Offense of the Month: April 2016
Richard Emery, chairman of New York City’s Civilian Complaint Review Board, which oversees actions of the police department, stepped down (“resigned abruptly,” as the New York Times labeled the move) on April 13, a day after the board’s executive director sued him for gender bias, specifically for uttering a misogynistic phrase.

The squeamish Times did not report the language, but the more colorful New York Post trumpeted the line cited in the lawsuit: “I don’t know why everyone is acting like a bunch of pussies.” (The New York Daily News managed to point to the offensive word, rendering it as “p—y.”)

Executive director Mina Malik claimed Emery’s plaintive cry was aimed at her and a female staff attorney in a conference call last September, during a heated discussion about disciplining two police officers for punching a man on a gurney. Emery insisted that the line had nothing to do with the women; it was, rather, aimed at police department officials who were on the call. That seems the logical explanation. And one wonders what would have happened had he had the discernment to call the department folks “dick heads.” But the entire brouhaha is an example of taking someone down for what he’s said rather than for what he’s done. Continue reading →