When I heard that David Horowitz would be speaking on campus against the concept of reparations for slavery, I thought he was beating a dead horse.
I remember the controversy about the full-page newspaper advertisement he placed in college papers around the country - including the Daily Lobo - but I thought that controversy had long since died down.
But lo and behold, as I sat perusing the Internet Monday night, I came across a news item. Deadria Farmer-Paellmann, a New York slavery reparations activist, is suing three major companies for that very thing. She claims that Aetna, CTX and FleetBoston all profited from the slave labor of her ancestors.
Nor is this an isolated incident. Rather, it is the first sign of an impending flood of such lawsuits. Former O.J. Simpson lawyer Johnnie Cochrane and others are preparing lists of companies to target for lawsuits, including universities such as Harvard and Yale that benefited from donations by slave owners.
It is a sad day for American values when lawsuits like this are not laughed out of the courtroom. All the other criticisms aside, it violates some of the most important founding principles of the United States.
Although it is not ex post facto in the legal sense because this is a civil trial and not a criminal one, it is seeking damages for injustices, which only later came to be condemned. I'm not trying to justify slavery by saying that but imposing modern values on people 150 years in the grave is not justice either.
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Worse, these lawsuits seek to gain money from people who are alive today. People who cannot have only the most tenuous of connections to slave holders of the past are being taken to court to defend themselves for the deeds of people they never even knew.
A corporation is not like an individual who just happened to live for 150 years and can now be held accountable for past offenses. Large corporations like the ones being sued are simply organizations owned by shareholders. Individual shareholders can and should be responsible for their actions, but the individual shareholders who supported these companies in the 1850s are all long gone.
Effectively, Ms. Farmer-Paellmann is bringing a lawsuit against people who had nothing to do with the allegations. Where is the American citizen's right to be free from persecution for the crimes of others?
At the center of this issue is the concept of individual responsibility. The purpose of the U.S. government is to create a level playing field in which individuals can apply their talents and live their lives freely. Nobility and servitude are not hereditary here.
While inequities still exist, the opportunities for anyone from any background to accomplish their dreams is greater here than it has ever been anywhere in the world. There are many examples in the United States of people born into disadvantaged circumstances and finding ways to succeed.
If a court were to agree with Ms. Farmer-Paellmann and award her money, they would be opening a Pandora's box, inviting anyone whose ancestors were ever treated poorly to sue for a corporation's money. The court would be establishing the precedent of taking money from people who did not do anything wrong.
It is not the government's place to redistribute money from one individual to another to make up for past wrongs. The judicial system exists to ensure that everyone is treated in an equal and lawful manner.
The descendants of slaves have had many obstacles to overcome in a sometimes-unfriendly world. There may even be some way to assign specific dollar values to their loss. If so, they should have every right to collect damages from those who committed those wrongs.
Unfortunately, all those people are dead. Since it would be unfair to take that money from anyone else, the issue should be a moot point.
by Craig A. Butler
Daily Lobo Columnist
