There is something else to keep in mind which is that the government can evade the 1st amendment by pressuring companies to take action against speech it doesn’t like.
No, what you have described is a free speech violation and US courts have already addressed this point many times.
And you clearly misunderstand why hostile environment laws have survived First Amendment lawsuits. The government cannot interfere with the content of what someone says. But saying (or doing) something isn't just a form of communication--it can also be an act with non-communicative results. The government can regulate behavior, so long as it is agnostic to the communicative content accompanying that behavior.
I linked to an article by a law professor explaining the issues.
Courts cannot always address such issues anyway due to the doctrine of “standing”. For instance, government in the 90s pressured the video game industry to self regulate by establishing a rating system and prohibiting the sale of M rated games to minors in various chain stores. If the government themselves had passed such a law it would have been subject to lawsuit under the 1A, but because it was a voluntary action by the industry there is no one to sue (after all, by suing the industry who put these standards in place, one could say that you’re now violating their right to free speech and association!)
But to summarize it simply, the government cannot outlaw using a racial slur under common 1st amendment doctrine. However it can outlaw a company allowing an employee to use a racial slur in the workplace. While this is a good result (I don’t want to work somewhere where my coworkers use such slurs) it’s an interesting example of how the power of government is less limited by 1A than one might think at first.
Similarly, YouTube, Facebook, etc have been getting a lot of flack from the government lately over Russian bots, trolls, etc. Moves like these to boot InfoWars could be smart business to placate the Democrats who may soon be in power. Infowars has been awful trash for years, and plenty of awful stuff remains on their platforms after all.
However it can outlaw a company allowing an employee to use a racial slur in the workplace.
Nope, you're still not understanding. The government can't do that either, because that law would target the content of a communication. However, the law can prohibit companies from allowing employees to create hostile environments, however such environments arise, such as by making racial slurs or by trying to lynch their coworkers. The content isn't what matters--the behavior of creating the hostile workplace is what matters and what the government can regulate.
As I said--speech can be both speech and an action. Government can't regulate speech, but it can regulate the action part of the speech. This is, simply put, the concept of whether you can ban people from yelling "FIRE" in a crowded theater. (There are no laws against yelling fire in a crowded theater because that is of course illegal. There are laws against causing public panic, which is content-neutral, so it doesn't matter whether you yell FIRE, BOMB, or CARROTTOP.)
“Nope, you're still not understanding. The government can't do that either, because that law would target the content of a communication”
It can, because that communication would be considered to create a hostile work environment. The most recent nominee to the SCOTUS has noted he’d consider a single use of a particularly evil racial slur to qualify for the creation of said hostile environment. (“a single verbal (or visual) incident can likewise be sufficiently severe to justify a finding of a hostile work environment”)
Your response equates slurs (words) with lynching (an incredibly violent crime). Lynching is something the government can and does prohibit with laws directly, because it’s a violent action not covered by any interpretation of the 1A. Your example of “fire in a crowded theater” is another - a word directly designed to create violence and immediate physical damage to other people. Slurs, on the other hand, the government does not prohibit directly: judges would block jail or fines for speaking such as 1A violations. Instead, they order your company to take care of it by firing you under hostile environment laws.
If your argument equating hostile environments with behavior/action, not speech, were legally correct, then the government would be permitted by judges to regulate hostile environments directly by jailing citizens who create them by doing things like e.g. watching porn, speaking a racial slur, or discussing their sex lives. I doubt that a law doing such would pass constitutional muster in today’s courts (rightly or wrongly). Nevertheless the government has had success stamping out those behaviors by having the employer do it for them.
In general I’m wondering if we are simply speaking past each other. I thought I clearly recognized that hostile environment laws are considered OK by judges despite the 1A. My main point was to show that the government, when it can find such a legal justification, can generally exert more power than a naive understanding of the 1A might suggest.
No, what you have described is a free speech violation and US courts have already addressed this point many times.
And you clearly misunderstand why hostile environment laws have survived First Amendment lawsuits. The government cannot interfere with the content of what someone says. But saying (or doing) something isn't just a form of communication--it can also be an act with non-communicative results. The government can regulate behavior, so long as it is agnostic to the communicative content accompanying that behavior.