Why Donald Sterling is not Brendan Eich
<p>Because I <a href="http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=5651">objected</a> to the scalping of Brendan Eich for having donated to Proposition 8, a friend has (perhaps jocularly) challenged me to defend NBA team owner Donald Sterling against an effort to push him out of his franchise for racist remarks and behavior.</p>
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<p>I&#8217;m not going to do that, because I don&#8217;t think these cases are at all parallel.  The differences begin with this: Brendan Eich was targeted for bullying because he performed a political, expressive act that his political opponents disagreed with.  In both law and custom, we recognize that political expression needs to have the strongest possible protection. None of Sterling&#8217;s racist behaviors can reasonably be characterized as political expression.</p>
<p>Another key difference: there is no evidence that Eich ever engaged in bigoted behavior against individual gays &#8211; in fact, there are plausible interpretations of Eich&#8217;s behavior that imply no prejudice at all (he might, for example, have believed it was important to assert popular sovereignity against a court that has exceeded its remit). There is, on the other hand, ample evidence of Sterling&#8217;s racial prejudices being expressed against individuals over whom he had power.</p>
<p>I admit to some uneasiness about the outcry against Sterling; it especially disturbs me that he was outed by illegal taping of a private conversation.  I think Kareem Abdul Jabbar put the case that there is excessive finger-wagging going on here <a href="http://time.com/79590/donald-sterling-kareem-abdul-jabbar-racism/">very well</a>. But those concerns don&#8217;t rise to anywhere near the level of alarm I felt about the way Eich was treated.</p>
<p>Honesty compels me to admit that I am opposed on principle to some of the anti-discrimination laws that Sterling is now said to have been violating for a long time.  If he doesn&#8217;t want to rent his property to blacks or hispanics, I don&#8217;t think the law should force him to do so. But I do think it is ethical and just for him to be boycotted for this odious prejudice, and I join Kareem-Abdul Jabbar in wondering why nobody organized that sooner. </p>
