It’s potentially worse, and stupider, than that.
The bank didn’t fire her specifically because she posted the video where she made a couple faces after trying kombucha. They fired her because her face started to get used for the meme. Completely out of her control, because people started posting “thing I don’t like, thing I like” memes with this format, often times with various political messages. Basically someone else used her face in a “this brings joy, this does not bring joy” meme and she got canned because of the bank’s “image.” As if it was actually her saying these things.
I mean, I hope she got a hell of a lawsuit out of that, because damn. Also its a bank so you know they have at least some money.
At Will employment. “In a meme” is not a protected class, and a reasonable bank employee could see her meme-attachment having a detrimental effect on business (you don’t have to be in your reasons for firing someone as long as those reasons aren’t protected or being used to hide that you’re firing them for a protected reason). I’d guess she’d have no case in almost any state in the US with their lack of employee protections.
Gross. Here in Brazil the employers would be bending over backwards to beg her not to sue them for all they’re worth.
And to be clear - she probably got unemployment. “At-Will” isn’t a magic spell.
Terminating an employee without cause requires them to pay unemployment.
