Neo Nazi father bans black nurse from looking after his baby

[meda]

What I don't get is that in the US, in public schools kids can get punished rather severely for bullying- most of which is entirely verbal and would be defined as hate speech. Kid can skip out of his high school graduation saying "White power! Fuck the f*gs, sp*cs, and n*ggers!" and people throw up their hands because free speech.

America: We Can Stop Bullies As Long As They're Minors!

Well...not really. You have a constitutional right to freedom of speech that cannot be limited by the government except for certain very well litigated reasons. However, the is nothing that protects you from the consequences of your speech. If you walk into a business and call the sales clerk a n***er, you're going to jail and/or getting charged with something if the clerk or business owner wants to press charges. You can get kicked out of school for violating codes of conduct that include prohibitions against hate speech. Freedom of speech does not give one an unfettered right to be an asshole, although many assholes seem to think it does.

[yewchapel]

E Street Fan - if you're a minority, why don't you want minorities to be protected against hate speech? I'm not talking about protection against opinions you don't agree with, I'm talking about oppression against minorities. Hate speech is verbal violence against minorities. Do you agree with laws against racially-aggravated violence, that is making it a crime of its own? Denying goods and services to people because of their race, gender or sexual orientation? How are hate speech laws any different?

[Bloo]

Well...not really. You have a constitutional right to freedom of speech that cannot be limited by the government except for certain very well litigated reasons. However, the is nothing that protects you from the consequences of your speech. If you walk into a business and call the sales clerk a n***er, you're going to jail and/or getting charged with something if the clerk or business owner wants to press charges. You can get kicked out of school for violating codes of conduct that include prohibitions against hate speech. Freedom of speech does not give one an unfettered right to be an asshole, although many assholes seem to think it does.

From my experience, if it's spoken, they won't be charged with squat. I suppose there could be a civil suit, but nothing criminal, because hate speech is (sadly) legal.

[yewchapel]

Well...not really. You have a constitutional right to freedom of speech that cannot be limited by the government except for certain very well litigated reasons. However, the is nothing that protects you from the consequences of your speech. If you walk into a business and call the sales clerk a n***er, you're going to jail and/or getting charged with something if the clerk or business owner wants to press charges. You can get kicked out of school for violating codes of conduct that include prohibitions against hate speech. Freedom of speech does not give one an unfettered right to be an asshole, although many assholes seem to think it does.

Forgive me for a lack of knowledge on the US constitution, but surely all those consequences depend very much on the individuals involved? For example, if someone walked into a business and called the sales clerk a n****r but the clerk/business owner did not want to press charges (because of intimidation or whatever), there would be no law against that right? Whereas with hate speech laws, the person could be prosecuted anyway. That seems to be a much better system - hate speech is wrong, even if some individuals put up with it.

And do all schools have codes of conduct that include prohibitions against hate speech? Private religious schools who teach homophobia apparently don't.

[moodygirl86]

I've just come out of the hospital and I certainly noticed shifts on my ward which were all white or all non-white. The shift on my second day in were all either black or Asian and if I had asked for only whites to treat me I would have been out of luck. It's a ridiculous request and should have been treated as such.

Hey JFC! Glad to see you back. Wishing you a speedy recovery.

[OkToBeTakei]

In terms of free speech, the answer seems to be 'because America magic!'. The existence of other countries (and laws against hate speech) doesn't seem to matter. America magic! America best!

It reminds me of the 2nd amendment people throw out in order to justify keeping weapons which kill, because you know no other country in the world has housebreaking or robbery or crime. We have those issues here but also have 0.07% gun homicides per 100,000 poulation compared to 2.71% in the US. But you know ...it's MY RIGHT!

This 'Free Speech' smacks of the same thing. In the UK you will be prosecuted for Race hate. I have never felt my free speech is in any way compromised by this law possibly because I am not a racist neo-nazi, or a homophobe who feels the urge to have my hate (oh sorry I meant opinion) heard.

To me the use of free speech or the excuse to say it is your right to use free speech to spread hatred and cause societal discord is an abuse of the term.

I am quite happy to live in my little corner of the world where there may well be a Westboro, but I am happy that if they decide to take to the street to spread their beliefs they will be prosecuted for it.

https://www.gov.uk/discrimination-your-rights

[meda]

Forgive me for a lack of knowledge on the US constitution, but surely all those consequences depend very much on the individuals involved? For example, if someone walked into a business and called the sales clerk a n****r but the clerk/business owner did not want to press charges (because of intimidation or whatever), there would be no law against that right? Whereas with hate speech laws, the person could be prosecuted anyway. That seems to be a much better system - hate speech is wrong, even if some individuals put up with it.

And do all schools have codes of conduct that include prohibitions against hate speech? Private religious schools who teach homophobia apparently don't.

You can't really speak to "all schools", because in the US schools are a mix of public, private (secular), and private (religious). Most schools I know of have codes of conduct that include speech. When you consider religious private schools and the treatment of LGBT students, it would depend on the state. at the federal level, sexual orientation is not a protected class, but it is considered a protected class in 22 states. So in my state, a private religious school would have to abide by laws that disallow discrimination based on sexual orientation. How that applies to speech vs religious freedom is open to interpretation.

Regarding my example of the idiot who walks into a store and calls a clerk a racial insult..the police and prosecutors have the ability to charge someone even if a business owner is unwilling. It may not be for "hate speech" specifically, but certainly for harassment, trespassing, disturbing the peace, etc..

[JMarie]

Lemme guess, the babys father ist just the same white trash fucktard as that one who named his three children "Adolf H......, JoyceLynn Aryan Nation and Honszlynn (sic!) Hinler (sic!2) Jeannie" .

youtube.com/watch?v=kvMW9nY40jM

I always wonder why exactly this people fall for neo-nazism, that certainly might be - if the manqué postcard painter from Braunau would be in exalted position - within the ones who got presented with the one-way train ticket to death...

That family lives in New Jersey.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... -back.html

[Katiebug]

The hospital is in a tough place. If the father would show a racist tattoo to get his way, the nurse could have been subjected to hate speech or perhaps even physical threats if she'd continued to care for the baby. At the same time, they don't want to discriminate against a long time, experienced, and presumably skilled employee because of some racist jackass. I've never heard of a NICU where only one nurse is on duty at any given time. It should have been a simple matter for the charge nurse to have two nurses swap patients. Where the problem arose was when the affected nurse was taken off her usual shift and possibly lost a shift differential in the process.

In the article on CNN, the hospital management even went to the extent of putting a note in the baby's chart that said, "No African-American nurses per the father's request" but then a hospital lawyer found out and objected to that, and then the hospital informed the father that his request could no longer be honored. So basically the line management did something, but the wrong thing. The hospital's risk management department and attorneys should have been involved from the beginning before any changes were made to the nurses' scheduling.

[yewchapel]

You can't really speak to "all schools", because in the US schools are a mix of public, private (secular), and private (religious). Most schools I know of have codes of conduct that include speech. When you consider religious private schools and the treatment of LGBT students, it would depend on the state. at the federal level, sexual orientation is not a protected class, but it is considered a protected class in 22 states. So in my state, a private religious school would have to abide by laws that disallow discrimination based on sexual orientation. How that applies to speech vs religious freedom is open to interpretation.

Regarding my example of the idiot who walks into a store and calls a clerk a racial insult..the police and prosecutors have the ability to charge someone even if a business owner is unwilling. It may not be for "hate speech" specifically, but certainly for harassment, trespassing, disturbing the peace, etc..

Well the example with schools kind of makes my point for me - having hate speech laws at state not federal level seems so wrong. I'm horrified that LGBT people are not a federally protected group.

[tanksmom]

A serious question for people who work in hospitals because I'm baffled at the hospital's original response & am trying to understand it better. I have a relative who is convinced he is the FSM gift to all women. He is also convinced that if a woman has short hair she must be gay & he doesn't want her to have anything to do with his care. So he has the right (in the US hospital system) to make a blanket statement that any women who act as his doctor or nurse have long hair and the hospital should arrange their shift to make sure his request is honored? I can see making an effort to fulfill his request but if he needed a nurse in the middle of the night and all of the patient approved nurses were with other patients I think he should be told in no uncertain terms that he could suck it up and the person who shows up is the person that will help him.

As for me I don't care what my medical staff looks like. I'll take someone who is purple with green spots but has years of experience over someone who just started out but looks a specific way.

[meda]

A serious question for people who work in hospitals because I'm baffled at the hospital's original response & am trying to understand it better. I have a relative who is convinced he is the FSM gift to all women. He is also convinced that if a woman has short hair she must be gay & he doesn't want her to have anything to do with his care. So he has the right (in the US hospital system) to make a blanket statement that any women who act as his doctor or nurse have long hair and the hospital should arrange their shift to make sure his request is honored? I can see making an effort to fulfill his request but if he needed a nurse in the middle of the night and all of the patient approved nurses were with other patients I think he should be told in no uncertain terms that he could suck it up and the person who shows up is the person that will help him.

As for me I don't care what my medical staff looks like. I'll take someone who is purple with green spots but has years of experience over someone who just started out but looks a specific way.

No, he doesnt have the right. There is no blanket right to demand certain hospital staff and not others. A patient can request staff of a certain gender, within reason. That's about it. "Patient Rights" does not mean that. This is a link to the only federal "patients rights" law that exists, it's part of the Affordable Care act of 2010. It has jack shit to do with the ability of hospital patients to dictate staffing.

http://www.healthcare.gov/law/features/ ... index.html

[lilith]

What disturbs me is that the father made an obvious attempt at intimidation (showing his swastika tat) and that seems to be ok.

Shouldn't threatening hospital staff have consequences? I would think that the nurse in question would have grounds for a restraining order and to ask that the father not be present on the ward when she was working.

[Childless]

What possible lawsuit could he file against her? "She was black, I asked specifically for no black women and then my baby got jaundice"? Would that not be laughed out of court?

I've just come out of the hospital and I certainly noticed shifts on my ward which were all white or all non-white. The shift on my second day in were all either black or Asian and if I had asked for only whites to treat me I would have been out of luck. It's a ridiculous request and should have been treated as such.

Also, what if the ward consultant doctor had been black? What then, withdraw the kid until a white consultant comes on shift? Demand the black doctor is sent home?

Of course it would be laughed out of court. But not until the hospital had to shell out for an attorney and go through a hearing. Just because the father didn't have a case doesn't prohibit him from filing a lawsuit. Especially if something happened to the baby. He couldn't say the child contracted jaundice because the nurse was black, but he could say the child contracted jaundice because the nurse was not competent enough to do her job well. And again, just because he has no case doesn't mean he couldn't file suit against the nurse and drag her into court.

[justlurking]

This story reminds me of an incident that occurred at a former job of mine. I worked for an agency that oversaw a program that provided home visiting services to parents of new babies. There was this one family that were white supremacists who (naturally) refused to allow any black home visitors into their home, so the supervisor decided to assign them a white one---who happened to be a [butch] lesbian and who had a Mohawk that was dyed blue. :lol:

If I managed the hospital, I'd charge extra for "special requests" such as this one. These charges would/could not be covered by insurance, but would need to come out of the requestor's pocket. If dickheads like this white supremacist wanna come in and fuck with everyone's schedules and money to accommodate their racism, then they should have to pay for that! I'd charge an extra $500 dollars each day as a "convenience" fee and give the money to the nurses who are affected by it.

[E Street Fan]

E Street Fan - if you're a minority, why don't you want minorities to be protected against hate speech? I'm not talking about protection against opinions you don't agree with, I'm talking about oppression against minorities. Hate speech is verbal violence against minorities. Do you agree with laws against racially-aggravated violence, that is making it a crime of its own? Denying goods and services to people because of their race, gender or sexual orientation? How are hate speech laws any different?

I do want minorities protected against hate. But I can't take away somebody's constitutional right to free speech because somebody doesn't like it. As I've said, what happens when somebody doesn't like what I have to say?

There is a profound difference between hate speech and hate violence or other hateful acts. Yes, I am in favor of laws against racially-motivated violence. In fact, I think hate crime statutes are underutilized.

I have studying to do and grad programs to research. Have a nice day. :)

[Anxious Girl]

Why doesn't this guy move out of America and start his own micronation if he doesn't want to be surrounded by other ethnicities and races? After all, most of the American population isn't even native. And doesn't he know that humans orignated from Africa?

[2xx1xy1JD]

Really? It's within his rights to racially discriminate against someone? Isn't that illegal?

Wanting only women to care for a woman in labour is one thing, demanding that they be white women is another and is NOT a right anyone has.

A preference for a female health care provider is one thing - it's not always possible to honor the request, but it's often about either religious observance or personal comfort, and NOT about sexism/racism.

The hospital should have let the man know that specific racial requests could not be accommodated, period.

The only complicating factor here is the fact that the baby needed the care, so saying "go elsewhere or go home" wasn't really an option.

I can possibly understand a hospital re-assigning staff - not because they feel obligated to accommodate a racist request, but because they want to protect themselves and their staff from hostility and malicious complaints, in a situation where refusing care to a patient is not an option. Still, it's a bad precedent to set, and it must screw up the schedules.

My husband recently had a patient suddenly refuse to see him. He initially insisted that he wouldn't see his partner (who has a very Jewish surname), but didn't give a reason. He was fine with my husband - until my husband turned around. At that point, he suddenly announced that he didn't want to be seen at all, and bolted. My husband wears a yarmulka, which is small and black and isn't really visible from the front. We suspect that this guy is a Nazi. If so, good luck trying to find another doctor - in my husband's specialty, the choices in doctors are Jewish or Asian.

[yewchapel]

I do want minorities protected against hate. But I can't take away somebody's constitutional right to free speech because somebody doesn't like it. As I've said, what happens when somebody doesn't like what I have to say?

There is a profound difference between hate speech and hate violence or other hateful acts. Yes, I am in favor of laws against racially-motivated violence. In fact, I think hate crime statutes are underutilized.

I have studying to do and grad programs to research. Have a nice day. :)

Unless you were to use hate speech, you wouldn't be prosecuted under hate speech laws :? I don't understand why you're conflating hate speech, which is clearly defined in countries that have laws against it, with simply not liking what somebody else says. Hate speech is verbal violence against a minority - the motivation behind it and hate violence is exactly the same.

[OkToBeTakei]

Unless you were to use hate speech, you wouldn't be prosecuted under hate speech laws :? I don't understand why you're conflating hate speech, which is clearly defined in countries that have laws against it, with simply not liking what somebody else says. Hate speech is verbal violence against a minority - the motivation behind it and hate violence is exactly the same.

I totally agree and do not understand the OP's point at all. 'Constitutional right to free speech' seems to be the OP's answer to all of these issues.

I am having difficulty understanding how an individual who identifies with a movement that considers black people sub-human and given the opportunity would potentially be quite happy to see the genocide of this race and find it difficult to comprehend how his open discrimination of this woman constitutes his 'constitutional right to free speech.' Which is what I believe the OP to be saying.

[JesusFightClub]

Surely though any patient or relative of a patient could sue if they felt the patient had not been treated correctly. The skin colour of the nurse attending would be absolutely irrelevant to this. So bending to Mr. Nazi's wishes doesn't prevent him suing (in fact, if he will show a tat of a swastika to intimidate, I think he would be up to all sorts, and the law may not have been his friend in the past.)

Of course he has the right to make the request. However, he doesn't have the right to have it honoured. Free speech means "you are allowed to say things". There is not an additional clause which says "And there will be no consequences you don't like."

Changing from a black to a white nurse IMO was craven IMO and it doesn't prevent him suing. What it does do is shout loud and clear "Racists are welcome here! Show us your Nazi tattoo and you can pick the whitest nurse you can find! We'll screw over our employees to make you happy!"

[moodygirl86]

Whoever said the customer/client/patient etc...is always right, should be shot.

[OkToBeTakei]

http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/nireland/ ... reland.htm

Legally, race discrimination can be 'direct' or 'indirect', or can take the form of harassment or victimisation.

Public authorities have a legal duty to eliminate unlawful discrimination and to actively promote equality.

If you are taking action over race discrimination, you do not have to demonstrate that there was an intention to discriminate against you. It is only necessary to show that discrimination took place.

You do not have to demonstrate that racial grounds were the only reason for the discrimination you experienced. It is enough to show that racial grounds played a substantial part in the discrimination. For a definition of ‘racial grounds' - see below.

I can't find a a similar case in the UK apart from the one I previously quoted where the patient refused to be treated by a black doctor and was then jailed for 6 months.

Based on that and discrimination law I would assume that the same would happen to Mr Neo-Nazi. It would be very interesting to find out how the hospital trust NHS would have dealt with the situation in regards to duty of care to the baby and duty of care to the nurse. If anybody can dig up a similar UK based case. Or really any other country. It is really interesting to see the differences.

Whilst searching came across this.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... to-operate

The doctor, who has not been named, refused to perform thyroid surgery on the 36-year-old lorry driver when he saw the tattoo of an imperial eagle perched on top of a swastika, surrounded by laurel wreathes.

"I can't operate on this man. I am Jewish," the German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung quoted him as saying. Leaving the patient anaesthetised, he found a senior colleague, who then performed a successful operation.

The 46-year-old Jewish doctor, who works at hospital in the city of Paderborn, explained later that his conscience prevented him from treating people he suspected of having neo-Nazi sympathies.

German law bans all Nazi symbols, and anybody found guilty of displaying them in public can spend up to three years in jail.

The surgeon's actions, which are now under investigation, have triggered widespread debate in Germany over just where doctors can or cannot draw an ethical line.

The family of the patient, who has made a full recovery, have called for the doctor to be struck off, alleging that by walking out he failed to uphold the Hippocratic Oath, while members of the public have also voiced their anger at the surgeon, claiming all people deserve care, irrespective of their political views. Others however have rallied to his defence.

"We've had lots of calls from residents who have praised the doctor's moral courage," said his hospital in a statement, and Jorg-Dietrich Hoppe, head of Germany's Federal Medical Association, has stood by his Jewish colleague.

He said that by finding another surgeon to perform the operation the doctor had fulfilled his duty to care for his patient.

"It would have been different if it had been an emergency. Then he would have had to look after the man even he had been covered in swastikas," added Mr Hoppe.

But German doctors have to adhere to high ethical standards, and any transgression get lead to dismissal, with physicians even being struck off for tax irregularities.

[Ramona]

All this "picking your own doctors and nurses" - I've never heard of that. Heck, if you tried that at our small hospital you may not have anyone to care for you at all.. it's a small hospital with a limited staff. You get who you get.

This applies to the preference of a female doctor too - There's ONE female GP in town and she isn't just full, she's overfull. Not taking any new patients for, oh, the next ten years likely. If you have your own family doctor (and don't have to use the little walk in or go to the ER for normal care) then you're happy.

[wtfrenchtoast]

I think it's disgusting that anyone here thinks this man had a "right" to a white nurse. That's essentially what you are saying. The hospital should never have caved to his request. There is a vast difference between not wanting a male doctor to see your vagina or breasts and not wanting a black person to touch you, and if you don't see that, you just suck fundamentally as a person.