Philly cops run a forum which is allegedly somewhat friendly to racism

This was on CNN's page today, apparently,

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A group of black Philadelphia police officers filed a federal lawsuit Thursday against their department, alleging an online forum geared toward city police is "infested with racist, white supremacist and anti-African-American content."

The suit alleges white officers post on and moderate the privately operated site, Domelights.com, both on and off the job.

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I went over to their forum (bizarre in its self obsession with their location and profession, by the way, but heck, whatever floats your boat) and did a quick look around. No "About The Forums" forum or anything, thought the joke section would be racist but I only clicked on two jokes and they were eh, whatever, random jokes.

There was one link, however, that was titled "RACISM". Well, you'd have to read it to get the full appreciation of what is going on there. The gist of it is that someone said they're a cop and they were appalled at the racism on the website. A couple people give mild support to their comment but most dismiss it jokingly and talk about their choice in pickup trucks to show their lack of giving a damn.

Had I not found that thread over there I wouldn't have posted this thread, but my first impression is that the place is what the CNN article states.. A racist bunch of people that work on the force with people that are not white.

How 1st Amendment is this? Would it be legal if it were entirely off hours (and not on hours as is claimed by the plaintiffs?) Is that the crux of this lawsuit? (the article isn't exactly clear on what's going on there)

I think a large number of posters there are unambiguously racist. Take a look at petdetective's post in this thread, for a start. It also seems to be the case that anytime anybody mentions racism, there's a concerted effort to move the conversation off-topic.

I don't know enough about American law to know whether this is legal or not. It seems the lawsuit is against the police department, though, for fostering a hostile work environment. I know in the UK, the posters, if they were officers, would probably get sacked: police officers are expected to inspire the trust of the community, and being a member of a racist organization, like the BNP, etc. is grounds for instant dismissal.

(The guy you mentioned in your post giving support for the poster is black himself, from what I can gather.)

Get a fucking clue.

petdetective registered on that site yesterday and made two posts before being banned. He joined in response to the CNN story it would seem. Find a racist post by someone who has been on the site for more than a couple of months with a fair number of posts and then maybe you would have a point.

US Americans are big supporters of unlimited free speech - isn't it within the free speech rights of these cops to say whatever they want on their own forum?

Yah they're protected under freespeech but they can be suspended and/or dismissed based on their actions outside of being police officers. One of those, you personally won't be charged with any crime but your actions may have reflected badly upon your employment and they don't have to follow rules of free speech. But anyway, if you weren't aware Philadelphia was kind of a racially polarized city then you must be not living in Philadelphia.

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Originally posted by featherlou

US Americans are big supporters of unlimited free speech - isn't it within the free speech rights of these cops to say whatever they want on their own forum?

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People have definitely been fired for speech that was off-hours before; while I don't have any examples to hand, and I don't know the specifics of the law, I'm pretty sure that even regular businesses have fired employees for things said on the internet. A police department has even more reason to do this, really, since if cops were engaging in racist speech it would damage the department's ability to keep the public's trust.

Most employment in the United States is at-will anyway, which means that you can be fired for any reason, or no reason, with the exception of illegal discrimination (which, of course, is typically hard to prove.)