At will employee with due rights

[Nojobnoworries]

(Arkansas) Greetings! Recently, I took a job and signed an offer letter saying I was an " at will" employee and that I could be terminated "without reason or cause." However, in the employee handbook it states, "The School ensures that constitutional due process will be followed in all employee dismissals."

Therefore, am I entitled to due process before termination?

 

[ecmst12]

No, you are an at will employee.

 

[sandyclaus]

(Arkansas) Greetings! Recently, I took a job and signed an offer letter saying I was an " at will" employee and that I could be terminated "without reason or cause." However, in the employee handbook it states, "The School ensures that constitutional due process will be followed in all employee dismissals."

Therefore, am I entitled to due process before termination?

Does the handbook happen to define what they mean by "constitutional due process"?

Due process is the legal requirement that the state must respect all of the legal rights that are owed to a person. As an "at-will" employee, you don't have any specific rights other than not getting terminated for a reason that is contrary to law (i.e. discrimination due to belonging to a specific protected class).

As long as they honor that commitment (they are legally required to), then they could terminate you for any reason they see fit - such as the principal declaring that the sky is green and you contradict him by saying it's blue. That would be a perfectly legal reason for firing you. Not one that you'd necessarily agree with, but perfectly legal nonetheless.

 

[swalsh411]

That is a very dumb thing for them to put in their handbook, but it's not binding.

 

[cbg]

At will is the default. You're not at-will because it says so in the offer letter; you're at will because you didn't sign anything saying that you weren't. All employees in 49 out of 50 states, and some in the 50th, are at-will unless they have a legally binding contract, CBA or other signed document that says they're not.