ABC cancelled their business relationship with her over her comments. That's business, and not a First Amendment issue.
But she has the right to Free Speech.
And she exercised that right without the government taking any steps to prevent her, though right about now she might be wishing that they had.
And Iger/Redstone have the right to terminate her, But they don’t have the right to slander her. Their slander causes damage to her corporation. It’s actionable.
Then sue them. But she has to be able to prove that what Iger/Redstone said was false and that they knew it was false when they said it. How do you think she'll be able to prove that?
She would sue them because what she said is not racist.
In her opinion and yours perhaps. But it'd be interesting to see her try and convince a jury of that.
My bet is she won’t sue them because she doesn’t need them.
I don't think she'll sue them either, but not for the same reason.
> “ABC cancelled their business relationship with her over her comments. That’s business, and not a First Amendment issue.”
Yes, but you’re missing the bigger picture and I can see you are not sophisticated in the law.
They had the right to cancel their contract with her. They did not have the right to claim she’s a racist which she is not. By going out of bounds to call her a racist, they slandered her and damaged her brand.
She has causes of action against them but in my view, she won’t do anything against them because she doesn’t need them.
She doesn’t have to prove that they knew what was said was false. It’s not about intention. It’s about damage. If you rear-end my car, I don’t need to show you knew before you did it that it was wrong to do it. I just show estimated damages.
It’s easy for her to show that her comments were not racist. As has been posted numerous times, the ape main characters in the Planet of the Apes were white. A jury could see that easily. It would be ludicrous to say that a person looks like they came from the Planet of the Apes is a racist statement when the main character apes were white and the film was not a racist production.
What Jarrett, Iger, Redstone are demonstrating is they can destroy anyone they please by calling them a racist even when untrue as in this case.
But they are destroying themselves because fewer and fewer people like their brand of politics. They are indeed from the Planet of the Apes. What was the theme of that film? It was harsh rule by creatures that were incapable of meting out Judeo-Christian justice.
What is Barr had mentioned Jarrett as some sort of character from a Muslim Klingon film? Would this discussion be happening? No. Would Iger and Redstone have terminated her contract? Yes, because she dared to speak down to one of the members of their liberal elite country club.
It has nothing to do with racism. It’s all about power politics.