Hiring and firing based on political views

Faculty Colloquium

Presenter: Scott Altman, Professor of Law, USC Gould School of Law

A law professor’s recent Wall Street Journal op-ed urged firms not to hire students who joined anti-Zionist protests, saying they “advocate hate and practice discrimination.” Similarly, some business owners will not employ people whose views on sex, gender identity, and politics displease them, echoing earlier employment boycotts of alleged communists.

The article argues that ideological employment denial by private firms is usually immoral and should be prohibited. It undermines personal integrity, suppresses public discourse, and exacerbates social polarization. Employer interests cannot justify these harms. Employers often use job denials to pursue unethical goals, such as corrupting potential employees' moral choices, imposing unjust punishments, and disrespectfully pursuing non-complicity. Even though some employers claim they are exercising rights to speech, association, and business management, they can usually achieve these goals through less harmful means.

This article uses employment denial to shed light on the morality of social pressure, a concern raised by John Stuart Mill. Mill viewed social pressure as a valuable tool for expression and norm enforcement but feared its potential to suppress speech and non-conformity. The article outlines a framework for evaluating social pressure from criticism, shunning, shaming, and boycotting. It offers tentative answers to Mill’s moral question based on fair terms of social cooperation and shows how legal rules sometimes direct social pressure away from the harms Mill feared.