Back in March the NY Times reported on the ACLU's firing of Kate Oh. Oh was reportedly difficult to work with, especially from the perspective of her supervisors whom she repeatedly criticized and accused of creating a hostile working environment. Some but not all of the supervisors she criticized were black and that apparently gave the organization an excuse to fire her even though she had never used any racial slurs.

The A.C.L.U. acknowledges that Ms. Oh, who is Korean American, never used any kind of racial slur. But the group says that her use of certain phrases and words demonstrated a pattern of willful anti-Black animus.

In one instance, according to court documents, she told a Black superior that she was “afraid” to talk with him. In another, she told a manager that their conversation was “chastising.” And in a meeting, she repeated a satirical phrase likening her bosses’ behavior to suffering “beatings.”

What she actually wrote was "beatings will continue until morale improves" which is a very old joke about bad bosses. But the ACLU's DEI officers warned her such language was "dangerous and damaging." 

In court the ACLU made a different argument. It didn't matter if Oh's comments had a racist intent, only if they were perceived that way by her superiors.

A lawyer representing the A.C.L.U., Ken Margolis, said during a legal proceeding last year that it was irrelevant whether Ms. Oh bore no racist ill will. All that mattered, he said, was that her Black colleagues were offended and injured.

“We’re not here to prove anything other than the impact of her actions was very real — that she caused harm,” Mr. Margolis said, according to a transcript of his remarks. “She caused serious harm to Black members of the A.C.L.U. community.”

This is the sort of argument you hear 15-year-old social justice warriors make on X. If someone feels bad about what you said, you should be punished for saying it whether it was objectively racist or not. And it's especially dumb in this case because when Oh made the remark about "beatings" it was at a meeting called after the group's national political director, who was one of Oh's supervisors, had left the group after complaints from multiple employees. In other words, she wasn't alone in feeling that some of her supervisors made the office unpleasant.

Oh later called her direct supervisor a liar and told the supervisor above that that she was afraid to meet with him. He took offense to that saying it was akin to suggesting he was dangerous because he was black.

The final straw came after Oh called the message from the DEI director "chastising." And because she too was black, it was seen as more anti-black rhetoric.

“Calling my check-in ‘chastising’ or ‘reprimanding’ feels like a willful mischaracterization in order to continue the stream of anti-Black rhetoric you’ve been using throughout the organization,” Ms. Hikes wrote in an email.

“I’m hopeful you’ll consider the lived experiences and feelings of those you work with,” she added.

Well, a judge looked at all of this and last week concluded that the ACLU would have to get over its hurt feelings and reinstate Kate Oh with two years of backpay and money to cover any job search she has made in the interim.

Michael A. Rosas, an administrative law judge, said that the A.C.L.U.’s accusation that she had targeted people of color “is not borne out by the facts.” He noted that her complaints were not about colleagues but superiors within the organization, and that she had also complained about white managers...

The judge ordered the A.C.L.U. to reinstate Ms. Oh, who was fired in May 2022, and to give her back pay.

Ms. Oh said the ruling sent a message that “no one is above the law,” according to a statement she issued through the Nonprofit Professional Employees Union, which represented her. That includes, Ms. Oh added, “powerful management officials claiming to champion civil liberties with their words while illegally doing the opposite with their actions.”

Of course the ACLU is planning to appeal so we'll have to wait and see if the ACLU is forced to follow through. But for now it's an embarrassing spectacle and a reminder that DEI is a plague which will only lead to more lawsuits.