Slashdot Mirror
Online Forum Leads To Hostile Workplace Lawsuit
Tiger4 writes "A group of black Philadelphia police officers have filed a lawsuit against the police department and the city, alleging a hostile work environment due to a private website popular with police. Their story has received wide coverage. From CNN: 'The suit alleges white officers post on and moderate the privately operated site, Domelights.com, both on and off the job. Domelights' users "often joke about the racially offensive commentary on the site ... or will mention them in front of black police officers," thus creating "a racially hostile work environment," according to lawyers for the all-black Guardian Civic League, the lead plaintiff in the suit.' The site appears to be owned and operated by a member of the police force, but it is not funded or operated by the city. Management clearly knows it exists; it is possible police force members access it on the job, and the suit says some of them reference it on the job. Individual police force members have a right to their own opinions, but management has a responsibility to enforce the law fairly and equitably across the city and among their own workforce. What is the solution here?"
If you get into the actual facts of the story it is clear, though the summary didn't really touch on it.
At it's heart it's a question of whether a person that runs a bulletin board is responsible for what posters post, a subject of frequent commentary on slashdot.
In point of fact, it would be like calling Commander Taco a racist homophobe because of all the troll spam that's gotten posted here over the years.
I can relate to that and I'm not even black. I was born in Africa and got my first job in North America as a 'Token Black'. My new employer was rather surprised to see that I was white. Since then, I have on numerous occasions been turned down for a job as soon as the employer learned that I was born in Africa. When I mentioned to a friend that being an African American White causes trouble while job hunting, he said that I have nothing to complain about, since he is an African American White Jew... The only solution to American racism is to start your own company.