Disney argues that the studio had the right to fire Gina Carano under the First Amendment

Gina Carano she played the role of Cara Dune in the Star Wars series The Mandalorian during seasons 1 and 2. She was set to return for subsequent seasons, but just over three years ago, Disney Studios fired Carano after she took to social media and compared the treatment of modern conservatives to the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany. .

Carano filed a lawsuit against Disney Studios, owner of LucasFilm, alleging that the company unlawfully retaliated against her for expressing her personal political views, which were at odds with Disney’s preferred ideology.

Disney’s lawyers filed a motion Tuesday to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that it has “a constitutional right not to associate its artistic expression with Carano’s speech.”

The case touches on a burning controversy over speech rights on social media. Elon Musk, the owner of X, formerly known as Twitter, announced last August that he would pay the legal fees of employees who were fired for their posts on his platform. He later agreed to fund Carano’s lawsuit against Disney.

Carano has faced significant pushback for previous social media posts, in which she strongly opposed COVID restrictions, questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 election and refused to show support for trans rights. According to her lawsuit, Disney forced her to have a 90-minute Zoom meeting with GLAAD, the LGBTQ rights organization, after she posted that her pronouns are “boop/bop/beep.”

But for Disney, according to the company’s motion, the Nazi assignment was “the straw that broke the camel’s back.” The company argued that the post trivialized the Holocaust by referring to “thousands” of Jews, not “millions,” and comparing their experience to that of contemporary conservatives who face scorn on social media.

“Disney has had enough,” the motion states.

The same day the company released a statement saying it had no plans to hire her in the future and that her comments were “abhorrent and unacceptable.”

Carano filed the lawsuit under a California law that prohibits employers from retaliating against employees for political activity.

In its motion to dismiss, Disney argued that there is a broad exception for companies whose business is to engage in speech, such as newspapers and entertainment companies. To support its case, the company relied on a law review article and commentary written by one of Carano’s lawyers, UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh.

“Employers who speak must necessarily speak through their employees; and when an employee or prospective employee says things, even outside of work, that would undermine the employer’s message, the employer must be able to distance itself from the employee,” Volokh wrote in 2022.

It looks like we’ll be going back and forth for a while, but I don’t think Carano will ever return to work on a Disney project.

via: Variety