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Folks, we continue to see instances of cancel culture playing out in our society. This includes the realm of workplaces and employment. And if we’re being honest about it, we see it coming from all ends of the political and social spectrum.

Cancel culture, as I define it, is a disproportionately severe response to a perceived slight or wrong, typically motivated by political ideology, religious beliefs, or social mores. It’s an overkill, eliminationist response, like imposing the death penalty for shoplifting, or a lifetime ban on driving for going 5 miles an hour over the speed limit. And the cancellation is defended with an ideological zeal that has little or no capacity to extend a benefit of the doubt, consider a different interpretation, engage in a conversation, or exercise forgiveness.

In the work context, cancel culture can appear in the form of calls to fire someone for making an allegedly outrageous or even objectionable statement.

Of course, there are instances where termination from employment is appropriate. If someone isn’t up to the job in terms of overall performance, then it’s fair to let them go. If someone repeatedly bullies or harasses co-workers, then termination is appropriate. While a fired worker might claim that they’ve been unfairly “canceled” under such circumstances, we know that’s not true. Some folks earn their job loss, fair and square.

But cancel culture may genuinely rear its head where someone says or writes something about a controversial issue of the day. It may be via a post on Facebook, TikTok, Twitter/X, or other social media platform. Or it may be something said at a public meeting or otherwise captured by someone’s phone camera recording it. Whatever its form, the resulting outrage can quickly take on a bullying or mobbing quality. If the story goes viral, then calls to fire the supposed offender — coming even from people who have no idea what really happened — can grow exponentially.

I should add that in the U.S. employment context, constitutional issues of free speech rarely enter the picture. The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution offers only limited speech protections to public employees and no speech protections to private-sector employees (including those working in non-profit organizations). The lack of a legal framework to help sort it all out contributes to a loud free-for-all atmosphere.

I’m intentionally not giving specific examples here, because I’m not trying to opine — even indirectly — on any specific situation. Rather, I simply feel compelled to remind us that cancel culture remains very much a part of our reality, at work and elsewhere. And when sharp, inflexible, intolerant points of view take on a ganging-up energy of their own, the targeted individual may face cancellation.