The Lessig blog community is pretty amazing. Self-regulating, constructive, challenging.
Looking back I hope you can see how we paid off on our promise of informational incrementalism
We’ve suggested that discrimination in the military might be ameliorated by asking a simple question.
We’ve suggested that discrimination by the boy scouts might be ameliorated by mandating a private conversation.
We’ve suggested that marriage discrimination might be ameliorated by collecting vacation pledges.
We’ve suggested that employment discrimination might be ameliorated by certifications of legal promises not to discriminate.
We’ve suggested that discrimination in a variety of contexts might be ameliorated by leaving your sexual preference ambiguous (and we’ve provided concrete suggestions when to and when not to ambiguate).
All of these suggestions are centrally about the management of information. It shouldn’t be surprising that cyberspace is a great tool for progress – and one that we explicitly try to exploit both at www.fairemploymentmark.org and www.vacationpledge.org.
We particularly hope that you will join us in pushing for employer adoption of the Fair Employment mark. Lots of people want to know what they can do to make concrete progress in the struggle for gay rights. Well, private employment is a great place to start. Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act is widely regarded as the most important law passed since World War II. The simple idea that employees should be able to sue for discrimination in employment is of course the heart of that law. But more than half of U.S. employees have no right to sue for sexual orientation discrimination. Refusing to hire someone because of his or her sexual orientation is wrong and there is now something that we can do about. Please ask your boss to license the mark. Or if you’re on the board of a non-profit that hires a few people, ask the board if it will promise not to discriminate.
If interested, you can catch us in person at one of the following book events:
Wed. June 8, 7 p.m.
A Different Light Bookstore
489 Castro Street
San Francisco, CA 94114
(415) 431-0891
Sat., June 18, 3 p.m.
Chicago PFLAG
Sidetrack
3349 N. Halsted St.
Chicago, IL
(773) 472-3079
Sun. June 19, 11:30 a.m.
William Way Community Center
1315 Spruce Street
Philadelphia, PA 19107
(215) 732-2220
Sat. June 25th, 2 p.m.
Yale Bookstore
77 Broadway
New Haven, CT 06511
(203) 777-8440
Tue., June 28th
Human Rights Campaign
Washington D.C.
(202) 628-4160
www.hrc.org
Details to be announced
The week has flown by. We leave much richer thanks to you. So Long.
Ian Ayres & Jennifer Gerarda Brown
Thank you Jennifer and Ian. The ideas and posts (and responses by various people to those posts) made me think and reflect a lot over this past week. It was a learning experience for me. I appreciate your visit to this blog and Lawrence for hosting you both. I wish you all the best.
And apologies if I sounded a bit harsh regarding the copyright on your book(s). We “long-haired hippie communists” can be a bit over-zealous in our approach. 😉
Thank you both.