Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 4, 1995 TAG: 9505040077
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
While the concept of eliminating cultural bias is an honorable one, Lawrence Koontz said, in recent years the political correctness movement has become "less about freeing ourselves from cultural bias than about finding a bias in every act of the perceived mainstream."
Koontz, a Salem judge who will leave his seat on the Virginia Court of Appeals to become a Supreme Court justice in August, made his remarks Wednesday during a Law Day speech at the Hotel Roanoke.
In describing how some groups can overreact to perceived threats and "attempt to stifle the act," Koontz cited the case of Sigma Chi Fraternity vs. George Mason University.
In that case, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was asked to rule on whether the fraternity could conduct an "ugly woman contest" skit on the campus of a state-run university.
The final decision, that the skit was entitled to First Amendment protection, could best have been reached without legal action, Koontz said.
While agreeing that the skit was degrading and insulting - "to classify it as sophomoric would be to elevate it to an undeserved level" - Koontz said the university should have been reminded that the right to free speech includes foolish speech.
"Our academic communities are not so fragile that they cannot risk permitting such foolish and immoderate speech to be made and thus subject it to the ridicule, or even better, the obliviousness, it deserves," Koontz said.
"My point is that the rush to the courtroom to redress every grievance threatens to trivialize those issues which are important," he said.
That, in turn, could "foster in the public the belief that lawyers and courts are, in the words of [former U.S. Supreme Court] Justice [Harry] Blackmun, `manipulating doctrine to strike down that which they oppose, distracted from their proper mission of interpreting the law by the temptation to decide issues over politically correct speech and cultural diversity.'"
Addressing a luncheon crowd of about 200 lawyers, Koontz continued: "There are, of course, fights worth fighting, and it is not too much to expect that your collective years of experience and training should help us to recognize what these are."
Koontz, 55, was named to the Supreme Court this year by the General Assembly to replace a retiring justice. A member of the judiciary since he was 27, Koontz has served as a Juvenile and Circuit Court judge in the Roanoke Valley, then on the Court of Appeals, including a stint as chief judge. He is scheduled to be sworn in as a Supreme Court justice in August.
In his speech Wednesday, Koontz also made reference to the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City and the extremist and militia groups that have been linked to it.
"They justify their acts with unsupported claims of conspiracy and corruption in the halls of power, asserting that they - as guardians of a higher truth - are vindicated in using extreme measures to offset their small numbers."
Koontz said he chose political correctness and the Oklahoma City bombing, two topics "at the opposite ends of the political spectrum," to underscore a basic point:
"Diversity requires that we continuously strike a balance between the individual desires of the many and the joint needs of the collective," he said.
"Our goal as law practitioners who act as arbiters of the laws of our society should be to build consensus from our diversity, so that our discords become harmonies."
by CNB