Employees of Whole Foods, Starbucks (for a short time) and other companies have complained about being forbidden to wear "Black Lives Matter" masks at work. They believe, as many Americans do, that the First Amendment protects their right to express their political opinions on the job. After all, as the saying goes, "It's a free country."

Yes it is, but there are limitations. Nothing in the First Amendment confers a right of unrestricted free speech. It protects citizens from unreasonable governmental restrictions on speech. Speech restrictions by private employers are perfectly legal, as long as they are not discriminatory and do not violate federal labor and employment laws.

The words of the First Amendment are quite clear on this point:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Nothing in the text mentions private employers.

Businesses across the country are now confronting how to handle employees who want to express their views on politics, social justice and other issues at work. It's not necessarily an easy call (indeed, after initially prohibiting BLM attire, Starbucks reversed its position earlier this month). Even an employer who shares employees' views on an issue like Black Lives Matter, for example, must think about the cost of angering or alienating customers.

The pandemic has left businesses desperate to hold on to customers, not to antagonize them. But a corporate policy viewed as racist and hostile to people of color may cause a loss of business.

Traditionally, many businesses have prohibited employees from using their clothing to express political views at work. Some likely fear that if they allow workers to wear the words "Black Lives Matter,'' then other employees may show up with "White Lives Matter" and "Blue Lives Matter" masks, or even "Keep America Great" masks. Free speech cuts both ways.

Businesses may also fear that the proliferation of mask slogans will harm productivity by causing discord and bad feelings among their workers. The safest bet for big companies has traditionally been to steer well clear of politics by keeping company attire nonpartisan.

Proponents of the "Black Lives Matter" slogan counter that the words are not mere politics but a call for social justice. They view the phrase "White Lives Matter" as a sneering response by those who use their "white privilege" to oppress Blacks and other minority groups in the United States. Worse still, the phrase "Blue Lives Matters" may be viewed as an endorsement of police brutality and shootings in the Black community. Given the probability of conflicting opinions, workplace discord would appear inevitable.

It's no wonder employers feel trapped in a swirling cauldron of racial, political and socioeconomic divisions when enforcing dress codes that never caused problems before. Enter creative lawyers who have no need to rely on First Amendment speech protections, when civil rights and race discrimination class-action theories can be stretched to obtain lucrative damage awards and protective court orders permitting the display of the prohibited slogans on their clients' attire.

The latest example is a class-action lawsuit filed last Monday in federal district court in Boston on behalf of 14 Whole Foods workers in California, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Washington. The lawsuit claims the workers allegedly suffered "race discrimination" and "retaliation" because they wore "Black Lives Matter" masks and other apparel at work.

The 17-page complaint alleges violations of Title IV of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The same employees filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board.

Whole Foods has already signaled its likely defense that its dress code is non-discriminatory since, as reported in the New York Times, the "Whole Foods dress code prohibits visible slogans, messages, logos and advertising that are not company-related on any article of clothing" and exists to "prioritize operational safety."

In short, since everybody's slogan masks are prohibited, Whole Foods can argue that it is not discriminating against anyone. The company said in a statement that while it could not comment pending litigation, "it is critical to clarify that no Team Members have been terminated for wearing Black Lives Matter face masks or apparel."

Even if Whole Foods has a strong defense, class-action litigation is notoriously expensive and would subject Whole Foods and its parent company Amazon to many months or years of adverse publicity. Under these circumstances the company is likely to negotiate a swift settlement.

Regardless of outcome, this class-action lawsuit is a warning shot fired in the direction of corporate America regarding employee free speech rights in 21st century America. Like that famous rifle shot fired in 1775 in Lexington, Massachusetts, it suggests protracted battles in the years ahead over highly contentious social and political issues in the American workplace.

That reality was brought home for anyone who may have sought the respite of baseball from the politics of COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter protest movement.

At the season's opener on July 23, all the players and coaches of the New York Yankees and Washington Nationals knelt for 20 seconds while holding a long black banner before a recording of the National Anthem was played to an otherwise empty stadium. Team owners permitted players to wear Black Lives Matter T-shirts with a silhouetted Black player and an inverted MLB symbol and wrist bands.

The Founding Fathers might be proud that free speech was alive and well in the nation they created in the bloody revolution that followed Lexington and Concord. They might not have shared their enthusiasm for Dr. Anthony Fauci's red Washington Nationals mask or his ceremonial first pitch.

Paul Callan is a CNN legal analyst.

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There is no constitutional right to wear a Black Lives Matter mask at work? - The Philadelphia Tribune

Ghislaine Maxwell, who faces federal criminal charges of enticement of a minor to engage in illegal sex acts, transportation of a minor to engage in illegal sex acts, conspiracy, and perjury, is accusing the Miami Herald of trashing her reputation and, in essence, of attempting to destroy her right to receive a fair trial. The Herald and its investigative reporter, Julie K. Brown, have been widely praised and awarded (example 1, example 2, example 3, example 4) for their aggressive coverage of the now-dead and infamous pedophile sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and, concomitantly, of Maxwell, his longtime associate.

Maxwell levied the complaints against the Herald in a lawsuit to determine whether a second cache of documents in a defamation case between Maxwell and her accuser Virginia Giuffre Roberts will be unsealed by Monday. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday issued a stay on the documents release pending an appeal; in essence, the court pumped the brakes on the release of the highly anticipated materials.

The following words appear in a document filed by Maxwells lawyers on Friday before the Second Circuit. Maxwells lawyers are arguing in favor of keeping the documents secret:

As Ms. Maxwell said in her Motion to Stay, [t]he media has all but convicted her. In hindsight, this appears to have been an understatement.

If the Miami Herald is to be believed, The documents at issue have been improperly sealed for yearsin a way that allowed . . . Ms. Maxwell[s] . . . abuse of young girls to go on unchallenged and unpunished, and allowed a legal system that protected perpetrators over victims to go unquestioned. This unqualified statement of Ms. Maxwells alleged guilt is precisely the type of unfair and unconstitutional pretrial publicity that will result should the district courts unsealing order go into effect.

[ . . . ]

[I]f the Herald is willing to announce its conclusion that Ms. Maxwell abused young girls even before having access to the sealed deposition materials, that is only a harbinger of what media coverage will result should the material be unsealed, coverage that will prejudice Ms. Maxwells constitutional right to a fair trial by an impartial jury.

The Maxwell argument further trashes the Heralds assertion that the documents have been improperly sealed for years by blaming you guessed it the Herald.

[T]he Herald entirely ignores its own conduct, Maxwells attorneys argue. [T]he Herald did not move to unseal anything in this case until 2018, one year after the case was closed.

Said another way, Maxwells attorneys are blaming the Herald for not acting fast enough to unseal documents which Maxwells attorneys say should not be unsealed.

Self-styled journalist Michael Cernovich he is also sometimes referred to in other ways rubbished Maxwells argument that the Herald was late to enter the proceeding by telling the Second Circuit that he had long been after the same documents himself:

While the Court should not give any credence to Ms. Maxwells argument in her motion that the First Amendment interests at issue are not harmed because the Herald did not seek to intervene until after the May 2017 settlement, Mr. Cernovich had been seeking to learn what atrocities by Maxwell and Epstein were wrongly concealed on the docket prior to that settlement. Three and a half years is too long to suppress the First Amendment right of access. No stay is warranted.

If the documents are not kept under wraps, Maxwell says her Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights against self-incrimination and in favor of a fair trial with an impartial jury will be irreparably harmed.

Such fears by Maxwell could arguably and easily be seized upon by her critics to imply that Maxwell said something in the still-sealed documents which could come back to haunt her.

That inference, obviously, was not fully developed by Maxwells attorneys. Instead, attention was turned again to the Herald, which is among the independent parties seeking to pry the documents into the light of day. Maxwells attorneys said the Heralds proffered notion that the public interest would be best served by the release of the documents was actually quite backwards:

The Herald trivializes the publics right to see that its justice system provide fair trials, the Maxwell argument concludes. With Ms. Maxwell facing an imminent and very public trial, the justice system should endeavor to do all it can to vindicate the theory of our [trial] system is that the conclusions to be reached in a case will be induced only by evidence and argument in open court, and not by any outside influence, whether of private talk or public print.'

Read several of the relevant court papers below, including an earlier argument by the Herald in favor of releasing the cache of Maxwell/Epstein documents.

Ghislaine Maxwell Docket #19 2nd Circuit by Law&Crime on Scribd

Ghislaine Maxwell Docket #25 2nd Circuit by Law&Crime on Scribd

Ghislaine Maxwell Second Circuit Stay by Law&Crime on Scribd

[image via Laura Cavanaugh/Getty Images]

[Editors note: internal punctuation and citations within legal quotes have been omitted.]

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Ghislaine Maxwell Bashes the Miami Herald in Document Dispute - Law & Crime

In the Tuesday primary election, Missouri voters will vote on an amendment to the Missouri Constitution to permanently expand Medicaid eligibility. Missouri Right to Life PAC opposes this amendment Amendment 2 on the ballot because it could open the door to taxpayer-funded abortions and threaten state pro-life programs.

Currently, Medicaid dollars are restricted from being used to fund most abortions by the Hyde Amendment, which is an annual rider on a federal appropriations bill. Before Hyde was put in place, an estimated 300,000 abortions nationally were paid for by taxpayers every year.

While the Hyde Amendment has passed for the past 40 years, it is now a target of abortion-rights legislators who have vowed to defeat the measure, which requires only a simple majority vote of both houses of Congress every year. Defeat of the Hyde Amendment is in the Democratic Party platform. The Hyde Amendment is opposed by the leaders of the House and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.

Its the wrong time to expand Medicaid, when the Hyde Amendment is under attack. If the initiative is approved, and the Hyde Amendment falls after that, the initiative may double the number of surgical abortions that Medicaid would pay for in Missouri.

Even with the Hyde Amendment, expanding Medicaid will greatly increase existing Medicaid payments for pregnancy termination caused by morning after pills.

Because the initiative requires the state to maximize the federal share of Medicaid dollars, the state cannot replace Medicaid programs with its own programs that will not pay abortion providers for nonabortion services. This opens the door to more taxpayer money going to Planned Parenthood.

This provision for maximizing will also prevent the state from paying for lawyers, including the attorney generals staff, to attempt to obtain protection for the unborn if the Hyde Amendment is ended.

It is not surprising that Planned Parenthood and other proabortion organizations are among Amendment 2s most active supporters. Expanding Medicaid would shovel more money into Planned Parenthood and its abortion business.

Amendment 2 proposes a state constitutional amendment that, if adopted, cannot be amended by the Legislature but only by another vote of the people. For all intents and purposes, this Medicaid expansion will be a permanent threat to increasing taxpayer-funded abortions. Thousands of unborn babies will rely on the temporary and threatened protection of the Hyde Amendment.

Medicaid is not free money for the state. Every taxpayer pays taxes to the federal government for the federal share as well as taxes to the state government for the states share. And every payment of federal dollars toward Medicaid expenses must be matched by the states percentage share of those expenses.

The Missouri Department of Social Services estimates that the states cost for the first year of expanded Medicaid services under Amendment 2 would be more than $200 million. Where is the state going to get this money when legislators already had to cut $400 million from the budget because of COVID-19?

The stress on the Missouri budget would threaten several state anti-abortion programs, such as Show Me Healthy Babies and the tax credits for alternatives to abortion.

Abortion is not health care. It is wrong to ask the people to pay for more abortions as the price for expanding Medicaid coverage in Missouri.

Missouri Right to Life PAC opposes Amendment 2 and urges Missouri voters to vote no on Medicaid Expansion on Tuesday.

Susan Klein is executive director of Missouri Right to Life State Political Action Committee.

See more here:

Susan Klein: Amendment 2 could lead to taxpayer-funded abortions - Joplin Globe