There is a huge difference between social pressure to quit for believing some humans are worth less than others, and the Government forcing you to quit because you made a minor comment on the stock exchange crash.
Do you think that it would somehow be better if the beliefs of people with power were not questioned?
No, people should be accountable for their opinions as well - you can't simply say that black people are stupid (in the John Derbyshire example) and expect that people won't get mad at you.
People might get mad at you. The board of directors might decide you're an embarrassment to the company, and golden-parachute you. But to impose some kind of angelic, super-human behavior requirements for top business leaders seems a bit naive. Quite a few of these hard charging types who made it to the top tend to have, shall we say, unpleasant personalities.
This is sort of a nit-pick, and also something I think is an important distinction. It's definitely aside from the point.
But that tree was tolerant at the end. That is exactly what tolerance means. Thats a very important distinction to me, because while it's all the law or government can ask of people, it misses the point that we are supposed to love our neighbors. The tree didn't open it's heart to people of different races, it didn't realize that the world is better when we love each other. All it did was tolerate.
But, in fairness, not as big as a leap as the OP from three unconnected people got fired for behaviours some people might consider to be a matter of conscience to people holding certain views are effectively barred from senior positions in the US.
In practice, the examples aren't very good: John Derbyshire was writing controversial material on race for years before National Review decided some of his articles in other publications were damaging their own reputation, at which point he promptly got a job at another publication that saw his extreme racism as an asset; Eich's resignation was extremely unusual and has the obvious counterexample of Kim Davis' job being well protected even when her political stance meant refusing to fulfil some of its requirements, and I'm not convinced that senior executives sometimes quitting over embarrassing revelations about their private life is really a sign that their employability is conditional on them holding certain sets of political views.
Do you think that it would somehow be better if the beliefs of people with power were not questioned?
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