The rights of the bigoted

Ah. To all ye charming, reactionary persons who find delight in hurling accusations of "racism" and "affirmative action pick" at Sonia Sotomayor, let it be known that this lady is on record as supporting your right to make any racially insulting, bigoted remark you choose, and in pointing up the dangers of enforcing politically correct attitudes at the expense of both privacy and the First Amendment in order to maintain one's Public Face.

The facts of Pappas are simple. The plaintiff was a white employee of the New York City Police Department -- working in a clerical position in information management -- when he was fired for having sent blatantly racist and anti-Semitic replies in response to charity requests he received in the mail. Pappas admitted doing it, and said he did it to protest the charity requests. The NYPD fired him for having sent the replies on the ground that it did not want racist employees. He sued the NYPD, alleging that his First Amendment rights were violated by the firing, because he was clearly fired due to the content of the political views he expressed.

The district court judge dismissed Pappas' case, finding that the NYPD had a legitimate need to exclude racists from its employ, a need which outweighed Pappas' First Amendment rights. On appeal, two of the three judges on the Second Circuit panel agreed with that ruling and dismissed Pappas' case. But not Sotomayor. She wrote a dissent emphasizing the strong First Amendment interests of Pappas' that were being violated -- however contemptible it was, it was pure political expression -- and she argued that it he was entitled to a jury trial to decide if the NYPD, under Supeme Court precedent, had any right to fire him for it.

As unpleasant as it may be to acknowledge, the fact is that persons who have been used to think of themselves as the Majority--Caucasian, Anglo-Saxon, Middle-Class Protestants, for example--are fast becoming a decided Minority in this country, and indeed, in this world. Insofar as this is a fact, and one likely to become more true as time goes by, it is in this Minority's best interests to hope that leaders of the New Majority make decisions from an empathic point of view: one that deeply considers your perspective, holding your rights as sacred as that of the majority.

In other words, you had better hope that they do not do unto you, what you have far too often done unto them.