Brad Hudson wrote:Thanks for the refresher, DarthJ. It's tough for a person to win under rational basis, so I was equating qualifying for strict scrutiny as winning. Sloppy of me. And I agree there are understandable reasons for addressing the 14th amendment claim the way the court did.
And thanks to bcspace for bringing the case to MDB's attention
Arrrggggg
"And the human knew the source of life, the woman of him, and she conceived and bore Cain, and said, 'I have procreated a man with Yahweh.'" Gen. 4:1, interior quote translated by D. Bokovoy.
Brad Hudson wrote:Here's why I think it's tricky. What's the concern of the person being harmed? That person want the ability to express a political opinion in public as a private citizen without the threat of losing her job for it. From the perspective the person whose rights are at stake, it is immaterial whether the employer is public or private. Judges are human, and they want the decisions they make to make sense. And I think that, at some level, judges have trouble justifying different constitutional treatment for public and private employees. Look upthread at my private/public utility example. Exactly why does it make sense that one is protected from being fired for speaking her mind and the other is not?
That is a difficult issue, because they're trying to balance the interest of students who themselves might feel that Dixon is not going to act particularly vigorously on any discrimination claims they might have if she doesn't believe they are entitled to equal protection. Like I said earlier, change this around and say she wrote a letter to the editor as a devout Christian saying the Mormon Church is a cult. Do you think any LDS students are going to feel comfortable telling her about the university discriminating against them because of their religion? Now make that a janitor at the university. Generally, LDS students are not going to seek out a janitor to complain about religious discrimination. (EDIT: But now let's say the janitor was fired for writing a letter to the editor saying he thinks it's a good idea to sleep in the janitor's closet while you're on the clock. Then when he is fired because this is construed as a tacit admission of what he is doing, he sues the university for firing him over "political speech"........)
Another thing about this case is Dixon wrote her letter specifically in response to the university president explaining the university's policy of not discriminating because of sexual orientation. She was directly gainsaying her boss about policies she was supposed to enforce. Attempting to rebut the university president about what your policies are is somewhat different than spontaneously making a statement about your personal views about homosexuality.
I think what bothers me about this is that they're calling it a question of law. All of these issues seem fact-intensive to me.
Darth J wrote:Another thing about this case is Dixon wrote her letter specifically in response to the university president explaining the university's policy of not discriminating because of sexual orientation. She was directly gainsaying her boss about policies she was supposed to enforce. Attempting to rebut the university president about what your policies are is somewhat different than spontaneously making a statement about your personal views about homosexuality.
Again, you've got your finger on it.
"And the human knew the source of life, the woman of him, and she conceived and bore Cain, and said, 'I have procreated a man with Yahweh.'" Gen. 4:1, interior quote translated by D. Bokovoy.
I think what bothers me about this is that they're calling it a question of law. All of these issues seem fact-intensive to me.
Yeah, that bothers me, too. I have no trouble with the concept that deciding whether a statement falls within the protection of the first amendment is an issue of law. But it bothers me that the way the court goes about determining the issue involves the outright weighing of facts. It seems to me that the opinion describes conflicting facts about the nature and scope of her job.
“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.”
― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951
Darth J wrote:Another thing about this case is Dixon wrote her letter specifically in response to the university president explaining the university's policy of not discriminating because of sexual orientation. She was directly gainsaying her boss about policies she was supposed to enforce. Attempting to rebut the university president about what your policies are is somewhat different than spontaneously making a statement about your personal views about homosexuality.
Again, you've got your finger on it.
Yep. I think that's the important factual difference.
“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.”
― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951
Darth J wrote:Brad and lulu, I think we are monopolizing this thread too much.
I think we should give bcspace and Droopy a chance to offer more of their insightful thoughts about this matter.
Or you could just cut and paste their posts from any other thread. How many ways are there to say "liberals are poopy pants?"
“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.”
― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951
Droopy wrote:This is an excellent example of the destruction of the rule of law by law, and, specifically, by the replacing of questions of principle by nitpicking questions of process and procedure.
Behold the Left at work.
Who wants to bet me that:
1. Droopy is not aware that it is the plaintiff who moved for summary judgment in the district court?
2. Droopy would not have the slightest idea what that means even if he were aware of it?