As some of you know, I work for an immigration law firm. I am also becoming more politically active lately, partly in opposition to the U.S. war in Iraq, and partly in opposition to what I see as an increasing level of restriction on free speech and immigrants’ rights in the post-9/11 environment.
The problem: it’s extremely difficult in my line of work these days to keep politics out of the workplace. Although I try not to discuss U.S. policy toward Iraq in the workplace, as it is rarely directly relevant to what we do here, the second viewpoint above is shared by virtually every active practitioner of immigration and civil rights law. You wouldn’t think it would be contentious around here, right?
Well, apparently not. Today I received a flyer for a lecture sponsored by the Chicago Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild and the Chicago Council of Lawyers on practical strategies for dealing with INS Special Registration, to be held next week. The speakers are, respectively, a well-known immigration lawyer who I have known personally and professionally for 12 years, and another well-respected international lawyer with expertise in immigration law and refugee issues, who is also a faculty member at the University of Chicago. These are not fringe wackos; they are respected professionals with a wealth of experience and expertise.
Geez, I thought, won’t everyone in the office want to attend this workshop, I thought? It’s free, it’s after working hours, and it sounds like a great forum for sharing practical strategies on how to face the urgent issues we are all dealing with (our firm, in particular, has had multiple clients arrested and placed in deportation proceedings when relatively minor, and IMHO completely stupid and irrelevant issues arose during Special Registration, as well as a number of close calls). Since the NLG in particular, though, is rather left-leaning, I talked to my boss about proper dissemination; should I just e-mail it to all the legal staff, just as an FYI? Her opinion is that I shouldn’t; she thinks I should make a two-second announcement at Friday’s staff meeting that I have info on a lecture, and let people approach me individually for details.
I think she’s being uptight; it’s not like the flyer even expresses a political opinion. She may be just engaging in CYA, as the managing partner is (as far as we can tell) rather Republican, immigration-related issues aside. What is the best and most diplomatic way to handle this, while still disseminating the maximum of useful information?