Haverford (Pa.) shuts down fire company over Proud Boys controversy

[WhiskeyGrinder]

https://www.inquirer.com/news/pennsylvania/haverford-fire-proud-boys--20190904.html

Haverford Township said Wednesday that one of its five fire companies had been “relieved of duty indefinitely” after officials were told by the organization that it would not dismiss a volunteer who admitted he had been in the process of joining the controversial far-right men’s group the Proud Boys. “Given the fire company board’s failure to act, the township is compelled to take action,” the township said in a statement. “Effective by close of business Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2019, the Bon Air Fire Company has been relieved of duty indefinitely.”

(snip)

According to the township, the volunteer admitted to officials in mid-August that he had attended “several social gatherings” for the Proud Boys and passed two of the four steps in the initiation process, including hazing.

Steve D’Emilio, Ward 1 commissioner in Haverford, confirmed that the volunteer is Bruce McClay Jr., who held a leadership role at Bon Air.

“Listen, they represent the township,” he said. “Even though they’re a volunteer group, they represent the township. And you can’t have someone who represents the township belonging to any hate groups. You can’t have it.”

[lark]

1. Seems like a scattershot approach.

Why couldn't they have just fired the one tighty whitey and replaced him with a non-hate filled person? Why are the other 4 being punished because this one guy is a total ass?

[RAB910]

2. It's often not that easy

Volunteer companies like this often are independent and provide their service with a charter with the governmental body. So the government's options are to continue to allow them to provide service or not. They don't have the ability to fire a racist member of the fire company especially one in a leadership position (which is often elected and it shows the overall moral depravity of that organization).

[lark]

3. Got it.

If that was the case, then they did what they could.

[jberryhill]

6. Because the Constitution has a First Amendment

If you want to have a government organization fire someone for their opinions, that's fine, but you are going to have to pay out the big bucks.

[lark]

7. If the organization has violent actions, thats why they get banned.

You think we should have KKK and Nazis in police uniform? Free speech is sacrosanct, violent actions, however - are not protected.

[jberryhill]

8. What violent actions did this individual do?

If this person filed a lawsuit, that would be the relevant question.

And you can stuff your personal comment where the sun don't shine, incidentally.

There are all sorts of people who I, personally, do not believe should have government jobs. That really doesn't change how the law works.

[stevesinpa]

10. he was joining a known violent group

the not so proud boys are a known terrorist organization. do you think he was joining for milk and cookies on sundays? so, the point was valid. if a person working in any government position is discovered to belong to a racist organization, especially a violent one, the government, especially a local government representing a community has the right to separate themselves form that person.

[jberryhill]

12. The story says he had attended something like two meetings and had been interested in joining...

...but that nothing ever came of it.

I'm not sure what principle of law you are using to say that the government can fire a person for attending two meetings of a group.

Can you cite to a relevant case?

[Downtown Hound]

14. He had begun the initiation rituals

If you are not familiar with the Proud Boy initiation hazing, check out this video. It's right at the beginning. Basically, they let several other Proud Boys punch them in the chest and the stomach and have to call out the names of breakfast cereals for as long as they can endure it.

Proud Boys have an organizational structure that gives rewards and gives advancement to members that have engaged in street violence with leftist protesters. They're no different than a street gang. Any company or government agency can most definitely fire an employee for joining a gang that has violence as a core of its ideology. And as for a specific case where a government employee was fired for Proud Boy association, look no further than this:

https://www.columbian.com/news/2018/jul/20/clark-county-sheriffs-deputy-fired-proud-boys-sweatshirt/

They are most definitely within their rights to fire this individual.

[jberryhill]

17. So, you don't have a cite to case law

Proving that the Proud Boys are an odious group has nothing to do with how the law treats individuals.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heffernan_v._City_of_Paterson

The article you linked is a news story about someone who got fired. That story does not say anything about whether or not the person even pursued a legal action of any kind.

[Downtown Hound]

18. We're not talking about speech

We're talking about organized violence. Are you saying that it was illegal for all those Nazis who marched at Charlottesville to get fired from their jobs afterwards? Because that's what happened to many of them.

[jberryhill]

20. Sigh...

You have not identified any violence in which this individual engaged. Are you saying that people who did not commit violence, but who had attended meetings of a group should also be locked up?

Secondly, you fail to understand the important difference between situations where the government is an employer and a private employer. Private employers can, in general, fire non-union employees for any reason they want, so long as it does not involve specifically-identified forms of discrimination. In other words, yes, you can be fired from a private job for your political beliefs if the boss doesn't like them.

The government, however, cannot simply do that, which you would have gathered if you had read the link I posted. Unlike a private employer, the government cannot violate the First Amendment which, yes, provides the right to associate with violent persons (because we do not, in the United States, impute the criminal actions of one individual to another individual).

[lonely bird]

22. You nor anyone else does not have unlimited free speech.

[jberryhill]

23. That's a brilliant legal citation

I'll tuck that one away.

[Downtown Hound]

24. I actually did cite you an example

of a police woman being fired for selling Proud Boy merchandise. She is a government employee. She did not engage in any violence herself. But she chose to associate with a group that did. If her firing was illegal I guarantee it would have been challenged in court, it wasn't.

I never said this individual should be locked up. Do not put words in my mouth. I said they can and should be fired for willingly joining and supporting a group that regularly engages in violence. If you think the firing illegal, feel free to take it up in court.

I have a hunch you're going to lose though.

[jberryhill]

25. "If her firing was illegal I guarantee it would have been challenged in court, it wasn't."

That's nonsense.

There are people who don't bother to pursue legal actions that they might otherwise pursue all of the time. Since that happened less than a year ago, the fired employee might still file one. However, most people don't have the time, inclination or funds to pursue things like that.

I had requested that you provide a cite to a case (a legal decision) involving the firing of a government employee on the basis of attendance of two meetings of a group, and seeking to join that group.

The remainder of your post makes zero sense since I have nothing to pursue in court.

Quite a number of police departments regularly engage in violent behavior. If being a member of a police force in which other members had engaged in violence was a grounds for firing, that would be pretty interesting.

[Downtown Hound]

26. You yourself just admitted

It wasn't challenged in court so there's no case law that says it was legal or illegal. But given that many people have been fired for associating with extremist groups, and there have been few to no legal challenges, I stand my my initial assertion that they have very little legal ground to stand on. You think these groups don't have lawyers working for them, always looking for legal loopholes to try and protect their activities? They do. They have found nothing. That police woman is not going to issue a challenge. And even if she does, she will lose.

And you have shown me NOTHING to prove otherwise, except for a case that relates to speech. Again, we're not talking about speech, we're talking about violence. Can you show me a case that says government employees have legal protection for when they choose to join a group that actually rewards its members for committing crimes and violence? Can you show a me a case study that says that?

[Hermit-The-Prog]

27. you still haven't answered jberryhill's questions

Where is the violence the individual is supposed to have committed?
Where is the case that permitted the government to fire someone for attending meetings of a group the government doesn't like?

[Downtown Hound]

28. I did answer it

I said it doesn't matter whether or not he committed violence or not. He joined a group that has violence actually written into its code for being.

I openly said that there is no case law saying it's legal. I also posed the question to him, and now to you, to show me where its illegal to fire somebody for joining a group that engaged in violence.

He has yet to answer, so I'l wait for you to do so. Show me the case law that says it's illegal for the government to fire an employee for joining an inherently violent and criminal group? Show me what legal protections they have. If you can't do that, then the firing was most definitely legal.

[jberryhill]

29. " there have been few to no legal challenges"

That's just plain goofy. There have been plenty of cases involving the First Amendment rights of government employees.

Let's start with Irving Adler:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_Adler

Irving Adler (April 27, 1913 – September 22, 2012) was an American author, mathematician, scientist, political activist, and educator. He was the author of 57 books (some under the pen name Robert Irving) about mathematics, science, and education, and the co-author of 30 more, for both children and adults. His books have been published in 31 countries in 19 different languages. Since his teenaged years, Adler was involved in social and political activities focused on civil rights, civil liberties, and peace, including his role as a plaintiff in the McCarthy-era case Adler vs. Board of Education that bears his name.

Now, Adler's problem was that New York had a law which:

https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/342/485/

The preamble of the Feinberg Law, § 1, makes elaborate findings that members of subversive groups, particularly of the Communist Party and its affiliated organizations, have been infiltrating into public employment in the public schools of the State; that this has occurred and continues notwithstanding the existence of protective statutes designed to prevent the appointment to or retention in employment in public office, and particularly in the public schools, of members of any organizations which teach or advocate that the government of the United States or of any state or political subdivision thereof shall be overthrown by force or violence or by any other unlawful means. As a result, propaganda can be disseminated among the children by those who teach them and to whom they look for guidance, authority, and leadership.

Now that was 1952, and the Supreme Court upheld Adler's firing under the "Feinberg Law" of New York, which made it illegal to teach if one was a member of an identified subversive group.

Would you care to guess how either the Feinberg Law or Adler's case has held up over time?

[Downtown Hound]

30. For about the 50th time, we're not talking about civil rights or free speech

We're talking about violence. Show me the legal protections that an individual has for joining a group that preaches violence at its core.

[Downtown Hound]

31. Would you be complaining this much if this individual had been fired for trying to join ISIS?

Somehow, I doubt it.

[Downtown Hound]

34. Here's the founder of the Proud Boys on violence:

Hint: he's quite a fan. This is the group that you want to equate with the civil rights struggle? LOL. Um, okay. That's on you though.

[saidsimplesimon]

38. Thanks for the civil disagreement, DH

you did it without calling anyone "goofy".

[Fla Dem]

35. Not surprised to see at least 2 of these clowns with MAGA caps. Fits the mold.

[usaf-vet]

37. Try crying out fire in a Theater. A long accepted exception to free speech.

Let me pose this very hypothetical question.

Often time volunteer EMS and Fire departments allow the ranking person on the scene to be the Incident Commander.

Question: What if the "proud boy" volunteer is in command as the ranking person at the scene and he refuses to effectively issue orders that would follow established protocols to extinguish a fire at a home of blacks, gays, mixed marriage, immigrants or others that he dislikes or hates?

YES very hypothetical but not inconceivable.

Just asking.

[lark]

40. Exactly the reason asshats like this can't be tolerated in public positions.

It could just be just a platform to fuck over minorities - like the police consciously did in some parts of the country, intentionally recruiting white nationalists to the force.

[Initech]

4. Easy checklist for identifying a belligerent asshole:

1) Is a member of the Proud Boys
2) See item #1

[TwilightZone]

5. Hazing

Why doesn't that surprise me? It's like a frat and a cult had a baby.

[Nasruddin]

9. Non sequitur

I couldn't agree with this action from the ground up. Firing a whole company on this basis is
ridiculous (thanks to a previous poster for describing a likely complication, however).
Unhappiness with this individual is certainly understandable but "listen, they represent the
township" is about as tenuous a reason as you can get. Hired to fight fires - as a volunteer -
not run the equal opportunity board. No clear connection to job function.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

11. It's not an HR question, it's whether the township wants to contract with a certain organization.

[geardaddy]

13. ...

[Raine1967]

15. This is about THAT Company itself more than the Volunteer:

“It isn’t at this point about the volunteer,” Larry Holmes, vice president of the Haverford Township Board of Commissioners, said Wednesday. “When we became aware of the volunteer’s association with the Proud Boys, the township investigated it. The firefighter was forthcoming about it, and the firefighter resigned from Bon Air Fire Company. That was, as far as the township was concerned, the only actions that were necessary."

But when the fire company’s board refused to accept the firefighter’s resignation — and then pushed back on the township’s insistence that the firefighter be dismissed — the township decided it needed to take more drastic action, Holmes said.

“Today’s actions may stem from the firefighter’s association with the Proud Boys,” he said, “but today’s actions are a consequence of the Bon Air board’s reaction to the investigation.”

I think the town did the right thing.

[Downtown Hound]

19. They most certainly did. n/t

[dlk]

16. I Guarantee if This Guy was in the Process of Joining Isis, We Wouldn't be Having this Conversation

A violent terrorist organization is a violent terrorist organization, no matter the color (or religion) of the members. Too often, the threat of domestic terror organizations is downplayed, I believe, due to race. We have far to go.

[Downtown Hound]

21. Exactly.

[phylny]

32. You nailed it. nt

[tulipsandroses]

33. Exactly, Listening to Frank Figluzi - who knows of what he speaks

we need to stop the madness when it comes to these things. That's exactly what he and others who are experts in this area has been saying. We know what these people are about. They need to be shamed and shunned and not be tolerated in polite society. We have all this hand wringing going on because a bunch of white men want to run amok and hide behind free speech. When the black panther party armed itself, we banned weapons, After 9/11 and we blamed Muslims for attacking we changed a bunch of laws. Now we have white men running amok - we holler free speech, we can't do anything. Let em be. Fuck that!

[calimary]

36. Good. There MUST be consequences for involvement with

these utterly toxic groups. I’d fire ‘em.

[Historic NY]

39. The Fire Company only exists.......

and serves at the pleasure of the board of Fire Commissioners (usually an elected or appointed body of citizens). While the person resigned, the Fire company refused to accept his resignation. The company was insubordinate to the governing board, the commissioners. They the board have the authority to disband and dissolve the Fire company.

Would be interesting to see the fire company, by-laws, to know if they incorporated.

They have a letter on their website, by 2 lawyers.

The Commissioners can reallocate the 3 apparatus they have and shift members of the other fire companies into the building.

The former fire company had 37 members.






*I've been an elected commissioner over 10yrs,