Maud Maron is a public interest lawyer who is now at the center of a firestorm in New York. A Bernie Sanders donor and public interest volunteer, she is the classic image of a Manhattan liberal. Maron is also someone with the type of resume that should bring pride to any school. She is a mother of four who graduated from Cardozo Law School and became a public defender with the Legal Aid Society. By every indication, she is a dedicated public interest lawyer. Her life changed, however, after, as a mother of four public school kids, she criticized the teaching of what is commonly referred to as critical race theory in public schools. That led to her colleagues labeling her a racist and demanding her removal. She has now filed a lawsuit that claims that she was effectively forced out of her job by fellow lawyers and the union.In an interview with Bari Weiss, Maron said that her life became a nightmare when she drew the line on the racial identification lessons that she saw in the public schools impacting her children. She objecting to the rising identity politics of such lessons as well as race shaming that she saw in some of the lessons:
“None of this would have happened if I just said I loved books like White Fragility, and I’m a fan of Bill de Blasio’s proposals for changing New York City public schools, and I planned to vote for Maya Wiley for mayor. The reason they went after me is because I have a different point of view,” she said…
“I am very open about what I stand for. I am pro-integration. I am pro-diversity. And also I reject the narrative that white parents are to blame for the failures of our school system. I object to the mayor’s proposal to get rid of specialized admissions tests to schools like Stuyvesant. And I believe that racial essentialism is racist and should not be taught in school.”
There is no reason why a LAS lawyer cannot oppose such material in school and still represent all LAS clients zealously. Indeed, Maron appears to have had an unblemished record. Yet, her comments led to a 2019 complaint from the Black Attorneys of Legal Aid Caucus and Attorneys of Color of Legal Aid. She was cleared in early 2020.
Then she wrote a column for the New York Post criticizing anti-bias training and how difficult such efforts were making it for many to stay in the public schools:
“We all want a well-integrated, high-quality public-school system. Parents have the right to demand an education that prepares their children to meet or exceed grade-level expectations, which in America often lag other countries.
Those who yell the loudest about integration should stop the accusations against those who think or speak differently than they do about the shared goal of integrated, quality schools — and find ways to work together.”
That led to a furious response from fellow lawyers who denounced her as a vehement racist. The Black Attorneys of Legal Aid Caucus issued a lengthy statement that declared “Maud is racist, and openly so.” They said Maron “is one of many charlatans who took this job not out of a desire to make a difference, but for purposes of self-imaging.”
The full statement can be read here.
The statement is in my view unfair and unsupported. It could also be defamatory, though a court would likely find this protected as opinion.
Of course, the impact of such letters is to intimidate anyone else from uttering dissenting views. Few young lawyers would risk being tagged as a racist — a career ending event. We have seen the same campaign of intimidation on college campuses. Even objecting the 1619 project being taught in public schools can lead to calls for termination. This growing intolerance for free speech has even reached law schools, as discussed in a column this week.
Indeed, as we previously discussed, Bari Weiss herself was the victim of such a campaign at the New York Times and now writes on Substack.
It did not stop there.
Four lawyers wrote a piece calling Maron an “anti-integration activist.” Rigodis Appling, Diana Nevins, Olayemi Olurin & Jason Wu wrote:
“In addition to opposing school integration, Maron and her ilk unsurprisingly oppose culturally responsive education and implicit bias training for educators.
These anti-integration advocates hold an outsized influence over education policy, occupying critical seats on their local community education councils….”
Calling her a “segregationist, the lawyers declare:
“This legacy of anti-Black racism and logic lives on. White mothers fought to uphold Jim Crow—they saw their moral authority derive from protecting their white children from the racial threat of integration. While people like Maud Maron seemingly couch their arguments against school integration in a thin veil of parental concern, they remain on the wrong side of history.”
The letter could also be the subject of a defamation action. They outright call her a racist and a segregationist. The writing is again close to the line of fact and opinion for defamation purposes.
One lawyer who was not intimidated was Maron’s former supervisor James Chubinsky, who is quoted by Weiss as saying “Any suggestion that she was anything other than a top-flight lawyer that the Legal Aid Society should be damn proud to have on their staff is a crock.”
Her complaint alleges hostile workplace claims (Count 1, 2,) and constructive termination (Count 3). The latter claim may be tough since she alleges that “Ms. Maron is currently promised a return from sabbatical pursuant to § 3.4.4.1.2 of the agreement, but The Legal Aid Society has made it impossible for her to do so.” A court could be looking for an exit ramp and such nuance could give it an easy way of out of such a claim.
The hostile workplace and discrimination claims are particularly interesting due to the intermixing of fact and opinion statements. Again, a court could be tempted to call it all opinion and note that Maron assumed a public persona in her writings. However, she alleges that the problems arose before she published her column.
We will be watching the case closely.
I fid it strange the Professor Turley has not yet commented on the anuary6th protester who are being detained without bail or possesed of the charges against them….fair and speedy trial??
I find it strange that over and over again, the extreme liberal party that Turley is aligned with is the party AT ALL LEVELS that suppresses the freedoms of others.
Indeed!
I absolutely love it when leftists eat their own.
Guess she’s a Nazi too, right?
antonio
The progressive movement does not tolerate dissent. 100% compliance or you will be destroyed. They have much in common with the Borg from Star Trek. The model for their beliefs.
I think this is all perfectly appropriate.
If the legal aide Society would prefer ideologically purity rather than competence and talent – then it should get what it wants.
If attny. Maron is as excellent and attorney as her former supervisor claims – she should have no difficulty doing well elsewhere – and she likely will be far happier somewhere that is not as racist as her current employer.
The real crime is that future clients will get less capable lawyers.
I am libertarain – I fully support LAS or any other employer firing anyone for any reason – presuming they have not violated any actual contracts.
Any employer who fires a capable employee – punishes themselves and rewards that.
In the real world I have found that in the end the worst employees end up working for the worst employers – ultimately the deserve each other, and the courts should not interfere in self punishing actions.
If Maron is a skilled professional – she will find others happy to pay for her services.
If as appears LAS is a bad employer – they will be rewarded – by losing someone capable.
Just the facts Ma’am! Obvious that ANY singular story can be described in several opposing ways if the event is described by ANYONE who “filters” truth through a labyrinth of conditioned, cultural influences. Only a true individual knows revolt/revolution. What is their truth?? Who God is, what the truth is, what Love is, what order is Those who “think” differently are critical thinkers still reluctant in joining ANY group promising squat.
One step closer to Jonestown. Intimate and gaslight dissenters. Make an example of anyone who dares to challenge prevailing thought of those in authority. The genius of America is that politicians should tip their hat to the citizens not the other way around.
When liberal Democrats and radical feminists agree with Republicans on issues of free speech and individual rights, it is a pretty good sign that the people now driving the agenda have gone off the deep end!
Look it up, California now allows male inmates who say they identify with binary or transgender to transfer to female prisons. Nearly 90% of female inmates have been sexually assaulted and around 20% of male inmates are sexual predators. You can’t make this stuff up! Is the world losing its mind? SB-132
These are dangerous waters!
We should celebrate the left self destructing.
Ms. Maron is getting very effectively red-pilled.
I suspect that this kick in the head might be a wake up call to inspire her to rethink other aspects of her politics.
Regardless, we should never stop left wing nuts from committing self punishing acts.
@john say
These intra movement struggles between various faucets of the left remind me of the struggle between the struggle between Trotsky and Stalin in the late 20’s USSR. I have as much sympathy for Ms. Marin as I do for a leftist who gets mugged by one of their sacred black pets.
antonio
If they are a private organization then they can fire her. Free speech protections do not apply.
Of course they can – and that is a good thing.
I have no problems with bad employers driving out good staff.
@orallo
Would you say the same if a private organization wanted to fire a BLM supporter? I doubt it. Most leftists support free speech for leftist ideas but none opposing. And see nothing wrong with that.
antonio
Maud Maron must understand that in our modern Kangaroo Court System, there is no room for dissent from the extreme mandates of the Leftist Indoctrination Entities (“LIEs”). Today, the LIEs are ubiquitous and are in control of virtually every sphere of life. The LIEs mandate that anyone exercising his/her purported rights under the obsolete US Constitution be labeled a racist and an enemy of the Authoritarian Communazi State. And the LIEs also mandate that real racists, like the members of the Black Attorneys of Legal Aid Caucus and Attorneys of Color of Legal Aid, project their racism onto non-racists. And violators of the mandates of the LIEs must be punished swiftly and severely, and with malice (in both the legal and ordinary uses of the term).
The leftists are starting to eat their own. I am waiting for a Whitehouse dinner where the President and Vice President both attend. I wonder which one is going to be on the other’s plate.
In China, Jack Ma the creator of Alibaba called for more capitalism and he has been disappeared. Now Maud Maron is being disappeared by the American Marxist. The American Marxist pull the shade over our eyes and tell us not to worry about the indoctrination of our children. The American Marxist tried to hide their intentions but what they are doing is revealed in their manifesto. https://web.archive.org/web/20210705090534/https://ra.nea.org/business-item/2021-nbi-039/. In their abhorrence of whites and their slaveholding they conveniently forget the holding of slaves by black men in the south. https://americancivilwar.com/authors/black_slaveowners.htm. Blacks must be systemically racist against blacks because slaves were held by black men. There should be a concerted effort to trace the lineage of black slave holders to unearth their black progeny and make them answer for the sins of their fathers. I hate the cancellation of anyone but it is amazing that Maud Maron did not recognize the American Marxist in her ranks and their adherence to the philosophy of “The ends justify the means”. When the American Marxist have finished their indoctrination Maud Maron will find herself not just cancelled but a resident of the Gulag. If you think that they will soon pull their punches you are naive of history. You can still vote. For now.
You can’t say we didn’t see this coming. This is a report to Congress regarding the communist’s goals, back in 1963. The useful idiots in this country will tell you these are not the communists you’re looking for.
Here are 11 thru 45:
11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)
12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.
13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.
14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers’ associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
18. Gain control of all student newspapers.
19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to “eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms.”
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. “Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art.”
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them “censorship” and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as “normal, natural, healthy.”
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with “social” religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a “religious crutch.”
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of “separation of church and state.”
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the “common man.”
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the “big picture.” Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture–education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.
34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.
36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand [or treat].
39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use [“]united force[“] to solve economic, political or social problems.
43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.
44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.
45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction [over domestic problems. Give the World Court jurisdiction] over nations and individuals alike.
http://www.ecjones.org/1963_Communist_Goals.pdf
The modern left is doing an excellent job of rehabilitating Sen. Joe MacCarthy.
Opposition to marist teachers inflitrating our schools and indocrtinating our children does not seem such a bad idea anymore.
We let them do this too us and too our kids.
Ms. Maron is 6 decades late – but atleast she is standing up for her kids.
OT:
U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Maryorkas warned Cubans and Haitians on Tuesday that the Biden administration will throw out anyone who attempts to come to the United States by sea.
The statement comes from a Biden administration that claimed it “stand[s] with the Cuban people as they bravely assert their fundamental and universal rights, and as they all call for freedom and relief from the tragic grip of the pandemic and from the decades of repression and economic suffering.”
“The time is never right to attempt migration by sea. To those who risk their lives doing so, this risk is not worth taking,” Mayorkas said at a news conference at the U.S. Coast Guard’s headquarters in Washington.
He highlighted that the seas are risky, especially during hurricane seasons, Fox Newsreported.
Mayorkas is himself a citizen who first came to the U.S. from Cuba as a refugee.
“Allow me to be clear: If you take to the sea, you will not come to the United States,” he said.
https://conservativepost.com/dhs-secretary-people-fleeing-persecution-in-cuba-or-haiti-wont-be-allowed-into-us/?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=dhs-secretary-people-fleeing-persecution-in-cuba-or-haiti-wont-be-allowed-into-us
So what’s the message here? Is the DHS going to alert border patrol by putting lanterns out one if by land, two if by sea, so they’ll know what “political refugee” to allow entry into our country? So a 90 mile boat trip is far more dangerous than a 2000 mile trek through the summertime desert? Of course it would have nothing to do with the likelihood these particular refugees won’t vote for Democrats. No sir.
So it’s ok to walk across our southern border but you can’t come here illegally by water. Yah, that makes sense.
Apparently coming in by water is ok, as long as it’s the Rio Grande. Or panga boats into San Diego county.
“Allow me to be clear: If you take to the sea, you will not come to the United States.”
So, Biden’s immigration “policy” is this:
Immigrants from Central America are welcome.
Immigrants from Communist Cuba are not welcome.
Anyone want to speculate about the motivation behind this obvious contradiction? Here’s mine:
They can sprinkle Central American immigrants around the country (which they’re doing), and turn red districts blue.
Cuban immigrants, they fear, will stay in Miami, and make Florida redder.
How many examples does one need to conclude the obvious? — the Left’s end is power. And they will use *any* means (including any contradiction) to satisfy that desire.
I have read reports saying that Cubans and Haitians use the land route through the Darian Jungle where some have estimated 10% die while a lot of the rest are injured or get a disease.
It sounds like Biden doesn’t like Cubans. He likes everyone else, but the Cubans are escaping the leftist world of the Castro’s.
“Maud Maron…[suffered]…her colleagues labeling her a racist and demanding her removal.”
– Professor Turley
______________
If Americans cannot discriminate, Americans cannot be free.
Of course, racism and discrimination are fully constitutional and Americans are racist, as are Chinese, Arabs, Mexicans, Africans * and every other nationality and race on the planet, nay, in the universe.
Stop the dis- and misinformation.
Stop fraudulently, disingenuously and speciously conflating violence with holding opinions on race.
Affirmative action, quotas, forced busing, welfare, public housing, non-discrimination laws, fair-housing laws, etc., are racist and irrefutably unconstitutional.
Do communists (liberals, progressives, socialists, democrats, RINOs) in America know which country they are in?
The American Founders owned slaves, restricted the vote to male, European, 21 with 50 lbs. Sterling/50 acres, and four times passed these Acts:
“…free white person(s)…”
Naturalization Acts of 1790, 1795, 1798 and 1802 (four iterations)
United States Congress, “An act to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization,” March 26, 1790
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That any Alien being a free white person, who shall have resided within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States for the term of two years, may be admitted to become a citizen thereof…
__________________________________________________________________________________
*
“Mexican racist” at 2:00 minute point.