What is &quot;racism&quot;? The phrase &quot;the best applicant should get the job&quot; is considered racist. A college professor is suspended for refusing to give preferential treatment to black students. Quoting MLK famous &quot;I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character&quot; can get you accused of being a racist. People get fired as racists for saying explicitly color-blind things such as &quot;all lives matter.&quot; On the other hand the following is not considered racist: A college professor who said on TV &quot;white lives don't matter&quot; gets promoted. A mayor who kneels in front of BLM to apologize for the entire white race, and therefore implying that the entire race shares a collective guilt, is praised.&quot; A TV commentator who claims that white people broke social contract and therefore black people not only can, but should loot and burn the cities, is still hosting his show. Uber orders drivers to direct their passengers who ask for restaurant recommendations to restaurants owned by African Americans, regardless of the comparative quality with other restaurants. Numerous claims that all white people, regardless of their socioeconomic status, share collective guilt, claims that are eerie similar to Nazi claims of Jewish collective guilt, are promoted on TV. A witch hunt for any possible sign of white supremacy, even as ridiculous as suspending a youtube chess channel for phrases such as &quot;in this position white has an advantage&quot;, while completely ignoring and even praising the most outrageous anti-white speeches and actions... It seems I don't understand what's being meant by &quot;racism&quot; these days. Thus the questions: Is the term &quot;racism&quot; defined in US law? It ought to be, given the existence of &quot;hate crimes&quot;. What's the definition? Is the definition color-blind (as hate toward another race) or color-specific (as hate toward specific races)? Ditto hate crime. Are attacks against white people because of the color of their skin considered hate crimes? Encouraging violence against white people in the current situation is not unlike shouting &quot;fire&quot; in a crowded theater. Why speeches by TV personalities who encourage violence are not reined in? Is there a mechanism for lay people to challenge that?
The term &quot;racism&quot; is a political one, not a legal one, which refers to a belief. It is not illegal in the US, and it is a belief that is protected under the First Amendment. There is a legal construct, &quot;discrimination on the basis of race&quot;, which enters into laws. For example, you may not discriminate in employment on the basis of race: but those law don't distinguish discrimination in favor and discrimination against. Hate crimes are crimes which additionally discriminate on the basis of some protected class (see &quot;discrimination&quot;). Assaulting a person because they are white, black, Catholic, atheist, male or female is a hate crime. Everybody falls into one or more protected categories (everybody has some race, religion including lack, and sex) – hate crime laws add &quot;because of&quot;, for those extra penalties. Assalting a white, black, male or female person is not a hate crime, by itself. The government is not the only source of reigning in of speech that you don't like, in fact, it isn't way of suppressing speech that you don't like at all, at least as long as we have the First Amendment. An employer has the right to hire a racist, or to fire a racist, at least until the law changes.
I virtually never see "without prejudice" used in anything but court documents, unless the writer does not know what he's saying. A typical example would be when a person sues someone, but brings the case in the wrong court. The judge would dismiss the case without prejudice, meaning that the plaintiff could refile somewhere else. In contrast, if the person filed in the correct court, but the judge ruled that the plaintiff had done nothing wrong, the judge would then dismiss the case with prejudice. I believe I have on some occasions seen the phrase used in legal correspondence, perhaps noting, for example, that a party was willing to settle his sexual harassment claim for X amount of money without prejudice to their claims for some unrelated issue. In either event, "without prejudice" is typically referring to the ongoing ability to litigate a claim. I'm not entirely clear on how you're envisioning it being used as e-mail boilerplate, but I can't see any reason to do so. If you did, that would not have any effect on the e-mail's admissibility. EDIT: One other note, because I hadn't looked at it before. The LinkedIn article to which you linked and the comments on it are basically nonsense. Legal advice from a graduate of the "School of Life" is about as valuable as life advice from a graduate of a school of law.
The comments have already pointed out that the President of the United States is still a citizen, and all of the rights of a citizen are still protected for them. Additionally, the Administration is allowed to take policy positions which are antagonistic to a person or group's cause, even if that group is practicing their rights to express their views legally. To give a different example, the President and his administration may denounce the position of a group of Neo-Nazis marching legally. So, any argument that the President is acting in an official capacity while making antagonistic comments also probably fails, as the Administration is allowed to take a position on any issue they deem worth taking a stand on. As noted in another answer and in comments, the applicable laws appear to be 18 U.S. Code § 227, which provides for punishment of government officials who attempt to influence employment decisions through official acts for political purposes, and 42 U.S. Code § 1983, which provides for civil action when a person deprives, or causes the deprivation of, another person's rights under color of law. 18 U.S. Code § 227 likely does not apply for two reasons The President may show that his conduct was not purely for political purpose The official statements made do not qualify as official acts per McDonnell v. United States, as they are not a decision or action on a "question, matter, cause, suit, proceeding or controversy"; that question or matter must involve a formal exercise of governmental power, and must also be something specific and focused that is "pending" or "may by law be brought" before a public official 42 U.S. Code § 1983 might apply if the official statements were found to be acting under color of law, but I think the statements made so far will fail to meet the qualifications for this statute. Blair v. Bethel School District gives three qualifications for conduct that would allow recovery under this statute: (1) he engaged in constitutionally protected activity; (2) as a result, he was subjected to adverse action by the defendant that would chill a person of ordinary firmness from continuing to engage in the protected activity; and (3) there was a substantial causal relationship between the constitutionally protected activity and the adverse action. The President's and Administration's official speech appears to fail the second criteria. First, it is questionable whether it qualifies as an "Adverse Action" - in Blair, as well as Hartman v. Moore and Gibson v. United States, the adverse action against the Plaintiff caused actual damage or indignity. However, even if we assume the official speech qualifies as an adverse action for the purposes of the statute, it still appears to be permissible for effectively the same reasons as the first and third arguments presented in the decision: First, the adverse action Blair complains of was a rather minor indignity, and de minimis deprivations of benefits and privileges on account of one's speech do not give rise to a First Amendment claim. The actual effect of the Administration's speech has a minimal direct effect on the players it speaks against. The decision further states: The most familiar adverse actions are “exercise[s] of governmental power” that are “regulatory, proscriptive, or compulsory in nature” and have the effect of punishing someone for his or her speech Official speech by the Administration is not "regulatory, proscriptive, or compulsory in nature." While this is not a complete definition for "adverse action," it gives a sense of severity, which official speech does not appear to meet. Additionally, the President's right to speech, and the Administration's authority and need to make official speech as directed by the President is a competing interest in this case, as was the interest of the Board in Blair: Third, it is significant that Blair isn't the only party in this case whose interests implicate First Amendment concerns. To the contrary, we assume all of the Board members have a protected interest in speaking out and voting their conscience... The decision does note that: The point isn't that the vote against Blair was protected speech simply because it was expressive. Almost all retaliatory actions can be said to be expressive, including those that are manifestly unconstitutional. But, while Blair certainly had a First Amendment right to criticize Seigel and vote against his retention as superintendent, his fellow Board members had the corresponding right to replace Blair with someone who, in their view, represented the majority view of the Board. Similarly, it's probable that a court would find that the President's right to speech and their Administration's corresponding authority to speech against the players' right to protest is equally weighted or even weightier, such that stifling the official speech is as bad or worse than the alleged chilling effect of the speech. Some examples of things that clearly would fall afoul of 42 U.S. Code § 1983 would be the President or the Administration misappropriating funds to use to pay NFL teams not to hire players who kneel during the national anthem, or signing an Executive Order preventing players who kneel during the national anthem from playing - in both cases, they are taking actions which fall outside the powers of their office, which would qualify as acts made under color of law and clearly chill the players' First Amendment rights.
In the United States, what is &quot;fair&quot; and &quot;unfair&quot; is typically not a legal question, in large part because it is so subjective. There are some exceptions -- such as in copyright law or competition law -- but in the discrimination context, we use the lawful/unlawful distinction. Bequeathing a house to your child solely because he is your child, for instance, is not fair but it is lawful. The same is true for giving more to your oldest child simply for being the oldest, or cutting a black relative out of your will: not fair, but lawful. Assuming there's a valid will, a court will rarely make a serious inquiry into the fairness of the decedent's discrimination among beneficiaries. The same types of issues come up in contexts that are more routine subjects of discrimination law. In employment, for instance, you might have two employees: a lazy white salesman who's been around for 20 years and a new black woman who does an excellent job answering the phones. If you only have enough money to give one raise, giving it to the black woman is both fair and lawful. Giving it to the white guy because he's been around longer is probably not fair but still lawful, while giving it to him strictly because he's white is probably neither fair nor lawful. The inutility of the fair/unfair distinction can become especially clear in the affirmative-action context, where the question of fairness remains hotly debated. If an employer has two equally qualified candidates, would it be fair to require him to choose a black applicant over a white applicant as a means of redressing centuries of discrimination against blacks? What if the black applicant is only marginally less qualified? What if the black applicant is far less qualified? There are many who think each of these would be fair, and there are many who think none of them would be. In the end, then, the courts tend only to ask whether discrimination is lawful, which can usually be resolved by applying the facts to the law, leaving questions about what is fair to lawmakers and commentators.
The classificational scheme "White; black or African American; American Indian and Alaska Native; Asian; and Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander" was instituted on May 12, 1977 through Office of Management and Budget Directive 15, which articulates "standard classifications for record keeping, collection, and presentation of data on race and ethnicity in Federal program administrative reporting and statistical activities". In the case of Mostafa Hefny, his classification as white would be a consequence of being from North Africa (Egypt), and the fact that "white" is defined as "A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, North Africa, or the Middle East". A possible point of contention is that he is not from North Africa: the directive does not say where North Africa (as opposed to unmodified Africa) is. Discussion was published in the Federal Register, August 28, 1995, about these standards, and to make a really long story short, there's a problem, and no solution. The October 30, 1997 decision states the current law. This is what you should consult for the current situation: a propos the case of Nubians, the conflict still remains regarding the definition of "white" as "A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa", and "black" as "person having origins in any of the black racial groups of Africa" (Nubians fall into both categories: a black racial group of Northern Africa). In non-immigration cases, racial and ethnic data are based on self-reporting. There is no strict rule, but "self-identification is the preferred means of obtaining information about an individual's race and ethnicity" (not possible in some instances, such as birth and death records). The set of categories which the census makes available is somewhat changeable. They currently report that they comply with the 1997 standards, but this report indicates that they had intended to drop "some other race" for 2010, but did not because of a Congressional mandate. The government does not "recognize" individuals racially, instead they "report" them in a particular manner, so that counts can be made for whatever purposes (usually Civil Rights Act compliance). The rules apply to new and revised records, and not to existing records. One would have to look at the record of Hefny's suit, but it is likely that lack of standing and failure to state a legal claim figured prominently in the dismissal, if the case was dismissed.
Law The origin of the phrase is from the Supreme Court of the United States in the case Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47 (1919). It specifically rules on the limitation of freedom of speech (first amendment): The original ruling is this: The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic. [...] The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent. As pointed out by @phoog, this does not saying anything about the lawfullness of shouting "fire", it says that if your speech creates a clear and present danger, the first amendment will not protect you, even if the danger does not result in actual harm. Commentary If these instances are correct then it would seem clear that Freedom of Speech is being honored as it's the result of speech, not the speech itself, that could be an offense. You seem to think that it should be illegal, but only if it results in a panic that endangers people. If people ignore you, you think it should be protected by your first amendment rights. That's not how the law works. The law tries, among other things. To establish norms for human behaviour. For example, you will be punished for driving an automobile while intoxicated, even of this does not result in you running over somebody. In the words of the supreme court: If your actions "are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger", the congress has the right to prevent you from doing so, despite the first amendment.
Some are, some aren't. For instance, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibits all employment discrimination on the basis of race, including discrimination against whites. On the other hand, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act explicitly only protects people who are at least 40, and the Supreme Court held that it only applies to discrimination against older workers in favor of younger workers in General Dynamics v. Cline. While both laws forbid discrimination on the basis of X, the Supreme Court held that Congress clearly meant to limit ADEA to discrimination against older workers. You specifically use veteran status as an example. Veteran status is protected by the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act. The point of the law is explicitly to make it easier for people to serve in uniform without messing up their career. The law specifically bans discrimination against veterans (or a couple other service-related categories) on the basis of service. It does not ban discrimination in favor of veterans. In fact, the federal government (which is supposed to be a model employer under USERRA) gives veterans a preference in hiring decisions. Congress's goal in enacting Title VII was to make race a non-factor in employment; their goal with USERRA was to encourage military service.
This is the overview of employment discrimination by the EEOC (no legal reason for them to specifically put this under &quot;youth&quot;). To &quot;discriminate&quot; against someone means to treat that person differently, or less favorably, for some reason... The laws enforced by EEOC protect you from employment discrimination when it involves: Unfair treatment because of your race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, gender identity, and sexual orientation), national origin, disability, age (age 40 or older), or genetic information. Harassment by managers, co-workers, or others in your workplace, because of your race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, gender identity, and sexual orientation), national origin, disability, age (age 40 or older), or genetic information. A subtype of harassment is &quot;hostile environment harassment&quot;. See the EEOC page on harassment. It is unwelcome conduct that is based on race... Harassment becomes unlawful where 1) enduring the offensive conduct becomes a condition of continued employment, or 2) the conduct is severe or pervasive enough to create a work environment that a reasonable person would consider intimidating, hostile, or abusive. Also it is illegal to punish a person for complaining about harassment. On the face of it, this could constitute racial harassment. The EEOC suggests that it is illegal here, in their FAQ Are White employees protected from race discrimination even though they are not a minority? Yes. You are protected from different treatment at work on the basis of your race, whether you are White, Black, or some other race. Although this is an advisory from the Dep't of Interior and not the EEOC, it is reasonable to assume that it was at least minimally vetted by competent lawyers who know discrimination law. What is prohibited is Unwelcome conduct, verbal or physical, including intimidation, ridicule, insult, comments, or physical conduct, that is based on an individual’s protected status or protected activities under Personnel Bulletin 18-01, when the behavior can reasonably be considered to adversely affect the work environment, or an employment decision affecting the employee is based upon the employee’s acceptance or rejection of such conduct (where race is a protected status). I don't know of any case law that establishes for certain that what you describe is illegal. The ministerial exception allows a religion to follow the rules of the religion in hiring its ministers, but otherwise doesn't exempt religions from prohibitions against discrimination.