Posted by Eugene Volokh:
Cashier Refuses to Serve Student Wearing Pro-Zionist T-Shirt:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2007_05_20-2007_05_26.shtml#1180043295
From [1]the Washington Post:
Mia Lazarus put her chips and juice down on the counter and
prepared to pay. But in the midst of the lunchtime rush, the
cashier's eyes wandered to Lazarus's T-shirt, which expressed a
political message that proved to be overwhelming for the clerk.
One glance at the words "Baltimore Zionist District" on Lazarus's
"I Stand for Israel" T-shirt, and the cashier at the Maryland Food
Collective, a crunchy grocery and sandwich shop in the student
union on the University of Maryland's College Park campus, blurted:
"Your shirt offends me. I won't ring you up." The cashier told
Lazarus she could go to the back of the store to find another
clerk....
Lazarus wasn't much inconvenienced:
Lazarus got her food; another cashier at the independent,
worker-owned co-op was willing to take the student's money. But the
incident led to the creation of a Facebook site on which some
students called for a boycott of the food co-op; an hours-long,
teary meeting at which Lazarus and her friends hashed things out
with the collective; and then an agreement.
The collective, which rents space from the university, announced
last week that it would serve any customer who was not physically
or verbally abusive, but that any worker who was offended by a
customer's politics could discreetly slip away and find another
clerk to serve the patron.
That seems right to me: If the collective can accommodate its
employees' personal preferences without inconveniencing the patron
(assuming there's no material delay), and if it wishes to accommodate
such preferences, that's fine.
Still, it's unfortunate that some patrons would be so intolerant of
support for Zionism that they would refuse to do business with those
who wear such T-shirts. One aspect of everyday tolerance is that you
don't let most political disagreements get in the way of doing
business together. There are exceptions (I wouldn't want to do
business with someone wearing a KKK T-shirt, and I'd take the same
view about Che Guevara T-shirts if I thought most of their wearers
really supported what Che stood for, rather than just engaging in
political posturing). But people who believe that support for Israel
and Zionism should fall within that narrow zone are, in my view,
morally mistaken.
I would also not endorse laws that ban such discrimination; nor would
I argue for First Amendment protection here, since the co-op is a
private entity, and its renting government property shouldn't affect
that analysis (cf. [2]Rendell-Baker v. Kohn, but see [3]Wilmington
Parking Auth. v. Burton).
At the same time, the University of Maryland is entitled to make sure
that space that it rents out on its campus is available to people
without regard to "race, color, creed, sex, sexual orientation,
marital status, personal appearance, age, national origin, political
affiliation, physical or mental disability, or on the basis of the
exercise of rights secured by the First Amendment of the United States
Constitution" -- even when the difference in treatment involves a few
seconds of delay, which the patrons will likely understand stems from
a server's refusal to serve them. (I quote this list from the [4]Human
Relations Code; I'm not sure it's literally applicable here, but there
may be similar terms in the co-op's lease, and in any event the
University may set up such rules for its lessees.) And I particularly
liked the reaction of Gretchen Metzelaars, director of Maryland's
student union, met with the collective "trying to help them come to
the conclusion that they must abide by the university's human rights
code":
Despite hours of conversation, "it became apparent that they were
not coming to the right conclusion," Metzelaars said. "So we
delivered it to them." This week, she told the collective that if
it discriminates again, it will have 60 days to vacate the
premises.
"They can't see that this is discrimination .... They're more
committed to their righteousness than they are to the rights of
other people. The fact is, you have to serve everyone."
The collective finally seemed to get that idea, Metzelaars said.
But then, "we finished our discussion, and they said, okay, but if
someone came in wearing a swastika, we wouldn't serve them. And I
said, 'Whoa! That's the problem right there: Everyone gets to say
what they believe, and you have to serve them.'"
Not the only approach that would be proper, I think, but a sensible
approach, especially in a university.
Finally, let me close with this: "The students don't want to come off
as haters. When Lazarus and others active in Maryland's Jewish student
groups met with the collective, the visitors baked a vegan chocolate
cake and brought it as a peace offering." Something about that "vegan"
is just so apt.
References
1.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/23/AR2007052301635.html?sub=AR
2.
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=457&invol=830
3.
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=us&vol=365&invol=715
4. http://www.president.umd.edu/legal/policies/hrc.html
_______________________________________________
Volokh mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.powerblogs.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/volokh
