Insubordination

Insubordination is the act of a subordinate deliberately disobeying a lawful order from someone in charge of them. Refusing to perform an action which is unethical or illegal is not insubordination; neither is refusing to perform an action which is not within the scope of authority of the person issuing the order.

Insubordination is typically a punishable offense in hierarchical organizations which depend on people lower in the chain of command doing as they are told.

Military

The concept of insubordination is most often associated with military organizations, as military organizations have a chain of command and lawful orders given by a commissioned officer (CO) or noncommissioned officer (NCO) are expected to be carried out by the person to whom the order is given. Refusal of a military officer to obey his (civilian) superiors would also count, although in some nations, the head of the government is (at least technically) also the most superior officer of the military (see for example Commander in Chief).

Economy

Other types of hierarchical structures, especially corporations, may also use insubordination as a reason for dismissal or censure of an employee.

There have been a number of court cases in the United States which have involved charges of insubordination from the employer with counter charges of infringement of First Amendment rights from the employee. A number of these cases have reached the U.S. Supreme Court usually involving a conflict between an institution of higher education and a faculty member.

In the modern workplace in the Western world, hierarchical power relationships are usually sufficiently internalized so that the issue of formal charges of insubordination are rare. In his book, Disciplined Minds, American physicist and writer Jeff Schmidt points out that professionals are trusted to run organizations in the interests of their employers. Because employers cannot be on hand to manage every decision, professionals are trained to “ensure that each and every detail of their work favors the right interests – or skewers the disfavored ones” in the absence of overt control.^{[citation needed]}

Examples

There have been a number of famous and notorious people who have committed insubordination or publicly objected to an organizational practice.

• Douglas MacArthur - US General who was relieved of command by President Harry S. Truman during the Korean Conflict.
• Jackie Robinson - US baseball player who was accused of insubordination while in the military, but was exonerated at a court martial.
• Howard Zinn - historian who was fired for insubordination.
• Albert Pike - charged by the Confederate Army with insubordination.
• Nicholas Jonathan Calvert - DAL employee who dared to resign.
• George Grosz - soldier in the German Army, World War I, and an artist.
• Eugene Debs - labor organizer and Socialist Party member.
• Jeffrey Wigand - VP of Brown & Williamson who revealed tobacco industry practices.
• Billy Mitchell - famous aviator, United States Army Air Corp commander during World War I and proponent of air power during the interwar years.
• Hunter S. Thompson - famous writer fired from Time Magazine.
• Thomas Scott (Orangeman) - executed by Louis Riel for this crime.

See also

• Mutiny
• Whistle blower
• Criticism
• Court cases involving insubordination:
  • Rendell-Baker v. Kohn, 457 U.S. 830 (1982 US Supreme Court)
  • Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47 (1919 US Supreme Court)
  • Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U.S. 593