That's the essence of last week's 7th Circuit opinion in Inendino v. Nance-Holt. And while the court spent most of its time parsing constitutional doctrine, I came away thinking about something much simpler.
Whatever happened to personal responsibility?
The legal issue wasn't whether his posts were offensive. Everyone agreed they were.
The harder question was whether the 1st Amendment protected them.
Interestingly, the 7th Circuit actually gave Inendino more credit than the trial court had. It assumed that many of his posts—even crude, racist ones—touched on matters of public concern because they commented on current political controversies surrounding Black Lives Matter, policing, immigration, and public officials.
But that's where many people stop reading.
The court didn't say, "Speech about public issues means you can't be fired."
Instead, it asked the next question: Does the government's interest as an employer outweigh the employee's interest in speaking?
For a firefighter whose job requires the trust of every member of the public, the answer was yes.
The court emphasized 7th facts that employers should remember. Inendino wasn't speaking anonymously. He publicly identified himself as a firefighter. His page featured photos of him in uniform on a fire truck. His comments were visible to everyone. And he served a predominantly Black neighborhood while posting content that openly demeaned Black residents—the very people he might someday be called upon to rescue. Under those circumstances, the City had a compelling interest in protecting public trust in its emergency services.
All of that is important.
But here's what struck me.
Too often, cases like this are framed as though the employee is merely the victim of an employer's overreaction. The conversation becomes about cancel culture, free speech, corporate overreach, or constitutional rights.
Missing from that conversation is the most obvious point.
You are still responsible for your own choices.
No one forced Inendino to make his Facebook page public.
No one forced him to identify himself as a firefighter.
No one forced him to post racist memes.
No one forced him to keep them online.
Employees have rights. Employers have obligations. But neither erases personal accountability.
This wasn't a case about someone being punished for an immutable characteristic or an unpopular belief quietly held. It was about a series of deliberate, public decisions that predictably destroyed the trust essential to performing a public-facing job.
The law often protects people from the consequences of who they are. It rarely protects them from the foreseeable consequences of what they choose to do. That's especially true in employment law.
If you publicly associate yourself with your employer while broadcasting views that undermine your ability to perform your job or destroy the public's trust in the institution you serve, don't be surprised when those decisions have employment consequences.
That's not a post-mortem on free speech. It's a post-mortem on personal responsibility.