Thursday, May 27, 2010



Freedom of Speech vs. Workplace Harassment Law -- A Big Free Speech Win in the Ninth Circuit

This case gets a bit long and technical so I will try to summarize:

A math professor by the name of Kehowski sent out a few emails proclaiming the superiority of Western civilization. He sent them to everybody in the internal mail system of his college. He was particularly scornful of official Mexican racism (The "La Raza" concept)

Lots of Hispanics got peeved by that and sued the college for letting Kehowski do it. They had a bit of a win initially but when it went to the 9th circus on appeal, they lost in spades, with the judge saying some rather amazingly pro-free-speech things.

How come? Pretty surprising for the 9th Circus. Color me an old cynic but I am inclined to think that a Polish-American judge might have felt more than usually sympathetic to a Polish-American "offender". Bad of me, I know. We all know how impartial 9th circus judges are.

A few good excerpts from the judgment:

"Their objection to Kehowski's speech is based entirely on his point of view, and it is axiomatic that the government may not silence speech because the ideas it promotes are thought to be offensive"

"The right to provoke, offend and shock lies at the core of the First Amendment.

"We therefore doubt that a college professor's expression on a matter of public concern, directed to the college community, could ever constitute unlawful harassment and justify the judicial intervention that plaintiffs seek"

"It's easy enough to assert that Kehowski's ideas contribute nothing to academic debate, and that the expression of his point of view does more harm than good. But the First Amendment doesn't allow us to weigh the pros and cons of certain types of speech. Those offended by Kehowski's ideas should engage him in debate or hit the "delete" button when they receive his emails. They may not invoke the power of the government to shut him up."

Details here

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

This from the 9th Circus? We may be seeing the benefits of legalizing marijuana out there in Mexifornia.

Anonymous said...

BUT the guy may have misused the computing resources of the school to voice such opinion. If the school has a computing resource policy that prohibits such action, and if he agreed to abide by it, then the school has every right to fire him. Just because it's a school doesn't exonerate him from abiding by established and agreed upon rules.

Anonymous said...

Misused the computing resources?? Seriously? Where do you think professors write their 'scholarly' articles? Don't you think any scholarly articles have ever offended?? Professors can only write non-offensive materials on their univ. computers? Yeah, I don't think so.

TheOldMan said...

I think I just saw some flying porcines go by the window!

Anonymous said...

BUT the guy may have misused the computing resources of the school to voice such opinion.

Sorry, but the school had no policy on "opinions" and allowed other "opinions" to be emailed. Furthermore, the school encouraged facility to set up websites that were hosted on the school's servers. "Opinions" were encouraged to be voiced.

Finally, this was not about the guy being fired. The suit was brought as a "discrimination / hostile work environment" lawsuit against the school by employees who said that the emails created a "hostile work environment."

Bobby said...

People from La Raza are always making outrageous statements and getting away with it. Well, that's free speech, and if they get to enjoy it, so should everybody else.

Anonymous said...

Wow - isn't it great to hear some fundamental and self-evident truths.
If you don't like it - don't ban it, engage in the debate or ignore it.

Stan B said...

"The right to provoke, offend and shock lies at the core of the First Amendment."

This quote should be added to Tongue Tied's sidebar!

Anonymous said...

The basic difference between conservatives and leftists is;

If a conservative doesn't like steak, he won't eat it.

If a leftist doesn't like steak, he won't eat it, and wants it banned so no one can eat it.

Anonymous said...

"If a leftist doesn't like steak, he won't eat it, and wants it banned so no one can eat it."

Utter bullshit.

Anonymous said...

Anon 4:35, If that is true, then people need to get over it. If they are going to allow opinion then they must allow opinions that may offend. Otherwise, it is not opinion.

Anonymous said...

Anon 5:04, no, it's not bullshit, it's the truth. When the Left doesn't like something, they do whatever they can to prevent others from doing the same "for the good of everyone." And to deny that is to be completely blind to most legislation enacted over the past several decades.

Anonymous said...

Anon 5:24, you bore me.