Keep Political Controversies Out of Organizations

Our first rule is no religious quarrels among ourselves. He who breaks it is a dead man. ...Let one man escape that rule and we'll all be dead by sundown.

This dialogue is from The Last Valley starring Michael Caine as The Captain, and Omar Sharif as an itinerant teacher who is trying to escape the horrors of the Thirty Years War. The Captain leads a band of brutal mercenaries who, however, have enough sense to create a rule of this nature so Protestants, Catholics, and who knows what else can rely on one another to survive in battles. The very real Landsknechts did have Protestants and Catholics in their ranks and they may have had a similar rule.

The Freemasons have been around similarly for at least a few hundred years because their absolute rule is that political and religious differences are left outside the Lodge. Republicans and Democrats, or Conservatives and Labour in the UK, can call each other whatever they want outside the Lodge but, as soon as they pass through the door, it's "Brother" and nothing else. Note by the way, and for exactly this reason, that I am writing this article as an individual, and nothing here represents my company (a separate corporate "person" that does not have political positions) or any organization of which I am a member. In addition, I am not even going to express my own views on gun control, abortion, or Donald Trump; the issue is solely whether they belong under the roofs of the organizations in question regardless of what you, I, or anybody else thinks of them.

"To Hold in Trust" Means Exactly That

"Trustee" means exactly that; a position of trust. "Director" is essentially the same thing. You hold the organization in trust for your stakeholders. The word for "to hold in trust" comes from the same Indo-European root as Dharma, the Right Way, and appears in Asian Indian words like Sirdar, Risaldar, Subedar, Havildar, and Jemadar. When you hold an organization in trust, it is emphatically not yours to involve in your personal political R versus D, Black Lives Matter, "Justice in Palestine," pro-life, pro-choice, or other agendas and doing so could be construed as a breach of fiduciary duty.

I have yet to see any organization or business that has been better off for lending its name to controversial issues or organizations like Black Lives Matter , the anti-Israel boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, pro-life versus pro-choice, gun control, and so on, but I know of numerous ones that are far worse off as a result. Twitter is the most recent example. The reason should be obvious; even if two-thirds of your members or customers agree with the position you take, a third will not and you will suffer devastating backlash, loss of organizational commitment, and/or loss of business. "Loss of organizational commitment" is one of the most devastating catastrophes that can befall any organization. This is exactly why the fictional mercenaries, and the very real Freemasons, had an absolute ban on this sort of thing.

Avoidance of Political Involvement Might be a Fiduciary Duty

Directors and Trustees of all organizations, including especially 501(c)(3) tax exempt nonprofits, need to take this very seriously because directors' and officers' (D&O) insurance policies might not cover them for ultra vires acts, or those outside the organization's charter, rules, bylaws, and so on. These acts could include involvement in political controversies in which the organizations have absolutely no business. I cannot give legal advice but CharityLawyer's Ellis Carter explains ,

?Lately, a recurring question has been why does a nonprofit corporation have to comply with its articles and bylaws. ...D&O policies typically exclude ultra vires acts from coverage and corporate indemnification is generally not available to those acting outside the scope of their authority.

This comes across as saying that directors and officers who bring political controversies under the roof of an entity that has no business in these controversies could put themselves as well as their organizations at serious risk. The American Studies Association was in fact sued , albeit unsuccessfully, for involvement in the anti-Israel boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement.

They claim that Defendants acted ultra vires and breached their contract with ASA’s members by ...(4) devoting a “substantial part” of ASA’s activities to attempting to influence United States and Israeli legislation, all in violation of ASA’s bylaws, ASA’s constitution, and potentially District of Columbia law. ...Finally, they claim that Defendants engaged in corporate waste by devoting ASA resources to supporting the Resolution.

If however we look more closely at what the court actually said, it didn't conclude that ultra vires actions did not occur; it concluded that it did not have jurisdiction.

Because the Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction, it declines to address the parties’ arguments regarding the merits of Plaintiffs’ ultra vires, fiduciary duty, and waste claims.

Had the plaintiffs been able to show more than $75,000 in damages, it's conceivable that this could have gone very badly for ASA. The Internal Revenue Service warns meanwhile that ultra vires actions are cause for revocation of 501(c)(3) tax exempt status, although I have never seen this actually happen. Cornell Law Professor William Jacobson, in fact, reported ASA to the IRS for this reason (presumably via Form 13909 ) but nothing apparently happened. The IRS has however revoked tax exemptions for political involvement by 501(c)(3) entities, and a couple that involved themselves in BDS were also found with election-related material on their web sites. They could now be at serious risk because the IRS has a fast-track review process for political involvement.

These procedures are designed to expeditiously address instances of potential political activity by 501(c)(3) organizations in violation of the Code. The goal is twofold: first, to educate 501(c)(3) organizations of the prohibition on political activity and put them on notice of the enforcement program in order to prevent violations, and second, to address noncompliance while the issue remains prominent, so that there are no reoccurrences and so correction could occur prior to the relevant election.?

Here are, in my opinion, some negative role models, i.e. models of what NOT to do if one values the success and even the future of one's organization.

Hardin-Simmons University and Black Lives Matter

Hardin-Simmons University brought substantial attention to itself, and very little of it was good, for apparently forcing out a student for her accurate criticism of Black Lives Matter , namely, that the organization complains only about white-on-Black violence but has nothing to say about Black-on-Black violence. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) contends that HSU may have even violated its own Code of Conduct regarding free speech by disciplining the student. "While Hardin-Simmons is a private university not bound by the First Amendment, it promises freedom of expression to its students..." and goes on to quote the relevant portion of the Code of Conduct.

Not only did HSU show that its leaders can force out a student for saying something with which they disagree--a strong argument for not enrolling there at a time when colleges are playing musical chairs for a dwindling supply of applicants--it also comes across as putting its name behind a movement that meets the Anti-Defamation League's (ADL's) and International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's (IHRA's) definition of anti-Semitic, namely one that denies the right of Israel to exist .

None of BLM's critics, including the HSU student, contend for an instant that Black lives do not matter or that discrimination, segregation, or excessive use of force by police have any place whatsoever in a civilized society. The student made clear her position that Black lives do matter but the BLM movement is itself highly selective as to which Black lives matter. New York's Mayor, Eric Adams , said essentially the same thing. ?

I thought Black lives matter. Where are all those who stated, ‘Black lives matter?’ Then go do an analysis of who was killed or shot last night. I was up all night speaking to my commanders in the Bronx and Brooklyn. The victims were black, many of the shooters were black.

A prominent BLM organizer, Hawk Newsome, responded by calling Adams a racial slur that I will not repeat here so follow the Eric Adams link if you want to see it. Newsome also made implied threats of violence if Adams got tough on crime. Ann Dorn , the widow of retired police captain David Dorn who was killed in BLM-related violence added, “If a foreign organization were tied to nationwide rioting in the U.S., we’d probably call it a terrorist organization.” She added that her husband did not support BLM because it “never actually did anything to help Black lives.”

BLM Global Network has also glorified not only Fidel Castro but also four domestic terrorists (three alleged unless and until proven guilty, but they are fugitives from justice) who were involved in the deaths of two law enforcement professionals. Click on the links below to see what the Federal Bureau of Investigation thinks of "Mama Assata" and "Brother Michael Finney" & Co."

A final lesson is that to be a revolutionary, you must strive to live in integrity. As a Black network committed to transformation, we are particularly grateful to Fidel [Castro] for holding Mama Assata Shakur , who continues to inspire us. We are thankful that he provided a home for Brother Michael Finney Ralph Goodwin, and Charles Hill , asylum to Brother Huey P. Newton, and sanctuary for so many other Black revolutionaries who were being persecuted by the American government during the Black Power era. ...Fidel vive!

BLM has also glorified convicted foreign terrorist Rasmea Odeh , who was convicted of killing two Jews with a bomb and trying to kill first responders with another, but the Israelis disarmed it in time. BLM has also condoned and even encouraged looting and fatal violence throughout the United States. BLM-related riots have caused the deaths of African-Americans including retired police captain David Dorn along with Secoreia Turner . You can see here the kind of feedback HSU got for its actions and public statements, and it is almost universally hostile.

The Zionist Organization of America summarizes the situation perfectly, emphasis is mine.

The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) strongly opposes anti-Black racism. ...The phrase, “Black lives matter,” is true – just as Jewish lives matter and every life matters. This webpage is not about the phrase “Black lives matter.” This webpage is about something entirely different: the extreme Jew-hatred, Israel-bashing and antisemitic violence perpetrated by the Marxist “Movement for Black Lives” (M4BL) organization, and the organizations that comprise and are intertwined with M4BL, including the Black Lives Matter (BLM) organization and “Dream Defenders.” These organizations have ties to a designated anti-Israel Marxist terror organization responsible for murdering Jews – the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP ) ...We must continue to combat the evils of anti-Black racism – while calling out organizations that incite hatred against Jews and Israel.

Our society can "continue to combat the evils of anti-Black racism" without associating our names with problematic movements like BLM but that is exactly what Hardin-Simmons University did and the backlash on its Facebook page is almost universally negative. This is not something they need when universities around the country must compete for new students because, when the music stops, some of them are going to be left without chairs in the form of tuition-paying students. As for BLMGN's purported role in civil rights, the Beatles' song Revolution says it perfectly:

We all want to change the world

But when you talk about destruction

Don't you know that you can count me out?

Cornell Law School and Black Lives Matter

Dean Eduardo Pe?alver of Cornell's famous and also expensive Law School posted the following after Professor William Jacobson published accurate commentary on BLM. "In light of this deep and rich tradition of walking the walk of racial justice, in no uncertain terms, recent blog posts of Professor William Jacobson, casting broad and categorical aspersions on the goals of those protesting for justice for Black Americans, do not reflect the values of Cornell Law School as I have articulated them." As stated by the ZOA, we can walk the walk of racial justice without an entity that itself meets generally accepted (ADL and IHRA) definitions of anti-Semitic and often causes the very problems (such as life-ruining felony records for looters, rioters, arsonists, and so on) against which it protests. BLMGN is not our friend, it is not our ally, and it is not even a necessary evil. Our police (whom BLM dislikes) and courts handled recent incidents of unlawful violence against Black people correctly and decisively to make it quite plain that this behavior has no place in the United States. If anything, BLM's conduct may actually put the Derek Chauvin murder verdict at risk. His recent appeal includes this argument :

Black Lives Matter began a campaign based on the slogans “get your knee off our neck” and “I can’t breathe” all suggesting that Chauvin caused Floyd’s death by cutting off the airway in his neck and?causing Floyd to suffocate. This was not simply pretrial publicity regarding the facts of the case — the pretrial publicity held up Chauvin as the symbol of police brutality.

Cornell's President and Trustees have not taken any action on the use of an official Cornell web page to express these views on the Law School's and University's behalf, as opposed to Pe?alver's own which he certainly has the right to do elsewhere regardless of whether I or anybody else agrees with those views; Jacobson expresses his on a non-Cornell web site. All that these people have accomplished, as I see it, is to make a strong case for New York residents to pick SUNY Buffalo's law school at roughly $25K a year over Cornell's at about $75K a year.

A good lawyer should be able to argue both sides of any case. Daniel Webster purportedly got a man out of a deal with the Devil, and with a jury selected by the Devil, and the attorney for the Parkland school shooter convinced real jurors that the perpetrator should not get the death penalty. Jacobson's critics have instead proven only that they cannot support their case for BLM with objective evidence but must instead play the race card which is not accepted by American courts of law and has less and less credibility in the court of public opinion as well. I don't see much difference, in fact, between calling Caucasian BLM critics racists and Hawk Newsome calling a Black BLM critic a racial slur. Both are the bankrupt arguments of those who cannot support their positions because the truth is that BLM has served only its organizers while otherwise promoting anti-Semitism, misusing 501(c)(3) tax exempt money to influence the 2020 Presidential election ("BLM Co-Founder Appears To Violate IRS Laws On CNN"), condoning, encouraging, or even inciting unlawful behavior that has harmed Americans of all races, and glorifying domestic and foreign terrorists. A good lawyer is also supposed to get his or her facts straight. Jacobson's critics who include Cornell law faculty, students, and graduates obviously failed to do so which does not reflect well on the school as a whole.

Twitter

"Elon Musk Calls Twitter 'A Crime Scene' Amid Leaked Files Controversy" reports,

The documents have revealed that teams of Twitter employees build backlists, prevent disfavoured tweets from trending, and actively limit the visibility of entire accounts or even trending topics - all in secret, without informing users.?

Thanks to Twitter employees who (allegedly until proven) brought their personal politics under Twitter's roof as depicted above, the only reason Twitter's advertisers should be willing to even consider giving Twitter a second chance is that it looks like its new owner will clean up matters quickly. This can and should involve separation for cause of the moderators and others who were involved with this (again, if proven rather than just alleged). These moderators, by the way, took no action on Francesca Albanese , UN Special Rapporteur's publication of anti-Semitic material along with tacit endorsement of terroristic violence against Israel on Twitter.

Other social media platforms also need to take a close look as to how moderators are using their authority, noting for example that there are very serious questions about what Facebook calls its community standards. These seem to tolerate openly anti-Semitic material , 9/11 conspiracy theories, and promotion and glorification of dangerous individuals like Assata Shakur and also Fidel Castro, "El Comandante" to BLM. They need to remember that, in this era of electronic communications, a business reputation that took years or even decades to build (see Ben & Jerry's below) can be gone in a week or even more quickly.

PSC-CUNY, BDS, and Abortion Rights

Professional Staff Congress of City University of New York (PSC-CUNY) passed a resolution to endorse the BDS movement. The ADL says of this , "With the focus on negating Israel and its supporters, BDS campaigns may create an environment in which antisemitic actions and expressions may be emboldened." This made the union's Jewish members feel very unsafe and unwelcome, e.g . "It is abundantly clear that the rising chorus of BDS support has brought on an epidemic of antisemitic violence. I never dreamed I would feel unsafe on my own campus in the heart of New York City. I cannot financially support a union that is at odds with my security and that of my Jewish colleagues and students."

PSC-CUNY also came out in favor of abortion rights which, regardless of what you, I, or anybody else thinks about this issue, is likely to be highly offensive to the union's Catholic, Orthodox Jewish, and many Evangelical Christian members and others. Of course, PSC-CUNY's endorsement of an anti-Semitic agenda has already alienated most of its Jewish members, and New York City's population is 18 percent Jewish. New York City is 62 percent Catholic. This is not to say that all Jews oppose BDS or all Catholics vote pro-life (some, like former NY Governor Mario Cuomo, are personally pro-life but pro-choice when it comes to secular laws, and my understanding that this is also the position of President Biden and Nancy Pelosi) but that is still a lot of people who are likely to be offended. While PSC-CUNY is probably on safe ground advocating for the defeat of Donald Trump in 2020, as New York City is almost solid Blue, 26 percent of New Yorkers are in fact Republicans . It would not surprise me if PSC-CUNY has, between its involvement in BDS, abortion rights, and electoral politics, none of which have to do with collective bargaining, alienated more than half its members which could put "solidarity" at serious risk. This is exactly why those fictional mercenaries from The Last Valley had an absolute ban on this sort of thing, as do the Masons.

This is by no means to say that PSC-CUNY's members cannot endorse (or oppose) BDS, abortion rights, and so on while speaking as individuals and not on behalf of their organization. Rudyard Kipling , a prominent Mason, made clear that the door of the Lodge is a boundary between two different worlds, in which people must wear two different "hats" as shown here.

Outside - " Sergeant! Sir! Salute! Salaam!

Inside - 'Brother," an' it doesn't do no 'arm.

We met upon the Level an' we parted on the Square,

An' I was junior Deacon in my Mother-Lodge out there!

A soldier must of course address a superior as "Sergeant" or "Sir" outside the Lodge, but the differences in rank are put aside inside the Lodge where superiors and subordinates must address one another as "Brother." Republicans and Democrats, or Conservative and Labour, can call each other whatever they want outside the Lodge but, once inside, it's "Brother" and nothing else. MAGA and Ridin' with Biden hats are left at the door and not picked up until the members leave. PSC-CUNY's problem is that it brought at least three things inside its "Lodge," whose purpose is collective bargaining, that have absolutely no place there.

PSC-CUNY's members should also be aware of their right to refuse to pay the portion of their union dues that go beyond collective bargaining. They are under no obligation to support the agenda of Hamas and "Palestinian civil society," or abortion rights if they are pro-life, and/or efforts to get out the Democratic vote if they are among the group's few Republicans.

A Professional Society and Abortion Rights

A professional society to which I belong featured an editorial piece on Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization in its weekly news magazine. One letter to the editor was favorable to the editorial's position but the other came out against it, and added that the issue did not belong there at all. That is my position as well because the organization's purpose is totally unrelated to abortion rights.

Ben & Jerry's and BDS

Ben & Jerry's Board Chair, Anuradha Mittal, saw fit to bring her personal animus against Israel under Ben & Jerry's roof by getting the company to boycott what it calls "Occupied Palestinian Territories" with easily foreseeable backlash against the company and an impact on its sales. She also drew highly unfavorable attention to herself in the process. "The Ben & Jerry’s board chair, who led the company’s recent move to stop selling ice cream in the 'Occupied Palestinian Territory,' was accused of self-dealing — making moves in her own interest despite fiduciary duties — to fund her own think tank and a controversial Palestinian rights group, according to a Saturday report."

When you own the company, you're free to destroy its reputation and very existence if that is what you feel like doing, e.g. by associating it with BDS whose ultimate goal is to undermine and destroy the only country in the Middle East with equal rights for people of all religions, races, and ethnicities, and women and LGBT people. Privately-owned Foodbenders (see below) managed to do exactly that. When investors, including pension funds, rely on your judgment, the phrase "breach of fiduciary duty" comes to mind instead and at least one lawsuit has been filed against Ben & Jerry's parent Unilever on these grounds--not because of anything Unilever did but rather because of what its subsidiary, whose actions it cannot apparently control, did.

Ben & Jerry's has also been targeted by various state anti-boycott laws , thus exposing Unilever to additional risks that were totally unnecessary and that exist solely because Ben & Jerry's leaders chose to bring BDS under their roof. Opponents of these laws argue that people have the right to boycott whoever they want, and they do. Individuals are free to not buy from Caucasians, Black people, Asians, Hispanics, Jews, Christians, Muslims, and so on. Individuals are free to boycott Israel and/or any other countries. Businesses and corporate "persons" have far less leeway. Landlords cannot legally refuse to rent to people because of their race or ethnicity, realtors cannot refuse to show houses to people because of their race or ethnicity, and long gone are the times when it was legal or socially acceptable to put a sign on a storefront that said "No Jews/Blacks/Whites/Hispanics/Asians/Irish/Italians/" or whoever else the owner happened to dislike. Anuradha Mittal is certainly free as an individual to boycott Israel but her company is emphatically not.

Ben & Jerry's decision to participate in this controversy also attracted the kind of attention it probably doesn't want. It came out that its Doggie Desserts , in addition to being overpriced relative to other dog treats, contain sugar and are therefore harmful to dogs. This, as I see it, throws everything the company has ever said about social responsibility out the window and "social responsibility" is one of the company's biggest selling points. Its ice cream also comes across as overpriced as well, often four or five times as expensive per pint than store brands that come in three-pint containers. While nobody expects ice cream to be a healthy food (cream contains saturated fat by definition), Ben & Jerry's is often worse in this respect than competing store brands and it often contains "liquid sugar," i.e. sugar water. Competing brands also contain sugar and saturated fat, but I see no reason to pay roughly five dollars for a pint of Ben & Jerry's when the store brand sells for closer to three dollars for three pints.

Ben & Jerry's is also agitating for what it calls "common sense gun laws" which, regardless of what you, I, or anybody else thinks of this issue, is likely to alienate at least the third of American households that own firearms for lawful purposes. Perhaps they should have just stuck to selling their ice cream and then these issues would have never come up.

American Studies Institute and BDS

The American Studies Association joined the BDS movement, and Professor William Jacobson of Cornell's Law School filed a complaint against them with the Internal Revenue Service for allegedly acting outside the scope of their organization's mission. The term for this is ultra vires (beyond one's powers) and is technically cause for loss of 501(c)(3) tax exempt status.

An organization must pursue the exempt activities it promised in its IRS application for exemption. If an organization has deviated from its original purposes, it must inform the IRS to prevent future problems.?

From what I have seen, however, the IRS does not in practice revoke tax exemptions for ultra vires activities which is fortunate for some 501(c)(5) unions that have signed on to the BDS movement. It has pulled tax exemptions for political involvement by 501(c)(3)s which could be very unfortunate for some 501(c)(3)s that not only associated themselves with BDS but were found (after drawing the wrong kind of attention to themselves) to have posted political material that could be construed as seeking to influence elections.

ASA was also sued unsuccessfully by some of its own members. Even though the suit was not successful, this is exactly why the Masons and The Last Valley's fictional mercenaries had the rules they did. Had the mercenaries tolerated an attack on somebody's religion, the result would have been a fight with deadly weapons that would have left few if any winners. ASA tolerated a controversial issue under its roof and got the nonviolent civilian counterpart of a brawl, namely, litigation by its own people. The outcome ?

In addition to betraying us and our efforts, the anti-Israel warriors running the ASA have created a distraction at substantial cost to the ASA in terms of membership and lost revenue.?They have also exposed our group to ridicule.

Modern Language Association Rejected BDS

The Modern Language Association (MLA) rejected calls to join the BDS movement after being warned of the possible consequences by the Louis Brandeis Law Center. Dozens of members quit MLA as a result, and I assume they were told to not let the door hit them on their way out. This is exactly how the rule among the fictional mercenaries of The Last Valley and the very real Freemasons must apply. "If you absolutely insist on bringing this sort of thing under our roof, and threaten to quit if you don't get your way, we will have to cut you loose the same way an intelligent ship crew would throw a loose cannon overboard if they could not secure it, because we cannot let you put our internal harmony, our reputation, and possibly our 501(c)(3) tax exempt status at risk."

Middle East Studies Association and BDS

The University of Arizona and Florida State University have both severed their ties with the Middle East Studies Association because it allowed people to bring BDS under its roof. "Florida Governor Ron DeSantis cautioned that as a public institution, Florida State University would likely not be permitted to participate in an Israel boycott via its partnership with MESA, due to state law prohibiting the use of public funds to support BDS."

"We Don't Serve Police"

The New York Times reports , "San Francisco Restaurant Apologizes for Asking 3 Police Officers to Leave." The restaurant explained that the officers' weapons made people "uncomfortable" and added , "We understand your perspective and hope you'll consider ours." The restaurant also said it wanted to be a "safe space" for LGBT people and people of color, and the reason it can be a safe space is because law enforcement professionals have the immediate means at hand with which to handle individuals who offer violence to LGBT people, people of color, and indeed anybody else. There are in fact stories to the effect that some restaurants offer free meals to police officers for the express purpose of having police around all the time.

"We understand your perspective and hope you'll consider ours." Quite right, as General Sir Charles Napier put it long ago: "You may practice your customs and we will practice ours." If your custom is to not serve the men and women who protect our communities, my custom is to never eat in your restaurant.

"We Don't Serve Zionists"

Foodbenders , a catering service in Canada, went out of business after saying it doesn't serve "Zionists" which is often code for "Jews."

It appears Kimberley Hawkins’ incessant appetite to attack the Jewish state — and the fallout from that — may have caused her to close her doors, at least for now.

Not only did Hawkins lose the business she must have spent a long time to build, her employees are out of work too because she could simply not refrain from bringing her dislike of "Zionists" under her company's roof and posting it in the window ; the picture shows she doesn't seem to like police officers either.

When Your DEI People Create a Hostile Work Environment

"Diversity, equity, and inclusion" is a very popular buzz phrase nowadays, and companies even pay six figure salaries to DEI professionals. Most of us learned everything we need to know about DEI in childhood, and it can be expressed in one sentence: Don't treat somebody better or worse than somebody else because of his or her race, ethnicity, religion, gender, or sexual preference. Maybe some additional knowledge is necessary to make organizations inclusive but this is readily available.

1. Rudyard Kipling's The Mother Lodge said, "We dursn't give no banquets, Lest a Brother's caste were broke." The Lodge in question included an observant Jew and a Muslim who could not eat pork, a Hindu who could not eat beef, and a Catholic who might not have been able to eat meat on Friday. When you organize a conference, and especially an international one, don't serve things like bacon salads, meat and cheese sandwiches (not acceptable to observant Jews), and so on unless the identities of these things are known very clearly to people to whom English might not be their first language. Even better, as far as I know, fish, poultry, and vegetarian meals are acceptable to just about everybody so there is no risk of feeding somebody an unacceptable food. I attended one excellent biannual conference that served no red meat or pork, and even had a completely vegan option. This was almost certainly acceptable to everybody present.
2. Don't schedule important events on Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, or Easter Monday because these days are very important to observant Jews and Christians respectively. Also be sure to make accommodations for Muslims during Ramadan . Observant Jews cannot work between sundown on Friday and sundown on Saturday, and many Christians feel similarly about Sunday.

The above is pretty simple but we know there is a real problem when the DEI people are themselves causes for highly credible EEOC complaints for hostile work environments as happened at Stanford University.

According to the Brandeis Center’s complaint, Stanford’s DEI program has advanced antisemitic tropes concerning Jewish power, conspiracy and control, while endorsing the narrative that Jews support white supremacy and contribute to systemic racism.

Think about it; the DEI people have advanced the same kind of stories about Jews one would normally expect from white supremacist and similar sources. This is far from an isolated incident as reported here . "For example, Coca-Cola made headlines for allegedly providing DEI training to its employees instructing them to 'be less white.' Coca-Cola later disclaimed knowledge of the specifics of the training and insisted it was part of a larger, non-mandatory package of training materials it allowed employees to access."

My perception, right or wrong, is that the instant your company conducts DEI training that says things about people's race or other protected characteristics, it's just created a hostile work or learning environment. Telling people to "be less white," "examine their white privilege," or similar commentary about Black people, Asians, Hispanics, and so on is aggression and there's nothing "micro" about it. Why take the risk? Just make the equal opportunity policy clear and unequivocal, and ensure that people understand that compliance is mandatory.

An opinion piece in Newsweek adds, "Antisemitism is a Growing Problem Among College Diversity Administrators" which suggests again that DEI is a major cause of the problems it purports to solve.

American universities are becoming hotbeds of antisemitism. This is happening, in part, because of the expanding number and power of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) offices that, rather than restraining hostility toward Jews, actually foment it.?

This also raises questions as to the very competence of the DEI people in question who know, or ought to know, that Israel is the only country in that part of the Middle East with equal rights for people of all races, religions, women, and LGBT people. The US Department of Education has meanwhile opened an investigation into a credibly alleged hostile learning environment at Brooklyn College where "professors have [allegedly] maligned Jews on the basis of race and ethnic identity, advancing age-old anti-Semitic tropes concerning Jewish power, conspiracy and control, and endorsing the narrative that Jews are 'white' and privileged and therefore contribute to systemic oppression of people of color." There are even critical race theory (CRT) promoters who contend that Holocaust victim Anne Frank had "white privilege."

It is meanwhile alleged that the Women Against Abuse ?"...asked employees to sign a 'full value contract' as a member of the legal center’s 'white affinity group.'" Even worse was the part that said “Own that all white people are racist and that I am not the exception” which is itself a racist statement by definition that I would, were it directed at me, also construe as workplace harassment. The same DEI people who are supposed to be aware and respectful of everybody's culture scheduled mandatory “implicit bias training”?on Yom Kippur , which is as sacred to observant Jews as Easter is to observant Christians. Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs adds,

The University of Oklahoma may be flirting with lawsuits alleging that they have created a hostile work environment with mandated diversity training material if that material blames white males for most of society’s injustices, according to an attorney who specializes in labor and employment law. ...Such practices as forcing employees to don rainbow badges or Black Lives Matter buttons are also elements of a hostile work environment, he said.

I read that some EU politicians wore rainbow armbands during the World Cup (the soccer players were not permitted to do so) to protest abuses of LGBT people in Qatar and other Middle East countries (Israel not being among the latter, of course) and I agree with their position on this matter. This is not however something that anybody should try to mandate and it might even be a violation of rules (not legal advice) for any program funded by the US Government to compel people to express any opinion with which they disagree.

In this case, the Court ruled that a state cannot force children to stand, salute the flag, and recite the Pledge of Allegiance.?

I would definitely call forcing employees to don BLM buttons, i.e. to support an anti-Semitic entity that incites unlawful behavior and glorifies convicted foreign (Rasmea Odeh) and domestic (Assata Shakur) terrorists a hostile work environment. Most of those I have seen online use the logo of Black Lives Matter Global Network, so they emphatically do not relate to the reputable Black Lives Matter Foundation (Robert Ray Barnes' organization) which has no connection whatsoever with BLMGN. “Own that all white people are racist and that I am not the exception” is also a clear-cut hostile work environment that should be called out on the spot and reported immediately to the company's human resources department and the EEOC. This underscores this article's opening premise; don't bring this stuff under your roof. It's not worth the risk.