Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2024 12:22:15 -0400
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Subject: Re: ACLU Accuses Asian Attorney of Using 'Coded' Racism; Fires Her; ACLU Sued by Government
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On 3/26/2024 11:48 AM, BTR1701 wrote:
> In article <17c031331a3628f5$2091$3384359$c2d58868@news.newsdemon.com>,
>   moviePig <never@nothere.com> wrote:
> 
>> On 3/25/2024 5:59 PM, shawn wrote:
>>> On Mon, 25 Mar 2024 19:32:50 +0000, BTR1701 <atropos@mac.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> So now expressing fear of one's boss or describing his behavior as
>>>> "chastising" is racist if the boss is black.
>>>>
>>>> And this is the ACLU we're talking about. Anyone who still thinks the ACLU
>>>> is the constitutional rights advocate that it used to be needs their head
>>>> examined. It's nothing but a shill for the most extreme and radical woke
>>>> policies.
>>>>
>>>> ---------------------
>>>>
>>>> https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/22/us/politics/aclu-employee-fired-race-bia
>>>> s.html
>>>>
>>>> The civil liberties group is defending itself in an unusual case that
>>>> weighs what kind of language may be evidence of bias against black people.
>>>>
>>>> Kate Oh was no one's idea of a get-along-to-go-along employee. During her
>>>> five years as a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, she was an
>>>> unsparing critic of her superiors, known for sending long, blistering
>>>> emails to human resources complaining about what she described as a
>>>> hostile workplace.
>>>>
>>>> She considered herself a whistle blower and advocate for other women in
>>>> the office, drawing unflattering attention to an environment she said
>>>> was rife with sexism, burdened by unmanageable workloads and stymied by
>>>> a fear-based culture.
>>>>
>>>> Then the tables turned and Ms. Oh was the one slapped with an accusation
>>>> of serious misconduct. The ACLU said her complaints about several
>>>> superiors-- all of whom were black-- used "racist stereotypes". She was
>>>> fired in May 2022.
>>>>
>>>> The ACLU acknowledges that Ms. Oh, who is Korean-American, never used any
>>>> kind of racial slur, but the group says that her use of certain phrases
>>>> and words demonstrated a pattern of willful anti-black animus.
>>>>
>>>> In one instance, according to court documents, she told a black superior
>>>> that she was "afraid" to talk with him. In another, she told a manager
>>>> that their conversation was "chastising". And in a meeting, she repeated
>>>> a satirical phrase likening her bosses' behavior to suffering beatings.
>>>>
>>>> Did her language add up to racism? Or was she just speaking harshly about
>>>> bosses who happened to be black? That question is the subject of an
>>>> unusual unfair-labor-practice case brought against the ACLU by the National Labor
>>>> Relations Board, which has accused the organization of retaliating against
>>>> Ms. Oh. A trial in the case wrapped up this week in Washington, and a
>>>> judge is expected to decide in the next few months whether the ACLU
>>>> was justified in terminating her. If the ACLU loses, it could be ordered
>>>> to reinstate her or pay restitution.
>>>>
>>>> The heart of the ACLU's defense-- arguing for an expansive definition of
>>>> what constitutes racist or racially coded speech-- has struck some labor
>>>> and free-speech lawyers as peculiar, since the organization has
>>>> traditionally protected the right to free expression, operating on the
>>>> principle that it may not like what someone says, but will fight for the
>>>> right to say it.
>>>>
>>>> The case raises some intriguing questions about the wide swath of employee
>>>> behavior and speech that labor law protects-- and how the nation's
>>>> pre-eminent civil rights organization finds itself on the opposite side
>>>> of that law, arguing that those protections should not apply to its
>>>> former employee.
>>>>
>>>> A lawyer representing the ACLU, Ken Margolis, said during a legal
>>>> proceeding last year that it was irrelevant whether Ms. Oh bore no racist
>>>> ill will. All that mattered, he said, was that her black colleagues were
>>>> offended and injured.
>>>
>>> And there is the major issue. It does not matter what she thought but
>>> only what others thought or at least said they thought. Been there
>>> done that where I was accused of something similar by someone who
>>> remained nameless but who I'm sure I know because she was known to be
>>> a troublemaker. Luckily in my case it wasn't taken as seriously given
>>> that there was no evidence I did anything, but in Ms Oh's case it
>>> doesn't matter that she did nothing wrong, but that her complaints
>>> ended up bothering her colleagues enough that they finally complained.
>>>
>>> So her complaints did not matter but their complaints did. How does
>>> that happen?
>>>
>>>> "We're not here to prove anything other than the impact of her actions was
>>>> very real-- that she caused harm," Mr. Margolis said, according to a
>>>> transcript of his remarks. "She caused serious harm to black members of
>>>> the ACLU community."
>>>
>>> He doesn't address if her complaints had any basis in reality. If her
>>> complaints did have a basis does it still matter if the others felt
>>> she caused them harm?
>>>
>>>> Rick Bialczak, the lawyer who represents Ms. Oh through her union,
>>>> responded sarcastically, saying he wanted to congratulate Mr. Margolis
>>>> for making an exhaustive presentation of the ACLU's evidence: three
>>>> interactions Ms. Oh had with colleagues that were reported to human
>>>> resources.
>>>>
>>>> "I would note, and commend Ken, for spending 40 minutes explaining why
>>>> three discreet comments over a multi-month period of time constitute
>>>> serious harm to the ACLU members, black employees,” he said. "Yes, she
>>>> had complained about black supervisors, Mr. Bialczak acknowledged, but
>>>> her direct boss and that boss's boss were black. "Those were her
>>>> supervisors," he said. "If she has complaints about her supervision,
>>>> who is she supposed to complain about?"
>>>
>>> Wait, so the complaint is that she complained to HR about her
>>> supervisors over months, but not to others? How is that even an issue
>>> that should lead to her firing? Isn't HR's role to help mitigate those
>>> sorts of interpersonal issues.
>>>
>>>> Ms. Oh declined to comment for this article, citing the ongoing case.
>>>>
>>>> The ACLU has a history of representing groups that liberals revile. This
>>>> week, it argued in the Supreme Court on behalf of the National Rifle
>>>> Association in a 1st Amendment case, but to critics of the ACLU, Ms. Oh's
>>>> case is a sign of how far the group has strayed from its core mission--
>>>> defending free speech-- and has instead aligned itself with a progressive
>>>> politics that is intensely focused on identity.
>>>>
>>>> "Much of our work today," as it explains on its website, "is focused on
>>>> equality for people of color, women, gay and transgender people,
>>>> prisoners, immigrants, and people with disabilities."
>>>>
>>>> And since the beginning of the Trump administration, the organization has
>>>> taken up partisan causes it might have avoided in the past, like running
>>>> an advertisement to support Stacey Abrams' 2018 campaign for governor of
>>>> Georgia.
>>>>
>>>> "They radically expanded and raised so much more money-- hundreds of
>>>> millions of dollars-- from leftist donors who were desperate to push
>>>> back on the scary excesses of the Trump administration," said Lara
>>>> Bazelon, a law professor at the University of San Francisco who has been
>>>> critical of the ACLU. "And they hired people with a lot of extremely
>>>> strong views about race and workplace rules and in the process, they
>>>> themselves veered into a place of excess. I scour the record for any
>>>> evidence that this Asian woman is a racist and I don't find any."
>>>>
>>>> The beginning of the end for Ms. Oh, who worked in the ACLU's political
>>>> advocacy department, started in late February 2022, according to court
>>>> papers and interviews with lawyers and others familiar with the case.
>>>> The ACLU was hosting a virtual organization-wide meeting under heavy
>>>> circumstances. The national political director, who was black, had
>>>> suddenly departed following multiple complaints about his abrasive
>>>> treatment of subordinates. Ms. Oh, who was one of the employees who had
>>>> complained, spoke up during the meeting to declare herself skeptical
>>>> that conditions would actually improve.
>>>>
>>>> "Why shouldn't we simply expect that 'the beatings will continue until
>>>> morale improves'," she said in a Zoom group chat, invoking a well-known
>>>> phrase that is printed and sold on t-shirts, usually accompanied by the
>>>> skull and crossbones of a pirate flag. She explained that she was being
>>>> "definitely metaphorical".
>>>
>>> Ah, she made the mistake of saying what she was thinking and so made
>>> herself a target for more beatings.
>>>
>>>> Soon after, Ms. Oh heard from the ACLU manager overseeing its equity and
>>>> inclusion efforts, Amber Hikes, who cautioned Ms. Oh about her language.
>>>> Ms. Oh's comment was "dangerous and damaging", Ms. Hikes warned, because
>>>> she seemed to suggest the former supervisor physically assaulted her.
>>>
>>> This should have seen the ACLU laughed out of court for suggesting
>>> such a thing.
>>>
>>>> "Please consider the very real impact of that kind of violent language in
>>>> the workplace," Ms. Hikes wrote in an email. Ms. Oh acknowledged she had
>>>> been wrong and apologized. Over the next several weeks, senior managers
>>>> documented other instances in which they said Ms. Oh mistreated black
>>>> employees.
>>>>
>>>> In early March, Ben Needham, who had succeeded the recently departed
>>>> national political director, reported that Ms. Oh called her direct
>>>> supervisor, a black woman, a liar. According to his account, he asked
>>>> Ms. Oh why she hadn't complained earlier. She responded that she was
>>>> "afraid to talk to him".
========== REMAINDER OF ARTICLE TRUNCATED ==========