A few weeks back, Mark Hemingway wrote an excellent cover story for the Weekly Standard on the growing scourge of "human rights commissions." In it, Hemingway recounted how the owner of his favorite bar felt the eye of Sauron fall upon him for cracking a joke at noted racist Marion Barry's expense. The First Amendment, you see, is no defense when someone's feelings might be hurt:
Most people live in total ignorance of "human rights" or "civil rights" commissions, until they run afoul of them. They began popping up all over the country in the 1960s and ’70s, and now nearly every state and good-sized municipality has one. In theory, they were set up to handle the flood of discrimination cases that was expected to overwhelm the legal system after the flurry of Great Society legislation. Local human rights commissions were expected to resolve these disputes quickly in administrative tribunals. In practice, however, the commissions have never really served enough of a purpose to justify their existence. They’ve devolved into bureaucratic star chambers with the power to ruin your life and run you out of business.
And so, on September 6, a representative of the District of Columbia Office of Human Rights walked into The Pug and handed Tony a letter that began:
It was brought to the attention of the D.C. Office of Human Rights on September 5, 2012, that your establishment, The Pug, was displaying a racially offensive sign which advertised a cocktail for customers’ purchase. Specifically, the sign stated: Marion Berry’s (sic) Dirty Asian Punch. Below the wording was displayed a caricature of an individual with slanted eyes and protruding teeth. We believe that such a sign is not demonstrative of the shared values and practices that make the District a fully inclusive environment for all residents and visitors. Additionally, we believe the statement violates the D.C. Human Rights Act.
The media has been slow to pick up on the general awfulness of "human rights" commissions because, if I had to guess, they largely agree with the goals of these groups: to enforce "fairness" and "tolerance" and such. One wonders if they'll perk up a bit now that Philadelphia's "human relations" commission is training its ire on Philadelphia Magazine.
Update: Poor reading comprehension on my part: It was actually Philly Mayor Michael Nutter who sent a letter to the human relations commission asking them to investigate Philadelphia Magazine for the article in question. That being said, the thrust of the post still stands, as the human relations commission's response wasn't exactly reassuring:
Rue Landau, the commission's executive director, replied to Nutter: "The commissioners and I share the concerns of the mayor regarding the racial insensitivity and perpetuation of harmful stereotypes portrayed in the Philadelphia Magazine piece."
Landau, whose comments were included in the mayor's news release about his letter, dated Wednesday, said the commission "will take up the mayor's charge and, as a matter of fact, we are already looking at intergroup relations in the city, particularly in changing communities."
End Update.
That publication, you see, had the poor taste to publish a piece called "Being White in Philly." In it, the author had the gall to quote some people who had less-than-complimentary things to say about their African-American neighbors. There was a fair amount of outrage in the journalistic community at large—here's one takedown of the article from Jason Fagone—which is to be expected given the hot topic and rather blunt way it was discussed.
All of that is par for the course. What isn't par for the course, however, is the reaction of the Philadelphia city government, the "human relations" commission of the mayor which issued what I can only describe as the single most chilling letter I've seen a local government author in some time. After prattling on about the quality of the story in question and basic journalistic standards—because, as we all know, local government officials are experts in everything, including what constitutes good writing—one Ms. Rue Landau, executive director of the "human relations" commission Mayor Nutter gets to the crux of his argument: "Freedom of speech? Ain't nobody got time for that!"
While I fully recognize the constitutional protections afforded the press are intended to protect the media from censorship by the government, the First Amendment, like other constitutional right is not an unfettered right, and notwithstanding the First Amendment, a publisher has a duty to the public to exercise its role in a responsible way.
I used the word chilling for a reason: If this isn't a sentence designed to chill free speech, I don't know what is. A government official, writing on the mayor's letterhead and vested with the full power of some tinpot bureaucratic dictatorship, is telling a press outlet to watch their step.
The only question, as I see it, is this: Will members of the press let their distaste for "Being White in Philly" trump their outrage at a government official telling a media outlet what they should and should not publish?
(A tip of the hat to Fagone, who is keeping an eye on reaction to the "human relations" commission's absurd overreach on Twitter. I'd recommend following him if you're interested in keeping an eye on this story.)