Archive for the ‘Free Speech’ Category
EU Proposal to Ban Sexual Stereotypes in Media Gets Chilly Reception
This month the European Union had a controversy on its hands when the Financial Times got hold of a secret 26-page draft directive being prepared under the auspices of the European Commission’s Social Affairs Commissioner Anna Diamantopoulou.
Article 4 of the draft proposed sweeping censorship of the media in order to banish any and all sexual stereotypes of men and women. As Richard Pollock noted in an op-ed for the Cato Institute on the proposal, Diamantopoulou’s office said that the goal was to,
. . . avoid throughout all forms of mass media notably all stereotypical portrayals of women and men as well as any projection of unacceptable images of men and women affecting human dignity and decency in advertisements.
Some European commentators noted that in order for such proposals to go into effect, they would have to go through a series of ratification processes including among member countries, but just the fact that freedom of speech is seen as something that can be casually interfered with to obtain some social goal or another is disturbing enough in and of itself.
As Pollock, who obtained a copy of the draft, noted,
The document is well thought out, indicating a sizable amount of work had progressed within the European Commission to advance to this late stage. It was not the work of an aberrant or idle commissioner. Apparently, no member of the European media knew of its existence as it passed through the EC labyrinth of bureaucratic offices, reviewers and officials.
This sort of legislation is exactly what feminist group such as the European Women’s Lobby have long been lobbying for with the European Union. European Women’s Lobby policy coordinator Cecile Greobval was quoted by Australian newspaper The Age as saying, “We want action by the EU in areas other than employment.”
The European Women’s Lobby openly called for government monitoring and censorship of mass media in a March 2003 policy statement on the subject,
2.1 Mass media and gender equality
Comprehensive policy frameworks and regulatory mechanisms need to be put in place in order to make the media a useful tool to promote a and contribute to greater gender justice, respect for women?s human rights, sustainable development, and a culture of peace.
- Governments need to formulate standards, based on equality between women and men that should be reflected in all communication productions, including programming and media portrayal.
- Monitoring and evaluation mechanisms should be put in place in order to halt sexism and gender-based stereotypes in mass media, including strengthened policies against sexist images in publicity.
- Governments must develop policies for the safeguarding and development of public broadcasting, community based media, women?s alternative media, and alternative print media in order to counteract the negative trends of the commercialisation of information in national and transnational media and ICT corporations.
- Governments and relevant bodies should implement programmes that will increase women’s access to media, including assigning resources to promote gender equality through the use of both mainstream and alternative media.
- Governments should put in place policies and financial support, including within international cooperation programmes, with regard to support the strengthening of women?s communication and media initiatives.
- Gender balance need to be established at all decision-making levels within the media industry. This could be achieved through measures such as affirmative action and quota systems.
- A media critical analysis should be supported, in order to raise awareness of both audiences and journalists on how gender power asymmetries are at play in the media. Feminist analysis should be made an integral part of the curriculum in journalism schools.
Back in 2000, it summarized its views on government media regulations as follows,
While the role of governments is weakening, the media is becoming more powerful and complex, therefore, it is essential to re-establish a balance, in order to secure respect for women?s human rights and dignity. In order to impose restraints on sex stereotypes and sexist image in the different media and in the world of publicity, measures, mechanisms and bodies to regulate the content of media productions are essential. Currently, the media is auto-regulated which is often reduced to closed consultation with the managers and the proprietors of the media industry.
Many years ago in the United States, movies would be reviewed by quasi-governmental film boards before being released to the general public. The film boards would order the elimination of anything that might offend anyone in the audience, focusing especially on anything of a sexual nature. The Pennsylvania Film Board, for example, required that all images of a pregnant woman be excised from Cecil B. DeMilles’ “Kindling” on the grounds that it would raise questions of sexuality among the children who might see the film.
Some European feminists apparently believe that system was so good that they would like to replicate it for all mass media and have government regulators determine what is and is not fit for audiences to see.
Sources:
Sexist ads face ban in gender agenda. The Age (Australia), June 24, 2003.
Human Dignity At The Eu Stomps On Degrading Women / Men. Grant Swank, Ameircan Daily, June 30, 2003.
EU: Tabloids’ Topless Attractions Safe. Paul Ames, Associated Press, June 27, 2003.
The New Europe Looks a Little Like ‘1984′. Richard Pollock, Cato Institute, July 8, 2003.
Contribution of the European Women?s Lobby to the CSW, New York, 3-14 March 2003. European Women’s Lobby, March 2003.
Women and the media. Europan Women’s Lobby, 2000.
Tags: Anna Diamantopoulou, Cecile Greobval, European Women's Lobby
Does Michigan’s Sexual Harassment Law Violate the First Amendment?
Wayne State University Law School professor Kingsley Browne wrote an op-ed in the Detroit News earlier this month arguing that Michigan’s sexual harassment statute violates the First Amendment. He was specifically referring to Burns v. City of Detroit in which a woman won a $1 million judgment against the City of Detroit for the insulting and vulgar speech directed at her by co-workers. But, according to Browne, both the verdict and the statute are in violation of Constitutional protections of free speech.
A major problem with the Burns v. City of Detroit case, according to Browne, is that the jury heard testimony about both constitutionally protected speech and speech that was not constitutionally protected. But the jury was not informed that it could only decide on liability for speech that was not constitutionally protected.
Moreover, so far rulings on sexual harassment have engaged in obvious viewpoint discrimination. Browne writes,
Judicial scrutiny is at its highest when the government restricts speech based upon the viewpoint expressed, which is precisely what the harassment law does. Progressive statements about women are fine; Neanderthal statements are not. Statements praising women as a group raise no issue; statements critical of women do.
As the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, which covers Michigan, has said, harassment law requires “that an employer take prompt action to prevent . . . bigots from expressing their opinions in a way that abuses or offends their co-workers.” This is classic viewpoint regulating, which is almost always impermissible.
But the truly bizarre nature of sexual harassment statutes comes in with the whole idea of a “hostile environment.” As Browne notes, the hostile environment theory makes it all but impossible for individuals to tell whether or not their speech will break the law. Browne writes,
The vagueness of the harassment statute is made worse by the “totality of the circumstances” standard. A hostile environment can be created by a collection of different speech by different speakers even though no single statement by itself would violate the law.
One cannot know, therefore, whether a hostile environment exists without knowing the entire array of speech that will be challenged. Speakers are supposed to be given an advance warning of what can be said and what cannot, but the hostile environment standard is always assessed after the fact.
So how to fix sexual harassment statutes? Simple, says Browne — require that plaintiffs prove intent. Browne notes that a Michigan anti-stalking law was upheld because rather than simply describing behaviors that qualified as stalking, it also required that plaintiffs show the defendant engaged in “willful” conduct to harass the alleged victim. Such a similar standard should also be incorporated into sexual harassment statutes.
Source:
Harassment law chills free speech. Kingsley Browne, The Detroit News, July 9, 2002.
Another Professor with a Loyalty Requirement
A bizarre controversy has been unfolding the past few weeks at Iowa State University where a professor threw a student out of her class because he disagreed with her political views.
Student Jay Gardner, 38, took a graduate class on “Ethnicity, Class and the Media” from professor Tracy Owens-Patton. After a few weeks, Owens-Patton threw Gardner out of her class on the grounds that he was a white supremacist who was disrupting her course.
Among other things, Owens-Patton complained that in class Gardner defended racial profiling, pointing out that African Americans commit more crimes. Owens-Patton also said that Gardner criticized the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday — a charge that Gardner denies.
Gardner told the Desmoines Register,
If you’re going to make claims that white America is intentionally suppressing, holding down, oppressing African-Americans . . . you have to let some students give their opinions on it, and that wasn’t happening.
Owens-Patton also complained that in a discussion Gardner said that he was biased against minorities, but Gardner told the Ames Tribune,
Patton asked if we had any problems with stereotyping and others, and I gave both pros and cons for stereotyping. I said that some probably use stereotyping as a quick way to communicate since people tend to think in schemas or generalizations.
When it comes to deciding who to believe, Owens-Patton did not help herself by apparently lying in her complaint about Gardner. In her complaint addressed to her superiors at ISU, Owens-Patton claimed that police told her that Gardner “could be a third person” in a new white supremacist movement at ISU.
The only problem is that the police officer she cited, Capt. Gene Deisinger, told the Des Moines Register that, “There are no police reports that I know of, nor any groups that have identified themselves as white supremacists at Iowa State.”
The best summation of this controversy came from ISU vice provost Howard Shapiro who told the Des Moines Register,
Whose right it is to determine what is taught in the class and how it’s conducted is the professors’. It’s not a democracy. It’s a classroom.
Apparently once students step into a classroom at ISU, they leave democracy behind and enter a mini-totalitarian state where the whims and dictates of morons like Owens-Patton have absolute authority to quash any dissent. So much for that vaunted ideal of academic freedom.
Source:
White student fights removal from ISU class Staci Hupp, DesMoines Register, May 22, 2002.
ISU grad student denies making ethnic comments. Jason Kristufek, Ames Tribune, June 4, 2002.
Ames police unaware of racist group. Staci Hupp, DesMoines Register, May 24, 2002.
Feminist Censors Try to Shut Down University of Connecticut Student Television Show
Do campus feminists have any respect for freedom of speech anymore? Certainly not at the University of Connecticut where 17 women filed sexual harassment charges against a student-run television show for allegedly creating a “hostile environment.”
Certainly University of Connecticut students Joseph Kingsley and Peter Pietro did not design their show to appeal to campus feminists. “I Did Your Mother” is their hour-long attempt at Howard Stern-style humor.
As Associated Press described it, “A recent broadcast included simulated sex between a man and woman and discussions of sexual positions and techniques. The hosts also take phone calls from both men and women.
Of course such a show does not have a chance in today’s campus environment because it commits the only crime that universities teach their student’s to recognize any more — it is offensive to somebody.
As senior Cheryl Eureka, who plans to file a sexual harassment complaint against the show with the dean, told The Associated Press, “It’s terrible. It’s offensive to everyone who goes here.” She elaborated on her comments to The Hartford Courant,
It’s just the climate here that makes this kind of behavior acceptable and doesn’t act against it. The university has this diversity plan and wants to make UConn a more welcoming place. If they don’t step up and address this kind of behavior, then their diversity plan is just a piece of paper.
Well, of course — Kingsley and Pietro offended somebody. How dare the administration not punish them? Why should anyone ever to tolerate anything that’s terrible and/or offensive just for some abstract idea about free speech and freedom of thought?
Oddly enough, a Google search turns up some rather sexually explicit materials that Eureka herself wrote related to the “Vagina Monologues” for a Women’s Studies course at the University of Connecticut. I will not quote that here, but you can see for yourself.
Give them credit — one thing Women’s Studies program do excel at is the careful cultivation of hypocrisy.
Sources:
`I Love Lucy,’ It’s Not. Grace E. Merritt, The Hartford Courant, May 2, 2002.
Student-run TV show drawing protest. Associated Press, May 2, 2002.
Feminists In Scotland Forced to Withdraw Domestic Violence Ad
Many European countries have boards that monitor advertising and occasionally force advertisers to rewrite or withdraw advertisements that these boards consider to be deceptive. In Scotland, Scottish Women’s Aid was forced to withdraw and rewrite an ad publicizing the threat of domestic violence.
The group had published a poster claiming that “one in five women in Scotland live with the constant threat of abuse.” The Scottish Advertising Standards Authority ruled that this claim was not supported by the study cited by Scottish Women’s Aid and forced the ad to be removed from newspapers and billboards until it could be corrected.
The new text of the ad, which the Advertising Standards Authority signed off on, now states that “A recent survey suggests that one in five women in Scotland have experienced domestic abuse.”
The feminists were outraged at the change, with Scottish Women’s Aid training support worker Liz Kelly telling Scotland on Sunday, “The time spent discussing [the ad] . . . would have been better spent on providing better services to abused women and their children.”
On the one hand, the existence of such boards is ridiculous. The solution to feminist misuse and misrepresentation of statistics is to point out there abuse, not censor them wholesale. On the other hand, while feminists in Europe tend to complain when ad boards rule against them, they usually have no problem running to advertising authorities to try to have ads they think are sexist or demeaning to women withdrawn at a moment’s notice, so it’s hard to generate any deep sympathy for them.
Source:
Ruling on domestic abuse adverts branded ‘childish’. Karen Rice, Scotland on Sunday, March 31, 2002.
Tags: Scotland
‘Nuremberg Files’ Web Site Verdict Thrown Out
The Associated Press reports that a three-judge panel in the 9th District Court has thrown out the controversial civil lawsuit against the Nuremberg Files web site.
The Nuremberg Files was a web site set up by anti-abortion activists. Among other things, the site listed names and other personal information about doctors who performed physicians. It also included posters that mimicked wanted posters but included pictures of abortion providers and described as “baby butchers.”
Three doctors whose names appeared on lists maintained by the Nuremberg Files were murdered. Planned Parenthood sued the Nuremberg Files in court under provisions of the RICO statute claiming that the web site was essentially the focal point of a criminal conspiracy. That nobody involved with the web site had committed or even planned any acts of violence was irrelevant — the contents of the web site itself made the Nuremberg Files responsible, in part, for abortion-related violence.
A jury agreed with Planned Parenthood and the proprietors of the site were ordered to pay damages to Planned Parenthood and several abortion doctors.
The 9th District Court unanimously agreed that the jury was wrong — what the Nuremberg Files did was speech protected by the First Amendment. In the majority opinion, Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski wrote,
If defendants threatened to commit violent acts, by working alone or with others, then their [works] could properly support the verdict. But if their [works] merely encouraged unrelated terrorists, then their words are protected by the First Amendment.
I suspect the Supreme Court will overturn the 9th District’s opinion, even if it ultimately sides with the Nuremberg Files, since the decision provides a gaping legal hole for people conspiring to commit murder to exploit.
Source:
Court: OK to Encourage Abortion Threat. David Kreats, Associated Press, March 28, 2001.
Tags: Planned Parenthood
Taxing Video Games to Fund Sexual Assault Programs?
The Associated Press reported that New Hampshire is considering adding a special tax on video games and movies to fund sexual assault programs in the state.
Under the proposed law, film and game rentals would be taxed 5 cents and video game consoles would be taxed $1. The taxes raised in this way would go into a fund to pay for sexual assault services on the theory that violent video games and movies contribute to sexual assault.
By depicting violence and/or portraying women as sexual objects, supporters say, video games and movies contribute to the problem and so should pay for part of the solution.
Source:
Video Game Tax To Support Sex Crime Victims. Associated Press, March 19, 2001.
The Feminist Assault on Free Speech: A Review of Nadine Strossen’s Defending Pornography
Defending
Pornography: Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Women’s Rights
By Nadine Strossen
Amazon.Com price: $11.96 (click on above link to purchase)
If it weren’t for the feminist war on pornography, this web site probably wouldn’t
exist. Several years ago, feminists at the university my wife and I attended
at the time decided to target the student newspaper demanding that it stop carrying
advertisements for local strip clubs. The feminists were joined by several local
leftist activists and an odd mix of Christian conservatives from the community
who had long been trying to pass laws to ban pornography in the area.
Perhaps the most surreal scene I ever witnessed in college was watching these
feminist students marching arm in arm with extreme conservatives chanting, “You
see free speech, I say free women.”
Fortunately the feminists were routed, in no small part due to our efforts
and a hilarious conflict among the anti-pornography crowd. I had previously
made a presentation to the paper’s board of directors pointing out that the
paper ran numerous controversial ads and articles and if it caved in to pressure
from the anti-pornography groups it would soon find itself besieged from all
sides.
The anti-porn group proved this point when they finally addressed the board.
With about 20 or 30 people showing up to support the anti-porn position, the
chairman of the paper’s board pointed out an ongoing controversy in the paper
over abortion and said he didn’t want to be besieged by “pro-abortion” activists
demanding an end to pro-life articles or ads or vice versa. One of the feminists
in the crowd immediately objected to the term “pro-abortion” saying she preferred
to be called “pro-life”. Before the chair could finish his apology, the feminist’s
erstwhile conservative allies corrected the feminist, saying it was “pro-abortion” and while they were supposed to be making their case for getting rid of the
ads, they sat and fought amongst themselves about proper nomenclature for those
on opposite sides of the abortion issue. Needless to say with that example fresh
in their minds, the board voted down the proposal to get rid of the ads.
At the time my wife and I were mystified as to how feminists ended up taking
an anti-pornography position. Weren’t they aware of the history of the state
using censorship against women? Didn’t they see how limits on men and women’s
free expression undercut the dignity of the individual, which surely was at
the heart of any feminist view of politics? Had either of us read Nadine Strossen’s
excellent book on the anti-porn wars, Defending Pornography: Free Speech,
Sex, and the Fight for Women’s Rights, we would have better understood the
tragic and wrongheaded course that feminism, driven by its most radical elements,
has recently embarked on.
Solidly at the steering wheel are author Andrea Dworkin and University of
Michigan Law professor Catharine MacKinnon. As Strossen recognizes it is not
so much sexual speech that Dworkin and MacKinnon ultimately seek to banish,
though that is indeed one of their goals, but at a more basic level what Dworkin
and MacKinnon want to eradicate is heterosexuality itself.
This would seem absurd if they both hadn’t put themselves on record to this
effect on numbers occasions. As Dworkin puts it in one of her milder moments,
“It’s very hard to look at a picture of a woman’s body and not see it with the
perception that her body is being exploited.” Why? Because heterosexual sex
dehumanizes women and makes it all but impossible for anyone, man or woman,
to look at women as whole beings. As Dworkin sums up this view, “Physically
the woman in intercourse is a space invaded, a literal territory occupied literally;
occupied even if there has been no resistance; even if the occupied person said,
‘Yes, please, yes, hurry, yes, more.’”
Dworkin reels from the claims made by her opponents that she equates all heterosexual
sex with rape, but in doing so she is merely playing semantic games. Her work
is infused with the view that women are harmed by heterosexual sex, that they
can’t really consent to such sex and that heterosexual sex should be (must be)
transcended to move beyond the war against women — after all this is the same
Dworkin who once wrote that “unambiguous conventional heterosexual behavior
is the worst betrayal or our common humanity.”
MacKinnon has made similar statements, likening women who dare to disagree
with her to “house niggers who side with masters.”
Strossen thoroughly documents this anti-sex presumption throughout Defending
Pornography, though her presentation lacks a systematic look at Dworkin
and MacKinnon’s philosophy, which is one of the biggest general problems with
her book — she tends toward quick, scattershot effects with fact after fact
and quote after quote often without much to unify her efforts. Defending
Pornography could have benefited from another rewrite or two.
But Strossen does se through the current anti-porn effort. As she sums it
up, “We are in the midst of a full-fledged ’sex panic’ in which seemingly all
descriptions and depictions of human sexuality are becoming embattled.”
The anti-liberal basis of radical feminism
Although she never delves very deep into it, Strossen also lays out the
case that radical feminism is fundamentally anti-liberal. By liberalism here
I mean a basic respect for the dignity and autonomy of the individual. To MacKinnon
and Dworkin liberalism is anathema — it is sleeping with the enemy.
This explains why the anti-porn feminists arrive at what seems to Strossen
and other observers a bald contradiction. On the one hand, radical feminists
maintain that American institutions are extremely patriarchal. On the other
hand, MacKinnon and Dworkin would grant that patriarchal state even more power
to censor women. Can these two views be reconciled? Strossen doesn’t seem to
think so, but in fact her own analysis reveals these two ideas are perfectly
compatible.
First, it must be kept in mind that Dworkin and MacKinnon both reject liberalism
as itself patriarchal. Women who disagree with them are nothing more than brainwashed
collaborators who are acting against their own best interests. As Strossen documents,
MacKinnon has no problem arguing the legal system should treat women in the
same way that it treats children. Strossen thinks this view “presuppose[s] an
infantilized woman incapable of knowing what is in her own best interests, and
needing the protection of the state…,” which is a pretty good summation.
In fact co-opting the state is the only way Dworkin and MacKinnon will ever
be able to get very far in their war on heterosexuality. As they both recognize
there are too many female collaborators who claim they enjoy being heterosexual
for heterosexuality to simply disappear by itself. To really get anywhere will
require harnessing the state (most radical feminists nominally oppose “power” as a patriarchal male concept except when it can be used to further their
own political goals.)
Sometimes Strossen seems to get it and other times she seems to ignore this
possibility. She wonders, for example, why pro-censorship feminists focus on
pornography when there are plenty of examples of extremely sexist speech that
is not pornographic. But of course this is how radicals always get their ideas
accepted by the greater society — first they conceptualize some extreme version
of what they seek to abolish. Once they get wide agreement on that, they gradually
expand their definition of the social ill as far as they possibly can. Strossen
is incorrect to think that MacKinnon and Dworkin exempt non-pornographic sexist
speech — they simply are smart enough to know that the most likely way to get
their views embedded in laws is through an attack on pornography. Once erotic
images that show women in a “subordinate” position (which is how the duo define
pornography) are banned, the effort to go after non-erotic images that “subordinate” women would be the logical next step.
Strossen devotes a chapter to the area where, to date, the pro-censorship
feminists have been most successful — sexual harassment law. MacKinnon pioneered
sexual harassment law, of course, so it’s not surprising that it has begun to
incorporate her particular view of heterosexuality and sexual expression. As
Strossen writes, sexual harassment now includes a “misguided emphasis on sexually
oriented expression [that] has diverted the attention of policy makers from
sexist conduct to sexual speech, and has shifted their focus from gender-based
discrimination to sexual expression.”
Many sexual harassment policies, especially those used in academic institutions,
are quite clear that as Strossen puts it, “the mere presence of sexual words
or pictures in the workplace or on campus is somehow inherently incompatible
with women’s’ full and equal participation in those areas.”
Strossen includes an excellent chapter surveying the lack of evidence for
the claim that pornography causes or contributes to violence against women.
Of course as she also points out, most of the procensorship feminists aren’t
really concerned with empirical niceties. MacKinnon, for example, has retreated
to the position that no one has proven that pornography doesn’t cause
harm and so one can assume it is dangerous until proven otherwise, which is
a standard that could be used to ban just about anything.
Defending Pornography is an excellent, comprehensive look at the many
facets of the debate over pornography. Anyone who wants to find out how radical
feminists are trying to undermine the principle of free speech and inquiry through
their attack on pornography will find Strossen’s book a great place to start.
Tags: American Civil Liberties Union, Andrea Dworkin, Catharine MacKinnon, Nadine Strossen
NOW’s Abortion Lawsuit Threatens Freedom of Expression
The fundamental problem with American
politics is that it is largely unprincipled. Groups and lobbies often
seem more interested in getting their own outcome — regardless of the
methods they need to use.
This simple maxim was underscored
with last week’s unanimous Supreme Court ruling that Planned Parenthood
could sue Operation Rescue and other pro-life groups under the Racketeer-Influenced
and Corrupt Organization laws. Planned Parenthood’s “victory”
is nothing less than a stunning blow to the very freedom and choices that
the organization pretends to cherish so deeply.
RICO was passed in 1970 in an effort
to give prosecutors a bigger weapon against organized crime. Congress
wanted to make it easier to go after legitimate businesses that had been
infiltrated and controlled by organized crime outfits.
RICO never did make much of an
impact on organized crime, but prosecutors and other groups were more
than willing to use its provisions for political purposes. The Reagan
administration, for example, encouraged the use of the RICO statutes to
crack down on pornography.
In 1988, The Nation reported
the story of Dennis and Barbara Pryba who owned three adult bookstores.
In 1987 they were charged and found guilty of selling six obscene magazines
and four obscene videotapes. Under RICO, which only requires two criminal
acts to apply, this made the couple an organized crime racket and the
government seized over $1 million in property from the couple.
Reagan’s Attorney General Ed
Meese set up a special anti-obscenity task force whose sole purpose was
to use the RICO laws to drive adult bookstores out of business.
What Meese and Reagan never understood
was that restricting speech can cut both ways.
When a machinists’ union claimed
that Texas Air was violating airline safety rulings, Texas Air promptly
sued the union claming that such criticism constituted “a pattern
of racketeering activity.”
When John Spear, editor of a small
weekly newspaper in New York criticized the way police in West Hartford,
Conn., handled abortion protesters, West Hartford sued him under the RICO
statute, claiming his editorials were an attempt to intimidate West Hartford
police. They argued that Spear’s damaging criticisms constituted
an extortion attempt.
And now the Supreme Court has ruled
that RICO may be used against antiabortion groups.
The National Organization for Women
argued that Operation Rescue had engaged in a conspiracy of racketeering
to run abortion clinics out of business. Operation Rescue concedes it
want to see abortion clinics out of business, but argued that since its
motivation was political and not economic, RICO could not be used against
the organization. The Supreme Court ruled that the motivation of the group
is immaterial to whether or not RICO may be applied.
NOW’s case against Operation
Rescue will now go to trial. If it can convince a jury that blocking entrances
to abortion clinics constitutes a form of extortion, or if it can tie
a couple members of Operation Rescue to other criminal acts, such as bomb
threats, it can probably put Operation Rescue out of business.
This is a horrible application
of RICO and one that will be felt in other areas besides the conflict
over abortion.
“Under this decision, Martin
Luther King Jr. would have been a racketeer,” Randall Terry, founder
of Operation Rescue, told The New York Times. “What I’d
say to the AIDS activists, the anti-nuclear groups, the animal rights
people, is get your affairs in order and line up, because you’re
next.”
If abortion clinics can use the
RICO statutes against abortion protesters, what’s to stop corporations
from using it against animal rights protesters?
“Animal rights activists sometimes
use peaceful, non-violent protests … and we’re concerned that this
kind of decisions is going to chill that First Amendment activity,”
Todd Davis, a lawyer for People for the Treatment of Animals, told USA
Today.
In fact NOW might eventually find
itself on the other side of the RICO law.
Given the shaky grounds that Roe
v. Wade was construed on, and the clear desire by some Supreme Court justices
to overturn the decision, it’s not inconceivable that the Supreme
Court might turn the issue of abortion back to the states. Operation Rescue
then might find use for this law in going after pro-abortion groups and
protesters.
By attacking Operation Rescue with
RICO, NOW has demonstrated that achieving its short-term political aims
is more important than preserving the First Amendment protection guaranteed
to all Americans.
Someday, NOW might regret that
decision.
Tags: American Civil Liberties Union, National Organization for Women, Planned Parenthood