The mission of the City of Dunwoody is to provide the highest quality of life for those who live, work, or play in our community and to foster an environment where business can prosper. We will serve all stakeholders in a transparent manner with resourceful, efficient, progressive, and professional leadership.
As City Council members, we serve a very diverse community of residents, businesses, employees, and customers of those businesses. As a community, we are a melting pot of races, colors, religions, genders, national origins, sexual orientations, ages, disability, marital, and family statuses. We as human beings are all equals. Unfortunately, case law is not entirely settled in this area and in the eyes of the State of Georgia as well as the Federal Government there are not equal protections of the law against discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
This discrimination has both an economic and human cost to our society, therefore, I, along with Councilwoman Pam Tallmadge propose protections against discrimination for employment, housing or the provision of goods and services for those in our community whom state and federal law does not provide equal protection.
We as a city should let it be known that we stand not only for equality but against all forms of hate therefore in this proposal, we have included language whereby the Dunwoody Police Department will develop guidelines for the identification, investigation, documentation, and reporting of hate crimes committed within the corporate limits of the City of Dunwoody. We will also train our staff, start collecting standardized data and then report such data to the FBI. Our police department already does a beautiful job in fostering a sense of community where hate is not tolerated, but I have already reached out organizations like the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center to see if they can assist us in fostering the message of tolerance within our community and ending hate.
The cities of Atlanta, Chamblee and Doraville have recently passed similar non-discrimination legislation and when an active & engaged Dunwoody resident asked what we were doing to protect his family, Pam and I reviewed the background laws and ordinances of Dunwoody and the other cities, we reviewed our internal EEOC and non-discrimination policies, we have discussed the issue with staff including community development, legal, economic development, as well as the police department; and only after being fully vetted have we decided to put forward this proposal for Council consideration.
Our proposed anti-discrimination ordinance is straight forward whereby an aggrieved person may file a complaint with the City Clerk alleging discrimination against a holder of a business license. After a legal review determines that there are no other legal remedies being offered under Federal or State Law, it which starts a process of non-binding mediation between the two parties and if not successfully settled in mediation, a hearing officer will adjudicate the matter on the evidence provided. Once a finding is determined, the mediator or hearing officer’s fees shall be assessed to the non-prevailing party. Parties adversely affected by the final decision regarding the complaint may appeal to the Superior Court of DeKalb County. The maximum penalty of the first violation is $500.
We believe that this proposed City ordinance fosters equal treatment by upholding the values of equality, inclusion, and diversity for all within the City of Dunwoody and though it does not replace Federal or State Law, it is a start in the right direction.
13 comments:
A polite "No, thank you" when it comes to limiting freedom of speech, no matter if the purported purpose is "ending hate." And if the SPLC was actually consulted, then a much more emphatic "NO!" is deserved.
Lays the groundwork for lawsuits. Bad for business in the city. Can anyone actually point to an incidence of this in Dunwoody?
The SPLC is a bad actor and should not be a part of any good faith discussion. Did the citizen who asked about "protection" point to an incident? And what is "derogatory language" doing in that logo up at the top? Limiting speech does not represent me.
Thank you for proposing this ordinance. It is extremely important to emphasize that Dunwoody is a welcoming city!
"Discriminate, discrimination or discriminatory means any act, policy or practice that, regardless of intent, has the effect of subjecting any person to differential treatment as a result of that person's actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, disability, marital status, familial status, or veteran status."—Seems innocuous enough, but we'll see how this plays out. "Regardless of intent" criminalizes any perceived mistreatment and ignores mens rea. Criminalizing "differential treatment" is the black hole in the ordinance. What that bit of vagueness will swallow cannot be calculated; it can only be experienced and the experience will not be pleasant for those pulled into explaining their decisions, such as store managers who use differential treatment as a tool to reward or punish their workers' different performance levels and which the aggrieved may perceive as discrimination. One can hope that the "Mediator’s fees and the Hearing Officer’s fees shall be assessed to the non-prevailing party" clause will prohibit frivolous acts of retribution, but the perception on the part of City Council that such an ordinance is necessary would seem to indicate that Council does not believe in the integrity of the citizens of Dunwoody.
Thanks for putting this measure forward, John.
I am a Dunwoody North resident who happens to be a married gay constituent and parent to two wonderful children. I have a mixed race family, and I work as an ally for persons with disabilities. I love living in Dunwoody, and our family is an active member of our community. I feel that this is a necessary protection that expresses the City of Dunwoody's aim to be inclusive of all people, and to continue welcoming the many businesses who call Dunwoody home and share those values.
The comment that resonates most for me is, "We as human beings are all equals." My hope is that across all religious, race, and political lines, this is believed to be true. Should actions that causes discrimination of others lack consequences? Ask a WWII veteran or Holocaust survivor.
I could never oppose such an ordinance. Incidents of discrimination are on a sharp uptick across the nation. Targets of discrimination- overt or orherwise- deserve protection. This ordinance serves a purpose as it protects citizens, visitors and employees of Dunwoody.
To avoid the problem of government becoming bigger and bigger and encroaching more and more upon our lives and liberties, policymakers must first assess the nature and extent of problems before determining that coercive, government intervention is required. If such intervention is required, then policymakers must propose an appropriate remedy and seek comment from the citizenry regarding the proposed remedy. Advocates of coercive intervention must provide evidence that segments of the population are facing harm unless government responds. Does such evidence of ongoing harm to a specific population in Dunwoody exist? If not, why propose a coercive solution for a nonexistent problem? Oh, and "gender identify" on page 2 of the proposed ordinance should be "gender identity."
Can't wait for the next unanimous council vote in the ongoing, head-over-heels effort to be welcoming and exceedingly virtuous: "In order to create a more welcoming environment to a diverse community, we are going to forgo saying the Pledge of Allegiance before every meeting," said Council Member Tim Brausen.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/st-louis-park-city-minnesota-council-members-vote-to-eliminate-pledge-of-allegiance-meetings/
Reminds me of when Vanderlyn Elementary PTO decided to stop kindergarten students from singing Americana songs because the songs weren't "inclusive." Now the kindergartners do the 3 Bears play because they're all so woke.
Wake me when the city's Fourth of July parade is cancelled because "it's not inclusive."
From the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, Case No. 17-3352, decision filed August 23, 2019, in which the Court finds that "regulating speech because it is discriminatory or offensive is not a compelling state interest": Even antidiscrimination laws, as critically important as they are, must yield to the Constitution. And as compelling as the interest in preventing discriminatory conduct may be, speech is treated differently under the First Amendment. See Hurley, 515 U.S. at 579 (“While the law is free to promote all sorts of conduct in place of harmful behavior, it is not free to interfere with speech for no better reason than promoting an approved message or discouraging a disfavored one, however enlightened either purpose may strike the government.”). As the Supreme Court has explained, even if the government may prohibit “the act of discriminating against individuals in the provision of publicly available goods, privileges, and services,” it may not “declar[e] [another’s] speech itself to be [a] public accommodation” or grant “protected individuals . . . the right to participate in [another’s] speech.”
Hurley is particularly instructive. When Massachusetts forced the organizers of a private parade to include a group that wished “to march in the parade as a way to express pride in their Irish heritage as openly gay, lesbian, and bisexual individuals,” id. at 560–61, the Supreme Court concluded that applying the State’s public-accommodation law in this way violated the organizers’ freedom of speech, id. at 566. Although antidiscrimination laws are generally constitutional, the Court reasoned, a “peculiar” application that required speakers “to alter the[ir] expressive content” was not. In short, the Court drew the line exactly where the Larsens ask us to here: to prevent the government from requiring their speech to serve as a public accommodation for others. Similarly, in Dale, the Supreme Court held that the Boy Scouts had the right to expel a gay-rights activist, despite a New Jersey antidiscrimination law that otherwise prohibited the action. 530 U.S. at 644. The reason, the Court said, was that the Boy Scouts’ opposition to homosexuality was expressive and “the forced inclusion of [the activist] would [have] significantly affect[ed] its expression.” Id. at 650–52, 656; see also id. at 659 (“[T]he First Amendment prohibits the State from imposing [an inclusion] requirement through the application of its public accommodations law.”). Like Hurley, Dale makes clear that once conduct crosses over to speech or other expression, the government’s ability to regulate it is limited.
As these cases demonstrate, regulating speech because it is discriminatory or offensive is not a compelling state interest, however hurtful the speech may be. It is a “bedrock principle . . . that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.” Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397, 414 (1989); see also Masterpiece Cakeshop, 138 S. Ct. at 1731 (“[I]t is not . . . the role of the State or its officials to prescribe what shall be offensive.”). After all, the Westboro Baptist Church could carry highly inflammatory signs at military funerals, see Snyder v. Phelps, 562 U.S. 443, 448–49, 460–61 (2011), the Nazis could march in areas heavily populated by Jewish residents, see Nat’l Socialist Party of Am. v. Village of Skokie, 432 U.S. 43, 43–44 (1977) (per curiam), and an activist could burn the American flag as a form of political protest, see Johnson, 491 U.S. at 399.
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