A few months ago I posted a comment on reports that the City of Philadelphia was disciplining several police officers who had allegedly made racially derogatory comments while driving around town in their squad car (accompanied by a journalism student from Temple, who made the comments public). It struck me then (and strikes me now) as very troubling as a matter of First Amendment law — though I was very surprised to find that most of the VC commenters didn't agree with me on that.
Now comes a related story involving the Domelights.com website, a popular Philly-based discussion website frequented by lots of Philly cops. [Additional commentary can be found here and here] The website operators (and the City of Philadelphia) have been sued by a group of African-American police officers (joined by the NAACP) on the grounds that the website is "infested with racist, white supremacist and anti-African-American content" and creates a "hostile work environment" in violation of federal civil rights laws. [The hostile work environment arises because, according to the suit, "white officers post on and moderate the privately operated site, Domelights.com, both on and off the job [and Domelights' users] often joke about the racially offensive commentary on the site ... or will mention them in front of black police officers," thus creating "a racially hostile work environment."]
Domelights.com has - perhaps only temporarily — shut down as a result of the suit (which is seeking a permanent injunction against operation of the site, and/or against any police officers posting to the site).
There are so many outrageous things about this suit I hardly know where to begin. Put aside the fact that the website is entirely privately operated, without any support or sanction from the City (which should allow the City to obtain dismissal of the claims against it). Put aside the fact that federal law (section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996) provides that "no provider . . . of an interactive computer service [like Domelights.com] shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider [the site's users]." The notion that a federal court could enjoin the operation of this site because police officers make racially insensitve/offensive comments there (and then other officers joke about those comments on-the-job) is Orwellian — surely this gets our collective First Amendment antennae vibrating, no? I'm no expert on federal civil rights law, but if it permits this suit to go forward it represents another very unfortunate nail in what is becoming a pretty tight coffin for First Amendment values in this country, and I genuinely despair of that.
[Full disclosure: I've been approached by the defendant Domelights.com in regard to this suit, and I am likely to be assisting in the defense, so I won't pretend to objectivity on this score]
Update: Thanks to Eugene V., here's a copy of the Complaint filed in this case
Also, shouldn't you be more concerned about the fact that obscenity isn't protected?
Doesn't leave much room for free thought, or the first amendment.
Well if you're too stupid to tell the difference between being at home and being at work, you're going to have a whole host of problems.
Yes the situation in Post's case is ridiculous, but it's just a case of overreaching lawyers, do we really want to go into the messy world of getting outraged that a case was filed?
Additionally, if the site is being used at work, from work systems, with the knowledge (and alleged participation) of management, then there's certainly a hostile-work-environment case.
The allegations certain seem to warrant some investigation.
Doesn't Philadelphia have enough problems without going out and creating more? Reading news about Philly and cops it would almost seem as if the entire existing organization needs to be tossed and start over with entirely new personnel.
As for 1A issues, I would make the claim that employers should be free to fire people for any statements made that run counter to the employer's goals, even when that employer is the government. You want freedom, be your own boss.
If the officers are posting on the website while on the job, I would think the obvious solution is to simply block the site from the department's computers.
#1 It's not a case of over reaching lawyers. It's cases of over reaching laws.
#2 PC isn't a problem in the home, it's a problem outside the home. Duh.
#C PC does qualify as a whole host of problems. Your objection answers itself.
#4 "Stupid" is code for "black." You are a racist bigot.
Re: #4. So Obama was criticizing the police department for acting "blackly"?
The job of a police officer is to uphold the law. The fundamental law of the land, the Constitution, includes the right of people of all races to equal protection and treatment. A person who has an ideological commitment against this right is not qualified to serve as a police officer -- any more than a pacifist is qualified to serve as an artilleryman, or a pyromaniac is qualified to serve as a firefighter, or a Marxist is qualified to serve as head of the SEC.
This does not mean that police officers must believe in equal protection, or make it a point of faith. A police officer who is agnostic towards equal protection, but agrees to practice it, is qualified. But a police officer who is ideologically committed to rejecting equal protection and refusing to practice it is not.
Translation -- the police officer's contract makes us unable to control our own officers so sue the only person without a union to protect them.
The officer's (alleged) unprofessionalism on the job, the police dept's unwillingness to put its house in order and the plaintiff's dangerous misunderstanding of where to put the blame. Add to that the city (not sure if it's the executive and/or the council who wields this power), for wasting the court's time instead of installing a new police brass that can maintain a modicum of discipline in the ranks.
This is disgusting all the way through.
One can't help but notice you missed a category -- the ideologically committed white supremacist that conforms in practice to the Law of the Land even where he disagrees with it.
I know plenty of cops that disagree with all manner of laws* but insist that neither they nor the public at large are authorized to second guess the will of The People.
*Disagree on policy grounds but concede that the law is a (stupid) exercise of the legislature's legitimate powers.*
Because non-offensive speech hardly needs protection. The whole concept of freedom of speech revolves around how we treat the speech that we most wish would shutup, not the least.
Is that good enough to go forward?
They probably shouldn't be tax lawyers for the IRS, at least on a level of basic competence.
However, the site itself is not part of the workplace. If sexist officers posted pictures from Playboy at work, that might create a hostile environment for women but is no ground for an injunction against publication of Playboy, even if some of the officers were photographers for Playboy.
Perhaps none of you has read Domelights. Here is an article from Philadelphia Weekly that quotes from a number of its posts. I see quite a number that, on their merits, strongly merit First Amendment protection.
Troll_dc2, are you being sarcastic? I can't quite tell.
Why is it that all the newer Volokh Conspiracy comment trolls aren't funny? I miss the old days.
BTW--Phila. has had black mayors and black police commissioners for quite a while now.
cnn/2009/images/07/17/civil.complaint.pdf
I split up the link to get it to post.
Sarcastic? No way. What I meant was that in addition to the comments like "“they” Are animals plain and simple" (which is protected but not very useful), there are comments like: "Enough is enough already. Get up on your own 2 feet and stop acting like you deserve anything from anybody.You don’t. And, while we’re waiting, maybe you can sweep up in front of your houses. Poverty doesn’t mean you have to live like pigs. And tell tamika to stop having 6 kids by 4 different fathers by the time she’s 22. That might help too. Just because a guy winks at ya girlfriend, don’t mean you gotta spread you legs. ‘specially when ya ain’t got a pot to p*ss in already." What officers see when they are responding to calls is important information that the community should have.
I was so upset about the lawsuit that I contacted Prof. Volokh several days ago to suggest that this topic get its own blog.
Now tell me again why I appeared sarcastic?
The first twist is that the subject is race. The city is badly divided on race. Race is an incredibly sensitive subject. The tendency of the ACLU in recent years has been to go beyond mere civil liberties and get into substance, sometimes to the point of favoring equality over free speech.
The second twist is that this is a quasi-workplace case. As we all know, Title VII forbids discrimination in the terms and conditions of employment, which means that you have a right not to be subjected to a racially hostile work environment. As Prof. Volokh well knows, there have been cases involving comments, posters, magazines, pictures, and the like. But what about a privately operated Web site? It was accessible from city computers (but no more). What is the law with respect to private computers? Is it relevant that the site was run by a police officer?
But so far as I know the lawsuit does not involve Title VII or the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act, although perhaps the administrative processes have started with those laws.
The ACLU will have to choose between supporting free speech that is racially insensitive and deciding that the need to battle what it views as racism is more important.
You betcha. There is no reason at all not to ridicule people for seeking an un-Constitutional remedy for having their feelings hurt.
Why no mention on this site of the more obvious and newsworthy First Amendment violations in Cambridge? (See Lewis v. City of New Orleans (striking a law which prohibiting use of “obscene or opprobrious language” to police officers); City of Houston v. Hill (finding that the prosecuting a man for yelling at a police officer violates the First Amendment).
Because this blog is about Philadelphia.
It is not the government that is seeking the injunction here. But I don't think that private parties should get them either.
Did you even bother to read the opening post?
"I've been approached by the defendant Domelights.com in regard to this suit, and I am likely to be assisting in the defense, so I won't pretend to objectivity on this score"
No, but it might want to remark on whether the yelling is justified. It's not disorderly conduct to yell loudly if you're being mugged.
Great, so a klansman can walk by my house in full getup, and if I yell sufficiently loud, "you racist SOB!" Said klansman can then change out of his klan uniform and into his cop uniform walk on to my property and arrest me?
It's nice to live in a free country.
"It is not the government that is seeking the injunction here. But I don't think that private parties should get them either."
But the private parties are relying on the government for enforcement. Isn't this the line of argument used by SCOTUS in Shelley v. Kraemer?
My point was that it was not necessary to believe in equality, but it was necessary not to have an ideological commitment to reject equality. In other words, I said the exact opposite of what you claimed I said.
A firefighter doesn't have to believe that fire is bad. But he has to not be a pyromaniac.
An artilleryman doesn't have to love war. But he has to not be a staunch pacifist who will refuse to shoot. A staunch pacifist is not qualified to be an artilleryman.
And a law enforcement officer doesn't have to believe in equality under the law. But if he believes in the opposite -- if he believes that the law should treat black people as inferiors, for instance, -- then he is unqualified for the job.
"Either all mammals are cats, or no mammals are cats." (In reality, only some mammals are cats.)
"Either you believe that there is a God, or you believe that there is no God." (In reality, some people are uncertain, agnostic, or have never heard of the idea of God.)
"Either you support the President or you support the terrorists." (In reality, some people oppose the terrorists but disapprove of the President's response to them.)
"Either you are a white supremacist, or you are a black supremacist." (In reality, many people are not supremacists of any sort.)
"Either yarfles are necessarily snoggulous, or yarfles are necessarily non-snoggulous." (It's perfectly possible that yarfles are not necessarily either snoggulous or non-snoggulous.)
Or, as in the old Irish joke, "Are you a Protestant atheist or a Catholic atheist?"
Yes. I agree that they should not get the injunction. I simply pointed out that the government is not a plaintiff, as you seemed to suggest.
Nice posts, that gave a lot to think about.
If this message board is so intertwined with their physical workplace and communications that it becomes an integral social component of the police department, they might have a point. Take, for example, if someone put a bunch of harassing messages in a shared google document - it's an online, off-work forum, but it still impacts your work environment.
But what do you mean by "a bunch of harassing messages"? Clearly, if the messages are targeted at your colleagues, they might be actionable. But what if they are only about other members of the ethnic group to which those colleagues belong? So far as I am aware, the Domelight comments were not about fellow police officers. Correct me if I am wrong.
Calling something a "harassing message" is a conclusion. But who decides what is "harassing"? What is the difference between a "harassing" offensive message and a "non-harassing" offensive message? Can an employee bring about the censorship of a fellow employee--just because he does not like the message--by complaining that he is being "harassed"?
Sometimes, as here, labels hide issues.
A department infected by racism (or similar divisions) is severely compromised. Police officers depend on other officers to protect their lives, and trust -- including trust of officers you may never have met -- is essential. In countless circumstances, an officer can expose another officer to grave danger without departing the reasonable range of conduct. An officer known to be a bigot is compromised in both directions (providing and receiving necessary and expected backup).
There also is the issue of whether an employer should (or must) tolerate an employee who detests, for no legitimate reason, the customers.
Until further notice, all Domelights.com services (i.e. forums, galleries, blogs) have been suspended. Thank you. McQ
I agree that the First Amendment should protect both the virtual KKK meeting hall Domelight.com and its cyber-white sheeted denizens from both lawsuits and government censorship of their odious but otherwise non-libelous speech. But if they ever target specific persons with their comments, a libel suit would be in order, depending on what they said.
I also think that sunlight is the best disinfectant.
Identifying these wannabe grand wizards and publishing their names and ranks along with their particular statements would be a public good. The First Amendment would also protect anyone making truthful statements as to their identities. And it may not not that difficult to identify them.
I've noticed for too long that those I like to term "anti-racists" always quickly grow tiresome with engagement. They pretend to win debates and arguments by simply exhausting the other side with moralistic outrage and tirade. How closely do these officers' comments approximate the Truth, despite the harsh or callous language they may use? That has long been my benchmark for "racism", that utterly debased word, and it will remain so despite all your hyperventilation. I, alongside respected political scientists such as Charles Murray, also believe that the excesses of the modern Welfare State do diminish the moral instincts of Man, yes, to become closer to that of Beasts. We may express that idea in our couched and verbose way, possibly above these officers' capabilities, but they also have the right to at least think what they may in private fora, despite the unsuitability of that language at your cocktail parties. In any case, if you don't allow these men a forum to air their views safely, they will stew in that mentally stifling air until something more malignant, and possibly more dangerous, arises.
Please. These examples are all acts of commission, not thought-crime. When said officers act inconsistent with the Fourteenth, hold them to judgment; and yes, "acting" also includes dissembling their views widely in public fora. Until that's so, they are guilty of absolutely nothing, and should be treated as such.
A case in point is Frank Abagnale Jr., of Leonardo di Caprio's Catch Me If You Can fame. Having lived by theft and swindle for most his life, once he was finally caught, and after having paid back his debts to his debtors, he choose to employ his trade for the good guys by establishing a legitimate fraud-detection business that aided the very banks and FBI agents he had once tricked. Seeing that he still gives paid appearances relegating his exploits, and chose to sign off on a movie based his life-story, I'd venture that he still regards his old deeds as nothing more than good idle fun, though they probably appear to most staid citizens as obviously illegal - thus wrong. Despite this wretched thought-crime, to my knowledge he has not been prosecuted and still enjoys his freedom.
Not to worry though, you should buck up. Perhaps the time will come yet for your skilled Pre-Cognition; the future rapidly approaches.
No, it doesn't. It's a doctrine to prevent tyranny. But what does liberty to criticize our government have to do with racist invective toward our co-workers?
i have to agree here. agencies have immense discretion during the hiring and probationary phase. but once an officer passes those hurdles, there is no way that a dept. should be able to punish them for BELIEFS. if that isn't thoughtcrime (tm), nothing is. they should be punished for ACTIONs.
i think that's a pretty simple philosophy, that works.
i also agree with all manner of laws, but i still enforce them. i twhiink the war on domestic violence and the war on drugs have given govt. WAY too much power. but if i catch a guy with a protection order and a gun, i arrest him for VUFA.
no sentient police officer agrees with every law on the books.
I wonder what will happen when the suing officers find out what's in the Koran and the other Muslim scriptures.
It's not a thought crime because being fired from your job isn't a criminal sanction.
disqualified how? you can suggest all you want, but deal with reality. cops, once they pass probation (at least where i work) have strong civil service protections.
you can't require a cop to take a urinalysis, because he advocates for drug legalization, for example.
and you don't punish officers for BELIEFS. that is simply abhorrent.
how does holding white supremacist beliefs (or black supremacist beliefs) DISQUALIFY a guy from being a police officer. if his ACTIONS show he is qualified, that's what matters. i work with people who have diagnosed mental illnesses. as long as those illnesses are controlled by medication, and it doesn't affect their BEHAVIOR, the dept. can't touch them. this is no different.
la raza is arguably supremacist. do we fire a cop for being a member? how about the black panthers? do you really want to go there?
i don't arrest people for their beliefs. we don't fire cops for their beliefs. this is a free country for pete's sake.
i was waiting for a comment like that. it's analogy. but regardless, it takes (as it should ) a LOT of due process to fire a cop, a certain standard of evidence, we have right to appeal (at least where i work - to an arbitrator, etc.).
firing a cop is not a political sanction, but it is a very big thing. we go through metric buttloads of background checks, polygraphs, psych tests, probation period, credit checks, etc. etc. but once we prove we can do the job, the burden switches. the dept. needs a lot more than an officer's beliefs to fire them. am i concerned about supremacist cops? of course. do i think it would be a better world if no supremacist cops were on the job? of course. but due process and freedom matters a hell of a lot more than that.
we don't fire cops for what they believe. we fire them for what they DO.
fwiw, i have no problem with a biology teacher, who teaches evolution, disbelieving in evolution. as long as they can TEACH it, i could not care less what their personal views are.
And with the number of stories printed where police officers get their jobs back perhaps those civil service protections are a bit much. Some departments even criminal convictions and guilty pleas to perjury aren't enough.
"No, it doesn't. It's a doctrine to prevent tyranny. But what does liberty to criticize our government have to do with racist invective toward our co-workers?"
There is no hate speech exception to the First Amendment. It protects all speech short of the that which would cause immediate harm. Preventing tyranny is only one of the many benefits of free speech.
A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. The best way to protect all speech is to protect that speech which is offensive and least popular. Two cheers for hate speech. Show me a place filled with satire, ridicule, invective, offense etc, and I know that place enjoys freedom.
depends on the agency. i know two guys in my agency who got their job back because they SHOULDN'T have been fired in the first place. and thank god for due process, and the civil service protections.
in one case, a guy was fired for an alleged dv. without even being convicted, etc. the case was thrown out at second hearing, and further investigation revealed the ultra-feminist dv advocate pressured the alleged "victim" to change her story (which was pretty clear from the beginning).
he got a year of back pay plus estimated overtime, plus a nice settlement. as he should have. the dept. was punished for jumpin' the gun, and ignoring due process.
of course there are some cops that should be fired, who aren't. just like there are some guys who should have been found guilty, but aren't.
our system is the worst out there, except for all the other ones.
and the reason why cops need such strong protection is that by the very nature of their job they are mandated to often take actions that make people very pissed off (like shooting people, arresting people, etc.), and thus they are naturally the targets of malicious complaints, false complaints, etc. like few other professions are.
we are paid to run towards crises, whereas most people run away (much like a repo man, but i digress).
so yea, we expect due process, and fairness before we're fired.
we had one officer who got a dui (in another jurisdiction,) pled guilty and then continued to go to work and drive his police car with his suspended license.
HE was fired. as he should have been. it's one thing to screw up. it's another thing to come to work every day knowing you are going to break the law. and keep plugging away.
Given the amount of criticism of the current government that gets mischaracterized as "racist invective", rather a lot.
To make a pre-technology analogy, this seems to me like making a claim of HWE because you're just sure that some of the racist grafitti you read on the bathroom wall in a different city was written by one of your coworkers.
Are they seriously going to ask the court for an order that cops cannot post their thoughts online, even anonymously, from their own home, on their own time?
AYAK ?
I expect the plaintiffs' attorneys to back off from this at some point. A complaint is just the first blunderbuss statement of a plaintiff, trying to raise everything that can be thought of so as to protect the plaintiff's case as it evolves.
But I have another problem with the case, namely, whether anyone can be sued other than the city, the police department, and the police commissioner. If this were a Title VII case, the police officer who maintains the site and the officers who post on it could not be sued because they are not employers. Is there an employer requirement for suing under Sec. 1981? Even if not, the statute is enforced through Sec. 1983, but are the officers acting under color of law when they post on the site or when they maintain it? I doubt it. So what about a conspiracy under Sec. 1985? Anyone can be sued, and the officers can be said to have conspired, but the statute requires that the conspiracy be "for the purpose of depriving, either directly or indirectly, any person or class of persons of the equal protection of the laws, or of equal privileges and immunities under the laws . . ." So the conspiracy claim seems unlikely as well.
I have my doubts about the lawsuit against the officers. If I were the plaintiffs' attorney, I would try to add a state-law claim for something.
Twenty officers in a 100-officer department despise everyone of Italian descent. They point out that Italian-Americans were classified as non-white by statute less than a century ago, and advocate revival of that statute. The 'police-friendly' bar closest to a station house posts a "your dog is welcome, but leave your dago at home" sign. Some officers, using their names, post on a website that "not an ocean of dago blood could be worth a single drop of real officers' blood" and "I guess our country has fallen to where the mayor can force us to work with wops, but no one can make us consider them real human beings" and "when I heard that officer X was seen at a restaurant with an Italian, I couldn't help but think that the ragheads might be on to something with that stoning business." The anti-Italian officers are civil and professional in dealings with Italian officers during work hours but refuse to acknowledge the presence of any Italian off the clock.
Should an officer whose parents emigrated from Italy be comfortable with a bigoted officer as a partner? Required to accept the assignment? Expected to rely on a bigoted officer for life-or-death backup? Should a bigoted officer supervise the Italian officer, or vice versa? What if the bigoted officer objects to relying on the Italian officer for backup, claiming a concern the bigotry issue might cause the Italian officer to flinch?
Liberal drivel.
He can believe the world should be any way at all, so long as he understands, and acts on, the way the world actually is. Why are his beliefs about what should be relevant to his job qualifications?
Should an officer whose parents emigrated from Italy be comfortable with a bigoted officer as a partner? Required to accept the assignment? Expected to rely on a bigoted officer for life-or-death backup? ...
According to the scenario, the anti-Italian officers are civil and professional in dealings with Italian officers during work hours. Therefore, they are (according to your own scenario) perfectly reliable for life or death backups, among other things.
Since the complaint is now linked, how about you comment on it rather than a hypothetical. I read the items of alleged "racist" commentary, and it is bogus. If that is racist commentary, then mentioning that blacks commit murder at a higher rate than whites, as the Dept of Justice stats show, must be racist.
This really is nothing but people with their panties in a bunch.
Perhaps this will remain "liberal drivel" until population trends and Republican failures return conservatives to fringe group status (think 1960s-70s), and "no Republican or conservative deserves to live" becomes the avowed position of most police officers on a force. Conservatives' response to that situation might make their current whining about academia. the "mainstream" media, and mainstream awards (Pulitzer, Nobel) seem quaint.
Or maybe this is not merely "liberal drivel." Was it not Secretary of Defense Weinberger who enacted measures to rid the American military of those who participated in advancement of "supremacist causes?"
I still would appreciate whit's thoughts. A police bureau (and the supervising municipality) must address these issues in a practical, sensible manner in a context of risk, liability and life-or-death situations.
The complaint doesn't identify the sergeant who founded and moderates Domelights, but a training officer from another department was familiar with this issue, said it had been discussed in his department, and told me a few minutes ago that identity of the moderator is known throughout the Philadelphia department.
He said this situation is causing a major problem. For example, the sergeant's susceptibility to retaliation could limit the work to which he could be safely be assigned. He also said he understands someone outside the department has expressed an intent to operate a website identifying the Domelights regulars -- complete with shifts, station assignments, car numbers and badge numbers -- and that the command staff fears escalation and therefore wants to defuse this situation.
The speech issues strike me as complicated. To what degree are police officers entitled to engage in bigoted speech? To what degree is an officer entitled (or permitted) to special treatment if his speech creates a risk (or at least a perception of risk) of retaliation? To what degree are citizens entitled publish the identities and whereabouts of police officers?
1) he can be comfortable or uncomfortable with whomever he likes, for any reason. and fwiw, dept's routinely honor requests by certain officers not to work with others based on all sorts of criteria. in some cases, it's because the officers want to date, and thus it would be inappropriate to work a beat car together. in brief, this isn't about feelings. it's about depriving people of 1st amendment rights
2)unless you can show some evidence that a bigoted officer has ACTED in a certain way, what they believe is irrelevant. period. ONCE they get off probation.
But nothing of that sort was identified in the complaint as racist. I would like to know your opinion about what was called racist in that complaint. Simply put "where's the beef"?
Look, I don't doubt that the Phillie PD has major problems - the drug squad has been shaking down minority owned businesses for one. What I don't see, in the complaint, is evidence of bigotry or racism - although I was amused that "White Supremacist Organization" got that unusual capitalization.
Just so people know where I stand, I don't think the plaintiffs have any justifiable claim against domelights, but if the complaint is correct (posting at work, moderating at work, reading racist comments at work), then the Philly PD has a hell of a problem. As for other questions brought up, I have no problem if a municipality fires a cop for their beliefs, provided there are no unions/contracts protecting them (that's why we have unions/contracts). I think a municipality SHOULD fire those who are racist/bigoted whatever during the probationary period, especially if they will be working with the population they are racist/bigoted against. Whether or not the comments complained of in the complaint are racist, I don't know because I haven't read it yet.
Tell, please what questions about beliefs you would authorize propesctive employers to as job applicants. Beliefs, not histories of personal conduct?
Taking the facts in the allegation as true (I'm assuming we are arguing for/again summary dismissal at this stage in the game), these officers ACTED by posting to and discussing domelight's board while on duty.
Pretty thin gruel IMO. Particularly as the following paragraphs never point to any discussion of black PPD officers. Again, just from my reading, I didn't see anything that supports the claims of racism or from the discussion threads quoted, a hostile work environment.
Wouldn't you throw something juicy into the complaint filing if you had it? Or are you hoping to spring it later?
Come, tell us how you would prevent such an officer from being issued a badge (7/25 6:00 PM). You may wait for the sausage and all that, but say how you are proposing to achieve your version of the necessary result--in a constitutional manner. You have expressed much dismay and emotion, but not more than that. Posing qquestions doesn't cut it. I'll go with Whit and Cato.
Did it ever dawn on you that the officer may not have felt this way when he got the badge, but constant dealing with the dregs of humanity (of all colors, lest I be branded also), may have helped make the officer that way?
It's so easy from a keyboard to make judgments. Just walk in a cop's shoes for a week - maybe you'll think differently.
Does anyone object to displeased citizens charting those officers' names, addresses, family members, badge numbers, car numbers, shift assignments, vehicle tags, and other information on websites? That seems a natural and probable consequence of permitting bigots to infect a police department, and one likely to generate "much dismay and emotion" among those who defend bigoted speech by police officers but may not be so keen on informative and truthful speech by non-uniformed citizens. The first time a Domelights regular (or the regular's spouse) were stopped at a store, or on the sidewalk outside the officer's home, by someone expressing disapproval of Domelight's racist content, would the unattractive consequences of certain forms of expression become less tolerable? I have seen police officers petition to have all officers' information removed from an assessment database, or to have the entire database removed from the Internet, on the grounds that officers require special protection.
I continue to believe that bigots create difficult and varied questions concerning freedom of expression, particularly in the law enforcement context. Claims of entitlement to engage in speech are attenuated, in my judgment, when the bigoted conduct occurs on duty, or is directed at fellow officers.
Perhaps the opportunity to walk in a black officer's shoes for a week -- perhaps those of the officer recently described on Domelights as deserving gang-rape, for example -- might incline I Callahan to think somewhat differently.
P.S. Can anyone explain why the plaintiffs -- who plainly know the identity of the sergeant who founded and moderates Domelights -- refrained from naming him in the complaint? Is there a litigation advantage to keeping him nameless? Two minutes of Internet research indicated that the sergeant whose name I was given (by an officer from a department hundreds of miles away) publicly disclosed his connection to Domelights at one point several years ago, so why a secret?
And note that this doesn't have to meet Title VII standards for "harassment"; the question is whether the speech is protected under the First Amendment given the cases cited above. Based on my skimming of the facts, it appears to be a close and interesting case.
I am aware of those decisions (and others), but this is not a case in which the employer is seeking to take measures, or has taken them, against employees who claim free-speech rights. Rather, this is one group of public employees against another group of public employees and their public common employer. The underlying principles certainly apply (in that a court is being asked to punish employees for exercising their claimed free-speech rights), but this is a statutory case, and, as I have posted above at 7-26/10.53 a.m. (I wish each comment were numbered so that one could refer to a previous one mor easily.), there is a serious question as to whether a cause of action has even been stated against the writers of the offensive material.
As stated previously, blacks and other minorities frequently don't have the economic resources that other people have. Consequently, blacks may not be able to keep their vehicles inspected, registered and roadworthy. Poor minorities are also forced to drive older cars that are more prone to breakdown--further drawing the attention of the police.
***
Police Officers often stop vehicles after observing traffic violations for the purpose of investigating something else--like a recent crime. If there is a pattern of liquor store robberies in a given area involving two black males driving a blue van, you can be reasonably certain that most blue vans occupied by black males that drive through the area will be stopped.
***
[T]he minority areas, many of which are plagued with crime, have many more cops doing what cops are demanded to do by the community--maintaining order and safety. Unfortunately, this sometimes results in "over policing." Admittedly, "over policing" is inconvenient if you happen to be the black male who gets stopped once a week, every week, on your way to your job on the graveyard shift....
I was expecting something a little more...well, racist.
Perhaps one side effect of this lawsuit is that we will start to have a serious conversation on race after all. The quoted statements could come out of a sociology class.
Race is a painful subject for most people; they don't know how to talk about it. Maybe they will learn through incidents like this one, so long as honest conversation is encouraged. Unfortunately, that is quite a caveat.
Fair points all. I was reacting to some of the comments (a police department should/shouldn't be able to discipline employees for. . . ) but you are right about what the suit is actually about.
I apologize. My posting name is one that I use on a hockey message board. I have a background in employment-discrimination law, and my job frequently required me to analyze controversial subjects for a audience that included both plaintiff and defense lawyers.
I will try to be more troll-like in the future.
You bruising for a fight? I'm a Caps fan (but I do my postings on a Penguins message board).
On a more serious note, I post the way I do because I found out a long time ago that it improved my chances of being believed. I was trained not to rely on adjectives and adverbs and to consider understatement as a useful tool. My goal is to persuade or, failing that, to explore where the fault lines are and why they exist. I don't see the point of posting just to rant.
Back on topic, it's a weird, IMHO, to sue the website as well as the employer.
I suspect that the attorneys wanted to get the lawsuit filed as quickly as possible and decided to worry about the niceties later. Besides, naming the Web site gave the case a higher profile.
I personally believe that black officers have it tougher. They have to witness the worst humanity has to offer, and still try to justify it with their own people, who, thanks to hucksters like Jackson, Sharpton, and Skippy Gates, don't trust the police at all. I especially feel sorry for the poor guy that had to defend his fellow officer over the Gates thing. I'd hate to be him and have to go to family functions and discuss that one.
That being said, your argument is a straw man. Stick to the commenter that talked about "zookeepers". That was your original complaint. You haven't addressed that one.
I AM a Protestant atheist just as Heiner Mueller was an orthodox marxist personifying christian guilt in every play he wrote (and admitting the odd coincidence in some incidental verse with nothing but a note of curiousity)
Since when have thought and deed so much become disjoined? Is this an American thing? If the law required not 'interpretation' would you have judges? Do you have judges? If a white supremicist is supposed to act to enforce a law he/she interprets somewhat differently, what then?
I may just be a silly German, but I can't help but thinking that the very people who executed the Nürnberg trials sometimes forget the stakes and the gravity of the very real unity of speech and action.
my understanding is that that was in question. regardless, i agree. IF the officers could be shown to have done this while on duty, they could be punished. i would argue that such misconduct generally is NOT a firable offense. a 2 or 3 day suspension maybe, unless the officer has priors of the same offense.
fwiw, our internet policy allows us to check email, and use the internet in general ON DUTY even for personal reasons, as long as it does not negatively affect our ability to do our job or bring disrepute on the dept. iow, you can't look at pr0n sites while on duty (or from a dept. computer), but it's perfectly fine to check email, post on blogs, etc.
a neighboring agency had a big brouhaha when several officers forwarded jokes that some administrator found offensive, USING dept. email and on dept. time. iirc, the primary offensive jokes were video clips of the dave chappelle show.
i tell recruits, that if they have ANY doubt as to propriety - use PERSONAL email, not dept. email.
this is NOT germany. we have MUCH greater freedom in regards to speech than you do.
in the US, there is (theoretically) no such thing as criminal hate speech. people can legally deny the holocaust, and use racially offensive speech that would land one in jail in canada, germany, france, etc.
iow, yes there is a difference. we have a 1st amendment and these protections are MUCH broader than in recognized in almost any country on earth.
In a country like Germany, with a fairly well laid out foundational law, it is nevertheless, after the hell of the second world war, necessary to 'police' even speech in order to protect it. That includes the speech of the police.
most black officers i know are WAY more offended by the likes of sharpton, jackson et al than white officers for obvious reasons. and they are also prone to, when arresting black people, or questioning them, pleas to give special treatment cause like they are both black, etc. i see this all the time. cops only come in one color - blue (well, apart from deputies who are green and some other agencies that use different colors, but you get the point).
i have little doubt that if gates acted the way with a black officer that he acted with crowley, that he would have been arrested too. whether gates would have been such a horse's ass with a black officer is another question entirely. i am not sure to what extent his idiocy was due to classism vs. racism, so it's tough to say. needless to say if gates was white, he still would have been arrested. the whole racial angle in this case is wholly an invention of gates and his paranoia. i also note that if gates was TRULY afraid of the evil white police officer, then his behavior is completely inconsistent. if you were afraid of somebody, would you repeatedly insult and harass them with racially incendiary language "ill see your mama on the porch" etc.? of course not. so, i see no evidence that gates truly was afraid of how he would be treated, "as a black man". i see a guy who attempted to intimidate a white officer, believing that if he played the race card, the officer would slink off and leave him alone. gates lost that gambit.
That is a matter of power and not an amendment as your history (until the the middle of the 60s) demonstrate. The law is always subject to interpretation and grants rights (and withholds them) in a capricious fashion.
The only freedoms I enjoy very much in Germany are not being subject to your 'Homeland Security' laws and the amazing arbitrary and unconstitutional behaviour (unchecked, I might add) of your executive.
B
you fail to make a critical distinction. agencies can (and do) use extremely invasive investigative techniques and scope when investigating APPLICANTS. the difference is can they invade privacy (and yes, officers have privacy too), and make determinations based on beliefs/memberships, etc. AFTER hiring and probation.
there is a huge difference between the two circumstances. officers who apply voluntary agree to extremely invasive medical and personal information to be gathered. but once an officer is off probation and enjoys civil service protection, the agency must have a very good reason to investigate an officer AT ALL, and the officer enjoys all sorts of due process protection, etc.
when i applied, i had to take intelligence tests, psychological assessments (MMPI, rorshach, etc.), physical tests (treadmill stress test, strip down naked before a doctor, etc.), background tests (credit, etc.) drug tests, polygraph tests, etc.
NONE of those tests/methods can be mandatorily imposed on w/o cause now, w/o certain thresholds being met. some cannot be used AT ALL (polygraph) without my consent.
iow, they are two completely disanalogous situations. you judge an officer based on what they have done as an officer. you judge a candidate on a much broader basis, and also they HAVE no experience as an officer to look at (unless they are a lateral, but i digress)
no, it's a matter of rule of law, etc. unless you believe in a very "living constitution". the history of our country shows a constant and neverended barrage of govt. attempts to limit speech, and a steady rebuff of such attempts by the courts, DUE TO THE 1ST amendment.
your country has no such protection.
nor does canada, for instance. trust me, just take a trip to any # of liberal sites. there are LOTS of people who strongly advocate for hate speech laws here. they are simply unconstitutional though
get real. as a german citizen you enjoy less personal freedom than we do. period. do you really want to compare search and seizure, speech laws, exclusionary rules, etc. between germany and the USA?
cmon.
I just read the international red cross report (previously secret) on your treatment (since not subject to your constitution, hardly to it's amendments) of ... hmmm, what are they exactly. Combatants let's call them. You do. A preference for executive power (very German, that) INSTEAD of honoring the founding fathers (not saying the fathers had all the answers) seems to be the the lesson of the past decade.
But the, American legal exceptionalism is well known throughout the world.
As far as my personal freedom. Funny. I also have a Canadian Passport and I feel no fear of the prospect of traveling in Europe or in Canada (or even Mexico, Cuba, etc), but I do fear the exceptional way that both the sovereign and international legal principles are simply abrogated by America's executive.
Nevertheless, I enjoy learning what there is to be learned from the Oliver Wendell Holmes your system has produced.
It is very probable that you cannot name a legal scholar outside of your national scope. Or?
Finally, read the claim. It has merit enough (pictorial depiction of Blacks as the killer) if only to debunk. Obviously enough bad blood at the office to spark the action unless the Phili Chapter of the National Black Police Association is some sort of 'front'.... Whether it is true that posting to domelight at work to took place etc has to be decided by presenting evidence. Or did I overlook some technicality of your system (oh, my, war on terror, geneva convention be damned)...
Among your many irrelevant comments, this one stands out for me. We don't worry too much about legal scholars at all, whether they are in this country or elsewhere. The reason is that courts in this country almost never regard anything written by scholars as primary source material. We do not have a code-based legal system (except to some extent in Louisiana).
You also do not seem to understand what the First Amendment is about. Moreover, your comments about the international red cross report and other matters concerning the war on terror and such are completely irrelevant to the subject under discussion.
If you have a comment about spelling, typos, or format errors, please e-mail the poster directly rather than posting a comment.
Comment Policy: We reserve the right to edit or delete comments, and in extreme cases to ban commenters, at our discretion. Comments must be relevant and civil (and, especially, free of name-calling). We think of comment threads like dinner parties at our homes. If you make the party unpleasant for us or for others, we'd rather you went elsewhere. We're happy to see a wide range of viewpoints, but we want all of them to be expressed as politely as possible.
We realize that such a comment policy can never be evenly enforced, because we can't possibly monitor every comment equally well. Hundreds of comments are posted every day here, and we don't read them all. Those we read, we read with different degrees of attention, and in different moods. We try to be fair, but we make no promises.
And remember, it's a big Internet. If you think we were mistaken in removing your post (or, in extreme cases, in removing you) -- or if you prefer a more free-for-all approach -- there are surely plenty of ways you can still get your views out.