The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission agrees that a black employee was subjected to racial harassment when “a coworker repeatedly wore a cap to work with an insignia of the Gadsden Flag.”
According to the complaint filed the EEOC, the black employee “found the cap to be racially offensive to African Americans because the flag was designed by Christopher Gadsden, a ‘slave trader & owner of slaves.’”
He also claimed the Gadsden flag is “historical indicator of white resentment against blacks stemming largely from the Tea Party.”
The folks at the EEOC agreed.
“Whatever the historic origins and meaning of the symbol, it also has since been sometimes interpreted to convey racially-tinged messages in some contexts,” they argue. “For example, in June 2014, assailants with connections to white supremacist groups draped the bodies of two murdered police officers with the Gadsden flag during their Las Vegas, Nevada shooting spree.”
Using the actions of a couple of meth-addled lunatics to declare racist anyone who displays a Gadsden Flag requires quite a leap of logic.
If you remember the shooting in Nevada, then you’ll recall desperate attempts by liberal groups and the media to tie the murderers to conservative Americans.
I wrote at the time:
Jerad Miller, a felon and reported advocate of crystal meth use who — along with his wife, Amanda, fatally shot two Las Vegas police officers and an armed citizen who tried to intervene on Sunday — is anything but the patriotic Constitutionalist he purportedly fancied himself. Rather, Miller was a miscreant abandoned by his family — likely due to behavioral issues stemming from his drug of choice — who, grasping for something to be a part of, was infatuated with the most extreme conspiracies that plague the far-right in America.
Unfortunately, little has been noted in the media of the deeply troubled individuals the Millers were, even as an hour’s worth of piecing together evidence about the two provides an exemplary illustration of a couple most Americans wouldn’t want to have as neighbors.
Instead, the meme adopted by most network media outlets is that provided by the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center, which didn’t waste a moment pinning the Millers’ repugnant actions on an entire group of Americans who wholeheartedly agree with the Constitutional principles of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness — three things the deranged couple denied their victims.
The EEOC’s decision to reference the Millers provides a pretty good example of how the left likes to play the narrative against conservatism.
The Gadsden Flag has become a popular symbol for American small government activists because it was designed as a reminder that people hold power over governments. So it isn’t surprising that government bureaucrats would be so eager to declare it racist.
For employers and anyone who gives a damn about free speech, the decision is pretty bad news.
As Eugene Volokh, a UCLA law professor and 1st Amendment expert, pointed out:
Imagine that you are a reasonable employer. You don’t want to restrict employee speech any more than is necessary, but you also don’t want to face the risk of legal liability for allowing speech that the government might label ‘harassing.’ An employee comes to you, complaining that a coworker’s wearing a ‘Don’t Tread on Me’ cap — or having an ‘All Lives Matter’ bumper sticker on a car parked in the employee lot, or ‘Stop Illegal Immigration’ sign on the coworker’s cubicle wall — constitutes legally actionable ‘hostile environment harassment,’ in violation of federal employment law. The employee claims that in ‘the specific context’ (perhaps based on what has been in the news, or based on what other employees have been saying in lunchroom conversations), this speech is ‘racially tinged’ or ‘racially insensitive.’
Would you feel pressured, by the risk of a lawsuit and of liability, into suppressing speech that expresses such viewpoints? Or would you say, ‘Nope, I’m not worried about the possibility of liability, I’ll let my employees keep talking’?
The post Bureaucrats: Wearing ‘Don’t Tread on Me’ gear is racial harassment appeared first on Personal Liberty®.
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