The author of this BLOG regrets to add this shameful chapter to his BLOG as per the record of his own experience. However, he believes the shame herein described belongs not to himself, but to our government, for its abject refusal to acknowledge that the civil rights and liberties enumerated in the U.S. Constitution--as this nation's founders said--come from God as absolute and inalienable, and not as priviledges granted and withdrawn by men, according to their convenient political expedience. Further address to this issue is available in George Mason University law professor David Bernstein's book, You Can't Say That!(Why not? Read on!)
The legal background to this article is the U.S. Supreme Court cases of Connick v. Myers, and Churchill v. Waters. Here, the high court proclaims that government employees have First Amendment free speech rights, so long as their speech "does not interfere with the efficiency of government operations." Who assesses the meaning of this edict? Why, government itself, unchecked and unrestrained from any possible politically-motivated abuse. Four times was the author of this BLOG suspended from work at the U.S. Defense Mapping Agency, for which he worked from June 1976 - June 2006.
Suspension number one came in response to his written letter to his department chief, questioning the latter's patriotism and sense of commitment to other people. The man switched sides three times at a department picnic volleyball game, trying to abandon the losing team and secure a place for himself on the winning side. When it became obvious that whichever side he was on was going to lose, he chickened out and dropped out of the game altogether. The author of this BLOG also referred to this department chief--a black African-American man named James--as "Uncle Jim-ima", a male-sex version of a nationally-famous commercial food icon. This BLOG author was suspended for "use of insulting language", and for making a "racially discriminatory comment about a superior agency official". QUESTIONS: Is it interference with government operational efficiency, if an employee's insults to his superiors do NOT relate to the government agency's official mission? How will the government define "insulting language" in a manner satisfying the Constitution 14th amendment, when one man's villain is another man's hero? Is it discriminatory under any federal civil rights statute, to satirically call a black person after the name of a long-established and famous commercial food product black icon? In any event, the volleyball team-switching incident made the BLOG author wonder if his department chief's leadership included the magnanimity to help those in struggle to succeed on the job, as opposed to self-glorification by association with those already winning and successful.
Suspension number two came in response to doctoring the photograph of an agency lawyer in the agency's newspaper, to make him look like Satan the devil and send the doctored photo to him. He was being cited for an agency award for outstanding work. This BLOG author felt he did not deserve the award, for reasons of constitutional import relating to the first suspension incident. QUESTION: Is it interference with government operational efficiency, to express contempt for an agency official not in the employee's chain-of-command, and concerning an extraordinary occasion of award not directly central to the successful execution of the agency's mission?
The third suspension came in response to an e-mail addressed by this BLOG's author exclusively to his immediate first-line supervisor. In this e-mail, he used the word "nigger-boy", to describe how he felt he was being treated by a fellow co-worker believing himself to be more competent on the job than this BLOG's author. This co-worker was repeatedly commanding the BLOG's author to go down to the map library five floors down, and retrieve maps. After several episodes of this treatment, the BLOG's author felt greatly demeaned, to say the least! QUESTION: How can the use of just one word in an e-mail, no matter how unpleasant or "politically-incorrect", possibly cause interference with government operational efficiency, if used only once and not as part of a repeated pattern of co-worker harrassment? Hostile work environment law would have very unlikely application to this instance.
The fourth suspension came in response to e-mails sent from the BLOG author's home to that of a foreign-language instructor on temporary contract with the agency. These e-mails were composed by the BLOG author on his own time, from his own home, and using his own resources. He was chiding the foreign language-instructor for the latter's boasting about previous association with high-ranking government officials. The BLOG author was warning that government and politics are very unpopular here in America, and so such personal association would NOT confer socio-political prestige, but quite the very shameful opposite. The foreign language instructor complained to agency officials about "feeling threatened" by the e-mails, although the e-mails contained no statements of intent to inflict any criminal injury upon the instructor. Thus the charge of "feeling threatened" was vague: threatened with what adversity? Not explicitly stated or proven. QUESTIONS: Do government agencies, as employers, still have administrative control over their employees, concerning the latter's behaviour off of government property and after working hours? Does government have authority to vague, non-specific threats not stating intent to violate any particular law? Is "feeling threatened" by a communication's recipient sufficient legal grounds to even say a real threat exists, i.e. does "feeling threatened" equal objective reality under the law? This question also occurred with the second suspension incident.
As far as this BLOG's author can fathom, the four suspensions he experienced on his job were not based on any credible interference with any aspect of the agency's official mission, per se. Rather, he was suspended for mere "political incorrectness" which offended various agency officials' feelings. To use the words of William Shakespeare, civility is "a consumation devoutly to be wished". But the question of government being empowered to dictate rules of unwritten customary civility still remains. The power to penalize people for violation of unwritten social mores is a power the people should confer upon our government only with the greatest of reluctance--if they confer such power upon government at all--given the presence of the 14th amendment in the U.S. Constitution. Equal enforcement of unwritten law can never be guaranteed, and the words, "you cannot impose your religious morality on me" is a rallying cry of the American far Left. Why that cry should be nullified as a condition of government employment is a question the Left has yet to answer.
This BLOG author has not been able to procure justice on this issue, even five years after retirement from his government job. The question of use of "offensive language" is an ever-increasingly prominent issue nonetheless. "Free speech for me, but not for thee?" The U.S. Constitution, backed by the Declaration of Independence, contains much high-flying, idealistic rhetoric. But the author now knows that as relating to himself, none of it is true! -LKM
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