First Amendment Victims Are Suing and Winning Big

WASHINGTON - June 24, 2026 - PRLog -- Employees who were fired because something they said or wrote displeased a boss, or triggered complaints to the employer ("hecklers veto" or "cancel culture"), are increasingly suing, and they often receive a healthy settlement for a violation of their free speech rights, reports public interest law professor John Banzhaf.

Banzhaf, who popularized the motto "SUE THE BASTARDS," explains that the views expressed by government employees is free speech protected by the First Amendment, even if it is politically incorrect and/or controversial.

So, in addition to any protections offered by civil service employment laws, tenure at a college or university, or by union or other contracts, employees can sue the governmental body which harmed them, and often the officials who were responsible.

The professor reports that over 600 people who were fired, suspended, or investigated over  one issue - making controversial statements about the death of Charlie Kirk - successfully fought back, as he encourages other similar victims to do.

Here are just a few recent examples:

■ An attorney who wrote insensitive comments about Kirk's murder on her private Facebook page - and therefore visible only to a few people she had friended - was fired when an outside organization found out and complained to her employer.  She got her job back by appealing her termination, and then won $125,000 by suing her employer and her boss for violating her First Amendment rights. . . .

■ A tenured professor, who was fired for simply posting a news story criticizing Kirk's views on the Second Amendment, won his job back and received $500,000 for his troubles.

The activist law professor, who has won several important free speech cases at the Supreme Court, as well as at lower courts and agencies, reminds us that the First Amendment protects even the most objectionable forms of speech - such as burning crosses and Swastikas - as well as speech which is considered racist, sexist, antisemitic, homophobic, etc.

He notes that the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly made it clear that there is no "hate speech" exception to the First Amendment, and that organizations such as the ACLU and FIRE will often take on such free speech cases on behalf of victims.

Such assistance may be especially useful to students who are punished for making or posting controversial statements, especially when such actions appear to constitute violations of a university's published (and therefore legally binding) free speech guarantees.

In addition, attorneys in private practice may sometime accept First Amendment cases on a contingency basis where the attorney's fees - typically one-third of the award or settlement - need be paid only if the victim's case is successful.

http://banzhaf.net/   jbanzhaf3ATgmail.com   @profbanzhaf