Atlanta Hawks GM Danny Ferry used racist stereotypes in evaluating and describing player Luol Deng. The comments were unquestionably tasteless and offensive; they might form the basis for an employment-discrimination action, although Deng did not suffer any harm (he signed with another team and there is no indication he was dying to sign with the Hawks) and courts are often quick to dismiss remarks like these as “stray comments” (as my colleague Kerri Stone has written) The remarks were audio-recorded and written in a report. Ferry has been placed on indefinite leave of absence, basically meaning he’s on his way to being fired (likely as part of an ownership change). The team published a public apology to its fans, basically confessing to multiple incidents of racist comments and actions by the team “over a period of years” and its failure to stop or punish them. The league is holding off on punishment, probably because the team took the matter off its hands.
Isiah Thomas engaged in a pattern of sex- and gender-based harassment of a Knicks executive named Anucha Browne Sanders, for which he was found personally liable by a jury; the case settled, following a jury verdict awarding more than $ 10 million in punitive damages. Thomas never lost his job and suffered no team- or league-imposed penalties. The league expressly said it does not get involved with “civil matters,” not even civil matters directly affecting the team. The Knicks never publicly apologized for anything or even acknowledged having been found liable.
A former executive with the New York Mets has sued the team and the COO (the principal owner’s son) for harassing and then firing her over becoming pregnant and having a child without being married and complaining about the harassment. So far, silence from MLB. The Mets blandly insist that they have policies against harassment and discrimination (which obviously means nothing if those policies are ignored by the owner’s son, general counsel, and other team officials, as the complaint alleges).
So can we find anything resembling consistent and appropriate responses to possibly improper or unlawful employment practices? One answer is that mere accusations are insufficient and teams must wait for the civil litigation process to play out. But then neither the non-action by the Knicks against Thomas nor the action by the Hawks against Ferry makes sense. Worse, accepting the facts alleged in each case as true, the Hawks case is probably the least likely of the three to produce legal liability, yet that is the only one in which the team responded. A more cynical answer is teams/leagues will jump to act when it comes to race discrimination involving players, but do not care about sex-based discrimination against non-players. An intermediate explanation is Ferry was captured on audio and the Mets COO wasn’t, which just brings us back to the problem that audio and video are overtaking our ability to judge evidence and proof. But that, in turn, says some troubling things about our ability or willingness to rely on judicial processes, not just recordings, to resolve disputes and determine legal rights and wrongs.
Posted by Howard Wasserman on September 15, 2014 at 09:31 AM