Connor Norton - ESPN Doesn't Deserve Jemele Hill

This article concerns the recent suspension of ESPN anchor Jemele Hill after she released a string of tweets including one that suggested Cowboys players bear a heavy burden protesting while their coach remains vocally opposed to said protests, implying fans should help spread the activism and support the players by refusing to watch ads leading up to and during Cowboys games, hurting ad revenue for ESPN and by extension the teams it covers. ESPN claimed this was in violation of their social media policy and suspended Hill for two weeks, and because ESPN is privately owned, their decision is not at odds with the first amendment, which only protects against government action that would dampen free speech; but here's the kicker: Jemele Hill included in her string of tweets a tweet making all too clear that her statements were hers alone and in no way representative of that of her employer (ESPN), making sure her words had no impact upon the views of ESPN's audience concerning the TV station. So does it then truly come in conflict with ESPN policy? not according to ESPN's tweet in response to Hill's statements, but the action's legality under the constitution does not change the question of its moral stature. Was it right for ESPN to suspend Jemele for making public her ideas? Personally, I don't think so.

This relates to the Hollywood Blacklist of the McCarthy Era which, though more extreme, was a situation in which Americans in the public eye (and, more specifically, in the entertainment industry) were persecuted both career-wise and for some in court entirely based off the suspicion that their beliefs included a support for communism. Now, the contempt of court, jail time, and fines levied against the Hollywood Ten for refusing to deny communist belief or rat out other communists was very obviously in direct opposition to the First Amendment, but the stigma associated with a communist belief set hurt or ended many prospective careers is similar to though more intense than the penalizing of an ESPN employee entirely due to her making public her personally held beliefs.