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From: BTR1701 <atropos@mac.com>
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Subject: Re: ACLU Accuses Asian Attorney of Using 'Coded' Racism; Fires Her; ACLU Sued by Government
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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".
> >>
> >> "As a black male, language like 'afraid' generally is a code word for me," 
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