Cancel Culture Strikes Again: Lawyer fired for expressing support for Dobbs decision during conference call to discuss the Dobbs decision

Hotair ^ | 11/30/2022 | John Sexton

[SeekAndFind]

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal published an opinion piece by attorney Robin Keller describing how she lost her job at a large law firm after daring to speak up in favor of the Dobbs decision. This didn’t happen at a general staff meeting but on a conference call explicitly held to allow staffers to discuss the decision.

After the Supreme Court issued its Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade in June, global law firm Hogan Lovells organized an online conference call for female employees. As a retired equity partner still actively serving clients, I was invited to participate in what was billed as a “safe space” for women at the firm to discuss the decision. It might have been a safe space for some, but it wasn’t safe for me.

Everyone else who spoke on the call was unanimous in her anger and outrage about Dobbs. I spoke up to offer a different view. I noted that many jurists and commentators believed Roe had been wrongly decided. I said that the court was right to remand the issue to the states. I added that I thought abortion-rights advocates had brought much of the pushback against Roe on themselves by pushing for extreme policies. I referred to numerous reports of disproportionately high rates of abortion in the black community, which some have called a form of genocide. I said I thought this was tragic.

The outrage was immediate. The next speaker called me a racist and demanded that I leave the meeting. Other participants said they “lost their ability to breathe” on hearing my comments. After more of the same, I hung up.

But that wasn’t the end of it. Someone inside the company filed a complaint. Her access to clients was cut off pending an investigation. A statement was released to a progressive site that covers legal matters and her name was also leaked. Three weeks later an outside firm concluded that her comments violated the company’s anti-harassment policy. After a 44-year career, she was not only fired but blackballed by other firms wary of courting controversy. Keller said she wasn’t surprised by the response of some of the people on the call but she was surprised how quickly the firm itself “kowtowed to a woke faction inside its workforce.”

The site Above the Law, which received the statement from the firm, posted a reaction to the opinion piece which reads like a parody of smug progressivism:

Looks like former Hogan Lovells partner Robin Keller isn’t done trying to wring the last juice out of her 15 minutes of infamy.

Keller last made news this summer, when in the wake of the Dobbs decision, she — on a work call with ~400 attendees — spouted her problematic views on abortion and race. (Audience alert: remove any animals from the room as there are dog whistles ahead.)…

…it is dangerous to assert that just because a statement has been repeated within the right-wing echo chamber makes it acceptable — particularly in a workplace. And it certainly doesn’t mean Keller gets to eschew responsibility for imposing her problematic views on her colleagues.

Her views are “problematic” you see and therefore she deserves to be out of work. Scratch a woke white woman and you’ll find a petty tyrant underneath. Jonathan Turley also wrote his reaction to the opinion piece including a shot at Above the Law:

In a column entitled “White Counsel At Biglaw Firm Spreads ‘Inappropriate And Offensive’ Theories About Abortion, Gets Suspended,” Kathryn Rubino celebrated the “welcome consequences” for people who share dissenting or unpopular views on such subjects. Rubino expressed disbelief that “a white partner who attended HoLove’s women’s meeting felt it appropriate to chime in with her support of the Dobbs decision.”

Lawyers at the firm demanded the firing of Keller and said that they were “traumatized” by having to hear someone defend the decision on a call to allow people to discuss the decision.

Let’s repeat that again . . . these are lawyers who were traumatized because a colleague expressed a dissenting view of abortion, a view held by millions of other Americans as well as many judges and justices. It is a view that has been expressed widely in the media, including by African-American and female commentators…

To state opposing views in a forum on the case is now considered harmful and harassing — and a basis for termination.

That is certainly a “consequence” but it is hardly “welcomed” if you have a modicum of concern for free speech values.

There are of course limits to free speech including any kind of incitement to violence but nothing like that happened in this case. This is just cancel culture. Silencing someone for holding a different point of view than the one progressives consider the only acceptable view.

[dadfly]

i don’t go to leftist sites.

so i assume she’s suing because her first and second amendment rights were obviously abridged by her employer. if she isn’t, she’s not much of a lawyer.

[nicollo]

What a bunch of wussies.

Sorry, but that’s all they are: sycophantic, hateful cowards.

[Dr. Sivana]

…it is dangerous to assert that just because a statement has been repeated within the right-wing echo chamber makes it acceptable

Is the Supreme Court itself an echo chamber? Her position is held by a majority there.

[drSteve78]

Sorry, but that’s all they are: sycophantic, hateful cowards

non-reproducing Karens

[Republican Wildcat]

Sounds like any firm wishing to have competent staff should have fired the employees who attacked her. They’re completely unhinged. “Lost the ability to breathe”? Crazytown.

[Dilbert San Diego]

That struck me too. These supposedly rough tough women in the legal profession, lost the ability to breathe because of hearing a contrasting point of view?

[dayglored]

> "...I was invited to participate in what was billed as a “safe space” for women at the firm to discuss the decision..."

Let's add some definitions here:

"safe space" == leftist / snowflake echo chamber
"for women" == leftist / feminist echo chamber
"discuss" == scream and cry about how unfair everything is

While I completely sympathize with Keller's situation, I have to say, she walked into what was clearly a snake pit, that was advertised as a snake pit, filled with snakes, and she antagonized the snakes. No surprise she got attacked and bit.

[Deaf Smith]

“conference call”

I expect that this was more in line with a Zoom like call where each person is identified.

HR is usually on these types of calls to “monitor” and are recorded.

This reads more a retaliatory type of firing in a hostile work environment.

If she were a lawyer, she would know this and have a legal case.

I used these types of calls to my advantage when known that at least two HR critters were present.

I set off several dumpster fires in corporate during the Plandemic.

[Williams]

Something has to be done to go against these intolerant sob’s.

They are rotten fascists.

[Dogbert41]

"What a bunch of wussies. Sorry, but that’s all they are: sycophantic, hateful cowards."

So were the NAZIS. Look what they did.

[jocon307]

“so i assume she’s suing...”

I hope she is doing this, but there’s no mention of a suit in the HA post. Which was as usual cribbed from elsewhere. Where was not immediately clear to me and I didn’t delve any further.

But, she should sue, because this behavior is outrageous. She’s a semi-retired partner, so she is presumably OK financially. How about if they pulled this crap on a secretary or file room worker? How about if they pulled it on a Junior Associate? How about a Muslim Junior Associate?

You invite your employees to a “safe space” to “discuss” an issue and then you fire one of them for what they said about the issue? And the issue is a Supreme Court decision and you all work at a Law Firm?

Well, I’ve talked myself into it, at least. This woman MUST sue these people. No reason the complaint can’t be filed by Monday.

[montag813]

Really dumb to give her views - any views - on Roe. She had to know how left-leaning the staff was from other interactions and water cooler talk. Why not just say "wow...I am still trying to process this decision. That's all." Then back to her office and her job. Instead she went on, and on, and on, and even brought blacks into it. Dumb.

[Catholic and Conservative]

Leftist logic: opposition to the slaughter of millions of black babies that has taken place since Roe vs. Wade is racist and agreeing with a Supreme Court decision is grounds for firing from a law firm and a "safe space for women to discuss the decision" is not a space where it is safe for a woman to discuss the decision if she believes in adhering to the Constitution.

[joshua c]

i disagree

these fascists will only stop if there is pushback

she is a retired equity partner

she has plenty of fu money

[FoxInSocks]

Other participants said they “lost their ability to breathe” on hearing my comments.

Too bad that disability didn’t last longer than five minutes.

[marktwain]

these fascists will only stop if there is pushback

she is a retired equity partner

she has plenty of fu money

Exactly.

Keep retreating from these idiots, and they will rule over us.

There must be pushback.

[Dahoser]

Keller last made news this summer, when in the wake of the Dobbs decision, she — on a work call with ~400 attendees — spouted her problematic views on abortion and race.

There is the dog whistle—problematic. This lawyer's views are problematic. Characters in 16 Candles are problematic stereotypes. The African Queen is problematic for its lack of diversity. Connery's Bond is problematic for smacking female rumps among 1,000 other sins. White papers are problematic—something the Karens at my Fortune 100 company took care of by renaming them technical briefs. And in the spirit of the time now, Merry Christmas is problematic.

I'm exhausted just listing all that. How do these people make it through a day?

[sauropod]

These are the people that rule over us.

Never forget that.

/struggle sessions

[P.O.E.]

Meetings not designed to discuss anything. But to disseminate the “right way to think”.