NC Probation office is member of Sons of the Confederacy. Is this a problem?

Trying to be aware of the slippery-slope that this seems to involve: Is there, to some extent, and issue of false equivalency here? I mean, is something like racial supremacy so poisonous an idea that it doesn’t deserve the “market of ideas” kind of protection?

To me, it feels like that kind of belief IS too dangerous, too poisonous, and too corrosive to be protected. That said, I’m also aware that it’s dangerous to start making those kinds of decisions, and who is making those decisions can change.

There are plenty of “left-wing” groups who’s behaviors are problematic, who will be seen as being undesirables to the conservative population. Those are the groups who would be good analogs.

Count me among those who are dubious that this actually happens.

If we’re talking about someone not in the physical presence of the students who’s grading math tests, or multiple-choice tests with only one clearly correct answer, then it would certainly be possible. But most teachers are not only exhibiting body language and tone of voice to their students, but also making judgement calls, all the time. Should a child be censured for sounding disrespectful to the teacher, or to another student? for making noise in class? for not speaking up in class? Should an essay saying something unusual get an extra high grade, or an extra low one? Which student should be called on to answer a question? If the phrasing of the answer isn’t exactly what’s in the textbook, is it acceptable as another wording of the same meaning, or is it wrong? Which student should get attention when two or more are having problems with the assignment and there’s limited time?

There are going to be dozens or hundreds of such decisions in every single day. I doubt that a seriously prejudiced teacher can keep that prejudice out of all of them, down all the way to exact tone of voice when addressing the student, even if trying to do so.

Again, first establish whether or not we are allowed to hire/fire based on "beliefs’. Then you can discuss whether or not membership in a group is enough to establish those beliefs.

I’d be pretty comfortable saying someone who thinks white people are the devil, that race war is imminent and inevitable, and that virtually all black people who are convicted of crimes were framed is not an appropriate person to be a probation officer. Would you agree? Or is it a “slippery slope” to fire a person who has those beliefs, if there is no smoking gun evidence that they treat black and white individuals on probation any differently?

Probably just wanted some exercise and fresh air, then. Saw some people who were already marching and joined in.

Who, like Earth Liberation Front? I’d be fine with the EPA firing someone who’s supportive of ELF.

But I’m having trouble thinking of what left-wing group you think is a good analog.

Up until December 25th, 1868. After that the crime of treason no longer applied. The point of bigotry, and hatred of other sorts, of course lingered, on both sides.

The actual crime of treason stopped having any relevance at all with the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, and has not applied to any acts since that time.

Tris


Democracies get the government they deserve.

Does North Carolina have Extinction Rebellion yet?

If you’re working for an oil company, you probably don’t want an Extinction Rebellion member as a probation officer. Should that bias keep them out of a job?

Concur.
I definitely wouldn’t fire him for this. But i wouldn’t hire him to start with, to be honest.

Who decides whether an idea is “so poisonous” that it does not even qualify as an idea? What if that person thinks that universal health care falls into that category?

Minority clients almost universally claim that they were treated poorly. A defense attorney could use his membership in a group as evidence that the officer was biased, but his work will tell the tale.

What did he do to the black suspect? Would an objectively reasonable police officer have done the same? If so, then no problem. If not, then a problem. This is the exact same test a judge would use for an officer who did not belong to any now governmentally forbidden group.

But there’s a range of acceptable behaviors. What if he’s persistently on the “extreme hardass” end of the range with black clients and the “liberal and permissive” end of the range with white clients? And it’s not a perfect correlation: occasionally a black person seems “alright” to him and he treats them more on the liberal side, and because of other implicit biases, he’s occasionally triggered by a white client. It’s really hard to quantify, but people that work with him for years see the pattern very clearly.

Because I’ve worked with teachers like that. And they hurt kids. They ruin kids’ lives. Talking about this as if the principle is the key, the being perfectly fair to the potential bigot at the cost of those he interacts with seems very, very misguided to me. It’s not a thing to be hand-waved away.

Huh. So the question is, is a probation officer who supports nonviolent civil disobedience that undermines your chosen career substantially the same as a probation officer who glorifies a group that took up arms to betray the country rather than give people who look like you basic human rights? Is that the meat of the question?

If I knew this guy was head of a local Extinction Rebellion chapter, and I worked for Shell Oil, I might ask for a different probation officer.

But there’s a key difference: folks who support Extinction Rebellion have never ever EVER been in a position where they wielded political power sufficient to enact oppressive laws anything like Jim Crow. There’s no reason for me, an oil man, to believe that they’re tapped into a network of anti-oil bigots who will deliberately or unconsciously work together to deny me my rights.

The same people that always decide. The courts. I linked two decisions in post 22 - and one of the issues in the tests the court use is whether the conduct is going to have disruptive effects on the mission of the agency. And it may in fact be different ideas for each agency. I assume racist/sexist beliefs will be disruptive if they are publicized by public facing employees at nearly any agency. But how about other beliefs- is a city health department allowed to forbid it’s employees from publicly opposing vaccinations because it will affect department’s campaign to get everyone vaccinated? What about if they say they are speaking as a private citizen, but it’s well known where they are employed?

And if government agencies can’t restrict that type of speech, then how can they restrict me from cursing out my supervisor when he tells me to do something? I have free speech ,right? And the government can’t interfere, correct? I mean , sure maybe they can fire me for not doing it, but what about if I use the most foul, racist ,sexist ,derogatory language I can think of* while I’m doing what he told me to do *? Then what? Is he required to put up with that until one of us retires?

Well, that’s just it. The mission of the agency. No, I cannot work for Coke and say that Coke Sucks, Everyone Should Drink Pepsi.

But as you admitted, this would apply to every agency and every company making a person unemployable everywhere solely for speech issues. Not an issue in the private sector, but if a racist is working for the DMV, for example, it’s hard to justify the exclusion because he might not allow blacks to get drivers licenses. There are standards to follow and if he does not follow them, he gets disciplined just like everyone else.

Again, I don’t see how we start this with “racist” being okay but next year “Republican” or “Trump supporter” or “Socialist” being just a bridge too far. Can we bar a Bernie Sanders supporter from working for the Department of Labor because we fear that he won’t apply the law as written and be unfair to corporations?

Missed the edit window. We have started down the slippery slope in this very thread.

As much as I might be persuaded to get behind firing or not hiring someone who said something in his private life to the effect that he hates blacks and wished they would all be shipped back to Africa, that is not what we have here. We have a guy that belongs to an organization that some members joined in marching with members of another organization, some of them who made such statements.

It would be like a Bernie supporter being banned because some other Bernie supporters associated with another group, say the Communist Party USA, and a member of that group made a statement which supposedly would harm the mission of the agency if that individual were employed. That is several steps removed from the conduct or speech we want to get rid of, even if I were on board with that.

Greetings Mr Shodan.

Please have a seat.

Before we begin, I would like to mention that I belong to an organization that celebrates a time when you and your kind were in chains and sold as property.

Now, about your application…

But this gets back to your earlier reference to debates about talent distribution by genetic group on this forum as ‘scientific racism’. The very real slippery slope issue is not whether it’s OK for a teacher candidate to say ‘I think black kids are stupid’. That’s IMO obviously unacceptable, and a ludicrous statement in any case.

The very real slippery slope is where someone implies, as I believe you did based on comparing your term ‘scientific racism on this forum’ to actual threads I’ve read here, that doubt that the distribution of talents is completely independent of genetic group is the same as saying ‘X’s are stupid’. Which are not the same thing at all. But I think a lot of people who feel strongly one way on that question find it irresistible to characterize one as the other, because then you can call your opponent a racist, and racists are wrong, period. But it’s basically anti-intellectual.

Does a teacher have to believe that in an completely equal world of equal starting point for everyone the academically exceptional kids would be an exact statistical representation of the demographics of the general population? No, I don’t think a teacher has to believe that. I think you can be fair to individual students without committing yourself to such a rigid belief.

Back to the case at hand, the slippery slope there is likewise not whether it’s OK for a parole officer to be an avowed white supremacist, which is not OK. It’s the part where veneration of Confederate military prowess or sacrifice is interpreted as necessarily white supremacism. Again, separately there would be a valid argument the particular organization in question has identified itself with political white supremacism in the here and now. But a lot of the responses have implied or stated explicitly that any veneration of the Confederate military or its members is white supremacism, presumably even if the person in question completely denies that. That’s definitely moving on a slope IMO compared to banning somebody who themselves says they are an actual white supremacist.

We don’t get to choose our ancestors but we do get to choose how we celebrate their legacies (or not). If you choose to celebrate your ancestors belief and participation in one atrocity or another then you shall be judged accordingly.

People who say that they “doubt that the distribution of talents is completely independent of genetic group” are talking about race, they are talking about blacks, and they are always advocating that blacks are less intelligent to whites due to inherent genetic differences. Its a fig leaf of a deception.