The firing of a Quran-burning New Jersey Transit worker last year has morphed into a legal battle over free speech. But Gov. Chris Christie, in his first public comments on the case, said today he’s not worrying about it.
“I knew he was going to be fired, and I had no problem with it,” Christie said during a Statehouse press conference. “And I still don’t have a problem with it.”
Derek Fenton, 40, of Bloomingdale, lost his job after burning pages of the Quran during a protest on the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
The American Civil Liberties Union said Fenton is being punished for exercising free speech, and Fenton has sued to get his job back.
But NJ Transit said Fenton violated the agency’s code of ethics.
“That kind of intolerance is something I think is unacceptable. So I don’t have any problem with him being fired,” Christie said. “You’ve got to make decisions in this job. I made one.”
However, he said he did not ask for Fenton to be fired.
Deborah Jacobs, executive director of the ACLU in New Jersey, said Christie made an unconstitutional mistake.
“It’s surprising that the governor has acknowledged that he agrees with the wrongheaded and unconstitutional firing of Mr. Fenton for exercising his fundamental rights,” she said. “Why would a smart lawyer like the governor throw good resources after bad decision-making by defending this suit?”
Frank Corrado, a lawyer for Fenton, declined to comment on Christie’s remarks.
Christie and some of his top administration officials were named in court last week as connected to Fenton’s firing. The state, as part of the discovery process involving the lawsuit, disclosed that Christie and five others from the governor’s office have “information concerning the decision to discharge Fenton.”
Corrado has called them “potential witnesses in the case.”
Christie, asked about the ACLU’s lawsuit, said, “I don’t worry much about the ACLU.”
Said Jacobs, “While he might not worry about us, we worry about a governor that demonstrates utter disregard for freedom of speech.”
Have you checked out YWN Radio yet? Click HERE to listen!
(Source: NJ Star Ledger)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
8 Responses
The Governor is right and actions have ramifications. A public worker that is openly racist is an issue waiting to happen.
What if he had burned a Bible?
Christie is getting crazier and crazier! What this worker did on his own time is his business and right to free speech. And what would Christie do to all the muslim employees who would be handed a copy of Jewish scriptures on their own time who would react in their predictably hostile manner? This man burns a book he thinks is evil while muslims gather weekly planning or suporting the idea of burning humans. Christie is a hypocrite for many reasons, and this is yet another one.
The state’s only defense is that it can restrict the right of its employees to engage in political activities but usually that right is limited to private sector employers. If the agency is legally required to hire and fire based on non-political factors (as opposed to a patronage position), the state will probably lose its case. However New Jersey Transit may have rules more like the private sector, which would allow it to fire employees for any reason it feels like.
It is sad, to me personally, that so many of you are so uninformed as to the reach of the 1st Amendment and of it’s importance. On one’s own time in this country one can burn a bible, a Torah (chas v’shalom), a Koran, spew Communist, Nazi or Islamic ideology and be as racist in public as one may please.
All of us who work in the public sector, be one a Governor, a Commissioner, a Chief of Police…or a mail room clerk… are subject to agency codes of ethics and conduct that prohibit “offensive” behavior in the workplace, on the job and among co-workers…but such codes are not meant to trump 1st Amendmenmt protections in the private context…and the ACLU is going to win this case.
Christie is right and the ACLU is wrong. There is no constitutional right to act in a way that publicly embarrasses your employer.
Charlie Hall – you might be correct if either the conduct was calculated to draw public attention or if the perpetrator had reason to know that such attention would be drawn. However, as I remember news reports of this case, the fact that it blew up into a major news story was almost serendipitous…
The fellow burned the Koran in the midst of a larger demonstration against the mosque proposed to be built in the Battery, an event that was witnessed by police who then moved in and collared him…all the hoopla followed because photo press were also there and captured the event on film.
I beat such a rap in 1966 when I was 15…I was captured in a NY Times photo at an anti-war demonstration in Manhattan wearing my high school jacket… the school tried suspending me because of the alleged negative publicity I caused…but balked when my parents and others protested vehemently that I had no way of anticipating that my photo..in the jacket…would wind up on Page 1 of a newspaper.
Charlie – This is from an 11/06/10 Wall Street Journal article describing Fenton’s law suit.
———-
Derek Fenton was off duty and not wearing any clothes that would have identified him as a NJ Transit worker when he burned three pages of the Koran at a protest outside 51 Park Place, the proposed site for an Islamic community center, according to the lawsuit which was filed in U.S. District Court in Newark. He was at the protest for no more than a couple of minutes before police whisked him away for his own protection….
…Though Mr. Fenton wasn’t charged with anything, his picture ran in a newspaper. Two days later, after several NJ Transit employees complained that Mr. Fenton’s actions had offended them, he was fired from his job as railroad yard manager, the lawsuit states. Mr. Fenton had worked at NJ Transit for 11 years.
At the time, NJ Transit only informed Mr. Fenton that he had violated NJ Transit’s “code of ethics.” Later, NJ Transit officials said that Mr. Fenton’s firing was related to burning the Koran pages outside the Islamic center, the lawsuit states.