In my opinion the N.F.L. was wrong to suspend Rice even if they have the legal right to do so.

Let me say, I think what Ray Rice did was morally repugnant and he should face consequences both social and legal. Still, the N.F.L. was wrong to suspend him and his team was wrong to cut him from the roster.

I say this because I do not think employers should police personal behavior not directly related to job performance. Only if Rice’s reprehensible behavior impinged upon his performance as a player should he be sanctioned by the league or the team. If a player’s behavior is such that his teammates don’t want to play with him, that impacts whether he can successfully do his job and so he should be sanctioned.
But in that case it is impaired job performance that is the basis of the sanction, not a moral judgment from the employer about what he did.

For the same reason I am against random drug testing by employers. If an employee’s job performance is not satisfactory, for whatever reason, then the employee should face the consequences. Random drug testing, however, puts the employer in the role of the police, which is wrong.

The same principle would apply to other behavior at work. If an employee spends so much time writing personal emails that it affects getting the job done, that is rightly an employer’s concern. The content of such emails should be of no concern to the employer even when composed and sent on computers owned the employer.

So, Ray Rice’s behavior with his wife was despicable, but private behavior should not mean job loss.