Whether or not the flag hanging was in violation of company policies (which we don’t know) the other employees response was outside the pale in any office. And in the absence of an explicit prohibition, there is no reason for the employee to assume that hanging a flag would be against compnay policy.

And so, in the absence of a prohibiton, I would be very reluctant to blame the flag displayer of having acted wrongly, as no reasonable person would have expected a violent reaction.

If the “offended” employee had a problem, the procedure would be for her to go to her supervisor and express her objections. To instead tear down the flag and throw it on the floor is an expression equivalent to fighting words.

Had she followed accepted protocol, the dispute could have been handled amiably.

And then it would appear that the higher ups played cowards and did not address the situation properly.

Your statement that employers can reasonably restrict free speech is reasonable, and the employee should not be making a absolute”free speech” argument (though she may have had a selective enforcement case, depending on other incidents outside our knowledge)

But her making a specious argument does not change the fact that the predominant fault lies with the “offended” employee.

High ranking hospital staff “sharing an office” = 80% chance it’s cubicles rather than open space. I assumed facts not in evidence, but you also don’t have evidence to the contrary. So call that a draw, but unfortunately the question plays pretty heavily into the whole nature of the debate.

Because if it IS a cube, then the “offended” person acted with rank odiousness (odity?) and should have fired on the spot, for taking the patriotic woman’s flag down and putting it on the floor.

If it’s a common office, then it kind of comes down to how prominently displayed. If it was displayed behind the patriotic woman’s desk in a way that did not intrude into “common space”, then the above paragraph IMO applies in full.

If it was in “common space”, then it’s probably not what she should have done. But in the end, it would be a fairly minor faux pas, being (a) Memorial Weekend, (b) a one-timer, and (c) at the end of the day, a frakking American flag, which practically by definition is NOT offensive to be displayed on American soil [the exception being if it is displayed in such a way that violates flag protocol, such as 'on the floor', or 'flown upside down', etc].

It’s fairly difficult to envision a scenario, in this case, in which a reasonable person would be offended by the flag’s presence.

Now, why the “entitled to draw an inference there about her freedoms” makes no sense to you, I don’t know. This display was most likely an honest and unobtrusive display of patriotism. This kind of stuff happens almost everywhere. At my office, we have a couple of gals who love to dress up a common area with seasonal stuff – Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentines, St Patricks, Easter, and so on. In general they don’t play up the potentially touchy subjects much (no baby Jesus, no goblins, no crosses, etc). It’s just an expression of exuberence, and management has never said yea or nay about it (kinda like Kindred).

When the “offended” woman put her flag on the floor (the irony regarding relative offenses just REEKS here), then the hospital backed her play against the patriotic woman, the patriotic woman is RIGHT to question publicly where the line is drawn. The “offended” woman had *her* rights of expression validated, while the patriot had hers invalidated.

Speaking of nonsensical, where did you get this : That’s really what McLucas is saying – her opinion is that, even on her employer’s property, the employer’s wishes should be secondary to hers.

It is not what she is saying. That’s a load of crap. She wants to know why the “offended” person gets to shut her down, with her employer’s imprimatur. Fair question.

What are you trying to do? Are you trying to argue like Perry Mason?

This is very simple issue that is NOT about employment rules. It doesn’t seem to disturb you or the company here that the American flag ended up on the FLOOR!

That should be grounds for outrage regardless of the circumstances surrounding how the flag initially got into the office!

I’m going to call this company right now and exercise my free speech rights. I hope that this company loses business because of the idiotic way that they handled this situation.

I won’t do business with anyone or any company that shows such a contempt and insensitivy to the American flag.

and no “terms of employment” applied. I don’t see why this is an argument.

And explained that there press release and the TV news story don’t jive. The secretary for the company PR person was very nice and could not explain the discrepancies–this was not a dispute about the size or placement of the flag according to the employee.

I told Kindred that if they wanted to avoid any further PR damage that they should put up an honest and complete explanation of the events and how Kindred management handled this dispute. I told them that I would not recommend or refer any patients or business to their company if they didn’t come clean with an explanation that addressed this incident.

I work in a large prestigious hospital and I know all about rules for putting up personal items. This story is disturbing because it rings true about what is happening in this country.

The govenment has made it a crime to have certain thoughts–as in “hate crimes”. What is this? The government is saying that if you do certain things to someone, the thoughts that the perpetrator is thinking makes the crime worse.

In other words, we have entered a new world where the government is now dictating what “thoughts” are permitted.

Political correctness has gone wild and is endangering freedom. You can get fired today for “offending” people which is nothing more than doing something that is politically incorrect.

Kindred Healthcare ONLY took down that flag because it wanted to be politically correct. Their reasons had nothing to do with workplace rules or any other company policy or company right.

Offending a black person in a workplace is taboo. Offending the American flag is politically correct.

…(and I tear up singing the Nat’l Anthem at ball games, and stare at people who talk through the song, don’t rise or remove their hats, etc.)

Failure of common courtesy and common sense all around, but starting with the flag-bringer. What if she had brought a 4×8 or 5×12 flag? If the employer didn’t have guidelines before, they’ll have them now. And probably will ban any kind of patriotic/ethnic display (goodbye Kwanzaa candles or Cinco-de-Mayo tricolors) as a result. Lack of manners + easily hurt feelings are a toxic brew.

The company thought it wasn’t ok to hang a flag, but thought it was ok to put that very same flag on the floor.

In any state that’s passed any laws regarding respect of the flag, the company has violated the law regarding the latter.

I don’t have a problem until people try make Constitutional mountains out of the proverbial molehills.

…the employee didn’t just “want to fly the flag,” but rather decided to bring a 3″x5″ flag and flagpole into a shared four-person office without asking either management or her coworkers (the latter would have been simple courtesy, yes?), then complained when someone had a problem with it. (Yes, the “offended” person overreacted.) There’s a certain level of presumption there, don’t you think?

The real problem is that our flag has been corrupted in the struggle between patriotism and nationalism. When displaying a flag becomes a test of one’s “love of country,” it dishonors the very thing for which that banner stands.