to even be in HR anymore.”

        1. Jackalope*

          Could someone post the update? I couldn’t find the original and my internet is bad right now so I can’t search much.

      3. Festively Dressed Earl*

        And that it’s not always appropriate to put an employee on a PIP before firing them. Some things are so egregious that they merit instafiring. Would the friend think an employee who stole or assaulted a coworker or falsified records deserved a 90 day second chance?

        1. Mongrel*

          “And that it’s not always appropriate to put an employee on a PIP before firing them.”

          Even in the UK most employees are considered probationary for the first couple of months, so first day bigotry would just be trash taking itself out

    3. CubeFarmer*

      To be fair…I feel like a lot of HR don’t actually do a great job with understand what the laws are and how they apply in the workplace.

      1. Mongrel*

        I also think there are some who use against the law as a catch-all “I don’t know and can’t be bothered”, “I can’t be bothered to explain to you” or “I’ve misunderstood an existing law and refuse to accept that I’m wrong”
        I’ve talked to a lot of people who’ve been told, for instance, that it’s illegal to give a bad reference

  3. mango chiffon*

    Shocked that someone would say that using racial slurs 6 times on the first day of a job wouldn’t be cause to fire that person…what kind of place would tolerate that? Certainly not a place I would like to work at.

      1. Mentally Spicy*

        I think it tells you absolutely nothing. It’s possible that the friend is tolerant of racism and it’s equally possible that they’re naive and poorly trained.

        Anyway, the update to this post spells it out:
        “She eventually apologized to me. She said that she was embarrassed and realized how poor her training was going at this job and she felt wholly inadequate to even be in HR anymore.”

        And:
        “She is neither white, not black”.

        Can we please not jump to assuming the worst about people?

    2. Hotdog not dog*

      Especially considering that most people are on their BEST behavior their first day! I wouldn’t want to wait around to see how much worse it got.

    3. CzechMate*

      Yes, came here to say that. Racial slurs are not protected speech, but even if they were, you can’t just use them at work because they create a hostile environment for the other employees. Even if you don’t care about people, that’s just opening yourself up to be sued.

        1. Dinwar*

          That means you can’t land in jail for saying them.

          It does not mean that companies can’t fire you because you say them. There were many court cases about this.

          First Amendment protections do not prevent you from suffering the consequences of your speech. They can’t–it would interfere with the whole “Freedom of Association” thing.

          Or, as xkcd put it, no one’s violating this person’s right to say what they want. They heard him. And are showing him the door.

          1. Salty Caramel*

            First Amendment protections do not prevent you from suffering the consequences of your speech

            Way too many people think the first amendment means they can be hateful with no consequences.

        2. Your Former Password Resetter*

          Also there are exceptions to this. Like hate speech, incitement to violence, threats, etc.
          Racists don’t get to wave civil protections around like they’re at the playground with their anti-everything shield.

          1. Legal beagle*

            Incitement to violence and threats are one thing; so-called “hate speech” is, again, constitutionally protected (and yes, I’m talking about under the law, not in the workplace).

    4. lll*

      Can you imagine that racism PIP? “Reduced daily usage of racial epithets from 6 to 3: demonstrates significant improvement”

      2. bel*

        “Replace slurs with dogwhistles.” “Make fewer than 100% of colleagues uncomfortable.” How do you de-racist someone via PIP??

      3. AKB*

        Before I say anything here, I’m just going to point out that I think the company in this example did the right thing; and that OP’s “friend in HR” is wrong.

        Now that’s out of the way…

        You can’t change someone’s attitude through a PIP. You can change their behavior. Most people have racist attitudes, even if they’re unconscious biases. Most people don’t express them at work or on social media. It’s up to the HR department and also management as a whole to make sure processes are in place to minimize the impact of unconscious biases; and of course to prevent racism from being expressed at work; or outside of work in ways which could impact the company.

        1. Some Words*

          We can’t directly change someone’s racist attitudes, but a change in behavior can cause ripple effects in the way the person interacts with the world, and vice versa. The internal attitude change takes time, but it can happen.

    5. Another Kristin*

      Firing someone because they used racial slurs MULTIPLE TIMES on their first day isn’t just firing someone for racism, it’s firing them for a shocking lack of professionalism. Even racists should know that you can’t do that at work!

      1. JustaTech*

        I’m also imagining the conversation with whoever hired this person, and it sounds a lot like Kermit the Frog in Muppet Treasure Island demanding to know “who hired this crew!?!?!?”

        Like, if this guy couldn’t get through his first day without 6 slurs, how short was the interview that he managed to not say them to the interviewer?

    6. Also-ADHD*

      I think technically you can’t fire someone for “being racist” (thoughts) but you can CERTAINLY fire someone for using racial slurs (behavior). There are definitely racist behaviors that are harder to fire for (with cause, as I hope this one was), but this one was clear cut.

      1. metadata minion*

        Firing someone for their silently-held opinions is usually a pretty jerk move, but as far as I know it’s legal. Freedom of speech/expression only applies to the government.

        1. I Have RBF*

          If they don’t act on their silently held opinions at work, then most places don’t have a way to know about them.

          1. littlehope*

            Yeah, that’s not firing him for his opinions, it’s firing him for his behaviour, which was straightforwardly wildly inappropriate for a workplace.
            (I mean, for anywhere, obviously, but very unequivocally for the workplace).

            1. Smarter Lexus*

              Ooh, ooh! Can I have a turn rehashing what the Also-ADHD’s comment said? Unless you have mind reading powers, you are incapable of firing someone based on their thoughts and opinions, since you have no way of knowing what their thoughts or opinions are. You are only capable of firing someone for indications of holding certain views, beliefs, opinions, thoughts, etc., and the only concrete indication of that is through behavior including speech. :)

        2. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

          If someone refuses to speak to Black people, that’s “silent”. I think what you mean is if their racism has absolutely no effect on their behavior at work?

    7. Tiger Snake*

      I wonder if that somehow tells us something about the type of slurs being used. It absolutely does not make it okay, but with the current international conflicts going on I could hypothetically see how someone could TRY to argue using an anti-semantic slur is a political argument rather than what it actually is.

  4. Nomic*

    I can’t imagine putting someone on a PIP on day one. If you discover they are racist, or don’t have the skill set they promised, then it seems pretty reasonable to immediately let them go.

    1. Eldritch Office Worker*

      Right, with very narrow exceptions anything that would rise to the level of disciplinary action on day one is a sign to cut your losses immediately. Maybe get your second choice candidate in the door before they’re gone.

    2. Kat*

      What would a PIP even say???! Don’t say “#*#%*%*+}”
      How many chances do you give them to show “improvement”?

      This friend is either a legitimate idiot, or their workplace is SOOOO messed up that it’s completely messed up their sense of what’s normal and what’s not.

      EVEN IF you want to argue his racism is his political beliefs, keeping someone like that on opens the company up to lawsuits from their EXISTING employees bc this guy creates a hostile workplace. Where is this person’s head?! SMH

      1. boof*

        From the updates my guess is friend went through some kind of HR “Training” (including a degree??) that was maybe EXTREMELY worried about being sued for wrongful termination??? Like sorry anyone can sue for any reason doesn’t mean you need to give someone who obviously isn’t a good fit a zillion chances to prove it (hey, they can still sue anyway if they’re the suing type).

      3. Umami*

        Lol! But sadly, let’s not underestimate how deeply embedded racism can be for people. I can’t even two you good often my spouse (who is from another country but came to the US young enough to not have an accent) had to remind people of his background when people talk to him about a certain regularly maligned group, and he has to remind him that he is, in fact, a member of that group. And their response is, well obviously we don’t mean ‘you’. Like that somehow makes it … ok to be racist?

    5. Beth*

      “New employee lacked an essential skill set, inasmuch as he lacked the skill to not be racist at work. This skill is essential and its lack is an immediate cause for termination.”

      1. Good Enough For Government Work*

        I will stop deadnaming that platform the day Elon stops deadnaming his daughter, and not one day before.

      2. General von Klinkerhoffen*

        Nah: Twitter was good for a while. The site has been a hell hole while it’s been called X. It shouldn’t get to keep the positive associations.

  6. Veryanon*

    I’m sorry, what? I’m an HR person and I absolutely would have fired this person without hesitation. The guy was dropping racial slurs in his first day? Hell no.

    1. I AM a Lawyer*

      In my state, we have to take all reasonable steps to prevent harassment in the workplace. I think firing this guy falls under that obligation. His “free speech rights” are irrelevant.

  7. 1-800-BrownCow*

    Anyone else concerned that an HR rep thinks someone who’s racist should be put on a PIP instead of being fired? Do they think a PIP will fix their racism??

    2. Person from the Resume*

      I don’t necessarily think the friend is racist. I think she’s terrible at HR. I think she’s mistaken her company’s guidance (PIP before firing always) for law or at least protection from lawsuits. I sure wouldn’t want to work with her or her company.

      Terrible and awful at HR.

      But if there are signs she think racism (and voicing racist hate speech out loud) is a valid “political opinion,” the LW should re-evaluate her friendship with this HR person.

      1. 1-800-BrownCow*

        I didn’t say or imply the friend (HR rep) was racist. Maybe I should have worded it better. What I meant was that my concern was that someone in HR believes the racist employ should have a chance to “improve” through a PIP rather than being fired out-right.

        I also found the original post and the update. HR Rep has since realized they were wrong and has changed their stance and asked the OP to send an update with their apologies. So that’s great news, at least.

        1. CJ*

          I didn’t read it as HR friend thought a PIP would fix the racism. I read it as the company needed to have proof of a failed PIP before firing the guy.

          1. 1-800-BrownCow*

            My saying “Do they think a PIP will fix their racism?” was just a tongue-in-cheek comment. Basically, my way of saying that I don’t think putting the new employee on a PIP is the right path for someone blatantly racist.

    4. Dinwar*

      Ideally, if for some reason you must go this route? “If I hear a single person report that you’ve used a racial slur I will immediately fire you. This is your one and only warning. This WILL NOT continue.” Say this with all the paperwork filled out but the last signature.

      Possibly valid if the person is extremely new to the work world (as in, first job in high school) and from an area where this sort of thing was considered acceptable (nowhere in the USA, I’m talking immigrants or folks with work visas). I’ve seen it happen; someone moved to the USA from a country where speaking in derogatory ways about women was acceptable, and he got a very stern discussion about how that doesn’t happen here. It ended up working out–the guy wasn’t a bad guy, he simply didn’t understand what he was doing was wrong, because his culture taught him it was right. Once he started working with women on a regular basis he realized how stupid he’d been.

      I’ve also seen it work with minority folks using racial slurs about their own group. It’s considered acceptable for minorities to use derogatory terms for themselves among themselves–it’s a venerable American tradition, in fact, see “Yankee Doodle”–and some young members of the minority community don’t realize it doesn’t fly in the workplace. Usually it’s an easy fix, just coaching them on professionalism a bit (which any high-school kid needs).

    5. Mark Knopfler's Headband*

      I can basically see two possibilities. She doesn’t see it as serious enough to fire immediately, which shows very bad judgment. Or she’s new/poorly trained and doesn’t feel secure enough to make independent judgments in the way that a confident and well-trained HR professional would, and thus defaults to the exact wording of the HR policies. The second could be fixed. The first probably cannot…

    6. Chief Petty Officer Tabby*

      THIS. People forget that while we are allowed to say what we want, we are not entitled to avoid the consequences of that: people can fire you for being a racist jerk they don’t want to work with, because you’re creating a hostile work environment for other people.

  8. Justin*

    I remember we fired someone for revealing their racism back in 2014 at that job. We also suspended a member of our senior center (same job) after she called me the N word (technically suspended for a year but she never came back).

    No matter what all the awful people say in the news as they gut various things, ultimately they are much more on the side of employers being able to do whatever they want to you, so, this actually fits within their ideology, weirdly enough.

  10. Antilles*

    She seems to think we should have put him on an improvement plan first.
    I would like to know what kind of “improvement plan” the friend was thinking here. What “improvement plan” exactly do you think is going to work for a guy this openly horrible? Heck, what does “improvement” even realistically look like?

    1. Putting the Dys in Dysfunction*

      Week 1: no more than 5 racist comments in a single day, to be heard by no more than 10 people.

      Week 2: no more than 3 racist comments in a single day, to be heard by no more than 7 people.

      ***

      1. Lily Rowan*

        For the world, the improvement plan would be saying fewer racist things, then taking fewer racist actions… but for an employee on day one? absolutely not.

        1. Margaret Cavendish*

          Exactly. If he had been there for five years and the racist behaviour was new, it might be worth a PIP (although you’d be on solid grounds to fire him even then.) But on Day 1, when he is supposedly on his best behaviour? Absolutely not. Cut your losses and move on.

    3. Salty Caramel*

      Even if the improvement was that the racist kept his mouth shut, that might not stop him from microagressions, or treating his colleagues poorly. The cat’s out of the bag, let him go.

  11. DidIRollMyEyesOutLoud*

    This COULD be more of a debate if the employee was perfectly behaved at work and OP happened upon employee’s social media and discovered their postings. But using racial slurs AT WORK is easily grounds for termination, IMO.

    1. Charlotte Lucas*

      Assuming he’s on his best behavior the first day, I can’t even imagine what he would have done on Day 2. By the end of the week?

      Yes, fire him. Not necessarily because of his opinions (which are horrible), but because he doesn’t know how to behave appropriately. And his behavior is too out of bounds to be anything you can or should try to fix.

    2. Yes And*

      I agree – I think maybe LW’s situation is not the most interesting test case for the question they want to ask. The behavior at work is fireable in and of itself, without going to the social media presence at all.

      But let’s imagine an alternate version, where the employee had the same horrible racist social media presence, but gave no sign of it at work, including being polite and collegial to people of the group his hate targeted. Could you fire that person just for their hateful social media presence? I would still say yes, for all of the rights of association and brand protection reason Alison cited in her answer to the letter. But I think it would be a closer call.

      1. Beany*

        Follow-up hypothetical: imagine the employee had social media accounts under a different/fake name, and otherwise went to some lengths to make themselves hard to associate with the real-life individual working at LW’s company.

        In this case, there’s no reason to associate their racist behavior on social media with the company they work for — unless their account was outed to the company or their clients. In these circumstances, should they be subject to termination when/if they were unmasked?

        The offending behavior is obviously very different, but I’m recalling news stories in recent years where people working for conservative employers with a religious ethos (say a private Catholic school) were fired after someone found evidence online of their hobby (it might have been exotic dancing or something else deemed immoral). They were trying to keep their private and working lives separate, but a third party tore down that veil.

      2. Curious*

        You may want to be a bit more cautious about normalizing firing people for what they say on their private social media. That may be a two-edged sword.

        Given the strong position the current regime is taking that DEI is itself racist, and the extent to which some private entities are bending to that political wind, firing people for expressing –outside the workplace — opinions that the employer considers racist might lead to unintended consequences.

        1. Katie Impact*

          I think it’s pretty clear at this point that the current administration is going to do precisely whatever it wants, regardless of what was or wasn’t previously normalized.

  12. Richard Hershberger*

    At-will employment taketh away, but occasionally it giveth. Racists are not (yet) a legally protected group.

    1. Justin*

      Considering they’re willing to shorten their own lives to let various things occur, they will let themselves be fired to keep at-will employment in place.

    2. Eldritch Office Worker*

      The “yet” feels like it’s holding on by a string with the current EEO rollbacks, but so far still true.

      1. Justin*

        Trust me, they’re going to lose their own jobs to further their goals of hurting the Wrong People.

        Read Dying of Whiteness (which is about education, gun laws, and healthcare) for more. Taking themselves down to ensure we all suffer is the way it’s always gone.

        1. The Unspeakable Queen Lisa*

          Ooh, thanks for that rec. Great title.

          My FIL is a retired government employee and Vietnam Vet relying on vet’s hospital care and government payouts for his Agent Orange exposure. And yet he’s a Trumper. He totally imagines the “bad people” getting the cuts, not him. My husband has given up on even trying to reason with him.

    3. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

      You don’t need “at will” to do this.
      I’m in a European country with great employee protections and we’d normally have to go through a defined process to fire someone, say for performance or attendence.
      However, we can fire for egregious misconduct – which this would be – immediately (well, within a few hours, so the evidence can been presented to HR/manager and documented)
      We can also fire much more easily during the probation period of 6 months, let alone on Day 1.

  13. Arabesque*

    Here, I prepped a first draft of the improvement plan:
    “You are the worst. Stop being the worst.”
    Fingers crossed it helps!

  14. A Simple Narwhal*

    I said it in the original post and I’ll say it again – someone who has to be on a PIP on their first day for any reason is not someone who should be employed at that job.

    I’m glad that your company took swift action, and that in the update (I’ll post a link below) your friend admitted she was wrong.

  15. Dadjokesareforeveryone*

    As HR at my current company I’d push to immediately terminate a new employee for racist speech. Work can be hard enough without dealing with racist bull crap.

    You and your company did the right thing not just ethically, but legally too. I am not an attorney, but keeping this employee once you have this information risks creating a hostile work environment for people of color, and tolerating that speech would itself open the company up to legal liability from your minority employees. Long story short you have more legal liability from keeping the new employee on than immediately firing them.

  16. Glengarry Glenn Close*

    Doesn’t really make sense – if your HR friend thinks you can’t fire someone for their beliefs why would you put them on a PIP. Your friend may have just been playing Devil’s Advocate but this is pretty clear cut

  17. bamcheeks*

    I’m always so fascinated by this letter because WHAT is going through the friend’s head. Do they think being racist is a protected characteristic? Do they just not agree with firing anyone, ever, full stop? Like WHAT.

    1. Putting the Dys in Dysfunction*

      In the current political environment, I’m afraid that racist speech is being protected while anti-racist speech is being demonized and suppressed.

      2. Tea Monk*

        While true, a company has tbe ability to say ” hey, you can’t call your coworkers certain things, keep a civil tongue in your head”.

      3. bamcheeks*

        I mean, I 100% know there are people who’d like that, and they’re in charge. But they’re the same people who hate workers’ rights. It would be a pretty challenging technical problem to make it harder to fire someone for racism without accidentally strengthening worker protections more broadly.

    2. Silver Robin*

      The only thing I could think of is some really warped understanding of “free speech” and not firing people for their politics. Which is absurd, but here we are.

      You are completely right though, what *would* they fire someone for, if not this??

      1. Paint N Drip*

        I posit the friend is being trained in a workplace that is EXTREMELY risk-averse, so PIP before firing is their typical MO – I think she is missing the nuance that some bad behavior rises to the ‘fire immediately’ level (which is AN ISSUE, seems like the friend’s company is more concerned about the fired employee retaliating than not providing the current employees with a safe and professional work environs)

    3. Irish Teacher.*

      I’m guessing it’s a combination of this idea that people seem to have that “if you protect one idea, you have to protect the opposite or it’s not fair” and an overly cautious idea that “you should always have a papertrail before you fire somebody to cover your ass if they try to sue.”

      Not saying any of it is reasonable, but there does seem to be an idea out there that you have to “be fair to both sides” and that if you’re allowed to fire somebody for being racist, you’d have to be allowed to fire somebody for being pro-equality or if you’re allowed to fire somebody for not wearing a mask/not vaccinating, people have to be allowed to fire people for wearing a mask/vaccinating. Of course this only gets applied to certain things: nobody would argue that if companies are allowed to fire people for being high at work, they should be allowed to fire anybody who refuses to get high at work. And I would argue they often aren’t comparing like with like anyway because the equivalent to firing somebody for being say gay, would not be firing somebody for being homophobic. The opposite side equivalent would be firing somebody for being straight.

      But even here, we saw some comments on the discussion about firing the guy who made misogynistic comments at some sports game that people were uncomfortable with it because what if he was at an LGBT event or something and somebody told his boss and he go fired.

      1. Mark Knopfler's Headband*

        The second one seems like a mistake a new or poorly trained employee would make, and can maybe be fixed. The first one reflects remarkably poor judgment, and probably cannot be…

    4. Ellis Bell*

      Going by the updated letter, it seems it was down to really awful company culture and training rather than the friend’s own logic or inclination. I would imagine she worked for one of those companies that were so legally uninformed and paranoid that they didn’t do anything without doing a lot of pointless talking, logging the pointless talking, making the employee sign statements about their pointless talking, but not actually firing someone until they’d lost their best employees and their reputation was on fire. Or even then, going by the “political” comment.

  18. Stuart Foote*

    Legally, in the US you can generally fire someone for being a Chiefs fan or liking Metallica too much–opinions of any kind are not a protected class.

    1. Evan Þ*

      That’s not entirely correct. In the majority of states, employers can’t discriminate against employees for political participation; some states extend that to political speech in general.

      How that’s defined varies by state.

      You’re right, though, that nonpolitical opinions in general aren’t protected.

      1. T.N.H*

        It’s the reverse as Alison points out: In most states, you CAN be fired for political participation.

        1. Eldritch Office Worker*

          Yes. There are some where political affiliation is a protected class, but it’s by no means most. 14 states have laws broad enough that it would by any stretch encompass racist viewpoints. Zero states require employers to tolerate hate speech.

  19. Targ*

    He used racial slurs at work, within earshot of a colleague? Your HR friend is an idiot, that is absolutely an immediate firing offense.

    1. Margaret Cavendish*

      Not only did he use racial slurs at work, within earshot of a colleague…he did it six times in one day.

      Not only did he do it six times in one day…he did it on his first day. I literally can’t think of a single reason to keep him on for Day 2.

      1. Vio*

        And having racist posts on social media makes it clear that this wasn’t a case of innocently using a word without realising it was offensive. This is somebody who knows what they’re doing and seems to expect no consequences to it, something which is becoming disturbingly common.

  20. Gobsmacked*

    Assuming this is the U.S., most states are at will employment states. Barring an employment contract, you legally can fire him because you don’t like the color of pants that he wore or just because you feel like it, so OF COURSE you can fire him for open bigotry.

    I’m amazed anyone would think otherwise.

  21. whatchamacallit*

    assuming it’s at-will employment you could fire them because you didn’t like their shoes that day.

    Yes, you can fire someone for being racist, if that’s not a fireable offense then what the hell is?

      1. Phony Genius*

        I once had somebody tell me that it would be easier to fire someone for being AWOL while in jail awaiting trial for murder than to fire them for the murder itself. He may have only been half-joking.

        1. Irish Teacher.*

          There is a teacher in Ireland who was fired for…well, I don’t remember the exact details because this gets convoluted but he was transphobic and I think interrupted a school church service to insist people stopped using the correct pronouns for a student and then kept haranging the principal. He got arrested for refusing to leave the premises and has been in jail twice for standing outside the school for…about two years now (whenever he’s not in jail) insisting he shouldn’t have lost his job.

          And yet, he is still being paid his teacher’s salary because he is contesting the firing so I guess he is still technically “suspended on pay”. The court have now started garnishing his salary to pay the fines he is accumulating continuing to stand outside the school (yes, it is that bizarre). So I guess there are jobs where it’s…that hard to fire somebody.

          Still pretty sure murder would do it. And six racist comments in a day would probably get you struck off by the teaching council…but that could take a while.

        2. Umami*

          Hehe, I once worked for an employer where I couldn’t fire someone for their criminal behavior, but I could die then for not reporting their arrest because THAT violated policy

          1. Seeking Second Childhood*

            When autocorrect makes a company seem extreme:
            “but I could die then…”

            For benefit of those who are not native english speakers, here’s how I’m reading that:
            “but I could [be] then”

            1. Vio*

              I wonder if it’s being dead or failing to report an arrest that violates policy.
              “Reason for leaving last job: Died.”
              It could certainly make for an interesting application.

      2. Dry Cleaning Enthusiast*

        Depends. Was the murder performed adequately or were they missing key deliverables? /s

    1. Grumpy Elder Millennial*

      Thanks for posting the link. I’m glad to hear that the friend learned from this situation, because I was giving her some serious side-eye when I read the first letter.

    2. Casino Royale*

      It’s great that the friend realized the error of her ways but like, the guy apparently said something racist 6 times on his FIRST DAY AT A NEW JOB. Regardless of whether or not his social media is a primer on “How to Be Racist 101”, regardless of whether or not the OP felt the same way as him, etc–that is just such a blatant example of bad judgement that you have to fire that person. No PIP, no “oh well maybe.” Just fire. Because there are plenty other non-racist people collecting unemployment out there who deserve that job more. FFS.

      And the fact that the friend couldn’t realize that to begin with is honestly disconcerting. I’ve never worked in HR but even I could realize the need to fire this dude that day because again: he said something racist 6 times on his FIRST DAY AT A NEW JOB.

      1. Leenie*

        Maybe just be happy that the HR friend was open to change and totally agrees with you now, instead of being disconcerted that she once held odd (and potentially harmful) beliefs that were taught to her as if they were legitimate professional standards.

        I mean, yeah, it’s weird. But let’s take our wins where we find them.

  24. Don’tPayMeLessBecauseOfBodyParts*

    Every time I think us modern HR people are making progress in the perception of HR, I see something so profoundly stupid and disappointing like this from a fellow HR pro.

    I don’t advocate some sort of be all end all degree or certification to separate good from bad HR, but there’s something wrong with the field when we can’t predict whether someone will provide a Burger King HR experience or a Michelin HR experience.

    1. The Other Evil HR Lady*

      The friend wasn’t a pro – she was entry level HR. It only excuses her thinking insofar as her company hadn’t trained her in the day-to-day workings of how the laws are applied. Have you taken the PHR or SHRM-CP test, where they give you scenarios with a bunch of right choices to pick from, but the “rightest” answer is in there somewhere? They don’t give those in school (at least, they didn’t give them to me). I learned because my first HR boss WAS the wonderful mentor that I needed, and even without a degree, she took steps to educate herself in all things HR, reading advice from legal departments, briefs from lawsuits, kept up to date with SHRM (when SHRM was worth having), and so on. If I’d landed in the HR department I’m in now, I would have learned the wrong things just like OP’s friend. Nowadays, I can sort through the BS and course-correct.

      1. Don’tPayMeLessBecauseOfBodyParts*

        I’m using the word pro for any professional practitioner, not as in she’s an expert. She’s still a professional even if a bad/misguided/whatever one.

        My path through HR wasn’t traditional but I’ve always been sus of SHRM, doubly so with their weird DE&I decisions the past few years. I also know my areas of expertise and the areas I’m not.

        I appreciate teams where compliance and legal expertise may be one aspect of HR but isn’t required or even recommended of all team members. I think there needs to be a different bar for legal and compliance experts. But we as a field have have rolled that into *gestures wildly* everything else we do, leading to situations like this one when people are assumed to be experts in everything in HR just because they practice one aspect of HR.

        “My friend in HR” shouldn’t carry as much weight as it does sometimes. The friend doesn’t know anything about discrimination if they’re spouting this nonsense. And as a field we should encourage more specialization, imo.

  25. Dinwar*

    “We didn’t fire him for being racist. We fired him for continued and egregious violations of company policy, creating a hostile work environment, and verbally attacking staff and customers.”

    I agree that you probably can’t fire someone for their beliefs. After all, if they hold those beliefs but never voice them or act on them, you’d have no way of knowing them (ask anyone in the broom closet!). You ABSOLUTELY CAN fire someone for their behaviors, however, and in fact may be legally obliged to do so.

    As for this being political opinion, first, no, it’s not. That’s a paper-thin defense always used by bigots to get away with bigotry, but the fact is that it’s not protected speech the way, say, trying to unionize or discussing a local bond initiative is. Second, if we do consider it political speech, we can consider minorities working in this job to be political activism. Why does this…person’s….political speech get priority over that of those around him? (Answer: Your friend agrees with him.) Even Libertarians agree that your right to freedom of speech extends only to your property–as soon as you’re on someone else’s property THEY decide what’s acceptable speech (it’s the most common justification for private property in Libertarianism). And the company owns the property. For my part, I’d ignore the blog; you don’t need it. What he did on company property is sufficient to can him.

  27. Galvanic*

    You can fire someone for being racist. You can fire someone for being anti-racist. You can fire someone for liking the color purple too much.

    (Careful on the “hate speech” delineation though — there’s no hate speech exception to the 1st Amendment — which obviously constrains government actors, not private ones)

    1. Selina Luna*

      I would definitely be the person fired for liking purple too much. I’m really lucky there because the school where I work has purple as one of the school colors, so no one minds if I wear all purple all the time.

    2. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

      Interesting difference between democracies with different traditions: most European countries have over the last 20 years made hate speech a criminal offence, with fines or imprisonment as penalties. Probably we each think our own way is best!

    3. some dude*

      In my experience, hate speech is in the eye of the beholder, and so is a term I don’t love. It’s great when you are in charge of defining it, but it isn’t so great when people you strongly disagree with get to define and enforce it.

      1. JJ*

        I agree, the hate speech standard is too vague. Even racial slurs can be interpreted differently depending on context (though I’ve always found the excuse that you can use the slurs if you are from that group, kind of bizarre. Offensive should be offensive). And posting “illegal migrants go home” on social media is not the same as “kill or enslave people of a specific face / religious group”.
        So in the end, you are going to have to let the company make a judgement call. But the thing is, we have seen that most companies don’t care one bit about what is ‘right’. They calculate the pros of firing (make other employees happier, better PR?) and cons of firing (cost of replacing offending employee, PR to a different sort of people) and make the decision that way.
        My guess is that an openly racist employee is evidently stupid and maybe sociopathic (why say such a thing 6 times on your first day if not to make trouble?), so the cost to the company of firing them was minimal.

  29. Werth*

    I hope this isn’t misinterpreted as an attempt to derail or anything but the response doesn’t address whether it’s actually OK to fire someone for being racist—the person wasn’t fired for being racist but for saying racist things. What if one employee asked another whether she liked X group and her colleague said something along the lines of “no, but it isn’t appropriate to discuss that at work”? Would it still be acceptable to fire her?

    1. Coverage Associate*

      You can terminate for no reason, but I don’t know that an employer can terminate for a reason the employer doesn’t know about, as mentioned elsewhere. So someone would be fired for admitting to being racist, rather than for the related private thoughts. “Do you like?” to my non expert mind just warrants an investigation. Someone who outs themselves to a clear question like “Are you prejudiced against?” is lacking in additional skills for professional environments besides whatever the skill is of not demonstrating racism.

    2. Dinwar*

      I’m struggling to see a way that can come up in casual conversation. Normal people simply don’t ask one another “Do you like Minority Group X?” In order for this question to arise there has to be some action that leads the person to conclude that you do not, in fact, like Minority Group X. The only time I’ve even heard of this happening in the real world involved a high-ranking member of the KKK, and you absolutely can fire someone for being a member of a terrorist group (if the term means anything, the KKK is a terrorist group).

      1. Werth*

        It’s just a hypothetical. I agree that it’s extraordinarily unlikely that someone would ask “do you like X?” or “are you prejudiced against Y?” but… what if she did (perhaps she is prejudiced against the group in question and is clocking her colleague’s reaction), and what if the person answered honestly that, no she doesn’t like X? If she doesn’t actually say or do anything racist then would it still be acceptable to fire her for answering a question honestly? (When I say acceptable I mean morally; I’m well aware it would be legal to do so.)

        1. Polly Hedron*

          I don’t think it would be morally acceptable to fire someone who had been backed into a corner and who answered honestly, but a smarter answer would be to leave out “no, but” and just say “it isn’t appropriate to discuss that at work”.

      2. Mark Knopfler's Headband*

        You want to hear something really annoying? There’s technically no such thing as a domestic terrorist organisation in the USA. The Department of State lists foreign terror orgs, Homeland Security has a definition of domestic terrorism – but there’s no list of dangerous groups within the States, and no real strategy for tackling them.

        And please don’t misunderstand me here. The Klan is definitely a terror organisation. But the fact that the US doesn’t take domestic terrorism seriously enough to have a watchlist speaks volumes.

    3. The Other Evil HR Lady*

      The answer to that last question is: you should only fire people for the things they do, not by the things they feel.

      That said, if I know that someone hates X group, I’m going to keep a close eye on that person’s behavior moving forward. Any type of misconduct from then on will be colored by what I know of that person’s feelings toward X group. If they’re not collaborating appropriately with someone from X group, that’s going to be a bigger problem for that employee – and, hey, maybe the person from X group isn’t collaborating either, but my first instinct will be to think that the reason the X group person isn’t collaborating is BECAUSE the other employee doesn’t like them. I’m only human, after all. I’m drawing conclusions based on what I know. Am I going to investigate? You betcha. Is the racism going to come up? Again, yes, because if I know about it, then others know about it too. Ultimately, I only fire people for the things they *do*, not for the things they *feel*. But if I know how they feel and they do something wrong (as defined by policy or law) that seems to be driven by those feelings, then I’m firing that person.

      1. Werth*

        Interesting response; this is more or less what I expected to hear from someone in HR. Thank you for your answer!

      2. Clorinda*

        The only way you know what someone feels is by what they do. If you know someone is prejudiced against Serbs, for example, that means they have already said or done something noticeably anti-Serb. Nobody can be fired for their thoughts if they control their own words and actions.

    4. AnonForThis*

      In the UK, you can hold certain views / beliefs but your actions are not protected. It’s well meaning but ultimately ridiculous, and a legal minefield.

      You’d think that violating a company’s social media policies / bringing a company into disrepute would be grounds for termination, but not always.

    5. aebhel*

      This kind of veers into the ‘what if a dying child’s last wish is to say a slur’ territory, tbh. This is not a thing that generally happens in real life unless someone has already said or done something to indicate that they’re racist. People are not generally going around asking ‘hey, do you have a problem with Black people’ to random innocent white coworkers who’ve done nothing to indicate that they do, in fact, have such a problem.

      And if your answer to that question is ‘Yes’ and you’re not even willing to politely lie about it, then I do think it’s perfectly fine, morally speaking, for a company to decide that it isn’t worth the liability of keeping you around.

  30. Detective Amy Santiago*

    Anyone (in the US) can be fired for any time for any reason (unless they’re part of a protected class). Being a racist isn’t protected.

  31. Doug*

    They could fire you for posting that you like the smell of flowers on social media in most places. They don’t need a reason at all in ‘right-to-work’ areas.

  32. TJ*

    “Racism PIP” this sent me :D

    I don’t even know how that would work in practice. “Employees must not use racial epithets and slurs and show demonstrated growth in not being an asshole.”

    1. cncx*

      I just love the Racism PIP! One of the classics of this site, it is right up there with cheap a** rolls for me personally

  33. Someone Else's Boss*

    I’m picturing the friend in HR isn’t necessarily one who makes these kinds of decisions at her own company. I find it’s very common for a recruiter, benefits administrator, etc. to say they work in HR, when that’s not going to be how someone external interprets it.

  34. sagewhiz*

    “ Employees can think whatever they want and feel however they feel. But there are consequences to what they say to people and what they put out into the world on social media…”

    This! Long before social media I hired a literally right-out-of-college grad, born & raised in the deep South, to train as a copywriter. One day she said something, not racist but borderline, in front of a client that reflected that “Southern way” of thinking. As soon as we were alone, I coached her with almost Alison’s exact words. She was (appropriately) embarrassed, took the message to heart, and later thanked me for helping her learn an important lesson.

  35. AnonForThis*

    Good. I find attitudes / laws protecting bigoted behaviour rather strange. What about the reputational damage? The risk to colleagues / clients / customers / patients?

  36. learnedthehardway*

    One of the best stories I have is of one of my clients, that immediately terminated someone who they’d hired, because he made racist statements to staff shortly after being hired. The company leadership was horrified and I was beyond mortified (he’d been a candidate I presented). The leadership team assured me they didn’t blame me and that they hadn’t seen it in the interview process, either. But several of their employees had brought the new hire’s slurs and behaviour to their HR Director’s attention. The new hire was terminated immediately and walked out.

    I use this example as a way to demonstrate to candidates why this company has such a healthy corporate culture. It’s a sector that has had issues, and people are cautious about moving companies – particularly if they are women or minorities or LBGTQ+. But being able to demonstrate to candidates that bigotry, racism and misogyny will NOT be tolerated has meant this company has been able to attract really great people of ALL genders/races/orientations, etc. There has been a positive impact on their ability to hire better candidates than their competitors.

  38. Beany*

    Follow-up hypothetical: imagine the employee had social media accounts under a different/fake name, and otherwise went to some lengths to make themselves hard to associate with the real-life individual working at LW’s company.

    In this case, there’s no reason to associate their racist behavior on social media with the company they work for — unless their account was outed to the company or their clients. In these circumstances, should they be subject to termination when/if they were unmasked?

    The offending behavior is obviously very different, but I’m recalling news stories in recent years where people working for conservative employers with a religious ethos (say a private Catholic school) were fired after someone found evidence online of their hobby (it might have been exotic dancing or something else deemed immoral). They were trying to keep their private and working lives separate, but a third party tore down that veil.

    1. Beany*

      (Please ignore the parent comment, which somehow ended up appearing twice — once as a reply to a comment by Yes, And, and then again here, where it makes no sense.)

  39. Clorinda*

    Depending on where you live, you absolutely can be fired for your social media activity off the job. I’m a teacher in a red state and I have zero social media in my own name for that reason.

    1. Beany*

      If someone (a student or parent of student) went digging, somehow found your social media despite your precautions, and outed it to the school authorities, what then? Do you get any legal protection from the fact that you were clearly trying to avoid association with the school, but someone essentially doxxed you? Would you be likely to win a lawsuit aimed at the doxxer?

      (I agree that companies have an interest in employees not bringing the company name into disrepute. I’m just not sure where the legal & moral line should be drawn.)

      1. Clorinda*

        No, I would have no protection. Anything I put into the public sphere is construed as reflecting on the school and the district.

    2. Selina Luna*

      I’m a teacher in a technically blue state but in a very red area of that state. I know what you mean.
      I actually still have FB in my name, and I’m fairly politically active there, but I am locked down. I think I’m technically searchable, but you can’t friend me or see my posts unless you’re at least a “friend of a friend,” I’ve preemptively blocked students who had public accounts, parents, and coworkers, and I don’t accept friend requests from people I don’t know.
      If someone were to seek me out, find me, and “out” me, well… I don’t discuss politicians with students, but my refusal to allow racism, sexism, transphobia, or homophobia in my classroom, my library with books about “sensitive” topics, and a few other things give away my political views anyway, in all likelihood.

  40. Can’t think of anything clever*

    I fired people for a wide variety of reasons where my employer’s HR and attorney said I could. As a general practice I took my legal advice from them, not from friends, family, or an instructor in a class I took, all examples of “My (blank) says you can’t fire someone for (whatever)” that I heard through the years.
    Just to echo something Allison said…People often don’t know the difference between laws, policies, union contracts, etc. Which is one reason why I would run firing a bigot by the people who are going to defend me in a grievance meeting, arbitration, or court. They’re best able to judge if the circumstances will survive that kind of scrutiny!

  41. El Californio*

    “It’s true that employers shouldn’t fire people for political speech generally—but in most U.S. jurisdictions it’s legal for them to do so. (There are a few places that prohibit it, but they’re the exceptions”

    It should be noted that California is one of those places, which is a pretty big exception

    1. Leenie*

      Yeah, but we’re so often an exception. A year or so ago, I had someone who reported to me go on maternity leave and when I met with our HR rep (who is located on the East Coast) on Teams to go over plans for the leave, the first thing she said to me was, “I know you’re in California, so I just studied up for this conversation!” Which I appreciated.

      So yes, we’re big, but often a bit of an anomaly. I also value the greater worker protections that we have. Even if it sometimes makes things a bit more difficult as an employer, I think it’s more than worth it.

  42. MCMonkeybean*

    You can fire him, you should fire him, and frankly I would reconsider my friendship with anyone who suggested racism was a “political opinion”

    1. Salty Caramel*

      I did end a friendship over racism. It’s an expression of morals and my morals say my chosen friends do not dehumanize others.

      1. Umami*

        I’ve done the same, with no regrets. Being married to a person from a much-maligned minority group. I actually ended a work friendship at a social gathering with colleagues when she made a racist content about then President Obama’s wife. Just, wat? (and she wasn’t a white person, just a different minority). Caling her out lost me several friends, which, good riddance.

    2. allathian*

      I’ve ended a friendship for less than that. A former friend started dating a holocaust denier. Although I’d never heard my ex-friend express any antisemitic views herself, the fact that she was willing to stay in an intimate relationship with a hateful person meant that I couldn’t be her friend anymore.

  43. Art3mis*

    Being a racist isn’t a protected class in the Fifty percent of all HR people finished in the bottom half of their class. I’m guessing that applies to this person’s friend.

    1. Art3mis*

      Gah. Should be “…in the US.” and then the comment about Fifty percent. I wasn’t an English major.

  44. Excel-sior*

    I’ve fortunately never been in thr position OP found themselves in, but I do wonder what the best way to deal with it would be? I get being shocked the first 1 or 2 times; I’d probably be too stunned myself to aay anything. but once it gets to 3 or 4, what’s the best thing to do? Call it out there and then, or let them continue dig their own hole and go to HR/their manager afterwards ?

  45. The Ginger Ginger*

    Based on the mandatory harassment training I have to take once a year I would say if he’d said that stuff at work and NOT been fired, the company would be opening themselves up to legal ramifications. You can’t have a racist on staff, behaving appallingly, and just let it slide.

  46. hotg0ss*

    This is one of those letters with a spectacular update. Kudos to the OP’s friend for learning and growing!!

  47. Clorinda*

    No, I would have no protection. Anything I put into the public sphere is construed as reflecting on the school and the district.

  48. Umami*

    Bravo!!!! So refreshing to see when HR gets it right. I hope you can share this with your HR friend so she can see how this should work. What a great outcome!!

  51. Raida*

    Someone could just *be* racist and that’s not a reason to fire them – because that’s thought policing. That’s not this dude though:

    If they are creating an unsafe work environment with their racism, opening up the business to Risks from other staff due to allowing the behaviour, then they can be fired to protect the business (from the staff that could sue for failing to provide a safe work environment).

    If they are racist with Clients then it’s a Risk for the business reputation-wise and they can be fired.

    If they are clearly racist and their role includes hiring and firing they are a Risk and the business would be right to fire them for being not a good fit for the role.

    If they are openly racist and there is a Code Of Conduct then the business can point to that as policy which outlines why they are being fired.

    If the business has, similarly, a Social Media Policy then the business can point to that as policy which outlines why they are being fired.

    Ideally, a quick social media check just for banners of red flags is reasonable when hiring, since most workplaces will have some people who look up new starters online even before their first day – it’s going to be noticed immediately, so just knowing that it shows beforehand is smart.

    1. Disappointed With the Staff*

      Sometimes it’s as brutal as you fire the racist or a bunch of other people quit in disgust.

    2. Eldritch Office Worker*

      I get the thought police thing, but if you become aware of a person’s racism it is in any conceivable scenario going to be as a result of their words and actions so thought policing isn’t really a concern that comes into play.

  52. Kimberly*

    Bigots of all kinds are dangerous and violent people who should be excluded by all decent people. Also, you are known by the company you keep. If 9 people sit down to dinner knowing the 10th member of the party is a Nazi – 10 Nazis ate dinner together.

  55. Somehow I Manage*

    Reading someone’s social media, or reading INTO someone’s social media, and drawing conclusions about them based on their political opinions is one thing. But this isn’t that. A new employee used a racial slur in the workplace…out loud…six times. If that’s not grounds for termination on the spot, I don’t know what is.

  56. AKB*

    This “friend in HR” OP has… needs to be put on a PIP.

    First off, the person whom the company fired uttered racial slurs on their first day of work. Those aren’t racist attitudes on their own, but actual racist behavior. Even if you must bifurcate between attitudes and behavior, you have all you need to fire this person right there.

    Also, while every jurisdiction is different (“at will employment” and all that), where I live, it works like this: you can be pretty much fired for anything in your first 90 days of employment. Past that point, dismissing someone “for cause” requires a lot of documentation and even then it opens you up to liability (unless it’s a union shop and the “for cause” justification violates the collective agreement).

    Past those 90 days, you can still be fired for anything… eventually. Here’s how it works: every company has periodic layoffs. It often happens at the end of the fiscal year; but a sudden economic downturn can trigger layoffs at any time. Every manager or HR director keeps a list (often only a mental list) of “troublesome” people whom they’d really like to fire. Well, when layoff time comes, the people on that list are first to go. They don’t need a “for cause” justification to fire someone when they know they’re gonna have layoffs. And when that happens, the person who gets fired in all likelihood has no legal recourse. I used to work for a company that preferred to do it that way.

    Again, this is true of where I live. Your own jurisdiction might be different.

    As for firing someone for their racist social media posts, that can happen. There’s plenty of precedence for that. Google “people who got fired for tweets.” Some of those stories are famous. The logic behind it is if people know you work for X company and see you posting alt-right memes (or whatever), then X company becomes associated with the alt-right memes int he mind sof the public, in the minds of customers and suppliers; in the minds of regulators. A company’s reputation its brand, is its oxygen. Firing someone for polluting that oxygen us easy to justify.

    Please also note the kind of message that’s sent to the rest of the company if someone who works there makes racist social media posts or is known to be a member of a racist group. If I knew one of my co-workers (or worse yet, one of my managers) openly did that outside of work, I’d feel unsafe at work; because they have clear attitudes that can effect how they deal with me and others. That creates friction. That’s bad for everyone.

    So put that HR person on a PIP. They do not understand the impact of racism in the workplace.

  57. Lurker*

    Also, what would an improvement plan for him even look like-an anti-racism improvement plan? There are many people who need one of those lol

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