To the credit of Mozilla's board, Eich wasn't fired. He quit because the hoopla made doing his job impossible. It was the right move on his part because his pre

To the credit of Mozilla's board, Eich wasn't fired. He quit because the hoopla made doing his job impossible. It was the right move on his part because his presence became damaging to Mozilla. To your point about it being fine to fire people for their political beliefs, the legal right to do something doesn't say much about whether you should. I think everyone would be appalled if it became common practice for employers to look through every campaign you ever donated to, every cause you ever lent support to, to find something to disqualify you over. It also does nothing but further alienate and divide people. Going back to the McCarthy era, there was nothing illegal about firing communists. And the people doing it had lots of reasons to think they were doing the right thing. The US was in an existential battle against an empire that had worldwide gulags and purges as its goal. Stalin was a proven master of infiltration and palace intrigue. More recent evidence shows that McCarthy's paranoia was not ill-founded -- Soviet intelligence had infiltrated large parts of American society and government. It was still morally wrong to fire people for their political opinions. Especially if they aren't loudly advertising them.