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 |  Subject: Attorney Filing Unique Lawsuit Against SPLC Speaks With AFP  Wed Apr 17, 2019 12:38 am | |
| Glen K. Allen, an attorney in Baltimore, Maryland, is the plaintiff in a lawsuit he filed in December 2018 in federal court in Maryland against Heidi Beirich, Mark Potok, and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). Recently, Allen sat down with AFP to talk about his case as well as free speech in the current political environment in the United States.
AFP: Mr. Allen, could you give us a summary of your lawsuit?
Allen: Sure. In August 2016, Heidi Beirich and the SPLC improperly orchestrated my termination as an attorney for the City of Baltimore, where I was doing competent and ethical work.
The SPLC, in its remarkable arrogance, not only does not deny it did this but has boasted about it on one of its so-called “hate maps,” together, of course, with the most unflattering photo of me it could find. I have brought suit in federal court alleging three federal and six state law claims.
My claims are based on the SPLC’s actions against me but also on its conduct over decades that I contend is inconsistent with its status as a law firm and a purported 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to an educational mission. So, in essence, I’m seeking to redress the harms done to me but also to vindicate basic principles of free expression and the rule of law.
AFP: You mentioned free expression. Did you have an interest in that subject prior to this case?
Allen: Yes, for half a century I have seen our American traditions of free expression and free assembly as unique and fragile and have advocated constant vigilance to preserve them. I have tried to do my part to protect them.
AFP: Do you recall when you first became interested in these kinds of issues?
Allen: Actually, I do. When I was a young teenager growing up in western Colorado, I became friends with the son of the local judge, Judge William Ela. Judge Ela and his son were active with the Great Books Reading Program created by the University of Chicago and helped get me involved. That opened my eyes to the importance of free and open discussion of even controversial and unpopular ideas. And there was a specific incident that made a deep impression on me. At one point a young man who had burglarized a bookstore was coming before Ela to be sentenced. Burglarizing a bookstore is a bad act, for sure, but to the man’s credit the books he stole were mostly books of philosophy and history. I was invited to the sentencing. Ela said to the young man: “It is within my power to send you to prison for a year or more, but I’m going to give you a break. I’m putting you on probation for three years, but on condition that you read those books you stole, at least most of them, and report on them to your probation officer.” So the guy had to spend the next few years reading these books of philosophy and history and trying to understand them.
AFP: What was the effect?
Allen: He never got in trouble with the law again.
AFP: Maybe more judges should try that approach.
Allen: You are probably right. Judge Ela was a great judge.
http://americanfreepress.net/attorney-filing-unique-lawsuit-against-splc-speaks-with-afp/
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Anarcho-Capitalist, AnCaps Forum, Ancapolis, OZschwitz Contraband
“The state calls its own violence law, but that of the individual, crime.”-- Max Stirner
"Remember: Evil exists because good men don't kill the government officials committing it." -- Kurt Hofmann |
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