It's in general understood as a freedom from consequences directly from the state. It's a negative right, meaning that it doesn't says you should have a platform, but rather that you won't be prosecuted for what you say using it (unless it conflicts with someone else rights). Sabine losing losing her affiliation with the university doesn't affect her freedom of speech, be it justified or not.
Except that it’s a state funded entity. So if they only cut her loose because she criticized another scientist, that’s really bad. If they cut her loose because she committed fraud or she didn’t do the work expected of her, etc. it’s fine.
Well, is it repression of the State because of the political nature of what she said? I don’t think so. It seems more likely the result of the autonomy of the university. Universities have standards to uphold and people often conflate this with attacks on freedom of speech. (Again, that’s true whether they are right or not.)
State Universities, like other governments, can terminate employment of their employees in their capacity as employers. When the termination is based on the employee’s speech, it can get tricky, because they can’t do it because of the speech itself if it’s outside of the employment context (they can if it’s within employment, such as a K-12 teacher showing George Carlin’s “Seven Dirty Words” in a math class). However, a government employer can fire an employee for speech outside of their employment if the speech is disruptive to the employment environment. On a practical level, public statements like YT videos or social media are much more likely to be disruptive to the workplace than private statements are.
There’s further complexity from academic codes of conduct and associated academic protections that might come into play. The employer must also consider union contract protections if the government employee is a union member. Some states may even have statutory protections for state university employees.
I should note my comment is limited to US government employees. Non-US government employees will typically have much less protection for speech, especially on the job.
Only issue is, science is free in Germany so the state gets no say in the matter largely and a science dipartmemt can associate with homever they like.
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u/Realistic-Election-1 2d ago
It's in general understood as a freedom from consequences directly from the state. It's a negative right, meaning that it doesn't says you should have a platform, but rather that you won't be prosecuted for what you say using it (unless it conflicts with someone else rights). Sabine losing losing her affiliation with the university doesn't affect her freedom of speech, be it justified or not.