Latest news with #firing
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Kennedy Center vice president says he was fired over his Christian beliefs
A top Kennedy Center official says he has been fired over his Christian beliefs. Floyd Brown, a longtime right-wing activist with a history of anti-gay rhetoric, served for just over a month as vice president of development. Brown said he was sacked by interim Kennedy Center president Richard Grenell, hours after CNN contacted him with questions about his previous comments about same-sex marriage resurfaced. Brown called same-sex marriage 'godless' and 'a hoax,' described homosexuality as 'a punishment' for America, and promoted baseless conspiracy theories questioning former President Barack Obama 's birth certificate and religion. In a post to X Brown insisted that his personal views did not interfere with his professional conduct. 'I was fired yesterday by @RichardGrenell from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts,' Brown wrote on Thursday on X. 'My firing came approximately two hours after @CNN sent an email asking me to comment on my past writings and statements about traditional marriage and homosexual influence in the @ GOP.' 'Comments rooted in my personal Christian views, which I have made in the past, have no impact upon my work here at the Kennedy Center nor do they impinge on my interactions with colleagues who do incredible work for the patrons of the Center,' he wrote. 'As a Christian, I am called to work with others of different beliefs and worldviews.' Brown also shared the statement he said he provided to CNN: 'It was truly not my intention to offend anyone with my comments. I have never intended to attack or demean any person in my statements and have always shared the mission of Jesus, striving to love others unconditionally.' He further claimed that when he sought an explanation for his firing and requested to speak directly with Grenell, both requests were ignored. Brown stated that he was told: 'Floyd, you must recant your belief in traditional marriage and your past statements on the topic, or you will be fired.' He added, 'Needless to say, I refused to recant and was shown the door.' CNN reported that a source familiar with the Kennedy Center said Grenell had not met with Brown, was not involved in his hiring, and did not personally fire him. The Kennedy Center has also declined to comment on Brown's dismissal. Brown's abrupt firing comes amid a broader upheaval at the Kennedy Center since February, when former President Donald Trump named himself chairman and overhauled the institution's previously bipartisan board. Trump appointed Grenell - the first openly gay member of a presidential cabinet - as interim president, leading to a series of leadership changes and staffing cuts. Grenell has described the Kennedy Center's financial state as 'serious' and has voiced criticism of what he views as divisive diversity programming. 'We need to focus on common sense programming,' Grenell said in previous statements. Brown, who said he had been recruited to join the Center's development team, was responsible for overseeing major fundraising efforts, raising millions annually from corporations, foundations, and individual donors. His brief tenure had gone largely unnoticed until CNN's inquiry. Staffers reportedly raised concerns internally about Brown's past rhetoric and political background. Some questioned whether his history of incendiary comments, including criticisms of 'secular pro-gay culture', would alienate key donors in the traditionally progressive arts world. Brown did not directly address his past comments about Obama in his X post, focusing instead on his religious convictions. 'The amazing beauty of the MAGA movement is we have people of many different beliefs inside our tent,' he wrote. 'We are all working together in unity to Make America Great Again.' His firing has reignited debate over free speech, religious freedom, and the political direction of the Kennedy Center. While some conservatives have rallied to Brown's defense, others note the complexities of maintaining a fundraising arm in a politically and culturally diverse institution. Neither Grenell nor the Kennedy Center has issued a public statement addressing Brown's claims. The Kennedy Center, under Trump's direction, has already canceled upcoming World Pride events planned for June.
New York Times
4 days ago
- Business
- New York Times
Pro-Trump Kennedy Center Executive Says He Was Fired
Floyd Brown, a longtime right-wing activist, said on Thursday that he had been fired from the Kennedy Center because of his views on same-sex marriage. Mr. Brown said in a long post on X that he was fired on Wednesday by Richard Grenell, whom President Trump appointed as the interim leader of the center in February after he began imposing his grip on it. Mr. Brown said his dismissal happened about two hours after CNN contacted him for comment on his past statements on homosexuality and marriage. The Kennedy Center did not announced Mr. Brown's appointment. He said in a LinkedIn post this month that he had started working at the center as vice president of development. The executive in that position leads the department responsible for raising millions of dollars for the center. It was not immediately clear what activities he was involved with at the center. The Kennedy Center did not immediately respond to requests for comment made outside business hours on Thursday. Mr. Brown said Thursday that his requests for an explanation for his dismissal and to speak with Mr. Grenell, who during the president's first term was recognized as America's first gay cabinet member, have been ignored. Mr. Brown claimed that he was told he would be fired if he did not recant his position on 'traditional marriage.' 'Needless to say, I refused to recant and was shown the door,' he wrote. Mr. Brown was the operative behind the racist Willie Horton attack ads during the 1988 presidential campaign. He later promoted conspiracy theories about Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, too. Mr. Brown has also made comments denigrating homosexuality in the past. In an archived page from one of his defunct websites, he lamented the victories of 'secular pro-gay culture.' 'Comments rooted in my personal Christian views, which I have made in the past, have no impact upon my work here at the Kennedy Center nor do they impinge on my interactions with colleagues,' Mr. Brown wrote in his X post. 'I have never intended to attack or demean any person in my statements, and have always shared the mission of Jesus, striving to love others unconditionally.' This is the latest episode in months of upheaval at the Kennedy Center. Mr. Trump stunned the cultural world in February when he made himself chairman of the Kennedy Center and purged its previously bipartisan board of Biden-era appointees, making his loyalist Mr. Grenell the president. Mr. Trump's actions have prompted criticism, and some artists have canceled their engagements at the center in protest. Mr. Grenell has culled the Kennedy Center's staff, saying it faces serious financial problems. He has also denounced some of the center's efforts to embrace diversity, saying it should promote 'common sense programming.'
CBS News
6 days ago
- Business
- CBS News
Maryland judge denies request to allow fired federal employees to work during pending lawsuit
A Maryland judge denied a request that would allow three former Consumer Product Safety Commissioners to return to work while the case is litigated in court. President Joe Biden's appointees Richard Trumka, Mary Boyle, and Alexander Hoehn-Saric were informed of their removal earlier this month. A Maryland judge denied a request that would allow three former Consumer Product Safety Commissioners to return to work while the case is litigated in court. CBS News The three former federal workers claim in a lawsuit that President Trump illegally fired them without cause. They sought a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction that would allow them to continue working, which was turned down on Tuesday. The CPSC is an independent agency that regulates the safety of consumer products, from toys to appliances. It's the group that often handles recalls of items such as kitchen ranges that can set fires and steam cleaners that have burned users. It is bipartisan and comprises five commissioners who serve for staggered seven-year terms. Does there need to be a cause for firings? The case questions whether the president can fire members of an independent board created by Congress. Attorneys for the fired commissioners say the president can't fire them without cause, and there must be neglect or maleficence. "At no point has the administration alleged any neglect of duty or malfeasance in office," said Nicolas Sansone, an attorney with Public Citizen Litigation Group who is representing the former commissioners. Attorneys for the commissioners argued the CPSC falls under an exception in a 1935 Supreme Court ruling. In that case, Humphreys' Executor v. United States, the high court found that Congress could impose for-cause removal protections to multi-member commissions of experts that are balanced along partisan lines and do not exercise any executive power. Can Trump authorize firings of CPSC commissioners? Attorneys for the Trump administration argue he has the executive power to remove people in those positions. It also argued it would be more harmful to continually bring back and let go of these officials during litigation. Earlier this month, CBS News reported that White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said that the CPSC falls under the executive branch, giving the president the right to fire employees there. Speaking out against the removals On May 14, the fired commissioners joined Senators in speaking out against their removal. Trumka says the commission issued 333 recalls last year on 150 million products. He believes he was fired after advancing a solution on lithium-ion batteries, refusing to let DOGE review records, and saying the commission wouldn't allow their staff to be fired. Now, he isn't sure the work is being done to protect the public. "We've pushed hard to protect your families as much as we protect our own. For that, we were illegally fired," Trumka said on May 14. "When we win and we're put back into our jobs. I can't wait to get back to that work, because I want to follow through on our commitments that we've made to deliver safety rules for all of you this year." Supreme Court takes on a similar case The Supreme Court allowed President Trump to remove two members of federal independent labor boards while legal proceedings over their firings move forward last week. The high court granted a request for emergency relief from the Trump administration to pause a pair of lower court rulings that voided Trump's removals of Gwynne Wilcox from the National Labor Relations Board and Cathy Harris from the Merit Systems Protection Board. "Because the Constitution vests the executive power in the President, he may remove without cause executive officers who exercise that power on his behalf, subject to narrow exceptions recognized by our precedents," the court said. "The stay reflects our judgment that the Government is likely to show that both the NLRB and MSPB exercise considerable executive power. But we do not ultimately decide in this posture whether the NLRB or MSPB falls within such a recognized exception; that question is better left for resolution after full briefing and argument." It also said the continuous removal and reinstatement of officials during litigation would be "disruptive". DOGE firings DOGE has sought to cut federal workers in the name of reducing fraud, waste and abuse. But many of its firings have had to be reversed, either because the group mistakenly fired essential workers — like bird-flu experts with the U.S. Department of Agriculture — or after a court ruled the dismissals were illegal. DOGE's savings have largely been wiped out by costs related to those issues as well as lost productivity, according to a recent analysis by the Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan nonprofit that focuses on the federal workforce. The CPSC firings come after the Trump administration dismissed other officials at independent agencies, including the vice chair of the National Transportation Safety Board this week and a member of the National Labor Relations Board in January.
Yahoo
25-05-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
Mark Johnson's attorney calls firing of former Channel 5 meteorologist 'unfounded'
An attorney representing Mark Johnson, the recently fired News 5 Cleveland WEWS meteorologist, called Johnson's firing "unfounded and disappointing," according to a statement obtained by 'Mark Johnson has built a distinguished reputation over three decades as a trusted and respected meteorologist in the community,' Daniel Levin of Prominent Brand + Talent said in the statement. 'His work has earned him the public trust and internal recognition and his performance evaluations have always been exemplary – consistently reflecting his dedication, reliability and value to Scripps and the WEWS family." Levin noted how community organizations and viewers have all appreciated Johnson's commitment to public service throughout the years, while also dismissing online speculation surrounding Johnson's firing. 'I have represented Mark for over 25 years,' Levin said in the statement. 'Mark is a model professional. Of conduct that would be deemed inappropriate, there's none of that.' Johnson's firing was announced by News 5 Cleveland on its website May 9. "We want our audiences to know that News 5 and its parent company, Scripps, take protecting our audiences' trust very seriously by requiring our employees to adhere to the highest ethical standards," Steve Weinstein, WEWS vice president and general manager, said in the statement. "We cannot provide further details, as this is a personnel matter.' Johnson joined News 5 in 1993 where he received Emmy Awards for his work in weather forecasting. He graduated from Kent State University in 1988, according to his LinkedIn profile. Reporter Anthony Thompson can be reached at ajthompson@ or on Twitter @athompsonABJ This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Former News 5 meteorologist Mark Johnson's attorney responds to firing
New York Times
25-05-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Why Is This Supreme Court Handing Trump More and More Power?
Since taking his second oath of office, President Trump has been on a firing spree. In violation of numerous laws or longstanding presidential practice (or both), he has ordered the removal of many high-level officials who normally retain their positions regardless of who is in the Oval Office. Some of these high-level officials have successfully challenged their removal in the lower courts. But on Thursday, in a case involving members of the National Labor Relations and Merit Systems Protection Boards, the Supreme Court quietly blessed some or all of these firings. In doing so, the court effectively allowed the president to neutralize some of the last remaining sites of independent expertise and authority inside the executive branch. The court sought to cast its intervention as temporary, procedural and grounded in considerations of stability, with the unsigned order noting concerns about the 'disruptive effect of the repeated removal and reinstatement of officers during the pendency of this litigation.' In truth, the decision was radical. Whatever one thinks about the underlying question of presidential authority, the court should not have disposed of the case this way. It effectively overruled an important and nearly century-old precedent central to the structure of the federal government without full briefing or argument. And it did so in a thinly reasoned, unsigned, two-page order handing the president underspecified but considerable new authority. Over the last four months, the legal world — and the country — has been plunged into chaos, and the Supreme Court bears a heavy dose of responsibility. Many of it decisions involving the presidency — including last year's on presidential immunity — have enabled the president to declare himself above the law. The court's latest order both enables the consolidation of additional power in the presidency and risks assimilating a 'move fast and break things' ethos into constitutional law. No modern president has ever come close to the large-scale personnel purges that we have seen under Mr. Trump, and for good reason: Many of the officials in question are protected by law from being fired at will by the president. Mr. Trump maintains that laws limiting the president's ability to fire high-level officials are unconstitutional. In making that argument, he is drawing on a series of recent Supreme Court opinions emphasizing the importance of presidential control over subordinate officials and invalidating removal limitations at agencies like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. But those recent decisions exist alongside another, older precedent, which until now has stood as a bulwark against any president's ability to lay waste to independent agencies: the Supreme Court's 1935 opinion in Humphrey's Executor v. United States. In that case, the court concluded that Congress could create expert agencies designed to enjoy a degree of independence from the president and could limit the president's ability to fire at will the leaders of such agencies. The court's recent unitary executive cases, with their expansive vision of presidential control, haven't formally overruled Humphrey's Executor. In fact, they stated explicitly that they were not 'revisit[ing] that case,' which involved an agency, the Federal Trade Commission, whose multi-member structure differed from the single-member leadership structure at issue in the court's recent cases. To be sure, the logic of the recent cases cast considerable doubt on Humphrey's Executor. But lower courts reviewing challenges to President Trump's firings have concluded that those firings are unlawful under existing precedent, applying Humphrey's Executor and leaving to the Supreme Court 'the prerogative of overruling its own decisions.' That's what happened in the challenges brought by Cathy Harris of the Merit Systems Protection Board and Gwynne Wilcox of the National Labor Relations Board, two agencies that look a lot like the F.T.C. Ms. Harris and Ms. Wilcox prevailed in their cases before U.S. District Courts and then the full D.C. Circuit. But last week the Supreme Court 'stayed' those lower court rulings protecting Ms. Harris and Ms. Wilcox, and permitted their firings to stand while the litigation proceeded. The court provided scant reasoning for its decision, though it hastened to add that nothing it said should be taken to cast doubt on 'the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors or other members of the Federal Open Market Committee' — a nakedly policy-driven effort to head off the prospect of President Trump making good on threats to fire Jerome Powell, the Fed chair. To be clear, I am not a fan of unitary executive theory, or of its proponents' singular fixation on the president's power to fire — a power the Constitution doesn't expressly give the president and one that I don't think history supports. Even if you disagree — even if you think that Article II's grant of 'the executive power' to the president includes the power to fire at will any high-level official in the executive branch — the court's disposition of the case sends a profoundly dangerous message to the White House. In firing officials like Ms. Harris and Ms. Wilcox, the administration acted in flagrant violation of statutes and in direct defiance of the Supreme Court. Handing the president a win here suggests that the administration did not need to abide by Congress's statutes or the Supreme Court's rulings as it sought to change legal understandings. Given the range of high-stakes legal questions pending before the courts — on questions ranging from the due process rights of migrantsto the termination of federal funds to the firing of civil servants — this decision risks emboldening the administration further to act outside of our traditional constitutional order. And it did so during a week when the administration has accelerated its assault on both norms and law — criminally charging a member of Congress, accepting a luxury Qatari jet and defending the president's lavish investor dinner that would have been unthinkable under the ethics guidelines of previous presidential administrations. In the past four months, the lower courts have done more than other government entities to respond to the chaos emanating from the Trump administration. They have enforced constitutional guarantees, required compliance with statutes and insisted on the force of the decisions of the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court, by contrast, has undermined lower courts seeking to protect the rule of law and emboldened an administration eager to trample it. You can see why White House lawyers could feel encouraged to advise Mr. Trump of the correctness of a claim he was once mocked for making: 'I have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president.' The court may believe that it retains the ultimate authority to check presidential lawlessness, even as it signs off on the elimination of many other constraints on presidential power. The danger is that by the time the court actually tries to exercise that authority, it may be too late.
