[lbo-talk] Misogyny finally starting to have consequences

[John Costello]

Backstory: AutoAdmit is a law student blog and forum site. They have a
history of allowing, without moderation, racist and sexist posts and
threats of violence and rape against specific female bloggers and law
students. They hosted a "hottest female law students" contest, in
which women were entered without their consent and where men vomited
all sorts of misogyny at the "nominees" if they dared to ask their
pictures to be removed. Some of the women complained; the Washington
Post took notice; the executives who run the board defended "freedom
of speech" and "right to free expression"; and finally one of them,
Anthony Ciolli, resigned. Nonetheless, the law firm who had offered
him a job rescinded their offer.

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2007/05/03/law-firm-rescinds-offer-to-ex-autoadmit-director/


>  [Managing partner] DeWitt wrote that the content of the messages on the board are
> "antithetical" to the values of the firm and the "principles of collegiality and respect
>  that members of the legal profession should observe in their dealings with other
> lawyers." DeWitt pointed out that in an online letter to another blogger, Ciolli and his
> partner Jarret Cohen identified themselves as AutoAdmit's administrators and
> defended its "free, uninhibited exchange of ideas."
>
>  DeWitt continued: "We expect any lawyer affiliated with our firm, when presented
> with the kind of language exhibited on the message board, to reject it and to disavow
> any affiliation with it. You, instead, facilitated the expression and publication of such
> language. . . . " He wrote, his resignation from the site was "too late to ameliorate
> our concerns."

This is excellent, and I hope we see more of it. Misogyny, racism,
homophobia, etc. are able to cling to life in part because there are
no consequences for people who participate in, abet, or enable them.
I'm glad to see that firms are starting to decide they would rather
have nothing to do with such people.

-- 
"It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling
exception, is composed of others." -- John Andrew Holmes