Human Rights Violation You Selected and Explain

¶ … human rights violation you selected and explain why you see it as a human rights violation. Then consider how the issue could be addressed or resolved and explain if you believe you have a duty or an obligation to act based on this violation. Why or why not?

Human rights violations in the workplace

According to Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." It may be a great surprise for some Americans, however, to learn that not all American citizens have an equal right to freedom of political association. For example, in the U.S. Supreme Court decision Adler v Board of Education, the Court found that the First Amendment did not protect government employees and public servants from being silenced by their employers. According to Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes: "There may be a constitutional right to talk politics, but there is no constitutional right to be a policeman" (Linder 2012). There was no 'constitutional' right to work for the government and when the employee decided to do so it was assumed that employee had accepted some constraints.

However, in 1967, the Court reversed its decision on Adler in Pickering v Board of Education, which "considered the case of a public school teacher fired for writing a letter to a newspaper critical of the local school board" (Linder 2012). The Court ordered the teacher reinstated given that the teacher was expressing his or her beliefs as a private citizen. However, in Garcetti v Ceballos, the Court found that a DA that had been "transferred and denied a promotion because of his statements to supervisors criticizing the credibility of statements made in an affidavit prepared by a deputy sheriff" was not protected by the First Amendment because the statements were made regarding the DA's official capacities (Linder 2012).

Free speech by employees in the public sphere is thus not absolute, and rulings regarding the constitutionality of prohibiting such speech by the Court tend to revolve around the pertinent nature of the speech to the official duties of the employees. However, in actual practice, public employees may find their speech limited in areas regarding their private life, especially in matters that have yet to be decided before the court. For example, public teachers are often actively discouraged from being members of Facebook by school districts because of the types of disputes which can ensue. In one New Jersey school district, a teacher posted her disapproval of her school's gay rights exhibit on her personal Facebook page, which led to calls for her immediate dismissal and accusations that she was a bigot. Because teachers are charged with disseminating information to youths and are supposed to be an unbiased source of information, allegations regarding the beliefs of teachers are often especially fraught, as the rights of students must be balanced against the rights of teachers. According to the New Jersey teachers' union: "Don't ever friend or follow your students on Facebook or Twitter, never post during work hours or using work materials such as a school computer, and certainly never post anything about your job online, especially about students" (Solomon 2011). One New Jersey teacher lost her job for posting that she felt like a warden for hardened criminals when she taught on her personal Facebook