Today’s blacklisted American: Law firm fires lawyer of 44 years for expressing the wrong opinion
They’re coming for you next: The law firm Hogan Lovells recently fired a partner lawyer with 44 years of experience, Robin Keller, simply because she dared at a company meeting to express some rational reasons why Roe v Wade should have been overturned.
As Keller wrote, “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.”
She recounts how “Three weeks later I received a letter stating that the firm had concluded that my reference to comments labeling black abortion rates genocide was a violation of the antiharassment policy.”
Apparently, “a participant complained that she could not breathe and others called her a racist.” These crybabies then demanded she be fired, and the company quickly acquiesced.
The company’s blackballing of Keller should surprise no one. A quick review of Hogan Lovells’ website shows us that this is a very politically correct leftist law firm. On its Diversity, Equity & Inclusion website, the company proudly tells us that:
Our aim is to reflect our clients and communities. We have published a goal of 15% racial/ethnic minority partners by 2025, and established initiatives to support our racial/ethnic minority collegues throughout their employee lifecycle.
…We are deeply committed to LGBTQ+ inclusion globally as advocates and innovators. We aim high, with a published goal of 4% LGBTQ+ by 2025, with robust programs implemented to help us get there.
In other words, this company has specific racist and bigoted hiring quotas, favoring some simply because of their race, ethnicity, and sexual practices. Note too that the company specifically favors queer sex, since the Q in LGBTQ+ stands for this specifically.
I would strongly recommend Hogan Lovells white and sexually normal clients, both corporate and individuals, to avoid hiring this firm. Its bigoted attitudes as well as its willingness to blacklist a partner merely because she expressed an opinion means you will not be getting the best legal advice from it.
Hogan Lovells’ instruction manual
For example, one lawyer was so traumatized by Keller’s simple statement that she “couldn’t breathe.” What happens if that lawyer became your lawyer, and you had to tell her something she didn’t like. How could she stand it? In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if this person then started to work behind the scenes to sabotage you, simply because she didn’t like you for any number of trivial reasons.
The company itself also has no understanding of free speech. Consider its public statement about firing Keller:
While we encourage members of our community to engage in frank, candid discussion, we expect all discussion in our place of work, or in settings sponsored by the firm, to uphold our values of inclusivity, respect for diverse members of our community, and non-discrimination.”
To Hogan Lovells, “frank, candid discussion” only allows its lawyers to frankly and candidly agree entirely with its racist quota policies and the leftist queer agenda. Do anything else, and you will be fired.
The real tragedy here is that Hogan Lovells is the rule today, not the exception. Corporations everywhere have eagerly re-instituted Jim Crow, this time aimed at oppressing whites and conservatives, rather than blacks and other minorities. Racism is now cool!
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
They’re coming for you next: The law firm Hogan Lovells recently fired a partner lawyer with 44 years of experience, Robin Keller, simply because she dared at a company meeting to express some rational reasons why Roe v Wade should have been overturned.
As Keller wrote, “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.”
She recounts how “Three weeks later I received a letter stating that the firm had concluded that my reference to comments labeling black abortion rates genocide was a violation of the antiharassment policy.”
Apparently, “a participant complained that she could not breathe and others called her a racist.” These crybabies then demanded she be fired, and the company quickly acquiesced.
The company’s blackballing of Keller should surprise no one. A quick review of Hogan Lovells’ website shows us that this is a very politically correct leftist law firm. On its Diversity, Equity & Inclusion website, the company proudly tells us that:
Our aim is to reflect our clients and communities. We have published a goal of 15% racial/ethnic minority partners by 2025, and established initiatives to support our racial/ethnic minority collegues throughout their employee lifecycle.
…We are deeply committed to LGBTQ+ inclusion globally as advocates and innovators. We aim high, with a published goal of 4% LGBTQ+ by 2025, with robust programs implemented to help us get there.
In other words, this company has specific racist and bigoted hiring quotas, favoring some simply because of their race, ethnicity, and sexual practices. Note too that the company specifically favors queer sex, since the Q in LGBTQ+ stands for this specifically.
I would strongly recommend Hogan Lovells white and sexually normal clients, both corporate and individuals, to avoid hiring this firm. Its bigoted attitudes as well as its willingness to blacklist a partner merely because she expressed an opinion means you will not be getting the best legal advice from it.
Hogan Lovells’ instruction manual
For example, one lawyer was so traumatized by Keller’s simple statement that she “couldn’t breathe.” What happens if that lawyer became your lawyer, and you had to tell her something she didn’t like. How could she stand it? In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if this person then started to work behind the scenes to sabotage you, simply because she didn’t like you for any number of trivial reasons.
The company itself also has no understanding of free speech. Consider its public statement about firing Keller:
While we encourage members of our community to engage in frank, candid discussion, we expect all discussion in our place of work, or in settings sponsored by the firm, to uphold our values of inclusivity, respect for diverse members of our community, and non-discrimination.”
To Hogan Lovells, “frank, candid discussion” only allows its lawyers to frankly and candidly agree entirely with its racist quota policies and the leftist queer agenda. Do anything else, and you will be fired.
The real tragedy here is that Hogan Lovells is the rule today, not the exception. Corporations everywhere have eagerly re-instituted Jim Crow, this time aimed at oppressing whites and conservatives, rather than blacks and other minorities. Racism is now cool!
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Other People’s Money (1991)
“Shoot ALL the Lawyers”
https://youtu.be/35rErQtJ6uA
1:32
” . . . to uphold our values of inclusivity, respect for diverse members of our community, and non-discrimination.”
““You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” –
Inigo Montoya ‘The Princess Bride’ 1987
The legislative branch makes laws.
The judicial branch interprets laws.
Roe v. Wade is bad law because it is the judicial branch making law.
– Rush Limbaugh
Our Constitution outlines a Federal government of limited enumerated powers.
The Dobbs decision merely confirmed the common-sense impression that such powers (as generally found in Article I, section 8 of the Constitution) did not include the right to regulate the termination of pregnancies. As the Tenth Amendment holds, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Regulation of pregnancies is clearly up to the States.
The old expression, “don’t make a Federal case out of it” has been eroded by decades of Federal overreach, and Roe v. Wade was an example of the worst of such overreach. If “emanations and penumbras” are sufficient for Federal apparatus to be empowered, then any limitations of Federal power are meaningless.
I would have serious doubts regarding the competence of any law firm that would maintain otherwise.
As I understand partnerships, Ms Keller couldn’t be summarily terminated without the other partners buying her share of the partnership.
So, the remaining partners are conspiring against reality to save others from being caused offence?
Before this ends badly, it will keep going badly.
Lessons in indulging madness…..
Allow these snowflakes into your org at your peril.
This organization has offices in California. She was terminated for expressing a political view on a call that almost certainly included employees in LA or SF. Not sure the law will protect a partner or a non-leftist, but supposedly there is employment law regarding this type of thing in the state.
A related incident to Keller’s, related by David Lat, Founder of Above the Law (which, I think gives him some cred here). Lat relates the account of a BigLaw equity partner parting ways with her own firm, and the occasion was an even flimsier one than the one that got Keller ejected from hers: Someone had noticed that she had not taken up any pro-choice pro bono work after Dobbs.
Here’s what happened, according to this partner. After she declined to take on pro-bono work of a pro-choice bent or to get involved in other reproductive-rights initiatives post-Dobbs—saying she was too busy, not mentioning any opposition to abortion or to Dobbs—her office managing partner asked her, “Am I correct in assuming you’re pro-life?” After she didn’t deny this (because she actually is pro-life), he called her racist (because of the disproportionate impact of Dobbs on minority communities), let her know she was not going to be working with his clients, and started undermining her in various ways, large and small.
It became increasingly difficult for this partner to build her practice without the support of leadership. Eventually she was told she was not a good fit for the firm, despite her large book of business. The firm initially offered a few flimsy pretexts for firing her, which it eventually abandoned after they were refuted by this partner and her counsel. Because both sides now acknowledge that she is not being terminated for cause under the partnership agreement, she is being paid a seven-figure sum to leave. Credit where credit is due: the firm is willing to put its money where its mouth is when it comes to its social-justice commitments, showing the door to a profitable partner because it sees her views as unacceptable.
Some might be skeptical of this account, but in the current day and age, I’m not surprised.
https://davidlat.substack.com/p/biglaws-latest-cancel-culture-controversy
I guess this is the woke jacobin equivalent of “Some people choose to wear more flair.”
Lat draws this conclusion: “I don’t know if I’m entirely there yet, but I think I’m coming around to the following view: Biglaw isn’t a big tent, and it’s naive, maybe even downright silly, to believe otherwise. It’s fine to be economically or fiscally conservative—Biglaw defends Big Business, after all—but there is increasingly no place for social conservatives in many large law firms, as well as elite circles more generally.”
I think Miss Keller has the makings of a very nice lawsuit, if she handles it correctly. She can strike at them from several angles.
cthulhu
December 20, 2022 at 4:46 am
The old expression, “don’t make a Federal case out of it”
I haven’t actually heard that phrase used in a couple of decades.
Richard M
December 20, 2022 at 6:17 am
her office managing partner asked her, “Am I correct in assuming you’re pro-life?”
“I’m sorry. Are you inquiring after my religious views, as concerns my work?”
there is increasingly no place for
social conservativesinadequately fundamentalist Progressive church members in many large law firmsFIFY
Corporate related:
J&B SCOTCH THIS CHRISTMAS ?
https://youtu.be/LEshVJ1IECw
The J&B company in its attempt to connect to the “Woke” / “Progressive” agenda is IMO destroying its entire brand.
Men, hairy, image building, testosterone pumping, cigar smoking, women chasing, masculine men in my experience are the primary consumers of scotch in America for the most part. And now J&B scotch will be associated with this “Woke” makeup wearing man political agenda?
A very dangerous politically correct business move by management, IMO of course. Maybe it’s a genius move on the part of J&B’s CEO? Who pitches this to corporate leadership, and they say, yeah that’s a great advertising campaign concept.
(Is someone getting fired for Christmas? I hear the Balenciaga company might need some new management)
Let’s see what happens. Maybe because the commercial is in Europe it will be a raging business promotional success?
Which is not to say that there is “anything wrong” with men wearing makeup, if that is what makes you happy :)
What’s better than a grandfather passing down his makeup wearing tradition to his grandson? Makes you want a drink!
https://apis.mail.aol.com/ws/v3/mailboxes/@.id==VjN-_95qz8vtNQnj2guvJpSi615JXjYizy9bcZuM2MCqJDk8zBIwKj0CmLH_qmCDE5NsTJVJXmOu9vG5vVhaOWavzw/messages/@.id==APpKjTwgxQ_OY6HHkAQmgDeuV8U/content/parts/@.id==2/thumbnail?appid=AolMailNorrin&downloadWhenThumbnailFails=true&pid=2
It is happening in every industry, including (what is left of) medicine.
Leftardism cannot survive in the light of common sense and critical thinking ability, so the only option is brutal censorship of all thoughts, opinions, speech and writing that is out of sync with the political narrative du jour. It is why woketard/leftard midwits resort to shrieking disruptions of speakers trying to present opposing opinions, because they cannot present a cogent justification for any leftist idea. Hence their extreme play on emotion over reason.
The ideological grooming has been going on for more than 80 years. All the degenerate grooming threatening to overwhelm normal people is just one of the slippery slope waves of ever increasing insanity designed to corrupt people and turn them away from God, family and nation.
The Globalist agenda which most multinational companies must be aligned with are attempting to force the normalization of these fringe cultural practices.
The goal?
Destroy what is in order to rebuild it, reprogram it as they say it should be, more “Inclusive”, more “Equal”. (Its all an Orwellian / Marxist psyops)
They are attempting to redefine normal? This is “Fundamental change”, accent on mental.
You cannot force humanity to think in such a manner under the banner of “Equality”.
You want to break culture and redefine it for real? Then you must force it and conquer it and destroy using violence and it being bathed in blood, old school. And they are very well capable of it.
And again, I blame the weakness of the Republican / RINO party in America. Weak is weak and you will then be dominated and owned.
Related:
More unapproved language that is being forbidden by your “Betters” :
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11558067/Woke-Stanford-University-publishes-list-harmful-language-want-eliminate.html
This is the Democrat party machine / Globalist road map of world restructuring.
George Orwell: https://youtu.be/8LQFMO6FrqY
“Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.”
Hello GWB,
“I’m sorry. Are you inquiring after my religious views, as concerns my work?”
Yeah, even the firm understood that its position was not legally tenable -and, obviously, that she damned well knew it. Thus, the seven figure buyout that she obtained from them.
But as Lat notes, that’s really the remarkable thing about this whole incident. The firm didn’t even bother trying to take it to litigation. They found her continued presence in the firm, even as lucrative as it was for them, so deeply distasteful that they were willing to shell out millions, up front, just to get rid of her.
Alas, most people who run into this political woodchipper don’t have that kind of pull.
This opens up a new area of law:
You have a socially-conservative employee. You are a ‘woke’ organization; or you would like to ‘wokewash’ the public into thinking so, just to stay in business. You can’t outright fire them, because of those pesky anti-discrimination laws, pushed, for the most part, by Progressives, Hey, they can do good. But a {persons} got to know their limitations, and those of their beliefs.
So, will a legal shakedown cottage industry emerge, as organizations look to avoid litigation? You know: I won’t take you to court, for some consideration?
Huhhh. A nice fantasy, but would require people actually remembering what ‘American’ stands for. And the intestinal fortitude to follow through. Good news is, the odds, and the law are in the plaintiffs favor; but no one likes inconvenience.