Reaction To Rocker Should Be Scorn

John Rocker is a bigoted oaf. But one theme has been nearly missing in the nationwide response to his bigotry and oafishness: It is very troubling when anyone, even a meathead like John Rocker, is punished for his beliefs and speech.

We know he is being punished for his thoughts because he wasn’t just fined ($20,000) and suspended (two months) for his comments in Sports Illustrated on blacks, gays, single mothers and immigrants. He was ordered to undergo “sensitivity training” to have his ideas rearranged by diversity people.

Modern sensitivity training has very little to do with encouraging sensitivity or tolerance. It depends heavily on psychological techniques to break down certain beliefs and attitudes while implanting others.

Whether major league baseball, or any employer, should be in the business of thought reform is an interesting question.

Traditionally, society has been concerned with the behavior of its members, not their thoughts. As long as you do not violate the rights of others, you can think what you like. Your mind may be saintly or aboil with wild prejudices. But your thoughts are yours alone, not to be refurbished under pressure by government, employers or anybody’s trainers.

Now a theory has arisen on the campuses and spread through the intellectual world: Oppression must be rooted out by changing the consciousness of Americans, especially “privileged” citizens (ordinary white people) who do not consider themselves bigots. Sensitivity training and diversity training, by federal and state agencies, employers and universities, is the leading weapon of the new consciousness police. (For an account of what goes on at college freshmen orientation these days, see professor Alan Charles Kors’ article “Thought Reform 101” in the March issue of Reason magazine.)

John Rocker’s punishment for speech, rather than thoughts, is a closer call. Rocker has the right to say what he thinks, but he has no constitutional right to pitch for the Atlanta Braves during March and April. Bud Selig, the baseball commissioner, apparently decided that Rocker’s speech disrupted the workplace and endangered the sale of major league baseball’s product. There is no question that Rocker disturbed his workplace. Players are outraged about his comments, particularly the black teammate dismissed by Rocker as “a fat monkey.” They wanted the Atlanta Braves and/or major league baseball to make clear their disapproval of bigotry by punishing the bigot.

Punishment by employers is one way to discredit prejudiced speech.

But there are problems in punishing speech when you hardly ever punish action. Selig didn’t suspend the Colorado Rockies pitcher who recently pleaded guilty to beating his wife, or the Arizona Diamondbacks reliever charged with smacking his wife around as their young child watched. Surely these cases, too, had a negative effect on the salability of baseball as a wholesome product. Baseball seems to be a bit behind football and basketball in collecting felons, indictees and substance abusers. But it has its share, so it ought to explain why their behavior seems to be less threatening to the game than the occasional oaf outburst in Sports Illustrated.

There are problems, too, in setting the commissioner up as a monitor of players’ speech. Already there are jokes about snitches and tape recorders in the locker room, and which comment deserves which punishment. One sportswriter asks: What is the correct punshment for a utilty infielder who makes one bigoted remark? Expect arguments about double standards, too.

Nobody thinks Rocker or any other player would be suspended for savage criticism of white ethnics. The double-standard argument is already implied in baseball’s differing judgments on former Cincinnati Reds owner Marge Schott (suspended a year for her pro-Hitler, anti-black views) and former Braves owner Ted Turner, no punishment at all for his various colorful comments on Jews, Poles, Christians (“a religion for losers”), Italians (they “would rather be involved in crime”), Haitians (they breed like cats) and unemployed American blacks (they should be used to haul mobile missiles with ropes). If baseball is going into the speech-monitoring business, surely crackpots of the right and crackpots of the left deserve similar treatment.

But here’s a better idea: Don’t go into the speech-monitoring business at all. The way to counter bad speech is with more speech and better speech. The proper reaction to John Rocker is repudiation and contempt, not a search for some authority to squelch him in the name of progress.

Punishing speech is particularly dangerous now because the intellectual class has largely abandoned its passion for freedom of speech. Sophisticated theories of censorship float through the law schools, and doctrines of harassment and “hostile environment” are invoked to restrain speakers and punish speech. Because the state of free speech is so fragile now, people like John Rocker should be left alone. He’s a jerk, but he’s no threat. The threat is trying to shut him up.