In my original post I, ignoring all of common sense and the experience of the entire internet, imagined that people would click through and read the linked Kevin Drum piece, and then perhaps click on the link there as well. I really don’t know what came over me; I must be out of practice or something. As was mentioned in comments to the previous post, Kevin Drum was responding to a NYT article in which it was suggested that hotel housekeepers receive unwanted sexual approaches fairly often in big hotels. It seems to be necessary to be very clear on this; I am merely suggesting that Kevin Drum’s indignant suggestion (that hotels refuse service to guests who repeatedly flash the staff) is indeed a reasonable one. Even threatening to do so would probably bring lots of men around, since it might be a little hard to explain to the boss why you suddenly can’t stay at the Mandarin anymore. From the NYT:
On top of that [their grueling, physically demanding jobs], they [housekeeping staff] have to be sexually accosted by guests? Sadly, yes. And more often than you’d think. It’s not an everyday occurrence but it happens enough to make this question all too familiar: “Mr. Tomsky, can you give the new girl Room 3501 until next Tuesday? That man is back, the one who loves to let his robe fall open every time I try to clean.” So, yes, we assign the room to the new girl.
Now I hate to say this, but I’m pretty sure this is the end of most actual stories along this lines, i.e., give it to the new girl. Per the NYT, though, it’s more like some awesome SWAT thing:
But not before hotel managers roll up to the room, flanked by security guards, to request that the guest vacate during cleaning, or at least promise to remain fully clothed or risk expulsion. Often it need not be discussed in detail: those guests who can’t seem to tie their robe properly usually know exactly what they’re guilty of. Typically, an unsolicited phone call from management inquiring if the service in their room is up-to-standard, and offering to send a manager to supervise the next cleaning, improves their behavior. I remember one exhibitionist guest, in New Orleans, cutting me off before I could get down to business:
“Sir, this is Jacob, the housekeeping manager — ”
“O.K., fine, O.K.!” And he hung up. That was that.
Being flashed is very different from being violently assaulted, but they are on a continuum of unwanted sexual encounters. Also, it’s difficult to believe that a man who gets to that point hasn’t gotten away with quite a lot of other skeezy things in the past, such as exposing himself. Perhaps if M. Strauss-Kahn had had repeated, embarrassing conversations with the male hotel staff in which banning him from further stays was mentioned it would have been salutary.
It also occurs to me if a women left her hotel room door unbolted and someone came in and raped her, the number of times (hint: infinity) she would be told that she should always keep the door locked, and call downstairs to check with the front desk when a male staffer came to the door even in uniform, etc. etc., might make her decide to just not bother reporting the crime.
I thought it was interesting that despite the subject matter, the Times was unable to find a woman to write about the topic, perhaps one who had worked as a housekeeper? Just a thought. I understand that “Jacob Tomsky is writing a memoir about his experiences in the hotel business,” but that hardly seems the most salient concern, unless someone’s agent knows someone. And you may object that most of these workers are recent immigrants, but I see Maureen Dowd’s name out of the corner of my eye oftener than I would like, so it’s not as if having a woman with limited English-language skills on the Op-Ed page is somehow a problem.
{ 52 comments }
Jacob T. Levy 05.26.11 at 2:17 pm
Last line: Belle FTW.
Random lurker 05.26.11 at 2:27 pm
slightly OT, but I think that since DSK has not yet been proven guilty, it should be better not to use him as an example of sexual misconduct.
Myles 05.26.11 at 2:37 pm
The problem is that you posed a question as to why another question was posed (in this case, by Kevin Drum) in the first place.
It’s a lot easier to understand why the question was posed in the first place, then to follow why a question was posed about another question in the first place, and then to follow the answer and implications of the question posed about why another question was posed in the first place.
(Are in the clear?)
Tomas 05.26.11 at 2:45 pm
Well, if the guys’ defence is “she wanted it” then I would say that sexual misconduct is pretty likely imho.
If his defence had been “It was just a misunderstanding” or “I did not have sex with that woman” then there might have been a case for withholding presumption of guilt in public conversation until later.
Has anyone here, who is male, ever had sexual advances made on them from hotel staff who were not prostitutes?
Satan Mayo 05.26.11 at 2:47 pm
(Are in the clear?)
Am.
Belle Waring 05.26.11 at 2:58 pm
I’m not chiding people for not reading the posts at the links, I’m saying I was a dumbass to imagine they would. This is the internet! And here’s some helpful context.
marcel 05.26.11 at 3:03 pm
I thought it was interesting that despite the subject matter, the Times was unable to find a woman to write about the topic, perhaps one who had worked as a housekeeper?
Perhaps because the NYT editor figured that, for the male portion of the audience, hearing this from a man would be more credible? A woman saying these things can more easily be dismissed as hysterical, oversensitive, a humorless feminist, a diesel dyke, …
Note that this interpretation says less about the NYT editor than it does about his (her?) perception of the men who read the NYT.
dsquared 05.26.11 at 3:15 pm
#3: That was a bit of a waste of Myles’ one comment per day allowance IMO.
Barry 05.26.11 at 3:28 pm
Perhaps one per day is too generous, since he seems to feel that he doesn’t need to post any substance.
Belle Waring 05.26.11 at 3:34 pm
“Perhaps because the NYT editor figured that, for the male portion of the audience, hearing this from a man would be more credible? A woman saying these things can more easily be dismissed as hysterical, oversensitive, a humorless feminist, a diesel dyke, …”
Christ on a fucking cracker. If that’s what the editor thinks, he should probably consider applying for a job at Taki’s Magazine, and leaving the rest of us alone.
Salient 05.26.11 at 3:36 pm
Entirety of both posts: Belle FTW. (Par for the course.)
I am trying to figure out if there is a way for my partner and I to screen hotels from now on by asking the hotel manager whether they actually do the awesome SWAT thing in response to incidents of exposure or harassment, without sounding like the sort of people who hope they don’t.
…Ideas are welcome. This is a nontrivial thing to ponder. I’d love for there to exist some variant on the Better Business Bureau which specifically collected information on the treatment of workers and somehow managed to collect worker complaints of mistreatment or neglect. Businesses that take this stuff seriously and look out for their employees could petition the BBB-variant to survey their employees and post the results or something. The more I think about it the more it seems this is the most important bit of information the free market is consistently failing to provide me about places where I buy stuff.
That was a bit of a waste of Myles’ one comment per day allowance IMO.
Mansplaining never seems to seem like a waste to the mansplainer…
Belle Waring 05.26.11 at 3:53 pm
Maybe go by whether the staff is unionized? Difficult in the “right to work” South, and elsewhere.
sg 05.26.11 at 4:13 pm
This post is fucking brilliant.
Actually Salient, it seems like the hotel in this DSK story is actually pretty good. And it’s a chain, so maybe they have this sort of “our maids are valuable and cool” attitude all over the world. But they appear to be Very Expensive, so that’s a downer.
Adam 05.26.11 at 4:15 pm
#12 is a great point. Is this an issue on which hotel-worker unions have been vocal? I mean especially in regard to hotels’ having this kind of proactive policy.
Individual hotels adopting such policies, and individual consumers preferring them, doesn’t amount to much. But this is a place where a union could play a valuable role. My professional academic association is one of several that has agreed to hold our annual meetings only in hotels with unionized staff. It’s large and repeated institutional traffic like this that hotels respond to more than individual guests. I don’t imagine my professional organization would be receptive to adding a requirement for a “no harassing the staff” policy to our laundry list of expectations — but if such was part of the union contract we could get a little solidarity going.
marcel 05.26.11 at 4:21 pm
Belle @ 10 wrote (in response to me):
Christ on a fucking cracker. If that’s what the editor thinks, he should probably consider applying for a job at Taki’s Magazine, and leaving the rest of us alone.
Also, I don’t know what Taki’s Magazine is, and figure that I’m better off not checking this out from work. Ah well, I think I get your drift, even if I also think you are giving too much credit to (the male portion of) the NYT’s readership.
marcel 05.26.11 at 4:24 pm
Followup to me at 15:
I should have gone on to explain that the reason I am more cynical about male NYT’s readers is a suspicion that many are liberals in the classic, i.e., Phil Ochs sense of the word.
Frank in midtown 05.26.11 at 4:29 pm
A discussion on the use of the claim of the existance of roving gangs of StrawExecu-pervs interests me. So it’s just like fraternity hijinks? Will Mr. Yoo be along shortly to offer an opinion? Oh let me guess, “move along, move along, nothing unusual here to see.”
Russell Arben Fox 05.26.11 at 4:38 pm
You need to blog more often Belle. We miss you! And the blogosphere needs you, dammit.
MPAVictoria 05.26.11 at 5:40 pm
“Mansplaining never seems to seem like a waste to the mansplainer…”
Is Crooked Timber becoming Shakesville now?
rea 05.26.11 at 6:17 pm
“I think that since DSK has not yet been proven guilty, it should be better not to use him as an example of sexual misconduct.”
The presumption of innocence is a wonderful thing. It applies to court proceedings. It doesn’t apply outside the legal system, as for example, in blogging.
joel hanes 05.26.11 at 6:22 pm
I had no previous awareness of “Taki’s Magazine” and clicked through — then hit the back button immediately, and arose to wash my hands before returning to warn the unwary.
Derbyshire. Patrick Buchanan. Michelle Malkin. Probably more of that ilk.
You have been warned.
More Dogs, Less Crime 05.26.11 at 6:41 pm
I’m surprised Taki permits Malkin to publish there. Although perhaps he doesn’t have much editorial input.
Consumatopia 05.26.11 at 7:26 pm
There’s a bit of a mismatch. Drum was quoting to an NYT article referring to repeat offenders who’s behavior was really undeniable. And, yes, the people in that article really should face severe consequences.
But his response was “I’m surprised hotels don’t have a no-tolerance policy for this kind of stuff: do it once and you’re thrown out and blacklisted forever.”
Taken literally, that really would suggest men and women being thrown out and blacklisted forever because they forgot to lock the door. Once.
Salient 05.26.11 at 7:43 pm
Maybe go by whether the staff is unionized?
Ah that’s a good point, preferable for more reasons than just the one I raised. “Prefer unionized hotels when possible” is my new booking rule.
Taken literally, that really would suggest men and women being thrown out and blacklisted forever because they forgot to lock the door.
Christ on a cracker! No! It would suggest being thrown out and blacklisted forever because they waggled their eyebrows while waving genitals at staff, made lewd suggestive comments to staff, etc. It boggles my mind that people think a victim of harassment can’t (or won’t) tell the difference between a genuine accident and what’s obviously intentional.
Sure it’s, like, very hard to prove intent in court, but do people really think it’s impossible for a cleaning staff to tell the difference between “intentional indecent exposure and harassment with a paper-thin alibi” and genuine accident? Do people suspect cleaning staff will run around opening doors and provoking accidents and then filing false complaints? W. T. F. ? This was addressed in the previous post / comments thread.
The natural human response to “I accidentally entered the client’s room too fast for them to respond and now they’re genuinely scurrying to give me warning and cover themselves” is “I’ll back out and look away and apologize” and people who don’t trust in this natural human response are being weird.
“The cleaning staff might file a false complaint against my partner or I” is so much lower on my priority list than “the cleaning staff might have to put up with harassment” that it’s not even comparable. It would be like constantly worrying that a driver could file a false hit-and-run claim on me, instead of just focusing on being a decent and respectful and safe driver and wanting to drive in a community that somewhat reliably assigns punitive measures to unsafe dangerous drivers.
roac 05.26.11 at 7:50 pm
I too like the idea of seeking out unionized hotels. Where do I look for the information?
logern 05.26.11 at 7:51 pm
(that hotels refuse service to guests who repeatedly flash the staff) is indeed a reasonable one,
Ah, just send all their names to the WikiLeaks site.
Brainz 05.26.11 at 8:22 pm
Here is UNITE Here’s list of unionized hotels. They also have a boycott list.
roac 05.26.11 at 8:32 pm
Thanks!
mpowell 05.26.11 at 8:42 pm
“The cleaning staff might file a false complaint against my partner or I†is so much lower on my priority list than “the cleaning staff might have to put up with harassment†that it’s not even comparable. It would be like constantly worrying that a driver could file a false hit-and-run claim on me, instead of just focusing on being a decent and respectful and safe driver and wanting to drive in a community that somewhat reliably assigns punitive measures to unsafe dangerous drivers.
Regarding being banned from a hotel versus actual criminal charges, this is the right balance, I think. Anyways, if you really believe it was incidental you can always appeal to the manager. Even if he does make an exception, it seems likely that the lesson would be learned.
Consumatopia 05.26.11 at 9:23 pm
Christ on a cracker! No! It would suggest being thrown out and blacklisted forever because they waggled their eyebrows while waving genitals at staff, made lewd suggestive comments to staff, etc.
Christ on your own damn cracker. No, “a no-tolerance policy”, the phrase Drum used, does not just mean punishing only obvious or flagrant instances. It means “the natural human response”, as you put it, has nothing to do with it–you punish all instances without discretion.
Note I said “taken literally”, as in I don’t think Drum would actually want that. (Which I suspect is why he links somewhat favorably to McArdle’s post in an update). And apparently you don’t either. We both seem to agree that there’s a wide gulf between the kind of flagrant abuse in the NYT article and accidentally leaving your door open once.
Marc 05.26.11 at 9:31 pm
@24: People get on lists of “bad people” for all sorts of reasons; having the same name, for example, as an offender; or a typo; or an accusations which is false or mistaken. What determines whether you put someone on such a list? Why would hotel personnel be willing to sign up for this list as opposed to, say, a criminal complaint? I understand the motive, but I think that actual criminal behavior should be treated as what it is. How to deal with ambiguous stuff requires a lot more information about what it actually is.
None of the articles about this problem have quantified it; we don’t actually know whether this is a common event or not. This reminds me an awful lot of the “children abducted by strangers” or “recovered memory of sexual abuse” sagas that we saw. Terrible tragedies ( e.g. kidnapping) which were quite real in some cases being vastly inflated in their incidence, and anyone questioning whether these things were actually happening as stated was cast as a defender of child molesters.
If sexual assault of hotel workers is common and not prosecuted then that’s not just a matter for a list; it’s a matter of fundamental justice, a breakdown of the criminal system, and urgent. If it’s rare then the policy response should be different (maybe, for example, whatever internal controls that hotels have are actually working well.) We’re seeing a lot of conflation of a lot of different things (rape, getting groped, people exposing themselves) in a complete absence of information on context and frequency.
politicalfootball 05.27.11 at 12:06 am
Being flashed is very different from being violently assaulted, but they are on a continuum of unwanted sexual encounters.
DSK has also been accused of sexual harassment. I’m inclined to see this, too, as part of that continuum, but I’ve been surprised to see objections to that on feminist grounds.
Ebenezer Scrooge 05.27.11 at 12:47 am
It’s easy enough to snark Maureen Dowd, and Belle is free to do so. But she should do better. Dowd’s English language skills are superb. Her problems are with her thinking skills and her emotional maturity.
Brett Bellmore 05.27.11 at 10:56 am
Can we put hotel workers who ignore “do not disturb” signs on the list, too?
I’m generally opposed to the proliferation of “do not whatever” lists. Unless the only way to get on one is by been sentenced to being on it after a jury trial, they’re nothing more than a way to circumvent the necessity of holding a trial before punishing somebody.
John Quiggin 05.27.11 at 11:28 am
I’ve had my fair share of moments poking my head around a hotel room door, and telling the staff to come back later. There’s a pretty big gap between that and anything that could me misconstrued to be something like the DSK situation.
elm 05.27.11 at 3:34 pm
@34
Apparently you think a privately-owned and operated hotel shouldn’t be allowed to deny service to flashers without a trial, is that right? For that matter, please explain how being denied service at a hotel is “punishment”.
Salient 05.27.11 at 3:46 pm
No, “a no-tolerance policyâ€, the phrase Drum used, does not just mean punishing only obvious or flagrant instances. It means “the natural human responseâ€, as you put it, has nothing to do with it—you punish all instances without discretion.
What the hell are you talking about? Are you out of your mind? My employer has a “no tolerance policy” for harassment. It means that credible accusations of harassment are taken seriously, investigated thoroughly, and are punishable by firing for a confirmed first offense, where offense means “breach of employer policy” not “found guilty in a court of law of a crime.” In other words there’s no “three strikes and you’re out” type nonsense, like there might be for, for example, entering grades late.
Your definition of “no-tolerance policy” is crazy, to the point where you should have felt embarrassed to even type it in.
Salient 05.27.11 at 3:47 pm
Unless the only way to get on one is by been sentenced to being on it after a jury trial, they’re nothing more than a way to circumvent the necessity of holding a trial before punishing somebody.
…so in your eyes employers can’t legitimately fire employees unless they’re tried by jury? that’s kind of awesome
Lemuel Pitkin 05.27.11 at 4:05 pm
Salient is really rocking this thread.
jacob 05.27.11 at 6:24 pm
Salient is really rocking this thread.
Is there a thread in which Salient participates in which Salient does not rock? Salient and Belle are the two best reasons to read CT.
Consumatopia 05.27.11 at 8:25 pm
Well, I guess Salient should edit this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_tolerance
The rule is that you’re supposed to put the sign on the door or bolt it when you’re changing. Intentionally failing to do this would, indeed, be harassment. But given that we don’t all do this in our own homes, people fail to do this accidentally.
Salient 05.27.11 at 9:25 pm
Does anything in that definition conflict with what I said?
The rule is that you’re supposed to put the sign on the door or bolt it when you’re changing.
Wait wait wait wait wait noooooo. Okay, at least now we all know where you’re going wrong. The rule is that you’re not supposed to subject the hotel’s staff to sexual harassment, solicitation for sexual services, or indecent exposure. Your interpretation of “don’t harass the staff” as “always bolt the door when changing” is weird. Nobody has suggested we enforce an always-bolt-the-door rule. I can sort of see how you might misread Drum as suggesting that sort of rule, if you weren’t paying the closest attention to context. At least this comment from you makes it much easier to understand why you’re so upset at the idea of a no-tolerance policy.
Intentionally failing to do this would, indeed, be harassment.
Uhh no it wouldn’t. I’ve probably intentionally changed (in the bathroom) while the main room door was unbolted (so that my partner could enter and leave with their card-swipe key thingy). Doing that is not harassment. I guess it might sort of be neglect, if you really really want to absurdly hold it against me. (Please don’t.) But it’s certainly not harassment and it has nothing to do with what we’re talking about… except that sexual harassers, when called on their flagrantly indecent behavior, often try to pass off their harassment as if it was just a “I forgot to bolt the door while changing” type error. They are lying when they say this, and that they’re lying is obvious to anyone who witnessed the original behavior.
It’s like a thief claiming to the cops that they “forgot” to pay for the 12-pack they tried to smuggle under their shirt, versus the forgetful shopper who honestly forgot to haul it up from the bottom shelf of the shopping cart. The smuggler would of course claim they had just “forgotten” to pay, like a forgetful shopper, but it’s patently obvious from what the clerk witnessed that the smuggler is lying. And the liquor store probably has a “zero tolerance” policy for that kind of thieving behavior, and if you heard that such a policy was in place, you wouldn’t worry about the potential for all those poor forgetful shoppers being kicked out for needing a reminder to haul the 12-pack up. It would be crazy to worry about that. (I think most department clothing stores have a zero-tolerance policy toward theft. They have signs in the changing rooms alerting customers to this.)
So, are you taking violators at their word when they lie, maybe? Are you confusing the harassers with people who genuinely do forget to bolt the door while changing, maybe? Did everything make sense and you switch to agreeing with me/Drum/whoever as soon as I clarified what the rule is we’re talking about? Consumatopia, I’ve read comments by you before here at CT, and you’ve never seemed as obtuse as this as far as I can recall, so I just think you’re really wildly confused here. Sorry I came down on you so hard. Perhaps I should’ve asked what rule you were thinking was being enforced. It just never occurred to me someone would be thinking of a whole different rule.
Salient 05.27.11 at 9:27 pm
(grumble) stuck in moderation. Attempting to evade it, my shorter point: Consumatopia, you’re worried because you have the wrong rule in mind. The rule is that you’re not supposed to subject the hotel’s staff to sexual harassment, solicitation for sexual services, or indecent exposure. Maybe given that clarification it all makes sense?
Consumatopia 05.27.11 at 9:58 pm
Drum was not exactly specific in which rule he was referring to (“this kind of stuff”).
Guests are supposed to adhere to both rules, after all. But the most infamous characteristic of zero tolerance is punishment of accidental acts. And, of course, people intentionally violating the more serious rule would pretend that they had only accidentally violated the less serious rule.
I should say, I’m not worried that you or Drum or any actual hotel really wants to throw people out for leaving the room unlocked. And it’s weird that McArdle seemed to be implying that because gray areas theoretically exist that we shouldn’t go after the most obvious, undeniable offenders. Drum’s original wording, “a no-tolerance policy for this kind of stuff”, made it easier to get away with a blurring of the lines like that.
Apologies if anything I just said was already answered in your stuck post, which I probably should just wait for rather than posting this one.
novakant 05.27.11 at 10:09 pm
It means that credible accusations of harassment are taken seriously, investigated thoroughly, and are punishable by firing for a confirmed first offense, where offense means “breach of employer policy†not “found guilty in a court of law of a crime.â€
So employers create the law, investigate offenses, pass the verdict and administer punishment – that’s a lot of power and trust I wouldn’t want hand over to employers and rather rely on a court of law. Why should we trust employers to do the right thing internally when there are numerous examples of them failing to do so, e.g. the military or the catholic church.
Consumatopia 05.28.11 at 2:35 am
I should have waited for moderation.
Re: intentionally leaving the door unlocked–I misspoke, I mean leaving the door unlocked with the intention of being walked in on (say, the potential harasser would have seen the cleaner coming down the hallway and planned an “accident”).
And, yeah, the connection between the two rules (“don’t harass” and “lock the door”) is only that people violating the former are tempted to confess to the latter. If I understand you, you’re saying that no staff are going to make accusations of a guest if it’s plausible that it was an accident. This doesn’t address the problem of harassers that make their harassment look plausibly accidental. I’m not sure how often that occurs, or if there is any way to address that problem other than zero-tolerance of the “lock the door when indecent” rule, which isn’t really workable. (I could imagine, though, some circumstance in which zero-tolerance for unlocked doors makes sense.)
To be honest, I actually do kind of worry about anti-shoplifting policies being over-zealous.
My original post was poorly written. I don’t want to say that we should be tolerant of any instance of harassment that isn’t plausibly accidental. I also don’t want to accuse you or Drum of actually planning to implement a policy to throw out all guests who have accidents. I don’t want to defend the actual post McArdle made because it got a number of things wrong, but I think a reasonable person might find themselves responding to Drum “what about when guests accidentally leave the door open, or when harassers pretend to be such guests?” It would be a misinterpretation of Drum, but I think it’s the kind of misinterpretation a reasonable person could make. Now that I’ve typed all this out, I realize this point wasn’t really worth making, but, well, can’t undo all these posts now, can I? Sorry.
Salient 05.28.11 at 4:59 am
This doesn’t address the problem of harassers that make their harassment look plausibly accidental.
Well, if the guest acts in a way that convinces the staff it was plausibly an accident right from the onset, I guess there’s no way for literally anybody to realize it wasn’t an accident, so that seems like it would be filed under some kind of “subtle enough to automatically get away with it” category. I doubt that’s a case worth delving into at this time, at least not until the more flagrant cases of harassment are more systematically addressed.
So employers create the law, investigate offenses, pass the verdict and administer punishment – that’s a lot of power and trust I wouldn’t want hand over to employers and rather rely on a court of law.
Hey, you’re talking to someone who called the idea of prohibiting employers from firing employees unless they provide a trial by jury “awesome.”
But employers really can fire people they employ without deferring to a court of law. I mean, the employee has some potential rights of redress if there’s some potential breach of a contract involved or if the firing is illegal under some specific statute (for example discriminatory firing). But those are special cases. I don’t think the general right to fire one’s employees is normally a controversial thing (though I’m kind of excited to see it could be!) And businesses can refuse service to specific individuals who have given them trouble in the past, without deferring to a court of law. (There’s a place on eBay that won’t sell to me any more because I was lackadaisical and took too long paying my paypal auction bill to them one time, and they got upset. I’m disappointed about their decision, but it’s their right and I respect that.) Individuals who feel they’re being refused service for illegal reasons (such as certain forms of discrimination) have the right to sue or maybe even bring criminal charges, so there’s some potential for redress in court.
Brett Bellmore 05.28.11 at 12:20 pm
“Apparently you think a privately-owned and operated hotel shouldn’t be allowed to deny service to flashers without a trial, is that right? For that matter, please explain how being denied service at a hotel is “punishmentâ€.”
Look, I live in a country where you can get labeled, for life, as a “sex offender” for getting caught pissing in an alley because you couldn’t find a bathroom in time. I live in a country where “sex offenders” can end up living under bridges because they live in a place where it’s illegal for ‘sex offenders’ to live within x number of feet of a school, where every single domicile in the place IS within x number of feet of a school. (People often don’t realize how thick on the ground schools are.) I live in a country with a “Do not fly” list which you get on through deliberately mysterious means, and have no good formal means of getting off of. The intersection of “sex” and “do not * list” scares me spitless.
Ok, as a matter of principle I’m committed to the notion that private businesses are entitled to refuse service to anybody for any arbitrary reason, or none. So I wouldn’t call down the law on a hotel chain that implemented such a list.
I’d just never stay there.
JG 05.28.11 at 8:49 pm
So you’d never stay at a hotel that refused service to flashers, and not as a matter of principle…
Brett Bellmore 05.29.11 at 7:56 pm
No, as a matter of principle I’d not stay at such a hotel, even though, again as a matter of principle, I wouldn’t try to sic the government on them.
derrida derider 05.30.11 at 2:38 am
I think if I was running a hotel in the US I’d prefer the approach suggested in the NYT to automatic blacklisting, satisfying as the latter might be to all concerned. It would be too easy for the blacklistee to sue, either claiming innocence or some spurious ground of discrimination, or both. Blacklisting people is something you’d have to do carefully, rather than as part of a blanket policy.
That there are all sorts of existing injustices, Brett, is no argument for risking new ones. And of course your approach of “what businesses do is their business” would mean the south was still de facto segregated to this day.
Brett Bellmore 05.30.11 at 10:42 pm
Nah, it would mean part of the South would be; Probably no worse than you’d find at Cornell…
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