ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Big companies typically don't want to talk politics, and now they are punishing workers who do so even outside the workplace. Companies have fired employees over their social media posts about Charlie Kirk's assassination. That and Disney's suspension of Jimmy Kimmel are sounding alarms about how the Trump administration is using corporate America to carry out its agenda. NPR business correspondent Maria Aspan is here to explain. Hi, Maria.
MARIA ASPAN, BYLINE: Hi, Ari.
SHAPIRO: Jimmy Kimmel and Disney have been in the news this week, but there's a lot more fallout in the business world. Catch us up.
ASPAN: So we've seen quite a few examples of employers big and small firing or taking other actions against workers for what they've posted. As NPR has reported, some are municipal employees - like teachers or firefighters - but we've also seen consequences for people working at private companies, like the Carolina Panthers. And in many cases, there are these groups of right-wing online activists looking for people that have said things on their private social media accounts and then getting them into trouble with their employer.
At the same time this week, there's - there was something that happened that is not directly related to Charlie Kirk but feeds into this. The Jerry of Ben and Jerry's, Jerry Greenfield, resigned from his ice cream company after 47 years saying that his company's owner, Unilever, has silenced him for his activism.
The cumulative effect of everything we've seen this week is just a chill about talking about politics. And it's another indicator of how much the pendulum has swung for corporate America, which, if you remember, not that long ago was eager to weigh in on social justice and climate change and other seeming political issues.
SHAPIRO: Right, when so many companies changed their Instagram icon to that black square - what has driven this huge shift in corporate attitudes?
ASPAN: Well, we saw companies like Bud Light and Target, for example, facing backlash and boycotts from conservatives, which led to lost business. And so even before President Trump was reelected, the conventional wisdom had swung back to, companies should just stick to business. And then President Trump was reelected, and he's really amplified the shift. He and his administration are openly attacking individual companies and CEOs - like the Intel CEO, for example - and nobody wants to be a scapegoat. So Trump is now taking unprecedented steps to use the presidency to reshape corporate America, and corporate America is largely letting him.
SHAPIRO: And what does that mean broadly for workers and citizens in general?
ASPAN: Everyone I talked to this week is pretty worried. Jenin Younes, for example, is a prominent free speech lawyer. She sued the Biden administration for alleged censorship for pressuring tech companies to remove online misinformation during the COVID pandemic. But she told me this week that Trump is far more dangerous for free speech.
JENIN YOUNES: We're in a pretty bad place, I would say. It's really, like, a very multifaceted attempt to control speech that I found really disturbing and incompatible with the First Amendment as well as a free society.
SHAPIRO: What does this all mean for the First Amendment rights of people in their places of work?
ASPAN: So free speech is a constitutional right, but it is not a workplace right, generally. Younes and other First Amendment experts I spoke with emphasized that private employers generally can put whatever controls on speech they want. They've always had the right to fire workers for saying things that go against their own internal policies. What's new and different this week is the direct pressure that the government is putting on private employers, especially through the Jimmy Kimmel example, which is, as Younes puts it, a new and brazen threat to our free society.
SHAPIRO: NPR's Maria Aspan, thank you.
ASPAN: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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