Search Salon

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Recently in Salon News

Iowa GOP Straw Poll results
Results from Iowa

[08/16/99]

Who owns the Columbine tragedy?
As reporters swarm on the first day of school, students will try to "take back" their high school and put the massacre behind them.
By Dave Cullen
[08/16/99]

Guns don't kill black people, other blacks do
The NAACP's ludicrous idea to sue gun manufacturers is yet another attempt by the left to avoid personal responsibility for some individuals' bad behavior.
By David Horowitz
[08/16/99]

They feed horses, don't they?
Bush and Forbes finished one-two in the Iowa straw poll, and why not? They paid for this circus, after all.
By Jake Tapper
[08/16/99]

"Nuke 'em. Nuke the bastards"
So said Bill Pullman in "Independence Day." But what would he say at the State of the Union?
By Anthony York
[08/14/99]

Complete archives for News

- - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - -

That's because the California Supreme Court forbade the future use of racial slurs in a workplace that has already been found by a court to be a hostile environment and likely to remain so.

While the decision is not binding outside of California, or on the federal courts, it is extremely significant nonetheless. Until now, a racist's worst nightmare was being penalized for his past behavior, but now he can be legally muzzled to prevent his invective from spewing forth in the first place.

As early as 1991, Avis service agent John Lawrence allegedly began informing his Latino subordinates that they were "wetbacks," "motherfuckers" and "crooks" and routinely demeaning their English language skills, among his many other insults.

Seventeen of them took Avis and Lawrence, who denies the allegations, to court. In 1995, a jury found in the workers' favor, awarding eight of them a total of $150,000 in damages. In addition, Judge Carlos Bea enjoined Lawrence (who still has his job) from engaging in further such speech, and enjoined Avis from allowing him to.

Avis appealed its injunction, citing the First Amendment and both the U.S. and California constitutions' prohibitions against prior restraint on speech. The 4-3 decision last week, which generated five separate opinions (the plurality decision written by Chief Justice Ronald George, a separate, more radical concurrence and one from each of the dissenters), is controversial, to put it mildly.

While courts have addressed the issue of workplace harassment many times and assessed damages after the fact, this is the first time one has taken the logical next step and enjoined the future use of offensive language.

Legal experts say the decision is very narrowly tailored because it addresses only racial slurs, not religious proselytizing, sexual remarks or political statements. It also applies only after illegal employment discrimination (i.e. the existence of a hostile environment) has been found by a court of law.

Narrow, shmarrow. When it comes to America, race and the Constitution, there's just no such thing as narrow. Emotions run so high, we're always either teetering on the abyss of tyranny or singing in a heavenly choir of angels, depending on your politics, and this case is no different.

In her dissent, the court's most outspoken conservative, Justice Janice Rogers, blasted the decision: "A government that tells its citizens what they may say will soon be dictating what they may think." Amazingly, Rogers was joined in dissent by two stalwart liberal bedfellows, Justices Stanley Mosk and Joyce Kennard.

Our hallowed freedom of speech has never been absolute. You can't yell "fire" in a crowded theater (although you may think it), solicit bribes, make terrorist threats, slander another, intentionally inflict emotional distress or be "obscene" (whatever that means).

So, if speech has always been limited and the speech at issue is not constitutionally protected (because the plaintiffs are not free to walk away), why is this such a big deal? After all, as Justice George wrote, "The order simply precluded defendants from continuing their unlawful activity."

Next page | A slur by another term still cuts