Speechless: The Erosion of Free Expression in the American Workplace

by Bruce Barry

Book Overview

"Exposes the shameful fact that most Americans are forced to check their civil liberties--and especially their freedom of speech--at the workplace door." --Barbara Ehrenreich, New York Times-bestselling author

A factory worker is fired because her boss disagrees with her political bumper sticker. A stockbroker feels pressure to resign from an employer who disapproves of his off-hours political advocacy. A flight attendant is...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1576753972
• ISBN13: 9781576753972
• Release Date: June 2007
• Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
• Length: 312 Pages
• Weight: 0.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.4" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

SPEECHLESS is a key acquisition

SPEECHLESS: THE EROSION OF FREE EXPRESSION IN THE AMERICAN WORKPLACE is a top pick for college-level business libraries, addressing issues of freedom of speech from legal, managerial and ethical perspectives and examining how the legal system affects employee speech rights and employer workplace management alike. From office politics and political correctness to protection for expression and how and why free speech works, SPEECHLESS is a key acquisition not just for business holdings, but for libraries strong in American politics and civil rights issues. Diane C. Donovan California Bookwatch

Speechless is an important book

This is an important book, and I read it with a growing sense of its value and force. It is in the American dialogue - the great national debate that takes place at the water cooler as well as the blogosphere; the church picnic as surely as the corner bar - that the warp and hue of our nation's culture take shape - finally forming through policy, legislation and influence the environment that we, and those who follow us, will inhabit. If this is correct, as Vanderbilt University professor Bruce Barry makes a solid case for in his timely, lucid and meticulously researched "Speechless - the Erosion of Free Expression" in the American Workplace (swerving neither left nor right as he goes) then certainly, if we are to have a true democracy, this dialogue must carry forward the beliefs of all Americans. Nor are these beliefs merely intended for the ballot box; indeed, they are the essence of what Dr. Barry refers to as the marketplace of ideas. For it is in this marketplace (as Dr. Barry makes plain) with its tension, its push and pull of competing voices, that arises the most vital and important element of a functioning democracy: Truth. This notion of a marketplace of ideas and the necessity of its vitality is not new. In Chapter 6 ("Why Free Speech Works"), Dr. Barry quotes Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes' famous dissent in the 1919 Abrams v. United States, in which Holmes describes "the best test of truth" as "the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market." A marketplace for ideas, from which truth is sometimes "roughly" (mostly roughly, it seems) constructed - this very truth which informs our laws and policies and national conversation - we have this very marketplace now, right? And it's protected by the First Amendment, right? In fact, in the Internet age, this marketplace for ideas is bigger and better than ever, right? So why write a book called "Speechless - the Erosion of Free Expression in the American Workplace"? Ok, so maybe we can't always say what we want in the workplace, but doesn't that still give us weekends and evenings for speaking our mind? Wrong. And this is where "Speechless" especially shines - as a compelling, sometimes unnerving study of the vast patchwork quilt of law and policy that many of us confidently suppose is there to cover our back. In "Speechless," Barry shows us how that quilt is doing an increasingly uneven job of protecting us (us mainly being employees but by extension here, all Americans) as it inevitably, along the way degrades our national dialogue. Building his case that our backs are either not covered, or not covered very well (nor with any kind of predictability), Barry travels the country, producing case after case of this employee and that employee losing his or her job for reasons complex and simple, large and small. Drawing out guidelines based on state action (i.e., the right that congress will not curtail our speech), differences in public vs. private em

Informative for scholars, managers, and employees

As a business ethicist, I expected to find in Speechless a detailed discussion of the implications of voice and silence for ethics in organizations, with references to topics like whistle-blowing, groupthink, and moral imagination. I found that discussion in Chapter 9, which is about the right length for it, because those topics have been covered well elsewhere, and Chapter 9 is a good introduction to many of the important works in that area. The rest of the book treats the restriction of expression in the workplace as an ethical problem of a different order, with implications both for the quality of life of individual employees, and for the quality of participation in political and cultural institutions outside the firm. But despite clear advocacy for greater freedom of expression in the workplace, Speechless also explores the risks that such freedom poses: a hostile working environment, partiality in public bureaucracies, employees driven to distraction by each other, or the legal and reputational threats that can arise when someone says something thoughtless. The result is a thorough, evenhanded, and entertaining study of a perennial problem: with liberty comes liability, both for those who grant them and for those who take them. Speechless's readable discussions of the relevant legal frameworks and cases are particularly helpful. They facilitate not only understanding the tensions between goods at stake, but also identifying remedies that can be taken at both the public policy and the enlightened-management levels. For scholars interested in exploring the implications of speech and its restriction in the workplace, this book is a useful introduction to the perspectives of law and management on the problem. Managers trying to ascertain what they have a responsibility to control and what they have the freedom to permit will also find Speechless to be a valuable resource . . . as will employees who are curious or nervous about the risk posed to their careers by the scope of their convictions or their recreations.

An important work on a compelling topic ...

This book is very well researched and scholarly but also written in a very readable format -- even with a respectful sense of humor in places. As a human resources professional, I find the subject of this work of particular interest. Not only does it cover the subject of free speech in the workplace in a very authoritative manner, but it also provides some excellent legal context on topics such as 'employment at will' in an easily understand fashion for the reader who may not have any formal legal experience. Overall, it was a very worthwhile read which both informed and captivated me on a topic of significant import in today's workplace. A respectable piece of writing on a complex and potentially controversial topic! Well done Professor Barry.