As much as I can't stand racism, and clearly that guy is not only extremely racist, but is just a straight up asshole, I don't like when I hear someone is fired over something that has nothing to do with their work. Personally, I don't think you should be able to NOT hire someone just because of their race, religion, views, sex, or sexual orientation; therefore, I don't believe you should be able to fire them for any of those reasons either. Sure this guys is a complete dick, but even assholes need to make some money to "put food on their family" ;) No but seriously, if you do a good job at work and stay professional in that environment, it shouldn't matter what you say outside of work, and for the most part, it shouldn't matter what you do.... as long as it's not murdering anything, or a pedophile, because then you belong in jail. I don't care for racism, but if you're living in North America, we have freedom of speech, and even if you don't like it, that gives us the freedom to be assholes about it as well. It's unfortunate, but that's the way it is, and to be honest, even though always like it, because i think some people abuse it, or they're saying something I think is dumb, I still don't want anything to change, because as soon as you start shutting up any kind of group, whether their right or wrong, then that's the beginning of the end of freedom of speech. Whether you're pro gay, anti gay, pro life, pro choice, racist, feminist, atheist, religious etc., they all deserve a voice, and shouldn't be losing their jobs over any of these reasons. It's one thing if you're really harming someone, but as much as I know words truly do hurt, they're still just words. You can't entirely blame bullying for suicide. Of course it's a contributing factor, but anyone who follows through with suicide is dealing with more than bullying. There's clearly some mental illness there, or some sort of disconnect. That's why there are many people who can be severely bullied and live through it, in fact most people do live through it, obviously. Also there are plenty of depressed people, even one's who entertain the idea of suicide who don't follow through with it, and that doesn't mean they were any less depressed, they probably were just less disconnected with the world while being depressed. Anyways, now I'm kinda going off on a tangent and straying from my original argument. Ultimately, if you want to live in a free world, you're going to have to put up with hearing shit you don't like. The minute you try to change that is the minute you fuck yourself in the ass. To anyone who reads this, don't get me wrong, I don't like racism, and I'm not really defending this asshole, I'm just defending our right to freedom of speech. If he's being racist at work, then yeah, fire his ass, but if he keeps those views out of the work environment and stays professional, then he shouldn't be fired. Would you fire someone who uses drugs, or drinks a lot outside of work, even if it didn't affect their job performance? Ultimately, WHAT DOESN'T AFFECT YOUR WORK, IS NONE OF YOUR WORKS BUSINESS.
tl;dr - either read it all, or don't read anything. I explain my views on this stuff in a lot of detail. If you don't read it all, you'll probably think I'm defending that racist asshole, and thus think I too am an asshole, but that's far from what I'm doing.