Time: Sat Aug 23 11:08:39 1997
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Date: Sat, 23 Aug 1997 10:07:45 -0700
To: (Recipient list suppressed)
From: Paul Andrew Mitchell [address in tool bar]
Subject: GOV - sues to "eradicate" ebonics joke email
Speech Eradication Regulation,
1 CFR 1.1-1(a)-(c), promulgating
a modified First Amendment, to wit:
"It shall be unlawful to mispronounce
unwritten languages in workplaces
subsidized by foreign banks and their
Puerto Rican money laundry. The
Secretary shall have authority to
delegate humor export controls,
and to regulate traffic in same via
electronic and telephonic transmissions.
The Freedom of Information Act is hereby
amended to exempt disclosure of all
regulations promulgated pursuant to this
section. Keep on guessin, you honkeys!!"
/s/ John Everyman Trumane
At 09:40 AM 8/23/97 PDT, you wrote:
>
>-> SearchNet's SNETNEWS Mailing List
>
>
>----Original Message Follows----
>Cc: Joe Corcoran <joe@hosaka.SmallWorks.COM>
>Subject: GOV - sues to "eradicate" ebonics joke email at FreddieMac
>Date: Fri, 22 Aug 1997 13:01:32 +0000
>From: FringeWare News Network <email@Fringeware.COM>
>
>Sent from: Joe Corcoran <joe@hosaka.SmallWorks.COM>
>
>> Forwarded by: Eugene Volokh <VOLOKH@LAW.UCLA.EDU>
>
> (Please feel free to forward; copying authorized by copyright owner)
>
> A National Speech Code From The EEOC
> by Eugene Volokh
> Washington Post, Aug. 22, 1997, at A23
>
> Telling "ebonics" jokes, the federal government says, is unlawful.
>Yes, that's right. You may burn the American flag, advocate violent
>revolution, post indecent material on the Internet, but "disseminating
>derogatory electronic messages regarding `ebonics'" to your co-
>workers is against the law.
>
> So says the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, in a lawsuit
>filed in federal court late last month. The EEOC is now trying to
>force the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. to "take prompt and
>effective remedial action to eradicate" such speech by its workers.
>
> Remarkably, the EEOC, aided by some courts and by state civil
>rights agencies, thinks it can get away with this, and so far it has.
>Without much fanfare, the law of "workplace harassment" has turned
>into a nationwide speech code.
>
> Under this speech code, it's illegal to say things that are
>"severe or pervasive" enough to create a "hostile or offensive work
>environment" -- whatever that is -- based on race, religion, sex,
>national origin, veteran status and an ever-widening list of other
>attributes.
>
> Here is a brief catalogue of some of what's been described by
>various agencies and courts as "harassment":
>
> Co-workers' use of "draftsman" and "foreman" (instead of
>"draftsperson" and "foreperson"). "Men Working" signs. Sexually
>suggestive jokes, even ones that aren't misogynistic. Derogatory
>pictures of the Ayatollah Khomeini and American flags burning in Iran.
>In the words of one court's injunction: remarks "contrary to your
>fellow employees' religious beliefs." "Offensive speech implicating
>considerations of race."
>
> What could the government possibly be thinking about here? The
>Supreme Court has never suggested that the workplace is somehow a
>First Amendment-free zone. Many of us talk to more people at work
>than we do anywhere else. The workplace is where we often discuss the
>questions of the day, whether they be the Oakland School Board's
>ebonics policy or affirmative action or religion.
>
> Private employers, like private newspaper publishers or private
>homeowners, are not bound by the First Amendment and may thus restrict
>what is said on their property. But the United States government,
>which is under a constitutional obligation not to abridge "the freedom
>of speech," can't go to court to insist on the "eradication" of
>political speech that it thinks is reprehensible.
>
> Of course, many harassment cases involve more than just impolitic
>jokes. The ebonics case, for instance, also involved some threats,
>which are constitutionally unprotected, and some one-to-one insults,
>which might also be properly punishable. If the EEOC had just sued
>over this conduct, there would be little constitutional difficulty.
>But the EEOC has no business claiming that toleration of e-mailed
>political opinion is "an unlawful employment practice."
>
> Why have the free-speech implications here been so widely ignored?
>Hard to say. Maybe everyone was misled by the law's mushiness. It's
>always easier to build consensus behind vague terms such as "hostile
>or offensive work environment," which can mean all things to all
>people. I like to think that if the EEOC proposed a regulation that
>explicitly barred ebonics jokes, someone would have made a fuss.
>
> But the breadth of harassment law has now become pretty clear.
>The federal government seems to think it's entitled to control what
>we say in our workplaces so long as a "reasonable person" would find
>that our speech makes the environment "hostile or offensive." Pretty
>remarkable how far we've let things come.
>
> [The writer teaches free-speech law at UCLA.]
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>"irregardless of the type of insurance coverage, Eugene Volokh
> the limits of liability . . . shall be governed UCLA Law School
> by the amounts specified in subsection A . . ." 405 Hilgard Ave.
> 36 Okla. St. Ann. 6414 (enacted 1986). L.A., CA 90095
>
>
>
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>
========================================================================
Paul Andrew Mitchell : Counselor at Law, federal witness
B.A., Political Science, UCLA; M.S., Public Administration, U.C. Irvine
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