To self-censor or not to self-censor?

“You must be out of your goddamn mind.”

Hamilton by Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Listen, Miranda’s “Hamilton” has become an American cultural phenomenon. Still, hearing a provocative line from the play uttered – indeed, wielded in near blunt instrument fashion – amid the staid atmosphere of a Florida Bar Board of Governors meeting was rather a…um…rude awakening.

I am a member of the Florida Bar’s Citizen Advisory Committee. And this week, in Tallahassee, I attended my third BOG meeting.

Mostly my job is to sit and listen to the proceedings (presumably in case any lawyer requires last minute advice from a citizen).

But on this singular occasion, I dearly would have loved to possess BOG voting powers.

Just that once.

Long story short, the Hamilton GDM-bomb was dropped by BOG member Laird A. Lile – with full “Hamilton” attribution and ostensibly delivered tongue-in-cheek – in response to comments by fellow governor Michael J. Gelfand.

Gelfand was speaking in support of Real Property, Probate & Trust Law Section members who wanted to register a formal comment in response to a recent Florida Supreme Court order.

Gelfand conjectured that opposition to such formal comment might arise from concern “that there would be retaliation if the Bar or a section took a position on something the court did not want.”

Under the circumstances, to refrain from making a comment would amount to an act of “self censorship,” he said. In effect, remaining silent would mean “we will not have a purpose anymore,” as a Bar. “That’s why we must have a voice in saying and doing the right thing.”

From my seat in the peanut gallery, this was by far the most interesting discussion I’d yet heard in a BOG meeting.

So what was the subject of this “to self-censor or not to self-censor” moment?

It was a Florida Supreme Court decision to remove “bias elimination” from the list of courses that Bar members may (but not must) take in order to partially fulfill Continuing Legal Education requirements.

“These courses help us,” Gelfand insisted. Lawyers being educated to recognize their own biases “makes the Bar better all the way around. This is not a political issue. This is about what we are as attorneys,” about “understanding who our audience is.”

“Hamilton” aficionado Lile countered that it isn’t fear of retaliation that’s at issue. Rather, “we are setting a terrible precedent” by filing unnecessary comments. “There has never been a requirement to take any classes in bias elimination,” he pointed out.

Bottom line: Gelfand’s request to allow a formal comment was rejected by a majority BOG vote. A second vote denied a similar request from the Bar’s Elder Affairs Section.

“The Bar is not taking a position,” said Bar President Scott Westheimer. “The court didn’t ask the Bar to take a position.”

One might dismiss all of this as a tempest in a legal teapot. But the fact that the debate took place at all – and that several governors sided with Gelfand – is somewhat telling.

The Bar goes to great lengths to stay out of the political spotlight. But clearly there are growing concerns within the organization’s…um…body politic over what amounts to an ongoing sanitization of Florida’s legal system.

Not unlike the ongoing political purging of Florida schools and universities.

The Florida Supreme Court’s directive to purge bias awareness follows on the heels of an earlier order erasing a requirement that new judges undergo daylong fairness and diversity training.

This despite Justice Jorge Labarga’s concern that the order paves “the way for a complete dismantling of all fairness and diversity initiatives in the State Court System.”

Which, arguably, was the whole point of the order.

Make no mistake. The Great DeSanitizer’s fingerprints are all over the state Supreme Court’s legal system sanitization. What’s the point, after all, of banning books in school libraries and suppressing academic freedom in our colleges and universities if innocent lawyers are still at risk of being indoctrinated in woke ideology?

In Ron’s Free Florida, radical concepts like fairness, diversity, equity inclusion and bias awareness are, clearly, designed to make Free Floridians (presumably Florida lawyers included) feel bad about themselves.

Listen, in Ron’s Free Florida ignorance by law is bliss. Are we blissfully happy yet, Florida?