We previously discussed the racist comments of Clippers owner Donald Sterling. We discussed the possible sanctions under the NBA rules, which are confidential. This afternoon NBA Commissioner Adam Silver announced that Clippers owner Donald Sterling will be suspended for life and fined $2.5 million. That blows away any prior sanction of the NBA.
Silver announced “I am banning Mr. Sterling for life from any association with the Clippers association or the NBA. Mr. Sterling may not attend any NBA games or practices, he may not be present at any Clippers facility, and he may not participate in any business or decisions involving the team.” That is pretty much a demand that he sell the team though he could use his general manager for some of those functions.
The $2.5 million fine will be donated to anti-discrimination organizations, which is a particularly nice touch.
I have little sympathy for Sterling and found his comments deeply disturbing and unsettling. However, it will be interesting to see if Sterling, who is a lawyer, will fight the fine. He is being banned and fine for private comments that he did not intend to be released publicly. While this is not the government (raising first amendment issues), it is a free speech questions. We have been discussing how government employees like teachers and police officers have been punished for statements and activities in their private lives. I have opposed that trend. In this case, Sterling did not even intend for this comments to go to anyone other than his girlfriend.
The question is where the line is drawn on private comments. No one would suggest sanctions Larry Johnson for (after the Sterling comments) reportedly called for all-black teams and league or his prior comments calling players “rebellious slaves.” He was clearly upset with the news and venting on social media. I understand that. Indeed, his call for some black owners of NBA team is understandable given this controversy and reflects a long-standing objection to the paucity of black owners in the NBA. Yet, those were intended to be public comments and might be viewed as offensive by white players or owners or fans. If the NBA rules extend to private communications, I am curious as to how it distinguishes between comments both public and private. When it comes to free speech, we tend to favor bright line rules but this is a rule that is neither published nor clear. Sterling may be the easy case due to the vile nature of these comments but Silver does not address the standard that has been and will be applied to owners and players.
The counter to this argument is that, as a NBA owner, Sterling agreed to comply with the rules, including the undisclosed rules of conduct. His comments clearly created an embarrassment for the NBA and other teams. Yet, my guess is that these rules are vaguely worded and this sanction is far beyond prior punishments. He probably could challenge it under contractual and even anti-trust theories.
In the end, he is being banned for being a racist (which he vehemently denies). However, if he did not act in a racist manner to the team or fans, should his private views be the basis for a ban. What is owners are anti-gay or anti-Semitic or anti-Muslim in private? Can they all be banned if a third party reveals their views or a private conversation surfaces?
What do you think?
Bob Esq,
I agree and I think that this has been blown way out if proportion. I don’t agree with what he said. If I ever met him, I probably wouldn’t care to associate with him.
With that said, I think some things become smoke and mirrors for what’s really happening in this country.
My moral argument against a court enforcing the contract UNDER THESE CIRCUMSTANCES, is that it is adopting the maxim that the moral choice of the individual to restrain himself from offending the public is irrelevant. Public and private become indistinguishable; not only for moral purposes but eventually for all legal purposes.
Mike Appleton,
Speaking of the “outrage of the NBA” towards racism…
The Moral thing to do, the MAXIM, is:
“Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, always as an end and never as a means only.”
THIS IS THE REASON WE ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO TORTURE PEOPLE.
Yet, the arguments offered for punishing Sterling for comments and thoughts he never intended to be public is the same pattern of thinking that torturers and their apologists use. They’re all supplying justifications and rationalizations for ignoring the the maxim above.
If the issue were truly about punishing Sterling for racist comments (that he never even intended to be public) then what system of morality was applied when Jay-Z made a KNOWINGLY PUBLIC appearance/statement by wearing a “whites are devils” medallion?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2598174/Jay-Z-causes-controversy-wearing-medallion-group-believe-whites-wicked-weak.html
By all means, regale me with tales of the moral outrage of the NBA or the media making money on this Lord of the Flies lynch mob mentality.
I am paying more than double now for insurance, thanks to Obamacare. I used to have a great policy my family could easily afford, and I could see any doctor I wanted. The amount I pay now is what many pay for a mortgage. And the only people willing to try their hardest to stop this from happening to me were the Republicans. For that I will always be grateful.
Karen, Virtually ALL of the reported “stories” like yours have been PROVEN to be bogus. I have no way to know your situation, but from those past precedents. I find it hard to believe. You also must have a small mortgage since in Texas the high risk pool that is now gone, had premiums for ONLY my wife was $1500/mo with a $10,000 deductible/yr. Now with Obamacare we pay $635/mo in premiums with $1500 deductible. She could not get insurance any other way. When she was in the high risk pool that the government ran the cost was $475/mo with $3000 deductible.
All of the people who are under 26, those who could not get ANY insurance, along with all the children who are now covered are very happy with the program.
Hurling personal insults is simply a means to avoid discussing different positions.
Can we please stop calling conservatives “compulsive liars”, “wrong wingers”, “racists”, and “distinguished by a level of misinformation and lies that is unprecedented in my lifetime.”
Why is prejudice against millions of conservatives acceptable nowadays? Because judging millions of people as liars, racists, and stupid is quite simply prejudice. Replace “conservatives” with “black people” and perhaps you can see why comments like that are creepy.
Compulsive liars need compassionate help, as they remove circuits wired into them by their local culture:
Dredd – so you got through lesson two, have you completed lesson three?
Jon Lovitz reincarnated as Justice Scalia:
(HP).
What is Jon Lovitz doing these days? My goodness, this is from 1985.
Dredd – we have had this conversation before, symbolic racism is an artificial construct which makes liberals feel better about themselves. There is no ‘real’ science behind it.
Perhaps the reason wrong-wingers turned on Sterling is because they were misinformed that he was a democrat?
Tired of carrying the party of racism moniker, some of them were hungry for a modern day dem racist to flog.
So, the wrong-wing press all around the blogosphere went into ecstatic fantasy mode declaring Sterling to be a registered democrat.
But he is actually a registered republican
:
(Mother Jones). The modern symbolic racism is not a product of babies being born that way, it is a factor of growing up in a culture that is wired incorrectly with circuits of racism that have not been re-wired yet.
Dredd, I was raised by conservative Republicans who were not racist at all for their time. This was back before the Civil Rights movement so I have to say that not all such folks are racist. The most common thread I found and see now is that while all sides can use ignorance and lies, the conservatives now are distinguished by a level of misinformation and lies that is unprecedented in my lifetime. This Drudge report lie and the birthers are simply an example of this. They also have a flawed ability to make rational argument and are willing to accept such fantastic lies as truth. I have talked to many of these folks, and most I find can be taught or learn to use their heads better. The sad fact is that it is a lack in our educational system that produces much of this up through college.
Then there is the other part in which there is an actual will to lie and say it is all justified for our party and class. While that is true on both parties to a degree, it is more pronounced on the right wing. Those folks are indeed racist and have been with us forever and will be in the future. This is why we have such polarization in our politics. That they are willing to do such things as shut down the government and seriously damage our country for partisan ends shows the end of the post WWII folks to seek the common good and the ascendancy of the extreme right. It is impossible to have good faith negotiations when one side wants to kill you or destroy your life.
randyjet – hasn’t dredd convinced you that everyone, that would include your parents and you, are guilty of symbolic racism? He beats the drum about it every day. You must not be ready his stuff.
humans have been using shunning as a way to control behavior of individuals in a group for as long as we’ve been humans and lived in groups.
@Mike Appleton “The obvious implication is that the league’s expression of moral outrage is as phony as the NCAA’s concern over the graduation rates of student athletes.”
That seems correct to me. But that does not necessarily make the detrimental actions objectionable.
The league is, in effect, forced to its action by the genuine outrage of the fans. So the action really does communicate that the public does not want to reward racist and may take their business and entertainment dollars elsewhere.
Pushed to its logical extreme, there is danger to this kind of action. Suppose masses of the population began to ostracize individuals and small businesses based on private expression of religion or political belief. I think that could create problems in the form of a pariah group. But that does not seem to be what is happening here.
There seems to be a natural tension between the idea that individuals have a right to use association and speech to punish objectionable behavior and the possibility that masses of the population can isolate and unfairly limit individuals and minorities.
I wonder if there is a possibility if this owner is forced into selling off his team the eventual buyer(s) will be close to those in the commission.
rafflaw,
Correct. Contractual agreements … business intere$t$.
Difficult to build an Empire without signatures on paper.
I think what especially stings is how the previous NBA commish and the current one, looked away at previous public bouts of general racism by Don Sterling. Only when it was directed toward former black NBA players, did the commish act. It hit too close to home… “Off with his head!” One might say that the slow arch of justice is prevailing.
Has the location of the recording been discovered yet?
bigfatmike:
The obvious implication is that the league’s expression of moral outrage is as phony as the NCAA’s concern over the graduation rates of student athletes.
Your Complete Quotable Guide To Decades Of Donald Sterling’s Racism
http://deadspin.com/your-complete-quotable-guide-to-decades-of-donald-sterl-1568047212
(all quotations sourced)
Article 35A may be where the commish is hanging his hat on. Actions detrimental to the NBA as determined by commish are subject to fines and discipline. But Bob and Mark are right. Follow the money.
Bob, Esq. absolutely nailed it. It remains my belief that the action taken by the Commissioner is primarily an effort to stanch the hemorrhaging of dollars.
” It remains my belief that the action taken by the Commissioner is primarily an effort to stanch the hemorrhaging of dollars.”
So what is the implication to that? Presumably that is precisely the kind of action that the contract allows – adverse action to a team owner when that owner’s actions are detrimental to the business interests of the league and other team owners.
And why would that kind of adverse action be objectionable, especially when we consider that the contract was freely signed by some of the smartest, best represented businessmen in the country.
Some of the concerns and objections mentioned here seem to obscure action by the state for though or speech, and action based on a contract that defines a business relation.
It seems dubious to me to cry foul over the terms of a contract when the person crying foul is clearly knowledgeable, and more than capable of hiring the best legal talent in the country.
Before praising Adam Silver and NBA, realize that Donald Sterling’s racist behavior has been habitual for years
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/basketball/lawrence-sterling-blind-spot-nba-avoided-years-article-1.1773491#ixzz30R5XbYWW