Randa Jarrar

It's time for some more proof that I am working from a queue of blog ideas. I want to bring up Randa Jarrar. It case your memory is fuzzy, let me provide a quick reminder of her claim to fame. When Barbara Bush died, Jarrar went on Twitter to criticize Bush.



Saying nasty things about someone while people are in mourning is at the vary least inconsiderate. More realistically, Jarrar was being a vile woman. More concerning was the fact that she was (and still is) in a position of influence. She was a member of the faculty at Fresno State.

As much as I don't want to see an extremist pushing an agenda on students, such a position should be insufficient to silence her personal views. As I have said repeatedly, no employer should take actions against their employees for what they say away from the job. What Jarrar said about Bush was not grounds for termination.

One of the reasons that I decided to write about Jarrar is because her story took a different turn. Conservatives have lost jobs for old posts that they might no longer believe, posts that they have immediately deleted, and posts that they clearly stated did not reflect the views of their employers. By contrast, Jarrar doubled down on her comments and involved her employer.

Jarrar insisted that tenure would protect her. She also insisted that the college supported faculty speaking freely, including controversial comments. Technically speaking, this is a gray area. An argument could be made that she was speaking on behalf of her employer.

Although I couldn't find solid evidence, I remember reading that Jarrar included the college president's Twitter handle in her anti-Bush thread. If true, this very well could have been grounds for disciplinary action.

As I have said repeatedly in this series, whether or not an employer should be able to justify punishing someone for what he or she says comes down to whether or not those words are connected to the business (or organization). Saying that the college would support her making controversial comments likely crossed the line. When I read that, I believed that she should be fired. If she dragged the college president into her dialog as some have reported, it's remarkable that she kept her job.

Let me finish this blog post by trying to make my point a little more clearly. I never believed that Jarrar should have lost her job for Tweeting about Bush. I do believe that she should have lost her job for speaking on behalf of her employer and forcing another college employee to become involved in her dialog (if it happened).