The Volokh Conspiracy
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The New Blacklist: "Metropolitan Opera Says It Will Cut Ties with Pro-Putin Artists"
The New York Times (Javier Hernandez) reported this Sunday:
The Metropolitan Opera said on Sunday that it would no longer engage with performers or other institutions that have voiced support for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, becoming the latest cultural organization to seek to distance itself from some Russian artists amid Mr. Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
Peter Gelb, the Met's general manager, said that the Met, which has long employed Russians as top singers and has a producing partnership with the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, had an obligation to show support for the people of Ukraine.
"While we believe strongly in the warm friendship and cultural exchange that has long existed between the artists and artistic institutions of Russia and the United States," Mr. Gelb said in a video statement, "we can no longer engage with artists or institutions that support Putin or are supported by him."
I certainly don't support Putin, but I don't support ideological blacklists, either, whether it's of artists who back Putin, or who back the Chinese government, or who back Trump or Biden or Ocasio-Cortez. Indeed, one problem with these blacklists is that they lead to calls for broader blacklists. (Indeed, what about Chinese performers who, whether out of ideological conviction or misplaced patriotism or fear of reprisal, have spoken out in support of Xi Jinping?)
To be sure, star performers trade in part on their reputations and goodwill. Some (though I expect only some) might prominently back certain causes in part to improve that goodwill; and sometimes the person or cause one backs might undermine goodwill. From a purely financial perspective, a producer might conclude that employing a now-unpopular star is a bad idea. But I think that prominent cultural institutions should try to resist this pressure, and should try to focus their audiences more on the art, than on the artists' politics.
In some states, such blacklisting would indeed be illegal, at least when the artists are viewed as employees rather than independent contractors under state law (see my Private Employees' Speech and Political Activity: Statutory Protection Against Employer Retaliation); indeed, I expect that would be true of my own California. New York's ban on political discrimination is limited to election-related speech ("running for public office, … campaigning for a candidate for public office, or … participating in fund-raising activities for the benefit of a candidate, political party or political advocacy group"), and it sounds like that isn't the support of Putin that would count. (On its face, the statute doesn't limit itself to American public office, so, presumably, a Frenchman's having campaigned for candidate Macron, or a Russian's having campaigned for candidate Putin, would be protected, but of course Putin doesn't really need that much election-related help.)
New York law does also ban discrimination based on "recreational activities," which means "any lawful, leisure-time activity, for which the employee receives no compensation and which is generally engaged in for recreational purposes, including but not limited to sports, games, hobbies, exercise, reading and the viewing of television, movies and similar material." That might cover some political speech, though New York cases are unclear. Compare Cavanaugh v. Doherty (N.Y. App. Div. 1998) (treating an allegation that plaintiff was fired "as a result of a discussion during recreational activities outside of the workplace in which her political affiliations became an issue" as covered by the statute), and El-Amine v. Avon Prods., Inc. (N.Y. App. Div. 2002) (apparently likewise as to plaintiff's "involvement in a vigil for Matthew Shepard, the gay college student who was brutally murdered in Laramie, Wyoming," Jennifer Gonnerman, Avon Firing, Village Voice, Mar. 2, 1999), with Kolb v. Camilleri (W.D.N.Y. 2008) ("Plaintiff did not engage in picketing for his leisure, but as a form of protest. While the Court has found such protest worthy of constitutional protection, it should not engender simultaneous protection as a recreational activity ….").
But in any event, even if the Met's actions—and similar actions by other institutions—are legal, I think they are a bad idea: they lead to more political divisiveness and hostility, less free and open discussion, and pressure to implement broader suppression in the future.
After drafting the post, I also noticed this article by Prof. Tyler Cowen (Bloomberg Opinion) that makes very similar points; I highly recommend it.
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I have to wonder if this all has something to do with the Biden Administration tanking so badly that when they found out the amount of support there was for the Ukraine that they all had to jump on board to say that “We’re not as bad as you think we are.”
I support cancel culture. It should apply to all woke. Shut down the entire school for the slightest woke utterance. Woke is a masking ideology for the criticism of the USA by the Chinese Commie Party from the 1960’s. It is all Mao crap. Zero tolerance for treason. To deter.
I support the immediate cancellation of Putin. It would save a $trillion in damage, much more counting the effect of inflation and other economic ripple effects. Why is this so hard? Cancel the dude. Why? Because lawyer scumbag traitors say, it is illegal. Cancel the lawyer scubag traitors, then cancel Putin.
Any lawyer who just begins the sentence, it is illegal to cancel a national leader, should get a bullet in the forehead on the spot.
OK. This idea is self evident.
https://www.fox13now.com/news/national-news/russia-ukraine-conflict/russian-businessman-puts-1-million-bounty-of-putins-head
Nuttier than a Planters factory…
Hi, Queenie. Working on your letter. What is your race? There is no need to be shy about it. Be proud.
My race is homo sapien, I get yours is homo delirus virginalis.
How about someone like Valery Gergiev, who has close personal ties to Putin that he refuses to walk back?
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/01/arts/music/valery-gergiev-fired-munich-ukraine.html
Why is this any different than the ParaOlympics banning RU athletes, bars pouring RU vodka down the drain, or the Russians cutting off supplies/support to space rockets?
This is a business decision based on a political factor.
Why should performers get any special treatment?
Throwing away vodka you already paid for is just as stupid.
Space rocket parts are strategic resources.
Olympic athletes represent their countries in an official capacity.
Punishing individual performers for wrong-think is counter-productive and sadistic.
Not to mention that only a tiny (single digit) percentage of the vodka was actually Russian.
Smirnoff is made in the USA.
Stoli is made in Latvia.
Or only buying things that are made in America. Only shopping at retailers who display a Christian fish symbol or an LGBT flag.
Current boycotts of Russian goods and services are one way to send a message into Russia that the Russian censors cannot easily delete.
shawn_dude: Your examples are actually quite telling — a business’s only hiring employees who display a Christian fish symbol would indeed be illegal religious discrimination (and in the view of many, improper). A business’s only hiring employees who display an LGBT flag at home would be compelling employees to engage in apolitical speech, which some state laws would prohibit, and which I think many people would think improper. Generally speaking, the law treats employers’ discrimination against employees differently from consumers’ discrimination against businesses; and I think many people’s ethical judgment is comparable. Perhaps that’s a mistake, and employer boycotts of employees should be treated the same as consumer boycotts; but I think you’d need to defend that more to make your analogy work. [Note that this was inadvertently originally posted as a separate comment; I’ve reposted it as a reply here.]
Performers? So you’re OK with the Hollywood blacklist?
I too think this is misguided; no better than the BDS crap.
At least BDS is a NGO.
Imagine if a govt entity denied services or equal access based on a political point of view?
Like Texas where a state law prohibits government agencies from doing business with contractors who are boycotting Israel.
War is hell.
Your virtue signalling is weak, so I will virtue signal harder to show you how it’s done.
The liberal version of “Hold my beer.”
“Holy my organically-grown local craft beer.”
Is that from that new emo Batman movie?
Time for Russians to choose.
Wake me up when Fox News severs its ties with their pro-Putin “opinion” people.
Or did that get stuffed down the memory hole too quickly?
I should say this, in fairness. I don’t “watch” TV (this isn’t some weird humblebrag- I watch tons of streaming stuff, just not “TV” like in the traditional sense). That said, I have had “traditional TV” on in the background for since Saturday when I’ve been home (I kept it because Sports, RedZone, that sort of thing).
Anyway, I was flipping back and forth between CNN, FoxNews, MSNBC, and BBC World Service. Overall, BBC was, by far, the best in terms of reasonable coverage.
But I have to give props- the daytime and weekend coverage of the actual news, by Fox, was really good. The people on the ground … the journalists … the stuff during the day on Saturday and Sunday … easily as good, and occasionally better, than the stuff on the other American channels.
And so it was downright bizarre to see what happened on Monday, when the coverage moved to the “talking heads.”
….wow. It was like a switch went off, and it went to crazy town.
I like Ros Atkins’ Outside Source on BBC.
Putin has been known to silence critics with an early grave.
The alternatives are get cancelled or risk an early death. I wonder which he cancellers would choose?
Putin is deliberately engaging in a strategy of murdering children in order to force the Ukrainians to capitulate. If you support this, even if doing so because of fear, you are still supporting the murder of children. There aren’t 2 sides, there is no need for dialogue. Either you oppose murdering children, or you are evil. There is nothing wrong with the Metropolitan Opera not wanting to do business with evil people. Being a coward is not an excuse for supporting evil.
By “a strategy of murdering children” are you claiming that the Russian armed forces are targeting children as a priority, as opposed to the targeting children’s parents, or any other adult who gets in their way? Sounds doubtful to me. Got anything to back that up?
I would point to the cluster bimbs they dropped on civilian areas of Kyiv. And the rather well-known case of the young girl who died after getting her legs blown off. Just for starters.
“producing partnership with the Bolshoi Theater”
The Bolshoi [and its ballet troupe] is a regime prestige organization. Boycotting it sends a message at least, like no world cup matches.
Just a gesture but no harm. Maybe a singer is married to a general and there will be a coup.
I agree here. The Bolshoi is, like it or not, sort of a part of the Russian government. It enhances the country’s prestige.
It is not an individual performer who may well be under the pressures that others have described or, as I understand it, an independent company.
As long as we’re all singing from the same sheet of music – not to blow my own horn, but I knew this whole thing could get violin.
I see that Anna Netrebko has cancelled (or been disinvited) to an upcoming performance at the Met. Ms. Netrebko has been guilty of wrongthink since, at times in the past, she has expressed admiration for Putin.
What Ms. Netrebko has to offer the world that makes her different from almost everyone else in the world is her glorious voice. And she–or the Met–is depriving the audience of that.
As for opinions–she has some–but then opinions are like noses and everybody has at least one. Which just makes her part of the universal common herd in that regard.
There’s perhaps an important distinction to be made between cultural figures like Gergiev and Netrebko and a carpenter or a general manager of an opera house. Gergiev conducts the Russian repertoire very well, and a visit by the Marinskii is about the interchange of cultures; similarly, Netrebko is a cultural ambassador (Georgian, I think) for a very specific sensibility — yes, she’s an international artist, but there are are no international artists without provenance and origin. If an art gallery decided to purge the walls of the works of any artist connected with a certain cultural sensibility, I don’t know that the artists would have a cause of action. If a ballet company’s performance or a historical novelist’s reading were to be cancelled, same. No one at this level has a legitimate expectation of employment (a repertory company with a fixed ensemble, of course, would be a very different matter). It’s about the managed interchange of cultures. (Ever wonder why there are so few French plays on Broadway?) As such, rights discourse isn’t the best way of framing the question — it’s better considered as a question of how best to compose the culture. And a civilized culture doesn’t ban their adversaries’ artists.
Mr. D.
” I certainly don’t support Putin, but I don’t support ideological blacklists, either, ”
I wonder how many Americans are in the market for pointers on issues such as this from Eugene Volokh.
Prof. Volokh spoke often and admirably about Judge Kozinski for years — until revelations of Judge Kozinski’s shameful conduct destroyed the judge’s reputation. Then, Prof. Volokh — who could be expected to possess not only a useful perspective but also worthwhile information concerning the ungentlemanly-to-abusive conduct toward women in the relevant chambers — suddenly became silent about Judge Kozinski. (He continued his sniping against liberal targets, of course, and his promotion of right-wing persons and causes — but Judge Kozinski had nothing to fear from The Volokh Conspiracy and its conspicuous silence.)
Prof. Volokh also had plenty to say about John Eastman — endorsing Prof. Eastman for public office, for example, and vouching for his character and judgment. He appears to have less to say about John Eastman these days — nothing about Prof. Eastman’s character, his conduct, his legal arguments, the endorsement, or anything else — even as legitimate reporters and investigators are establishing Prof. Eastman to be quite the current subject of attention. Which is precisely what observant readers have come to expect at The Volokh Conspiracy — cowardly silence when this blog’s favorites are revealed by other sources to be rather different from previous accounts in this space.
I sense we should not expect to hear anything from Prof. Volokh about Ted Cruz (another Volokh endorsement) these days, as well.
This blog permits but two links, so far as I am aware, which explains the lack of a half-dozen or so other vivid points of evidence for the proposition that this blog operates with polemical partisan cowardice — and is in no position to offer an informed audience with much that is useful about associations, legitimate criticisms, “open discussion,” honorable conduct, “suppression,” character, “political divisiveness,” and the like.
Yawn. Troll better. Even Behar tries harder than you do.
Normally I would agree that no one should be blacklisted. In a time of war with world wide implications I think we should be using every non-violent means at our disposal to stop Russia.
And Opera blacklisting accomplishes that? How?
The same way banning athletes from international competition does. Russia has always been proud of her athletes and performers. Sending them away or banning them is just one more small way to isolate Russia.
I don’t know which is more annoying: the current Democrat intolerant virtue signaling or 80s era “peace” and anti-nuke protests (Sting’s “Don’t the Russians love their kids too?” blech was especially nauseating.
I might have to nominate Trump for a second Nobel Peace Prize; By sending a few empty platitudes Putin’s way he got the majority of American Democrats to oppose the Russian war machine — now THAT is progress!!!!!
Lol, this is my favorite ‘look over there not behind my side’s curtain [which was loving them some Putin and Russia until quite recently]’ of the week!
You think Obama mailed his apology note to Mitt Romney yet?
Lol, ‘look back at 2012!’ You’re proving my point.
You have no point, fool
1) It’s not the 1980s, this is not a Cold War foreign policy.
2) 2012 is not 2021.
Which changes NOTHING about my point.
Obama mocked Romney/Republicans for seeing Russia as a threat and Democrats piddled and talked of “resets” and coddled Russia UNTIL Trump used his stupid sales-man pitch to try and butter up Putin (former KGB member.)
Except for buggery and baby-killing, the only TRUE guiding lights of the Democrat party, Trump could come out in favor of ice cream, and Democrats would declare rocky road a controlled substance and white supremacist!
“Which changes NOTHING about my point. ”
You don’t get the implications of your point or what’s been pointed out about it.
“Except for buggery and baby-killing, the only TRUE guiding lights of the Democrat party”
Ah, the mask slips.
Russia is not a threat to us. Doesn’t mean they aren’t a threat to regional stability. But you’ve never been very good at nuance.
Your certainty that Dems would have thrown in with Putin were it not for Trump is a counterfactual and says more about you than reality.
One thing that is certain is that some in the GOP seem to be pro-Putin, to their shame.
Russia and its nuclear arsenal are much more of a threat to us than Obama’a preferred bogeyman of al Qaeda.
And, so far, Russia has still been a bigger geopolitical threat — to the US and to international order — than China. China is setting up economic traps for small countries, but Russia installs puppet regimes or invades then instead. It looks like Romney was exactly right.
“Russia is not a threat to us.”
Russia has thousands of nuclear weapons and is currently run by someone who seems … bad at judging risk and has a penchant for military solutions, to put it politely.
And BTW, there was no communist Nuremberg, no trials, no admissions, no prison sentences. No accounting for the evil of the USSR. It’s the same damn country with many of the same people.
All of my life I have witnessed Democrat party that contained more than a few apologists/defenders of that evil ideology.
The Democratic party defends the USSR?
You’re a Bircher, aren’t you?
Um, no. There is way to much documentation of the sympathies of several officials in various Democrat administrations for you to play dumb — you are aware of the Venona project and what it revealed.
It was in no way the majority of Democrats (the majority of Democrats used to love their country believe it or not) but we are not going to pretend the radical left was without power and influence.
Bernie Sanders is more of a gadfly than a powerbroker, but he is not exactly alone and without influence now is he!
Whether or not the Democratic party defended the USSR, it’s funny to watch how it’s now become more Russophobic than the John Birchers were back in the day.
Reading your comments is a lot like reading a SCOTUS opinion on a qualified immunity case. Nothing ever seems to be alike enough to be valid.
Of course, back when the Left had less power/proclivity to ‘blacklist’ entertainers and were more likely the target of them Volokh thought it was both hunky and dory to do so!
https://volokh.com/posts/1137731877.shtml
That ‘inner Souter’ is doing a lot of work recently!
Nice catch.
Prof. Volokh seems to have lost his way — and to have forgotten (or, at least, to hope others forget) some of the steps he took along the way.
You mean that he distinguishes between boycotts by consumers and boycotts by prominent cultural institutions?
“But I think that prominent cultural institutions should try to resist this pressure, and should try to focus their audiences more on the art, than on the artists’ politics.”
That makes perfect sense. As I consumer, I might not enjoy listening to an opera singer because his alma mater is my school’s football rival. But we wouldn’t expect institutions claiming to promote Opera to take such things into account.
We opened the door to ideological censorship with Big-Tech’s push toward controlling “misinformation”, and that led to politically-correct boycotts against the [COVID-]unvaccinated and now Russians for everything from jobs to medical care:
https://www.eugyppius.com/p/ortrud-steinlein-director-of-lmu
“We opened the door to ideological censorship with Big-Tech’s push toward controlling “misinformation””
Did you just arrive on Earth a couple years ago?
Let’s imagine an actor in 1942 who supported the Holocaust. Would it be okay to blacklist him? Similarly today, would it be acceptable to blacklist people who support the genocide of Uyghurs in Xinjiang province.
Is it okay to boycott companies who make use of Uyghur concentration camp labor to produce their products?
It’s not totally clear to me where you’d draw a principled line between these examples and supporting Xi Jinping.
Culture workers (actors, singers, etc…) lend glamour to the ideas they embrace. An employer of culture workers who doesn’t want to lend glamour to noxious ideas should be well within their rights to refuse to work with such people.
Really, the principled libertarian line here should be that a company can refuse to employ you for any advocacy you engage in. Freedom of association means the freedom to choose not to associate with people. That we should probably frown on engaging in refusal to associate because of political party doesn’t mean that there shouldn’t be the right to choose to do so, nor that other sorts of refusal to associate because of expressed beliefs aren’t warranted.
Related to EV’s response to shawn_dude about consumer versus employer boycotts, I would highlight the difference between boycotts based purely on speech and boycotts based on further conduct. The Met’s statement here is ambiguous about what “support” means. If it means sending money or tangible aid, the refusal to do business seems defensible. If it means speaking in favor of someone, the cute for bad speech is more speech, and the Met can make whatever public statement they feel distances them from the viewpoints they reject.
In the ‘support for the holocaust’ case, does it make a difference if it’s tangible aid or merely speaking in favor of? Should a business be required to associate someone who promotes the holocaust, even just by their words?
I agree with EV. Blacklisting is bad. Institutions should have more respect for their institutional mission than to volunteer to engage in blacklisting.
Demanding loyalty oaths from performers is even worse.
Does Ben recognize that he has belittled essentially every conservative-controlled school in the United States?
shawn_dude: Your examples are actually quite telling — a business’s only hiring employees who display a Christian fish symbol would indeed be illegal religious discrimination (and in the view of many, improper). A business’s only hiring employees who display an LGBT flag at home would be compelling employees to engage in apolitical speech, which some state laws would prohibit, and which I think many people would think improper. Generally speaking, the law treats employers’ discrimination against employees differently from consumers’ discrimination against businesses; and I think many people’s ethical judgment is comparable. Perhaps that’s a mistake, and employer boycotts of employees should be treated the same as consumer boycotts; but I think you’d need to defend that more to make your analogy work.