Legal Question in Civil Rights Law in South Dakota

Re: freedom of speech

South Dakota is an at will employment state which means that, absent a contract to the contrary, an employer can terminate the employment relationship at any time without resort to cause. There are prohibitions against firing people for reasons that violate public policy such as race discrimination, age discrimination, sex discrimination, etc. What you describe does not appear to fall into one of these categories. There are "whistle blower" statutes that prohibit retaliatory conduct by en employer when an employee points out misconduct, but again you do not appear to be describing this. What you say is that you were confronted with inappropriate scrutiny and were then discharged more or less in retaliation for expressing your opinion. Based upon this statement alone, without further clarification, it does not appear that you were discharged in violation of your civil rights, per se. You may have a cause of action for wrongful discharge if you have a contract of employment or if the employer has written employment policies that were violated when you were discharged.