re: Alabama workers say Turner Industries fired them over Confederate Flag on cars

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Phillip Sims tells us he doesn’t normally drive to work with the Confederate Battle Flag on his truck. But he says he was running late on Monday, and didn’t take the time to remove it.

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In fact, I am pro-America, no foreign cars are allowed on my business property. Employees are only allowed to park vehicles made by Ford, Chrysler, or GM on my lot. Now logos promoting foreign vehicles. My business, my rules.

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The act of displaying a Confederate flag is plainly within the purview of the First Amendment. "Flags, especially flags of a political sort, enjoy an honored position in the First Amendment hierarchy." American Legion Post 7 v. City of Durham, 239 F.3d 601, 607 (4th Cir.2001). Even more, Dixon chose to display the Confederate battle flag at a time when South Carolinians were vigorously debating whether that flag should fly atop their state capitol. As the Supreme Court recently affirmed, "The hallmark of the protection of free speech is to allow `free trade in ideas,'" and this protection extends "to symbolic or expressive conduct as well as to actual speech." Virginia v. Black, ___ U.S. ___, 123 S.Ct. 1536, 1547, 155 L.Ed.2d 535 (2003). Dixon's actions, taking place amidst a charged political atmosphere, exemplify the kind of speech that the First Amendment was drafted to protect.

While Dixon may have a constitutional right to fly the Confederate flag, however, that right is not unlimited. An individual may not "exercise general rights of free speech on property privately owned and used nondiscriminatorily for private purposes only." Lloyd Corp. v. Tanner, 407 U.S. 551, 567, 92 S.Ct. 2219, 33 L.Ed.2d 131 (1972) (holding that the First Amendment does not protect the actions of a protester handing out anti-war handbills at a privately owned shopping mall when that mall has a policy against all handbilling). Had Dixon attended a pro-flag rally on the grounds of the state capitol, he clearly would have satisfied the first element of a claim under § 16-17-560. Assuming that state authorities would have permitted the rally to go forward, Dixon's attendance at such an event would be an exercise of his rights under the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment. This conduct would be precisely the kind of speech that the South Carolina legislature wished to protect. Under South Carolina law, an individual who attended this type of rally on Sunday could not be fired by his private employer the following Monday solely because his employer objected to the individual's presence at the rally.

Dixon, however, chose to display the Confederate flag on the tool box he used at his workplace. For Dixon to prevail, this Court would be required to find that the First Amendment gives him the right to move the flag rally from the capitol to the Coburg Dairy garage. Such a finding would lead to the absurd result of making every private workplace a constitutionally protected forum for political discourse. As the Supreme Court has observed, this argument "has as its major unarticulated premise the assumption that people who want to propagandize protests or views have a constitutional right to do so whenever and however and wherever they please." Adderley v. Florida, 385 U.S. 39, 47-48, 87 S.Ct. 242, 17 L.Ed.2d 149 (1967). The Court has "vigorously and forthrightly rejected" that concept of the First Amendment. Id. at 48, 87 S.Ct. 242.

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Phillip Sims

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by Scruffy
Private company. Don't care.

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In fact, I am pro-America, no foreign cars are allowed on my business property. Employees are only allowed to park vehicles made by Ford, Chrysler, or GM on my lot. Now logos promoting foreign vehicles. My business, my rules.

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You do realize that Toyota has the most American made vehicles right? Percentage wise, Chrysler is mostly made with Mexican parts I believe. Google bro.

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Meh , the Supreme Court has already said many times that private companies must make reasonable accommodations for religion, why not speech?

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Sims says all this goes beyond the flag, all the way to his First Amendment right of free speech.

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