George Will, Is There Something In Your Eye? The Truth About Oakland's Ban on Hate Speech in the Workplace

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By John A. Russo

Last week, the pundit George Will used his syndicated soapbox to slander the City of Oakland and our insistence on civility and tolerance in our workplace. Using a “reductio ad absurdum” style of argument that would be transparent to any high school debate team member, Mr. Will whined that the use of the words “marriage” and “natural family” is the equivalent of hate speech in the eyes of the City of Oakland. Mr. Will’s line of reasoning is both bizarre and false.

Mr. Will may believe that his notoriety as an opinion writer permits him to ignore the facts and baldly misrepresent the context of the Oakland case. However, for the sake of anyone who may have been misled by Mr. Will’s vision of Oakland as some type of politically correct dystopia, here is the truth.

The City of Oakland successfully defended our anti-discrimination policy in a lawsuit brought by disgruntled employees who claimed that their First Amendment Rights were violated when a supervisor removed a homophobic flyer from the workplace. Mr. Will complains that Oakland’s victories in the courts are to be expected in the bleeding-heart-liberal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. This is deceptive. What Mr. Will doesn’t tell his readers is this: four judges have now ruled in favor of the city’s action to promote a tolerant, harassment-free workplace. Three of those judges are conservatives – two were appointed by George W. Bush.