What, just because he's a racist doesn't mean he should have a gun and theauthority to take his hate out on innocent minorities. Gosh, you guys are really getting picky.

How do you spell "Amednment?"

So now ATL is just recycling WSJ Law Blog content?

agreed....way too much recylced news on here

If you're gonna steal news stories lat, steal the cool speech hypo on prawfsblog about the guy censured for reading a book about the kKK

Why is Sharon back? This blog is ruining itself. If I wanted to hear the world according to a 1L I'd sit in on a ConLaw class.

4:52 -

She's doing a fine job on these stories, and I've found them to be at least mildly interesting/amusing. As long as she leaves the real legal analysis to Lat or whoever she links to (like she did here), she'll be OK.

How many Hispanic troopers have been fired for joining La Raza? How many African-American troopers have been fired for joining the nation of islam? Another case of double standards.

I agree with 4:52.

In the final sentence of this blog post, "at" is not the proper preposition, nor does the phrase "at the link" even make sense.

Post more Pictures of yourself...

Recycling is good for the environment. Recyclining is the PRIUS of the blogging world

Listen, this case is very serious, I used to do First Amendment law and it is no joke! The hours are long and hard (like my pool boy, or so my wife tells me); long, unpredictable hours are one of the top reasons for flight from firms -- your schedule is not your own. You will sit for days doing nothing, then have three things (unanticipated) dropped on you and bust your ass. Also, hours are not always easy to come by when you get tasks like "draft this letter, I need it in two hours"--you obviously cannot run up a bill on that task. Then you have to wait for partner to review (non-billable). Then you have CLE, meetings, interviews, admin, time recording. I worked at several firms, and summer's have NO IDEA what it is like -- I too said "my firm is different" -- but it is the nature of law. You cannot schedule "billable hours" into your work day. If you could, people would work 15 hour days for 3-4 days and take the rest of the week off! Wait until your practice group is slow, and you cannot scrounge hours, and sit at your desk reading and posting on ATL (this happens, eventually, in EVERY practice group). Then when you get used to coming in late, going to gym, eating lunch, seeing family, BAM -- massive deal closing, or litigation and you are billing 12 hours a day with no gym, no family, no weekends... and people can't understand why you aren't calling, mistress calls your wife looking for you, hair starts falling out, cancel vacation you planned during down time. By the way, the single best way to ensure billable hours is to schedule a vacation -- I usually just send (fake) emails stating my future vacations--which is my version of rainmaking -- as work will come flooding in. The money is great. The people you work with suck (for a variety of reasons). Support staff sucks; can't read, write or suck a D. Clients are hit or miss. Prestige is great for about 2 days. "interesting deals" and work are what you tell others -- becuase there is no way you are going to beleive that line yourself. your wife stops caring what you are doing at work. the drinking increases. you start doing a line or two (coke) to get going in the morning after a long night drinking. you start doing lines to stay awake in warehouse in texas doing document review. you start doing lines off your clients cock. you make partner. you have first heart attack. bill hours from hospital room. settle sexual harrassment case with summer associate. go to asian massage parlors to assuage pain of divorce. see paycheck split in half -- further cut by sending kids (arguably not even your DNA) to boarding schools. you are no longer doing it for the money (you still have school loans) and Dean of law school takes remaineder for scholarship named after you. your wardrobe has not been updated. you are no longer allowed to interview candidates (even from your alum). your teeth turn yellow and your skin begins to turn gray. clients love your dedication, associates fear you. second divorce (how you got second wife is completely unexplainable). head of practice group. exit stage left.

JOHN MCCAIN IS A LIAR -- I saw him lift his arm over his head once...

Police officer joins KKK.

Guess race.

In a new development Officer Henderson renounced his membership in the Knights Party after learning that his wife actually left him as a result of the other man's superior dong and not his ethnicity as previously thought. Mr. Henderson is now seeking venues to vent his frustrations over men that are better endowed..

Has the man had enough humiliation already? Wife leaves for a MEXICAN! Joins fake KKK, gets fired, loses lawsuits. Can we get a suicide already? How many failures before you realize you are loser and end your miserable existence?!

amazing how fast people are ready to get rid of freedom of speech when its speech they don't like.

I love how these cases always bring the closet and not-so-closeted racists out of the woodwork...

I wonder what would happen if a non-white cop with similar racists views were kicked off the force. One can only imagine the ruckus it would create.

i think they would need to show the arbitrator showed manifest disregard of the law to overturn the ruling.

I love how these cases always bring the closet and not-so-closeted liberal fascists out of the woodwork...

I don't know if youre calling 7:37 a racist, 7:40, but I'm not. I do support freedom of speech though.

7:40, you have no right to EVER protest your freedom of speech being denied. Once the government starts punishing some types of speech, people can kiss their freedom goodbye. And that's not a fallacious slippery slope argument - there are tons of examples in history where that has happened. Dumb ass people will always support a restriction on speech to "protect" us, and the next thing you know you're living in a fascist state.

Another thing that pisses me off about idiots like 7:40 is that they are so quick to call people racists, but they can't exactly point out what is racist about them.

Maybe this guy doesn't deserve to get his life ruined because he joined an unpopular organization. Our country lets you mitigate murder when your wife leaves you, why not join an unpopular organization? Who knows if he actually was a racist? Either way, it shouldn't be illegal to be racist in a free country as long as he doesn't harm people.

754 F.2d 936

“We hold only that a law enforcement agency does not violate the First Amendment by discharging an employee whose active participation in an organization with a history of violent activity, which is antithetical to enforcement of the laws by state officers, has become known to the public and created an understandably adverse public reaction that seriously and dangerously threatens to cripple the ability of the law enforcement agency to perform effectively its public duties.”

Uh, just as on point, actually and supreme court precedent to boot:
San Diego v. Roe, 543 US 77. Officers off duty activities (in that case, selling pornographic videos of himself stripping out of a generic polic uniform) had a injurious effect on the mission of the department and thus were subject to the Pickering and Connick balancing tests.

Is white superiority "racist"?

A friend and I were out jogging downtown on public streets toward the city council building one time, only to be pushed off our route by police. I asked why. They told me there was a KKK protest going on and we weren't, therefore, allowed to enter the area. Um, hello? Apparently, to "protect civil liberties" and not deny anyone their freedom of speech, the cops had granted the KKK the right to protest there, but then circled the dozen KKK members with about a hundred cops and wouldn't let anyone from the public within a block of them to actually see them or their protest message. That struck me as really messed up, to effectively silence a group by saying, "We'll let you talk, but we won't let anyone within earshot to hear you." Being a lawyer, of course I had to argue with the police--which didn't result in much good--and then being a rebel, I had to sneak through a back way to see what the big prohibited rally was all about, which was when I saw, like I said, about a dozen awkard looking people holding signs that said oblique messages such as "protect family values" surrounded by a hundred police holding onto their side arms.

8:26: Read it again -- San Diego v. Roe holds that the officer in question's "expression does not qualify as a matter of public concern under any view of the public concern test." Accordingly, "[h]e fails the threshold test and Pickering balancing does not come into play." The Court then went on to hold that the officer's dismissal did not violate the 1st Amendment -- essentially, the same holding as the 11th Circuit case in 10:04.

So the KKK has affiliates now? Is it a wholly-owned subsidiary, or is it a joint venture with the Aryan Nation or something? Can it be included in the KKK's consolidated tax returns?

Give this guy a break. He's a racist; big deal. At least he owns up to it, unlike the closet racists on this board. I prefer my racism to be overt.

"Maybe this guy doesn't deserve to get his life ruined because he joined an unpopular organization"

Sure he does, just as long as it's ruined by private action.

The state of Nebraska isn't a private organization, dumbass. The Constitution applies to it.

This guy is being punished for a thoughtcrime, pure and simple.

LOL@"Robert Henderson, then a state trooper in Nebraska, joined an organization called the Knights Party after his wife left him for a hispanic man."

Oh, and 9:16, I don't see any racist comments on this thread. There is a difference between allowing somebody freedom of speech and agreeing with what they say.

9:29:
What I didn't add, and should have, and that you are right, they went under Connick, found no public concern from the speech and upheld the firing of the officer. Roe is still on point. Same result will happen here and Roe is the precedent.
That's what I get for reading AMJUR.