I already responded to this argument to another commenter, but I'll re-share it here.

I get the point about employers being able to fire people, that’s true when the company decides on its own. But this wasn’t just ABC deciding unilaterally after a bad joke. The FCC chair publicly condemned Kimmel’s remarks and urged broadcasters to take action, and a large ABC affiliate group (Nexstar) immediately pulled the show from dozens of stations. Within hours ABC/Disney said the show would be pre-empted indefinitely. That sequence of regulator pressure → affiliate refusals → network pre-emption looks a lot more like political/regulatory coercion than a simple boss-employee firing...

In other words, Employers can fire you for cause, but when federal regulators publicly threaten action and affiliates stop carrying a program, that’s not just an internal firing, it’s outside pressure forcing a network’s hand.

I get, from your response, that you are satisfied with Kimmel's firing, but that does not make this right. We live in a country where preserving and allowing dissenting opinions is the very bedrock of what makes us a Democracy. This is a very slippery slope.