I'm an at-will employee meaning they can fire me for anything or no reason at all.

 

When I questioned where these policies were documented, I was met with a friendly "if you do not comply with policy, you may be terminated" email from the head of PR.

That is unfortunately what at-will employment means. It means you can "choose" whether or not to comply and they can then fire you if they don't like your choice. Yes, it gives the employer colossal power over the employee and is a major factor in all sorts of other American employment injustices, since it effectively negates all other rights in the employment context.

Tactically I think your options are:

1. Comply: personally this seems not too bad, you get free media training and the press call is "public" information anyway. I agree that "review" implies "change", but what specifically are you worried about changing unless it affects your employer?
2. Get back in the box: decide not to publish during your employment there, and wait it out. May not be viable depending on how long you expect to spend there and how sensitive it is
3. Publish and be damned: do it anyway, see if they fire you. May have longer term career implications.
4. Dissociate: convince them that the research is absolutely nothing to do with them and their name will never be mentioned in conjunction with yours. This very much depends on the nature of the research; from your other answers I think it might be infosec, and your current employer is in infosec as well? In which case this is very unlikely to work.

I'm an at-will employee meaning they can fire me for anything or no reason at all.

When I questioned where these policies were documented, I was met with a friendly "if you do not comply with policy, you may be terminated" email from the head of PR.

That is unfortunately what at-will employment means. It means you can "choose" whether or not to comply and they can then fire you if they don't like your choice. Yes, it gives the employer colossal power over the employee and is a major factor in all sorts of other American employment injustices, since it effectively negates all other rights in the employment context.

Tactically I think your options are:

1. Comply: personally this seems not too bad, you get free media training and the press call is "public" information anyway. I agree that "review" implies "change", but what specifically are you worried about changing unless it affects your employer?
2. Get back in the box: decide not to publish during your employment there, and wait it out. May not be viable depending on how long you expect to spend there and how sensitive it is
3. Publish and be damned: do it anyway, see if they fire you. May have longer term career implications.
4. Dissociate: convince them that the research is absolutely nothing to do with them and their name will never be mentioned in conjunction with yours. This very much depends on the nature of the research; from your other answers I think it might be infosec, and your current employer is in infosec as well? In which case this is very unlikely to work.