By Ryan Schwach<\/p>\n
Queens City Councilmember Vickie Paladino is suing her colleagues after the legislature\u2019s ethics committee charged her with violating the Council\u2019s anti-discrimination and harassment rules for a series of Islamophobic remarks she posted to social media. <\/p>\n
Paladino said in the new lawsuit that the charges brought against her were politically motivated and that any attempt to censure her messages, including one that called for the \u201cexpulsion of Muslims from Western nations,\u201d is a violation of her First Amendment rights to free speech. <\/p>\n
The 26-page suit was filed Monday in Manhattan by Paladino and her attorney, Jim Walden, who unsuccessfully ran for mayor last year as an independent. The suit asks a judge to order the Council to halt its inquiry into Paladino\u2019s remarks. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe sole basis for the charge against [Paladino] is core political speech protected by the First Amendment,\u201d the suit read. \u201cWriting and posting the Tweets required no use of Council resources. None of the Tweets were directed to \u2014 or even mentioned \u2014 current Council members or staff. None of the Tweets pertained to Council business. All were personal advocacy on matters of public importance.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe charge is based on the absurd notion that public advocacy might offend members and staff of the Council and thus constitute \u2018harassment\u2019 under the Council\u2019s internal HR policy, using an interpretation found nowhere in the language of that very policy,\u201d the suit continued. <\/p>\n
Last month, the City Council\u2019s Committee on Rules, Privileges, Elections, Standards and Ethics brought charges against Paladino, alleging that her Islamophobic social media posts were disorderly and violated the Council\u2019s \u201canti-harassment and discrimination policy.\u201d<\/p>\n
The charges and inquiry into Paladino\u2019s comments were expedited and supported by City Council Speaker Julie Menin. The committee has yet to weigh in on any potential punishment for Paladino. <\/p>\n
The suit said the comments that landed Paladino in hot water, which include claims that Mayor Zohran Mamdani, the city\u2019s first Muslim mayor, was plotting a Muslim takeover of city government, were protected political speech. <\/p>\n
\u201c[Paladino\u2019s] comments regarding the \u2018expulsion of Muslims,\u2019 \u2018global jihad,\u2019 and \u2018Islamic conquest,\u2019 while controversial, are matters of public concern and core political speech protected by the First Amendment,\u201d the suit read. <\/p>\n
Walden and Paladino claimed the comments were merely criticisms of the Mamdani administration and his political appointments, and that her comments about expelling Muslim New Yorkers were just \u201cher views about mitigation of future risks.\u201d <\/p>\n
Besides defending the nature of her remarks, which drew widespread criticism, the suit challenges the nature of the charges against the councilmember. <\/p>\n
Paladino argued that the workplace harassment charge doesn\u2019t hold merit because Paladino\u2019s posts were made on her personal X account and were not explicitly directed at any employee of the Council. <\/p>\n
\u201cBy doing so under the theory that \u2018workplace harassment\u2019 can include public advocacy not directed toward employees, the Council wants to assume the right \u2013 and will thereafter have the obligation \u2013 to surveil and police the speech of each and every Council member and staff to assure a safe \u2018workplace,\u2019\u201d the suit read. <\/p>\n
Paladino argued that her Council colleagues have escaped scrutiny from the legislature for similar controversial remarks, including when progressive Councilmember Chi Oss\u00e9 called the Queens Republican a \u201cslimy\u2026white supremasist.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cUnlike her Democratic colleagues\u2026[Paladino] is being singled out for a formal, adversarial trial designed to brand her publicly as a violator of human rights policies,\u201d the suit read. \u201cThis selection is based impermissibly on her political affiliation and viewpoint.\u201d <\/p>\n
Walden, who told the Eagle that Paladino personally asked him to take on her case, said the core of the suit is about the power the Council has to police speech outside of a lawmaker\u2019s official capacity as a member. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe City Council doesn’t have power to police the internet,\u201d he said. \u201cThe workplace doesn’t include the internet.\u201d <\/p>\n
The suit also accused Menin of pushing for the inquiry against Paladino as a means to amass enough votes to be elected speaker. <\/p>\n
On Monday morning, Paladino announced the suit on X.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese charges are based solely on my exercise of core First Amendment rights on my personal social media account here on X,\u201d she said on the platform. \u201cTo be clear about exactly what’s happening, the City Council is trying to assert that the internal rules of our staff HR manual on ‘workplace harassment’ extend to the entire internet, so they can surveil and police speech they find ‘offensive’ or disfavored on social media and elsewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI look forward to being vindicated in court,\u201d she added. <\/p>\n
The City Council declined to comment directly on the lawsuit. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe Committee on Rules, Privileges, Elections, Standards and Ethics has opened a matter regarding Council Member Paladino, and no findings have yet been made,\u201d said a Council spokesperson. \u201cAs both this process and the matter before the Court are ongoing, we cannot comment further.”<\/p>\n
The suit directly names Queens\u2019 three representatives on the ethics committee \u2013 Councilmembers Nantasha Williams, who serves as deputy speaker; Sandra Ung, who chairs the committee; and Shekar Krishnan.<\/p>\n
All three declined to comment to the Eagle following the lawsuit on Monday. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Ryan Schwach Queens City Councilmember Vickie Paladino is suing her colleagues after the legislature\u2019s ethics committee charged…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":158194,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-158193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}