But of course the rule of conduct is contrary to due process and the presumption of innocence and these false accusations do exist even if they are rare.

This comes back again to the strange idea that universities should be, literally, privileged; that they should have their own private law, enforced by their own private police force; that they should reach decisions and impose penalties not through (for example) an open jury trial that finds guilt under law beyond a reasonable doubt, but a closed committee that has no oversight, evidential standards, or formal appeal process; that they should, in fact, go ahead and do so even if the real actual criminal justice process has already concluded and not found any guilt, or even any offence.

I mean, don't HR departments do something analogous in other settings? They have to figure out whether or not to believe an accuser in an extra-judicial setting, and how to handle ambiguous situations.

Pretty much every institutionalized group has to have some sort of procedure for dealing with situations where someone may have broken a law or the internal code of conduct, independently from whether or not the actual legal system will provide a clear ruling.

I think HR just always sides with the more powerful person.

1 is correct for criminal conduct within universities, which it's weird US universities get deference from local authorities to adjudicate; incorrect for decisions on whether someone should be terminated or disciplined.

I haven't followed the links but I think Ile is making it more complicated than it actually is.

there's something very compelling about the cases where they are false, and the nightmarish surreality of being caught up in a false accusation makes us think about it more which makes us overperceive them as a possibility and empathize with the potential of of being falsely accused

We don't think so hard about false accusations of murder or theft or non-crimes like general dickishness. We think so hard about false accusations of sexual violence by men against women because of centuries of patriarchal narratives about how consent is murky and/or unimportant, and how women are more responsible for how they get treated than men are for how they treat women, and how a woman's sexual history is considered important to her character in ways a man's isn't, and so on. The culture has changed on this in recent decades but it's still definitely an ongoing problem.

TL;DR: sexism.

I think 3 is true, too. But it's an ethos!

I don't even have an HR.

We don't think so hard about false accusations of murder or theft or non-crimes like general dickishness.

There are not a lot of cases where someone is saying "I was accused of murdering my co-worker, even though I did not actually murder my co-worker, I was never charged with murdering my co-worker, and there's no evidence that my co-worker was murdered at all, but the HR department and my manager are still pretty sure I murdered my co-worker, so they sacked me".

Pretty much every institutionalized group has to have some sort of procedure for dealing with situations where someone may have broken a law or the internal code of conduct

The internal code of conduct, yes. But every institutionalised group I've ever encountered has the following procedure for dealing with a situation where someone may have broken a law: call the police. (And sexual harassment is a crime!)

Also, we do think quite hard, in general, about false accusations of murder, don't we? All those podcasts and so on? The Innocence Project?

8: People are conventionally fired for accusations of theft or other dishonesty that aren't criminally prosecuted, right? Or for non-sexual interpersonal harassment/conflict that isn't prosecuted -- there's nothing strange about saying that one employee punched another and was fired for it, even if no one went to the police.

Murder is different because there's no category of murder where going to the police would seem like an overreaction to anyone.

There are not a lot of cases where someone is saying "I was accused of murdering my co-worker, even though I did not actually murder my co-worker, I was never charged with murdering my co-worker, and there's no evidence that my co-worker was murdered at all, but the HR department and my manager are still pretty sure I murdered my co-worker, so they sacked me".

Excluding the middle! There can easily be evidence that would be persuasive enough to justify termination or discipline, that would not pass the reasonable-doubt standard for a jury.

10: that is pretty strange tbh. Most places I've worked, there is an explicit policy that if an employee is caught stealing - or indeed if a customer is caught stealing - the police will be called. Same with assault (not that it's come up very often).
If one of your colleagues punches another one, in the workplace, on company time, would you really expect that to be handled as an HR matter, rather than as an actual crime?

Or the "even if technically a crime, is it a big enough deal to get the police involved." Small-scale theft, low-level interpersonal violence and so on.

13: Suppose you have 3-4 women who find new jobs, and in the exit interviews, they all tell you its because their manager is handsy. Are you only taking that to the police?

13: Well, my work place, I wouldn't expect it to happen at all, so I don't have a strong sense of what the reaction would be if it did. But, e.g., about ten years back in a different area of my current employer, I worked with a guy who was having some mental health problems that expressed themselves in his being demonstratively angry to an unusual extent in the office -- he'd slam furniture around and shout sometimes, in a moderately frightening way. (HR was involved, I don't know what the exact process was but his employment came to an end.) It never did happen, but if he, e.g., had shoved someone in a way that didn't do meaningful injury, I don't think it would have occurred to me to call the police, so long as there was some response that kept out of the workplace in future.

If I have three women who are all willing to state that they were assaulted by one of my employees, then, yes, I'm taking that to the police!

17: They aren't. They just took new jobs and left. Are you doing anything? Are you investigating and talking to other employees and trying to get a sense of what the department culture is like?

I mean, they were willing to say it in an exit interview, but they aren't willing to talk to the police or do anything more.

There's stealing and then there's, say, a broad interpretation of what's a legitimate expense to be reimbursed by one's employer. Which is, depending on the circumstances, also stealing, but I think there's very plausibly room in a lot of workplaces for expense account fiddling that would get you fired but not arrested if your employer caught on.

I can expense my parking.

As long as you don't get handsy with Lovely Rita.

if he, e.g., had shoved someone in a way that didn't do meaningful injury, I don't think it would have occurred to me to call the police

Can't honestly imagine witnessing an actual violent assault and not calling the police.

How serious would the assault have to get before you would call the police? Blood actually spilled? Broken bones?

If someone stole by improper expenses at work, I'd expect them to be fired to not choosing following procedures. Unless the amount stolen was both not paid back and in the thousands. But I've not seen it tried.

They just took new jobs and left. Are you doing anything? Are you investigating and talking to other employees and trying to get a sense of what the department culture is like?

No, I'd be too worried that the manager in question would beat the shit out of me in the middle of the office while all my colleagues stood round and watched muttering "ooh, this is quite problematic, I really should mention this to HR at some point."

I think the actual concern is that someone comes back and shoots up the whole office.

I literally do not have a reliable sense of what I would do because my experience of interpersonal violence is basically nothing since childhood sibling fights. But yeah, I don't think it'd have occurred to me to call the police if this guy had shoved someone and left so that there wasn't an immediately ongoing unsafe situation.

23: Wait. You would call the police if you see someone get shoved? No blood spilled, no broken bones?

I think there are three separate arguments here.

1. The distinction between internal administrative punishments and criminal action is one of kind. An internal administrative punishment should be imposed for administrative offences only such as incompetence, lateness, rudeness etc. Criminal offences should be investigated and punished by the criminal justice system, and administrative action taken only after a criminal conviction has been secured.

2. (Moby and LB, I think) The distinction between internal administrative punishments and criminal action is one of degree. Theft through small scale expense fraud is a crime of theft, minor assault is a crime of assault, but these should be punished with administrative action as long as they don't rise above a certain threshold - no blood spilt, amounts in the hundreds rather than the thousands. Major crimes should be investigated and punished by the criminal justice system.

3. (Minivet and Heebie) The distinction between internal administrative punishments and criminal action is one of probability. Any alleged crime should be investigated and punished simultaneously by the administrative system and the criminal justice system, and the absence of any criminal charge or conviction should not limit the administrative process at all.

If I worked in HR, or otherwise was adjacent to the incident described in 15 but am not directly a victim, perpetrator, or in the chain of command of either, then I'd definitely report it up the chain in HR and I hope there would already be policies supporting action by the employer. I'd advise the victims to report it to the police and offer to support them however they'd like, but not be surprised if they didn't go to the police if only due to the hassle and the fact that they're already out of the situation. I wouldn't expect a police report by me without a victim's involvement to accomplish anything, good or bad.

If I WAS in the chain of command of a victim or perpetrator, I like to think I'd do the same thing if I've consulted with a personal lawyer first and they gave me their blessing, just in case.

I'm not sure what I think in terms of what is should happen. I'm saying what I expect to happen.

You would call the police if you see someone get shoved?

In my workplace, where I am a manager?

Yes! If I see one of my staff get assaulted, I'm calling the police!

In all likelihood, if it's a relatively minor assault, the guy will get a caution at worst, but, setting aside the morality for a moment, duty of care! When this violent person actually does someone a serious injury, how's it going to look when I get asked "did he ever show any signs of violence before today?" and I say "oh, yes, he's always shoving the nurses around, he throws the occasional tray at the occasional porter, but I never thought to call the police, all just part of the fun isn't it"?

But in any case, you're talking about whether it shows bad judgment not to call the police for that level of interpersonal violence (shoving, no injury). Whether you're right or wrong about the bad judgment, do you think there's anything improper about firing someone for interpersonal violence under those circumstances?

If you're arguing that it's wrong to fire anyone for conduct that could constitute a crime if there hasn't been a successful prosecution for it -- not calling the cops should constitute a waiver by the employer of a right to fire -- I disagree.

I appreciate it may be a bit different if you are somewhere where you can reasonably expect the police to arrive and simply shoot the first black guy they see, but I'm fairly confident that PC McFarlane (picking one at random) isn't going to do that. Just getting a uniform in front of the violent member of staff would be extremely therapeutic, and getting him admonished in the sheriff court would be even better.

29: And put me down for your category 3 (sort of? I don't understand what you're saying about probability). There is conduct that is undesirable in the workplace, for which administrative punishment such as firing is appropriate. Some of that conduct is also criminal. Whether or not an employer involves the criminal justice system in any incident of misconduct is not determinative of whether administrative punishment can legitimately be issued for the same misconduct.

If you're arguing that it's wrong to fire anyone for conduct that could constitute a crime if there hasn't been a successful prosecution for it -- not calling the cops should constitute a waiver by the employer of a right to fire -- I disagree.

The right to fire is not a thing over here.

It's not that it's a waiver of the right to fire, it's dereliction of an employer's duty to provide a safe workplace for their staff. "We routinely do not report minor assaults to the police" is a bad position to take.

The right to fire is not a thing over here.

This may be at the root of some of the disagreement here.

To get off the duty of care point, which is I think a bit of a red herring, what do you think about expense account fiddling? Do you think it would be very strange for an employer to fire but not prosecute an employee for submitting inflated expense reports?

Another transatlantic difference that I think may be relevant is that I have a very hard time imagining a US cop showing up to an office in response to a report of a minor assault with no injuries.

I'm at at-will employee, which means I can be fired with no notice and for any non-discriminatory reason. But the odds of that happening without cause is very small.

37: Right to fire, whatever. Right to engage in whatever internal administrative action an employer would take against an employee who had acted in ways forbidden by the employee handbook.

40: At least between two middle-class office workers.

43: Right. Change any of those conditions and it's a different story.

That would be much less strange because it is a minor crime by the employee against the company, not a serious crime by the employee against another employee.

I disagree that the duty of care point is a red herring, because this discussion started by talking about accusations of sexual harassment, which are committed by employees against each other. If anything, the expense fraud discussion is the red herring.

45 to 39.

I can expense a herring only if I'm traveling.

If an employee was going through customers' handbags (or indeed colleagues' handbags) and stealing cash when they weren't looking, I would be very surprised if the police weren't called, even if the amounts were small.

I'm trying to break apart whether the issue is the criminality of the conduct or the duty of care. Can we agree, then, that there's not a bright line at whether the conduct an employee is accused of is criminal? Sometimes you can take administrative action against an employee without going to to the police even if the wrongdoing in question is criminal?

I have a very hard time imagining a US cop showing up to an office in response to a report of a minor assault with no injuries.

I work in a hospital and the police tend to take assaults on medical personnel pretty seriously, because the sort of scrote who assaults a paramedic will probably assault a police officer next, also because police officers like to stay friends with medics because you never know when you'll next need a wound treated (or a cup of tea).

Hospitals are a totally different story. Cops show up there all the time.

The issue of assaults at hospitals is taken pretty seriously here. The threatened to call the police on my dying father who was trying to slap a nurse because he thought she was a guard or something. The solution was transfer to a nursing home where the staff knew how to treat sundowning. I don't know what the solution is for poorer people (the hospital was covered by Medicare but the nursing home was not), but I imagine dying in restraints is a possibility.

This whole conversation is weird, too, because going back to 8: (And sexual harassment is a crime!)

This is just wrong. Sexual assault is a crime, but there are all sorts of things that can constitute sexual harassment that aren't criminal.

That's what the HR training said. But I haven't taken one since 2017 or so.

Another transatlantic difference that I think may be relevant is that I have a very hard time imagining a US cop showing up to an office in response to a report of a minor assault with no injuries.

This for sure. They don't show up for car crashes unless someone is injured anymore, and this is not anecdotal. This is official police fiscal policy that I've heard the police chief say to city council during meetings. You can't get someone out if your bike or property is stolen. Unless it's an imminent danger that needs intervention, I can't imagine them coming out for a shoving.

Plus all the dubious business about whether or not I want the cops showing up, guns blazing, misjudging who is a threat in the situation.

Obviously people who steal bikes need shot, but it's not easy to tell who.

"Sexual assault is a crime, but there are all sorts of things that can constitute sexual harassment that aren't criminal."

IANAL but sexual harassment is defined (and prohibited under civil law) in the Equalities Act 2010 and repeated instances (2 or more) qualify as criminal harassment under the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001.

I think we have a different king.

Being unemployed for the last several years, I'm having a hard time really thinking about what HR would do in what case.

I actually do think about false accusations of theft, physical assault, non-sexual harassment, and cheating/plagiarism a lot -- and in semi-institutional or communal settings with some aversion to bringing in LEO. Probably I'm just weird --- I mean, who are we kidding? --- but I have been on the peripheries of many such cases throughout my life. They have all been weird interesting stories with very particular people with very particular motives and baggage involved, and it's super hard to generalize, but in retrospect the exonerated's feeling of shock and confusion is hard not to think about. And I feel like this is a topic of an awful lot of detective shows? Isn't it a TV trope?

My writing in was super loopy because I am extra underslept because baby has croup but we are getting better. I apologize for not participating in a thread I started.

I don't know the UK statute. But, e.g., attempting to persuade one's coworkers to have sex with one through repeated and detailed descriptions of the sex acts you would like to engage in with them is the sort of thing that could constitute sexual harassment here without being criminal.

49: I would be interested to know if your employer would actually put in writing, in its staff handbook, "employees are not to call police for minor thefts and assaults". Because if that's what everyone does and expects, why not write it down?

In a less prurient vein, if there's one woman on a job site and her coworkers are consistently hiding the tools she needs to use to do her job, she is being sexually harassed but no one is committing a crime. (Sexual harassment being harassment on account of one's sex, rather than necessarily in relation to sexual behavior.)

60: wow. No, that would definitely be illegal here.

Then how does anyone ever get on your supreme court?!

"Sexual harassment being harassment on account of one's sex, rather than necessarily in relation to sexual behavior"

That definition is not accurate here. Equalities Act: "a person sexually harasses another person if they: Engage in unwanted conduct of a sexual nature and. The conduct has the purpose or effect of either violating the other person's dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for them."

61: That would be an odd thing to put in the handbook, because the line of when it makes sense to call the police is a judgment call, and possibly criminal behavior in the workplace is often going to be unexpected, so hard to describe with particularity beforehand. So I wouldn't expect that to be in the employee handbook, but the absence doesn't seem weird to me at all.

You guys aren't being degraded?

"if there's one woman on a job site and her coworkers are consistently hiding the tools she needs to use to do her job"

... then she's being discriminated against by her colleagues and her employer may be liable for failing to ensure a safe and equitable working environment, but no crime is being committed and I think administrative action against her colleagues would be perfectly OK.

63: Illegal, or criminal? It'd be illegal, in the sense that it would plausibly give rise to civil liability, here. Probably wouldn't be criminal if there weren't threats, though.

Are there criminal penalties under your Equalities Act?

69: as described it would be both sexual harassment under civil law and criminal harassment under criminal law, I think.

Is the criminal harassment statute you're referring to employment-related, or does conduct constitute criminal harassment in the workplace only if the same conduct would constitute criminal harassment in a social setting?

Harassment only has to cause distress or alarm. There is a separate offence of putting in fear which covers threats.

71: the latter, I believe. Repeated behaviour causing distress or alarm, in whatever setting.

All these references to an "employee handbook" remind me of an awkward incident in my early years at Google when a new hire, an older man with a somewhat literal manner, complained at a company meeting that he couldn't tell what was in the employee handbook, because he'd been given a website link to a document with lots of other links out, which themselves had links out in the usual manner of web pages, and it wasn't clear when the linked things were being entirely incorporated or just gestured at, so he didn't know what the rules really were. I believe he and HR were unable to come to an agreement on this and he left in short order.

It's sort of an interesting complaint, but in a very abstract way, because to me it's clear that such a handbook is never something I could hold the employer to; it's at best guidelines that they want me to know.

And this is all slightly OT because original hypo was about a "handsy" manager. Unwanted sexual contact is not considered sexual harassment in the UK; it is considered sexual assault, which is a crime even if it only happens once. And, yes, I'd call the police about it even if no one was injured.

The point I'm getting at there, not to be overly Socratic about it, is that you can make a crude sexual overture to someone in a social setting without committing a crime. You can even do it repeatedly if you don't take it to the level where a reasonable person would be frightened by it. But that sort of crude sexual overture within the workplace can be sexual harassment civilly, without becoming a crime.

You seem to believe that under UK law there's no room at all between what's impermissible sexual harassment civilly and what's a prosecutable criminal offense, and god knows I'm not a UK lawyer, so you might be right.

Although it seems super weird to me. Like, imagine you're an asshole with a jocularly hostile relationship with a female acquaintance, and every time you run into her in public you say something along the lines of "Hey Darlene, when are you going to suck my cock?" If you're not following her around or anything, I would not expect that conduct to lead to prosecution. If you did that in the workplace, though, I think she'd have a case for sexual harassment and I'd expect you to be disciplined.

In any case, whatever the law is in the UK, in the US making crude sexual overtures in a social setting is largely not criminal, but doing it in the workplace is sexual harassment.

I'm glad we've come around to agreement that... there are many cases where an employer will adjudicate misconduct, instead of or alongside a court? Why was this like pulling teeth?

Turns out different countries have different laws.

75: Your 8 is before the first use of the word
"handsy". If we can agree that there is some conduct that is workplace sexual harassment that is not criminal, that's some progress.

Also different social norms.

76: I think this is a difference between our legal systems. Repeated behaviour of that nature which caused alarm or distress is legal in the US but not in the UK.

"under UK law there's no room at all between what's impermissible sexual harassment civilly and what's a prosecutable criminal offense"

There is a very small difference: if you do it once it could be civil sexual harassment but not criminal harassment, because the criminal offence requires a *repeated* act. The civil definition doesn't.

76: And so, if I'm understanding you correctly, it would be wrong for an employer to take disciplinary action for sexual harassment on the basis of any conduct in the workplace that would not be criminal if repeatedly directed at an acquaintance in a bar? That's really really different from US law.

That was to 81, not to 76.

"But that sort of crude sexual overture within the workplace can be sexual harassment civilly, without becoming a crime."

UK civil law on sexual harassment does not only apply to workplaces! It would still apply to, idk, two passengers on a train or something...

I have no idea where 82 comes from!

At this point this is completely off topic but *man* employment lawyers who are licensed in both UK and US should charge shit tons to transatlantic banks, etc. I feel like I just watched a very nerdy episode of Pongfinity in high speed with multiple balls I couldn't follow.

It sounds like the type of conduct posited in 82 just doesn't exist in the UK, because any conduct that would be considered sexual harassment in the workplace is also criminal outside of it. This is all vastly different from how this works in the US.

I wish we had trains.

I have understood you to be arguing throughout (in your 8 and 9, to begin with) that there's something really strange about disciplining an employee or otherwise taking action in relation to a case of sexual harassment if no one called the police and there was no criminal prosecution. If you're not saying that, I'm not sure what we've been arguing about.

Are you saying that?

The UK system as described sounds like it takes sexual harassment much more seriously than the US system, but the question then is how rigorously these laws are enforced in practice. Part of the reason that less of this is encoded in US law is that it's widely understood that the authorities don't usually take sexual harassment or assault very seriously, so even if there are laws on the books it's more practical to take administrative measures that don't require bringing in outside authorities.

86: Hope the baby feels better and everyone can sleep.

90: I would say that it's so widely understood that authorities don't take sexual harassment or assault seriously that saying you'll defer to law enforcement is advertising that you don't care about that behavior in your organization at all.

92: Agreed.

This 2018 parliamentary report recommending more requirements on employers implies there's quite a lot of harassment that is unlawful under the 2010 act while also not criminal - "A wide range of behaviour can come under [the Act's] definition... Some forms of workplace sexual harassment can constitute a criminal offence, for example [list of laws]."

I don't know why I'm jumping into this really weird thread here, but I'm hung up on ajay's "duty of care!" concerns in 32. If you're worried about how it's going to look when you have to admit you never called the cops in a previous incident, wouldn't you be just (or nearly) as worried about having to admit you decided to let bygones be bygones when the cops came and just gave a caution? Maybe it's different in the UK and employers have some kind of safe harbor once they call the police (or even some obligation not to act on conduct that the police chose not to act on--that seems completely bananas to me but I have no idea). But I would not want to have to try to convince a US jury that my duty of care to protect other employees was satisfied by calling the cops and turning a blind eye to the prior incident when the cops decided it wasn't a big enough deal to for them to do anything about.

The US Supreme Court decided a case today that's kind of on topic to some of the discussion above: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/22-138_43j7.pdf Specifically, when harassing speech crosses over into being criminal.

They also decided not to countenance whacky literalism wrt state legislatures and the election clauses, which everyone has already heard about. The third case makes deciding where you can sue a corporation a more more complicated process.

The best part of the case in 96 is Thomas' wounded dissent. The majority cites NYT v. Sullivan with approval. Thomas hopes to get rid of Sullivan.

At my place, there is an allegation that a male staff member told a patient that he needed a rectal exam. This was not within the scope of the person's role and not a proper exam. That is penetration which means that it's not just indecent assault and battery but also rape.

Said staff member was immediately placed on unpaid leave (because it would be negligent not to) and then the court ordered him not to have contact w/ patients. I wasn't there, and nobody at the clinic is allowed to talk about it so I'm just giving info that's in the paper. He has not been convicted yet, but I would bet with near certainty that his employment has been terminated.

Another reason to not get a colonoscopy. Random butt freaks.

97: The case on Pennsylvania venue seems really weird for its lineup -- Gorsuch writing for the majority; Barrett for the minority joined by Roberts, Kagan and Kavanaugh.

From a layman's point of view, the decision seems really, really weird for being 1.) against corporate interests and 2.) highly dubious, legally speaking. If I were a conscientious jurist, rather than the corporation-hating pinko that I am, I think I'd have gone with the minority here.

100: Where I work the doctors have DOCTOR in big letters affixed to their badge, so you can be sure.

101: It looks like Alito basically said "I have to go against the state supreme court's use of the Due Process clause, but if the corporation revives the case on grounds of the dormant Commerce Clause I'll side with them."

I was looking at the list of cases remaining and the lists of who's written what majority opinions, and I think we'll get Roberts on student loans, Alito on religion/Title VII, and either Roberts or Alito on university admissions. Sotomayor on extraterritorial trademarks and Gorsuch on the wedding website.

The student loan case is a good vehicle for development of the 'major questions doctrine,' which is why I'm guessing Roberts will have assigned it to himself.

We'll see in a couple of days.

102: It was a medical assistant. Why the patient (now more than one) thought a medical assistant should perform any exam, I don't know.

103 Does Thomas even believe in the dormant commerce clause?

I know someone who was terminated for alleged shoving in a workplace kitchen, and the police were never involved. This happened at an international NGO in an authoritarian country. The person terminated was an international hire. The person complaining was a local hire, and also the local HR person.

The international hire's predecessors in their role had not spoken the local language, nor did they have deep knowledge of local politics. The international hire did speak the language and did have that knowledge. This background enabled them to see that certain lines in the NGO's budget were going to local organizations whose heads were married to officers of the local political police. The local political police are also known for placing personnel into international NGOs, or recruiting NGO staff to report to them.

The kitchen in question was cramped, and often full. Different cultures have different norms about what constitutes regular contact in such a situation; also, individuals perceive contact differently (I'm thinking about neurodivergence here, but there are surely other axes).

I can think of several reasonable possibilities.

1. Everything happened as the accuser claimed, and it was the kind of contact that merited termination.

2. Everything happened as the accuser claimed, but it was the product of the physical layout and the number of people in the place.

3. All of the events were as the accuser described, but they were instructed by the local political police to gin up an incident to get rid of the international hire.

4. Not all of the events were as the accuser described, but local staff descriptions agree because the locals know the HR person is also on the payroll of the political police.

5. Not all of the events were as the accuser described, and the local staff descriptions show inconsistencies.

Anyway, this was a situation where "believe accusers" was not all that helpful. The international hire might well have been able to accuse the NGO of railroading them because of the local political police. Contra Ajay, involving the local police would have been a bad idea.

Doctors can be random butt freaks.

Probably more likely than average to be, even.

Right.

Gorsuch on the wedding website.

He's going to revive Veiled Conceit?

OT: I'm thinking of deleting Facebook because I cannot make it stop giving me gun-nut stuff.

On the original topic, I remember reading something by or about someone in a formal "believe accusers" role - maybe the role was called "victims' advocate" - arguing that the goal in a formalized role is really to offer support, not make a legal case, and that there's a place for a role like that when pretty much everyone else is going to be making their own judgments on credibility. With the obvious limit that you can withdraw support if it becomes clear that an accusation isn't holding up.

i am pretty damn confident that every single person commenting in this thread has been in a workplace where there was an actively "handsy" man working & handsy-ing. yet, whatever country we hail from, i'm also pretty damn confident none of us are aware of the cops ever being called. i mean i just cannot conceive of any of the multiple handsy events i have personally been the target of or credibly heard about from other women *ever* resulting in the cops being called. 75 is from another planet!

Yeah, I am sort of baffled if Ajay means that he'd expect the police to be called on every man who's hugging his coworkers when it's not socially appropriate, or if he means that calling that sort of thing being handsy is a dreadful overreaction.

I am genuinely astonished at the world ajay is describing. Not disbelieving, just amazed because it seems so far from my own experience. I can't begin to list the number of incidents at places where I've worked that could theoretically have been charged criminally, but were not.

Often this was for what I would consider good reason, but a substantial minority of the time the cost-benefit analysis was something like: "Yeah, of course this was wrong and bad. But if we call the police they will laugh at us and not bother to take a report, much less do anything, and the only outcome will be that we will have enraged a person who has already committed one offense.In the worst case scenario, they'll be so mad they come back with a gun, rather than accepting their firing and fading quietly away."

And it's not people's imagination that the police won't/can't act. I could cite at least a half-dozen cases from my own experience where police were unwilling, incapable, or actively resistant to taking action. Highly situation-, context-, and jurisdiction-dependent, of course; the contrast between City of Phila law enforcement and wealthy suburban departments a mile outside city limits is mind-boggling (in both directions, not meaning to imply that either one is all decent or all terrible).

Further to 50, this long excerpt from a recent Philadelphia Inquirer article seems germane:

In fact, hospital jobs in Pennsylvania have become almost as risky as working in a coal mine or metal manufacturing plant, according to the 2021 Pennsylvania Workers' Compensation and Workplace Safety Report. [...] In health care, acts of violence are driving the most common type of injury: being struck.

Nurses say staff shortages, inadequate security, and lax training and protocols for emergencies make their environment dangerous. The pandemic also exacerbated people's mental health challenges and in some cases limited their access to routine mental health care, adding strain to the hospital units charged with caring for them in crisis.

Violence and threats have become so commonplace in certain settings that some health care workers interviewed by The Inquirer shrug it off as part of the job.

Jyll Kurczewski, a registered nurse in Einstein's psychiatric ward, called police when a patient punched her in the face. But she decided against pressing charges because she didn't have time to go down to Police Headquarters to file a report.

Danielle Wright, a nurse who frequently works with patients experiencing psychiatric emergencies at the hospital's crisis response center, didn't even bother reporting to her supervisors a few years ago when a patient groped her breast while she was treating him. "I just kind of swatted his hand off and walked away," she said. "Sometimes it feels like, oh, it's just another day."

The union that represents Einstein's 900 nurses is demanding that hospital executives address what they call unsafe working conditions. Now in negotiations for a new contract, the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals wants more nurses on each floor and more security guards trained to respond to violent patients. Nurses at Temple University Hospital, represented by the same union, made similar workplace violence concerns a central issue in their contract negotiations last year.

[...]

[H]ospital culture often discourages reporting offenses that fall short of serious crimes, said Chris Chamberlain, vice president of emergency management for the Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania, which represents most hospitals.

"There's sometimes a sense that being injured on the job as a health care worker is part of the job," said Chamberlain, formerly an ER nurse for 20 years. "Patients are going to assault you, and that's just the way it is."

More excerpts:

In one especially alarming episode, a patient who had arrived from the city jail tried to leave the hospital through the ceiling tiles in his room and began throwing items and swinging at nurses in the ICU.

Nurses were incensed when higher-ups at the hospital held a meeting about it and didn't include staff members who'd intervened or witnessed it, Adamson said.

In another incident, a nurse on her floor was groped by a patient who then threatened to "f-- the hell out of her," she recalled. Adamson said the woman reported the episode to a security guard, who allegedly told her he couldn't do anything because he hadn't witnessed it.

"I found her crying alone outside the room," Adamson said.

[The hospital] did not respond to a request for comment.

[...]

[N]urses would also like [another hospital] to establish clear protocol on when and how to remove a patient from the unit and when to call police.

The union is further asking [the hospital] for more transparency on workplace injuries, contending that the hospital has refused to show them results of an internal safety audit conducted after a fatal shooting at Jefferson University Hospital in 2021.

The government doesn't actually prosecute nonviolent thefts of less than several thousand dollars, right? Where would the resources come from? The police wouldn't even show up in most places, you'd get sent to the non-emergency number to make some kind of report that would never be used.

I don't actually believe that the UK actually is what ajay describes, but to extent that there is a real difference here I'd guess it's primarily driven by the ubiquity of CCTV cameras in the UK and a more streamlined ability to fine people based only on camera footage without a drawn-out trial. For example, if you look at how speeding is enforced in the US and UK, in the US you can show up in court and if the officer who caught you speeding doesn't show up to the hearing you can get off free, but in the UK there's no humans involved there's just a camera. I could easily imagine that physical assaults are much more often caught on camera and that this might make it simpler to prosecute.

I don't believe the U.K. exists. Except that I want to walk across Wales someday.

120 is interesting, because I think it's still true for speeding in nearly every jurisdiction in the US. Not always for other traffic violations -- now that Phila has red-light cameras I've been ticketed a couple of times for what is obviously a violation (that is, I was turning after the light changed to red in a No Turn On Red intersection) even though if a human had witnessed me doing it, they would have understood that it was the natural result of unforeseen circumstances.*

But because the law says the ticket goes to the CAR (based on license plate), not the DRIVER, and because it's just a $100 fine, not points on my license, I just pay the fine and move on, and so does virtually everyone I know.

*(e.g., I was the second car in line to turn, so in ordinary circumstances would have had plenty of time, but the first car decided to pause for 60 seconds to let out a passenger, and by the time they moved, my choices were either 1) turn on red, or 2) stay blocking the intersection and create a danger).

That you saw only two choices means you aren't a Pittsburgh driver.

In some states/jurisdictions you're allowed to get out of the intersection if the light changes while you're in it, without getting a ticket.

In Pittsburgh, you're allowed to make a three-point turn wherever you want. The signs say only "No U Turn." Plus, if you are blocking an intersection, just turn on your hazard lights to make it a legal parking spot.

absolutely zero of the handsy events i have personally experienced would have had a different outcome if captured on cctv. that inappropriately long tight hug involving a hand wrapped around the nape of my neck? the "stumble" "requiring" steadying oneself with a hand firmly clasping my upper thigh? & so so so many others most of which i do not remember bc eh quotidian (also - outrageous invasions of my autonomy, nauseating & grotesque, each & every one).

128: interestingly all of my exp are with bosses & coworkers, not clients. i was once flagrantly groped by some random asshole when walking in the tenderloin bc was on a phone call & i swatted him off. the swatting off dynamic is different than the coworker or boss dynamic. but also of course intensely wearing when relentlessly recurring & no recourse. i'm not often walking through the tenderloin while on an attention demanding phone call. would truly soul crushingly suck to be a nurse.

123: Let me tell you, when someone makes a Pittsburgh left at a Philly intersection, it about gives me a heart attack because it's very unevenly recognized here. Sometimes people sail through without a hitch and sometimes it's horns blaring and near accidents. Conflicting norms for the life-threatening win!

This, on the other hand: Plus, if you are blocking an intersection, just turn on your hazard lights to make it a legal parking spot.

Comity! Indeed, putting on your hazards allows you to pause your car in any location whatsoever* to create a parking spot.

*Offer valid in the City of Philadelphia and select suburbs only; void in nonparticipating jurisdictions.

Speaking of hazards, can anyone who understands cars explain something to me? I was in a 2021 Honda Civic which unexpectedly and abruptly shut off (while sitting at a stop sign) due to a glitch with the immobilizer (car mistakenly thought the electronic key wasn't present).

But the glitch shut down EVERY SINGLE ELECTRICAL ELEMENT in the car, so it was impossible to put on the hazard lights. Created a really dangerous situation, as cars behind could not tell what was happening and it wasn't immediately safe for the driver to get out and wave folks around.

Cars are so heavily regulated -- how is this legal? Shouldn't there be some kind of backup or separate electrical system for the hazard lights so they can be used even if the engine immobilizer has kicked in?

Sort of related.to Witt's article about nurses:prepandemic report on teachers being assaulted.
https://www.nea.org/advocating-for-change/new-from-nea/threatened-and-attacked-students-when-work-hurts
Cursory googling indicates it's much worst.post pandemic..

"Further to 50, this long excerpt from a recent Philadelphia Inquirer article seems germane:"

That is describing events in a different country 3500 miles away. Why is it germane?

"I don't actually believe that the UK actually is what ajay describes"

Oh, fine then.

"but to extent that there is a real difference here I'd guess it's primarily driven by the ubiquity of CCTV cameras in the UK and a more streamlined ability to fine people based only on camera footage"

What

128 is odd because hazards generally work without the key in the car, as per 127! That's how people are able to do hazard parking!

The government doesn't actually prosecute nonviolent thefts of less than several thousand dollars, right?

Yours doesnt. Mine does. .This is the second Google hit for "Scotland shoplifting prosecution", took me three seconds to find
https://www.helensburghadvertiser.co.uk/news/23134467.helensburgh-cops-catch-man-allegedly-shoplifting/

If you think he was lifting thousands of pounds worth of stuff from charity shops in Helensburgh...

If you're worried about how it's going to look when you have to admit you never called the cops in a previous incident, wouldn't you be just (or nearly) as worried about having to admit you decided to let bygones be bygones when the cops came and just gave a caution?

If someone's been cautioned, then they have admitted a criminal offence. Even if it isn't actually a conviction, it goes on their record, and I would regard that as covered by "An internal administrative punishment should be imposed for administrative offences only such as incompetence, lateness, rudeness etc. Criminal offences should be investigated and punished by the criminal justice system, and administrative action taken only after a criminal conviction has been secured".

So, yes, if someone has committed assault and been cautioned by police, definitely OK with me to suspend or fire them.

Between the "New York state law applies in every country of the world" comments and the "I simply cannot believe anyone's experience if it differs from mine in any way" comments, it looks like we may have a solipsism problem here. Or is it just me?

I think you're the one who started assuming their personal experiences were universal here.

teo, every time I described my own experience I qualified it by saying something like "in every place I've worked" or "every institution I'm familiar with" or "as a manager, this is what I would do". Even when I made statements like "this is a crime" I qualified them by saying which UK law I was referring to.

I wasn't the one making universal assertions like "Sexual assault is a crime, but there are all sorts of things that can constitute sexual harassment that aren't criminal"
and "i am pretty damn confident that every single person commenting in this thread has been in a workplace where there was an actively "handsy" man working"
and "The government doesn't actually prosecute nonviolent thefts of less than several thousand dollars".

I wasn't the one making universal assertions like "Sexual assault is a crime, but there are all sorts of things that can constitute sexual harassment that aren't criminal"

You are the one who said "(And sexual harassment is a crime!)", which is a universal assertion, and one that's false in the US. I'm not clear that it's precisely true in the UK either: you say in your 81.last that there's at least a small difference between civil sexual harassment and criminal harassment, and I doubt the difference is limited to whether the conduct is repeated.

Furthermore, whatever the precision of the degree of overlap between "conduct that can constitute sexual harassment civilly", "conduct that theoretically could constitute a crime", and "conduct that law enforcement is at all likely to respond to effectively" in the UK, in the US there are very large gaps between those three categories. For that reason, there is nothing even remotely strange or unseemly in the US for an organization -- university or workplace -- to respond to possible sexual harassment administratively without involving the police.

You seem troubled by this (see your 1 and 8), and possibly your discomfort makes sense in a UK context, and under UK law and practice the police should always or almost always be involved in a case of sexual harassment -- neither of us is a UK lawyer and I certainly haven't worked in the UK, so I don't know. But your discomfort with administrative responses to sexual harassment doesn't make sense in a US context.

Speaking of transportation, apparently all the airplanes got fucked up or something. People at work are complaining they can't get home.

139 it took my brother and his family 3 days to get a (Delta) flight from JFK and he flys internationally for Delta.

JFK -> MCO, they live in Florida.

People really shouldn't live in Florida anyway.

But your discomfort with administrative responses to sexual harassment doesn't make sense in a US context.

Agreed. As I now understand it, some things that would constitute crimes of sexual assault or criminal harassment in the UK are not actually illegal in workplaces in the US - or, if they are technically illegal, are never actually criminally investigated or prosecuted. They are generally described as "being handsy" or "being an asshole". Given that, it makes perfect sense that they're dealt with administratively by HR (or whoever) because that's the right thing to do with legal but undesirable acts like being late for work.

But it's different to say that "this person is alleged to have committed something that we all agree is definitely a crime, but I'm not going to call the police, I'm just going to get HR to handle it". I have a problem (several problems) with that approach. Also with the approach "this person was alleged to have committed a crime, I called the police, they said no crime had been committed, but I am going to fire them anyway".

130: Because I was illustrating that the UK experience you were describing in 50 is very different from what at least some hospital workers experience in the US. I was affirming that LB's and others' responses in this thread are an accurate reflection of the reality we experience, as distinct from the reality you experience.

142 I keep telling him that

143: I'm having trouble working out which bits are UK-specific and which bits are your own idiosyncrasies, but in US courts, you aren't guilty of a crime until you're convicted. That seems to be a contrast with the UK, where:

If someone's been cautioned, then they have admitted a criminal offence.

That is quite exotic for an American, and difficult for us to assimilate into our worldview.

Police never determine whether a crime has been committed, at best they decide whether they think they can successfully prosecute the crime. Surely it's very common for the police to think a crime has been committed but that they don't have a sufficiently strong case to reach the high burden of proof in criminal cases?

Also, CharleyCarp, I trust you'll cue me when it's appropriate to set up a Supreme Court thread?

143: You're conflating two concepts that are distinct (although overlapping) in US law -- "illegal" and "criminal", although maybe there's less of a distinction in the UK. It is a violation of equal protection law, giving rise to civil liability, to, e.g., make repeated crude sexual propositions to a coworker, but it's not a crime. So it's illegal, but it's not criminal.

But it's different to say that "this person is alleged to have committed something that we all agree is definitely a crime, but I'm not going to call the police, I'm just going to get HR to handle it". I have a problem (several problems) with that approach. Also with the approach "this person was alleged to have committed a crime, I called the police, they said no crime had been committed, but I am going to fire them anyway".

Can you spell out what your several problems are? I have some guesses, and I think I disagree with them all, but of course I don't know for certain what they are.

To the extent you are worried about justice or safety for the victim, I think it comes down to a judgment call of what the likely good effect of calling the police will be in the particular situation: my sense in the case of what would have happened if my erratic coworker had shoved someone, or otherwise struck them without doing meaningful injury, is that calling the police wouldn't have made anybody much safer -- not that they would have been likely to do anything dramatically dangerous themselves, just that it wouldn't have done much good.

To the extent you're worried about adjudicatory justice for the accused, I think you're also mistaken. Among other problems, in the US the police aren't an adjudicatory body tasked with ruling on whether a crime has or has not taken place: instead, they may but are not required to make arrests when they have probable cause to believe a crime has occurred. They're not required to do anything specific at all.

I do agree that the situation of a parallel but poorly constructed and poorly defined "justice system" whereby universities deal with internal crimes like sexual assault separately from the standard justice system is a really bad situation. Given the issues with the US justice system it might be better than the previous status quo, but it's still not a good way to run a country.

150 before seeing 149: My main problem with it is that I don't trust high-level university administrators to put justice over the private interests of the university, that the people adjudicating the disputes are not properly trained the way judges ostensibly are, and that the secrecy and ad hoc nature of the proceedings makes it especially rife for problems where the university covers things up. A secondary problem is that all the records are internal, so if someone assaults someone at one school and then transfers to another school they're still a "first-time offender." HR isn't there to protect you, and they're certainly not there to do the just thing, they're there to protect the employer. And I don't think that's a good situation for any parties involved.

134: Ah, sorry, my bad--had not occurred to me that a caution entailed an admission like that. Never mind my 95! (Rest of all this still pretty weird though.)

I really don't think it is. I think it can be a problem if administrative actions protect offenders by diverting them from criminal prosecution, but I don't think there's any problem at all with a university having a process allowing it to, e.g., expel a rapist on the basis of evidence making it more likely than not that they committed rape, even if the evidence wouldn't establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

I just finished watching the series finale of Happy Valley last night, and it seems the UK police system, at the street level, is overseen by tough, wise 50-something female sergeants with tragic backstories. So I can see where people would want to go to the police rather than HR departments.

(Series is highly recommended but a bit difficult to find in the US.)

152: It does seem to create room for an offender to refuse to make the admission and therefore avoid the caution, at which point I guess the whole prosecution and proof beyond a reasonable doubt standard kicks in, if the evidence is strong enough and police resources allow? But I don't know how it works in practice.

153 to 150

I do wonder how comfortable a British woman would feel to make reports, even of conduct edging up to the line, in a workplace where they had been assured "If anyone is sexually harassed, we will automatically call the police before doing anything else."

155: yeah, was thinking the same thing. Guy punches a co-worker in the face, cops are called, guy refuses to admit an offense and thus can't be cautioned. You just have to keep him on the job until the jury returns a guilty verdict? That's hard to believe, but maybe so I guess.

In the interest of less abstraction, here's a complicated case in my field that I happen to have been following closely because I know the person who was fired well. It's a sexual misconduct case, but not sexual assault.

It has some interesting features relevant to the current discussion in that:
1) It takes place in Australia which is neither the US nor the UK and so might lead to less talking past each other.
2) It takes place at a university, but the university's decision to fire is appealable through an outside administrative/legal body the "Fair Works Commision."
3) The facts are mostly not in dispute, and are well spelled out in the administrative decisions.
4) As far as I can tell nothing involved could in any way be seen as a criminal offense, but it seems very clear that the university has good reasons for dismissal (though the case is close enough that it was overturned by one judge and then reinstated by the full panel).

Anyway it seems to me that although a lot of things here didn't work perfectly (the decision process drags out way too long because of the conflicting opinions, the university should have more clearly written policies and should now clarify those policies, etc.), roughly this seems a pretty reasonable way to handle things, where the employer can use internal processes to decide whether to fire someone and that this decision can be appealed to an outside justice system, but that the level of proof demanded by that outside justice system is much lower than that needed in a criminal case. (Because it's not a criminal case, it's a civil dispute between employer and employee, so the lower standard is reasonable.)

News article here

Full decision here.

my sense in the case of what would have happened if my erratic coworker had shoved someone, or otherwise struck them without doing meaningful injury, is that calling the police wouldn't have made anybody much safer

You know your own situation best, of course. But if you have someone who is repeatedly committing minor assaults, and the police are called, I think that might in some cases discourage them from committing more serious assaults later. Even if no arrest takes place, just getting a talking-to from the police has a sobering effect. Plus he'll then know that if he does do something more serious, you'll definitely call the police.
The alternative is that you just let him carry on with it, and he maybe keeps escalating until someone is actually bleeding all over the carpet tiles, at which point you call the police but it's a bit late then.

You just have to keep him on the job until the jury returns a guilty verdict?

No, you could suspend him while you waited. I think that would be appropriate while it's still sub judice. Assault wouldn't normally get a jury trial anyway; it'd be in front of a sheriff (or magistrate), and that would be fairly rapid. Within a few weeks, in our local sheriff court.

in US courts you aren't guilty of a crime until you're convicted. That seems to be a contrast with the UK

On the other hand, how many people actually get a trial in the US before being punished? Most of them go for plea bargains, don't they?

But if you have someone who is repeatedly committing minor assaults, and the police are called, I think that might in some cases discourage them from committing more serious assaults later. Even if no arrest takes place, just getting a talking-to from the police has a sobering effect.

It's so unlikely that the police would respond to something like this in the US that it's hard to think through the hypothetical, but I think it's at least as likely to have the opposite effect.

My experience with calling the police in the US is that they really like to lecture victims of crime about how they should have done more to avoid putting themselves in positions to have crimes committed against them. And that was for a mugging and a smash-and-grab, not even for something like sexual assault where they have political reasons to blame you.

For the smash-and-grab the police obviously didn't show up at all, but they still called me back later to lecture me on the phone about how it was my fault.

160: Sure, it's possible calling the police might help depending on the circumstances, but it also might not -- all I'm saying is that it seems to me to be a judgment call rather than a bright line at "this conduct falls within the definition of a criminal offense."

The mugging involved a gun (or at least a threat of a gun), so they responded very quickly to that. Guns and stolen cars get their attention.

Ajay, if you're an American employer and you have an at-will employee who is acting badly towards colleagues or customers, termination is nearly always going to be preferable to calling the police. You wouldn't know whether they're going to come at all, whether they're going to side with the employee (for their own reasons), and even if they do arrest someone (and get the county attorney to prosecute), it'll take quite a while to get resolved in the courts. Removing the person from the workplace solves the employer's problem, right now, and doesn't cede control or decision making authority to someone else.

The victim has fewer choices. Reporting handsy male colleagues might work, or it might end up being career suicide. Or something in between. But I'd expect an employer to feel pretty put out if the victim calls the police, rather than going through channels the employer controls.

The police aren't going to consider how many million dollars the handsy man brought in last year. A significant concern of the employer.

They are going to consider the handsy man's bullshit excuses, even if there was video-tape.

Some years ago, our local police was famously uninterested in pursuing sexual assault (ie rape) charges between university students, thinking that even an obvious bullshit story from the perp would still probably end in acquittal. Some the police were asking victims all manner of unrelated questions, looking for excuses not to pursue cases. This drew national attention, and USDOJ intervention, and even a Krakauer book. The county then pursued an acquaintance rape case involving the football team's quarterback all the way to trial. Acquitted in a very short time.

I think the police have been trained to better deal with victims. I doubt that faith in jurors has changed much.

And of course there's no reason a victim should feel obliged to consider an employer's interests in deciding whether or not to call the police; any pressure along those lines is completely wrong.

I think the book looks interesting. I requested it from the library.

Go back and demand it. They respect strength.

168 I don't disagree with you. I also think that for many people, the relationship with their employer is complicated and many-faceted. Employees think about a broader context than ajay's simple binary -- if it's a crime, call the police. Handsy men count on and benefit from this, but individual victims have to make the call that feels right for them at the time.

Yeah, I was just reading your comments and feeling as if while their descriptive accuracy was unimpeachable, it was worth saying that you weren't making normative statements about the right way to do things.

It's a fucked up world.

I was just reading about the Australian professor. Too dumb to be employed in academia, seems to me.

148 -- Opinions will start to come out at 9:00 am Central tomorrow, I think. They post each opinion to the website as the justices start reading their opinion summaries. Which they do in order of seniority, with Roberts going first if he has one. Sometimes dissenters read, sometimes not. I'll always get a thrill from thinking about the smirk on Souter's face while Scalia was reading his unhinged dissent summary in Hamdan.

If they don't do all the remaining cases tomorrow, they'll probably finish at 9:00 am Friday.

In a ruling on Monday, a full bench of the commission insisted it was not "puritanical or wowserish"

Oh, Australia.

151, 153: part of the problem from the university's perspective isn't just PR, but the fact that date rape is very, very hard to prosecute even on the assumption the victim 'does everything right' and goes to police, and so it's trivial to wind up in a situation where a) the police, were they called, wouldn't do anything b) the student has in fact been raped and c) the rapist is perhaps even in the victim's classes/dorm/social circle. Not saying at all that universities also don't want to game the stats*, but there's a legit problem of how to manage a residential community here. If the Stanford assclown hadn't been caught in an alley by witnesses, there would never have been a criminal case and he still would have been a rapist.

If they don't do all the remaining cases tomorrow, they'll probably finish at 9:00 am Friday.

I was being a notch more helpless and requesting a nudge if a decision is post-worthy.

177: There will definitely be another decision day after today--tomorrow's a good bet, won't know officially until the end of opinions today. But four of the five the remaining cases are doozies (affirmative action; student loans; extent of employer religious accommodation obligations; and a sequel to the same-sex marriage wedding cake case from a few years ago, to see whether businesses can get out from under antidiscrimination law even if they don't tie their anti-SSM bigotry to their religion). So almost certainly something of broad interest this morning.

And it looks like NMM to affirmative action.

Also, Alito has the religious accommodation decision, but it's unanimous, so hopefully that means it's not a disaster. That, and the non-doozy case, are it for today. Student loans and SSM antidiscrimination probably tomorrow but not announced yet.

It seems like a variety of things are making college admissions more confusing right now. Which isn't great timing.

I think the AA decision won't really matter. AA is unpopular (even among underrepresented groups!), and it's very difficult in practice to stop private schools from doing admissions the way they want to do it so it won't actually change anything. Probably good for Democrats politically to take it off the table.

Interesting and good that they exempted the service academies (where it's bad for the officer demographics to be different from the enlisted demographics), though one wonders why the same rationale doesn't apply to say training teachers where there's compelling evidence that Black boys have better outcomes when they have Black men teachers.

Apparently the client the wedding website designer sued to discriminate against was fake - just personal information and request on a webform that anyone could have typed. The personal information was of a real person who didn't submit it, being married to a woman.

The litigant is also fake in the sense of not actually having a wedding website design business - "Up to this point, Smith had never designed any wedding website". (Unclear if they then engaged in the business.)

Fake plaintiff and fake defendant and this was worth the time and energy of the supreme court why, exactly? Is "conservative hot button issue" enough of an explanation or is there something more?

They aren't exactly enthusiastic about homosexuality.

In public.

They got to bat around warring hypotheticals a bunch. And to be fair (yech), the "facts" of the case are the fault of the district judge (just a GWB appointee, though).

Looks like Smith sued on grounds that there is a Colorado law against communicating that you will withhold service because of sexual orientation, and she wanted to so communicate. She sued the state commission that would enforce this (same as with the cake case) despite them never engaging in any enforcement, and the district judge decided precedent gave her standing. https://casetext.com/case/303-creative-llc-v-elenis-1

184 etc.: That story is crazy enough that I feel like there must be more to it. But whatever the case, it's not a matter of "the client the wedding website designer sued to discriminate against." She was seeking a general "declaratory" judgment that she doesn't have to do that kind of business, not suing about a particular transaction. In the course of trying to establish standing for that, she at one point submitted an affidavit basically saying "it's not speculative that I'm going to have a real case on my hands soon, because this guy has in fact asked me to do a SSM website for him." She didn't get anywhere with that,* and I don't think it's in play at this point (in theory standing's always in play, but the parties aren't arguing about it and I don't recall it being a focus of the oral argument). So if it's a fake, woe unto her and her lawyers in terms of sanctions; but it shouldn't really matter to what the Supreme Court does here.

*Re 189, district court held she didn't have standing on one of her core claims (yes w/r/t the prohibition against communicating that you'll withhold service; no w/r/t the prohibition against actually withholding the service); CA10 reversed on the denial of standing, but not because of Stewart, and then ruled against her on the merits of both.

183: A different (and probably unfair) take on that -- There is nothing surprising about John Robert's blatantly racist view that college is for white people and Black people should fight the wars

https://twitter.com/StrikeDebt/status/1674428848136663042

191 is everything I hate about the current discourse. It's a completely ridiculous reading. The whole point is that the officers *don't* fight, they send other people to fight, and having a bunch of white officers sending enlisteds of color to die is bad. And even putting that aside, the service academies are still college! It just doesn't make sense at any level. But it sure pwned the cons!

It's a neat trick. You can either treat military service as a well-paid valuable high-status job that allows people from disadvantaged backgrounds to get skills, education and status, in which case it's bad to specifically discourage black people from doing it; or you can treat it as a way of gathering ignorant armies of duped cannon fodder to fight unjust wars, in which case it's bad to specifically encourage black people to do it.

In US experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, the proportion of dead and wounded officers, senior NCOs and junior ranks matched the proportion of each in theatre.

Fair enough, but even if some officers are dying at the same rate as enlisteds, it's still going to be bad for morale if the officers are much whiter than the people they command, and at higher levels certainly the point stands.

That story is crazy enough that I feel like there must be more to it.

Isn't the most likely and complete answer "a conservative impact group ginned it up"?

195: Yeah, and I agree that's probably it. It's crazy though. They could easily have done a better job of it if that's what it was. Why use the real details of some rando and set yourself up to get caught by the most cursory checking (like making a call/sending an email to the number/address listed in the inquiry), instead of faking it altogether, or getting somebody in on the game to submit something? Still crazy but a lot less likely to come to light. (Then again, apparently nobody did check until now, so maybe not so crazy after all!)

194: "The Court has come to rest on the bottom-line conclusion that racial diversity in higher education is only worth potentially preserving insofar as it might be needed to prepare Black Americans and other underrepresented minorities for success in the bunker, not the boardroom," dissenting Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson observed.

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/affirmative-action-military-academies/