FAIRFAX, Va.—The woman forced to quit her job last fall after she was photographed giving Donald
Trump the finger sued her former employer Apr. 4. Juli Briskman, 50, a former marketing executive, charged that the government contractor Akima violated state employment law by penalizing her for political opinions expressed outside work. “Working for a company that does business with the federal government should provide you with greater opportunities, but it should never limit your ability to criticize that government in your private time,” she said in a statement. Briskman, who was riding her bicycle in the town of Sterling last October when Trump’s motorcade passed by, flashed the middle finger of her left hand at him, and photographs of it went viral. When she told her bosses at Akima, they forced her to resign, claiming that she had violated the company’s social-media policy by posting the picture on her personal Facebook page. Her lawsuit compares her fate to that of an Akima executive who called a Black Lives Matter supporter a “Libtard asshole” on Facebook, but was allowed to keep his job after he deleted the comment. Read more
