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Privileging One Point of View: The AALS Annual Meeting Kerfuffle

NLJ:

Organizations representing thousands of legal educators say they will boycott the Association of American Law Schools annual meeting in January if it is held at a San Diego hotel owned by a foe of same-sex marriage.

The four groups made up of law professors and legal writing professionals have sent letters to the Association of American Law Schools (AALS), calling for it to move the site chosen for the conference in January.

The groups object to holding the annual meeting at the San Diego Manchester Grand Hyatt, a hotel whose owner, Douglas Manchester, has donated $125,000 to an initiative to outlaw same-sex marriage in California.

The groups say that to attend the five-day event hosted primarily at the Manchester Grand Hyatt would conflict with their policies of nondiscrimination based on sexual orientation.

In the first place, there is no issue of discrimination here. There is no evidence that the hotel in question discriminates against gays. Instead, this is viewpoint discrimination on the part of the legal educators who are using a private boycott to punish someone with whose views on a contested issue of public policy they differ.

How much would you like to bet that some of those objecting to holding the event at Manchester Grand Hyatt have criticized conservative groups like the American Family Association for private boycotts of companies like McDonald’s for having made contributions to the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce.

The double standard here will become particularly problematic if the AALS caves to the critics. It will have allowed a vocal contingent to hijack a purportedly diverse organization for the ends of a particular point of view that may not be shared by all members of the organization.

Imagine how the left-liberals that dominate the academy would howl if I and some like minded faculty insisted that the AALS boycott a hotel chain that supported abortion by, say, donating money to NARAL.

Update: Rick Garnett poses some interesting questions about this story:

What should we make of this particular threatened boycott?  If I had a relatively easy way of avoiding doing business with people I thought were nasty or malevolent, I suppose I would.  (Would I, if it were possible without too much inconvenience, avoid doing business with, say, large donors to NARAL Pro-Choice America, or some other group whose agenda I oppose?  Should I?  I’m not sure—my efforts to not buy goods “made in China” have all been pathetic failures.) And, I suppose that many people believe that the view the owner has expressed provides at least some evidence that he is someone with whom they ought not to do business.  Or, is something else going on?  That is, is it not so much that those threatening the boycott are seeking to avoid the taint that comes with associating themselves with the owner (and his views), but are instead seeking to express, through the boycott vehicle, as well as more conventional speech-vehicles, their own views, i.e., contrary views to the owner’s?  Is it problematic, at all, that it is likely that at least some of the members of the various organizations discussed in the Journal story do not, in fact, object strongly to meeting at the hotel?

Update: Glenn Reynolds points out that the AALS and all its member schools could suffer economically if the organization caves to the demands:

Of course, this will mostly hurt the AALS, which will likely pay big penalties to the hotel if it doesn’t make its room-night target for the meting, and which will certainly find it at least somewhat harder to negotiate hotel deals in the future.

So, in effect, the boycotters want to tax me and all other members to support their particular view.

Apropos of which, Susan Stabile writes:

… it is one thing to organize a boycott against the hotel if there is something about the business itself that is objectionable (e.g., there is evidence of discrimination against homosexuals in the actual operations of the hotel).  I assume no one would find such a boycott objectionable.  But isn’t it another thing for a legal academic group (which presumably thinks freedom of speech and expression is a good thing) to organize a boycott based on the owner’s speech (in this case evidenced by a donation), even if we disagree with that speech?

I’d think so, but the academic left’s commitment to free speech is tenuous at best.

Update: David Bernstein notes that:

The Legal Writing Institute, among others, appears to be taking the position that holding the conference at the planned hotel would violate their nondiscrimination policy. I don’t quite get this; there does not appear to be any evidence that the hotel, as a business, discriminates in any way against gay clients. ...

UPDATE: Apparently, a local labor union is co-organizing the boycott. While the union’s leader claims that the union is very concerned about the gay marriage issue, I suspect that the fact that the hotel is not “organized,” has more to do with the union’s interest.

Is the gay marriage issue a red herring? Is helping a union win an organization fight the real issue?  In any case, the confounding issue makes it even more problematic for the AALS to pull out. Now they’d be taking sides in a labor fight, which is not something the organization ought to be involved in.

Update: A couple of choice comments from the thread following Bernstein’s post:

If discrimination by private actors based on the political views of the victims is appropriate, then what was wrong with the blacklist? Mind you, clear thinking is not what I have come to expect from the AALS.

If discrimination by private actors based on the political views of the victims is appropriate, then what was wrong with the blacklist?

Actually, a lot of the opponents of what’s generally known as the Hollywood blacklist have no problem with it when it’s applied, say, to Lillian Gish for her support of the America First Committee. It’s just a matter of whose ox is being gored.

Points very well taken, indeed.

Update: Tom Smith asks some great questions:

It strikes me as a bit much to boycott a large business, such as a hotel, because you disagree with the views of a man who owns, realistically speaking, only some part of it.  For one thing, it is economically naive.  A big entity such as a major hotel corporation has lots of “owners” —it has shareholders and no doubt very significant creditors.  Real estate projects, especially around San Diego and lately, tend to be highly leveraged.  With what’s been going on in the credit markets, who knows how far above water this hotel even is.  It may be a stretch to even say the Manchester owns it, if in the event it were liquidated today, the creditors would end up with the shares.  Are the views on gay marriage of all these “owners” relevant to where the AALS has its meeting?  Should the views of a minority shareholder even count?  What about the views of the workers at the hotel and the many vendors who sell it supplies?

Then there is the whole political intimidation dimension of this proposed boycott.  It rather says, if you disagree with us on gay rights, we will punish you economically.  I suppose if you think gay marriage is a fundamental human right, then economic warfare is justified.  But there is something too to the ideal of tolerance, which is that we let other people express their views in the public square without trying to put them out of business.  Manchester is just giving money that will no doubt be used to buy ads to try to persuade Californians to vote a certain way in an election.  He’s engaging in political speech.  I would also go so far as to say his views are not beyond the pale.  A boycott says he should not be suffered to express his views in this way.  To me that does not seem very democratic. 

There is also the question of where this should end.  Should professors such as I even be permitted to attend the AALS meeting?  Granted, I rarely go, but if it were in San Diego I might.  As I said, I am currently against gay marriage outside of Oregon, and am if not a devout Catholic, at least one who strives to be annoying.  Why not just bar such as myself from the AALS entirely?  That would certainly make a statement about gay marriage, and would actually be within the jurisdiction, so to speak, of the AALS, which is all about law professors, not hoteliers.  Maybe Catholic law schools should not be permitted to be members of the AALS at all.  And don’t forget BYU and the Mormons.  They think lots of bad thoughts too.