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White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders photographed at a White House briefing on June 7. (Jabin Botsford / The Washington Post)
Mid-20th century celebrities flocked to the Stork Club, a posh Manhattan nightclub then considered one of the most prestigious nightclubs in the country. Grace Kelly, a young actress at the dawn of her film career, was one of the creators in 1951. She noticed that the club refused to serve the artist and activist Josephine Baker, presumably in because of his race, and the two women left the establishment arm in arm.
The film historian Lara G. Fowler tweeted This anecdote Saturday night with the hashtag # Restaurants4Sarah, in reference to the White House press, Sarah Huckabee Sanders being invited to leave a restaurant in Virginia Friday because of her support for what the owner called an administration "inhuman and contrary to ethics ". The Stork Club reportedly established Sanders, writes Fowler, but that would not have served Baker, an "elite citizen who helped in the French Resistance."
[The latest sign of political divide: Shaming and shunning public officials]
The horror of what happened to Baker is black and white from a modern legal point of view, as denying service on the basis of race violates federal law. But recent events – including the incident of Sanders, a trans woman called to leave Cuba Libre in Washington and the Masterpiece Cakeshop case – highlight the confusion surrounding the legality of denial of service.
The incidents were discussed jointly, but civil rights lawyer, Alexandra Brodsky, said the only substantial similarity is that "they emphasize what an affront to a person's dignity is" To be hijacked ".
"The restaurants and stores that hijack queers and trans people are part of the systemic discrimination faced by these customers in every facet of their lives," said Brodsky. "Sarah Sanders is currently one of the most powerful people in the country, and the ideology that she marries and for which she has been asked to leave is the reason we have laws on the subject. Public accommodation for others. "
These laws often differ from one state to another, although the Civil Rights Act of 1964 includes race, religion, national origin and color as factors that make discrimination illegal everywhere according to Elizabeth Sepper, a law professor in Washington. While political affiliation is a protected trait in the district, the same can not be said of Lexington, Virginia, where Sanders visited the red hen. According to the ACLU, only the district, Seattle and the Virgin Islands specifically protect people from denial of service because of their political affiliation or ideology.
[The owner of the Red Hen explains why she asked Sarah Huckabee Sanders to leave]
David Cole, ACLU's national legal director, told Mary Jordan of the Washington Post that he did not support the actions of the red hen. "I think it's wrong, but under the laws of most jurisdictions, it has not been made illegal," he said.
Sepper, on the other hand, stated that Sanders was denied service because of her individual actions, and not because she was registered as a Republican. Restaurants reserve the right to start someone for a trait that is not protected. "If your boss pulls you and you open a case and you refuse to serve your former boss, it's not a violation of the discrimination law," Sepper said.
Charlie Gerstein, a civil rights lawyer DC, said this way: "You can evict someone from your restaurant because you do not like it, because it was nasty with you at high school."
J. Kenji López-Alt, author of cookbooks and columnist for Serious Eats, also a chef and associate at Wursthall in San Mateo, Calif., Said he would ask a customer to leave "if they make other guests or my staff uncomfortable, so basically, if you are a jerk, you are asked to leave.If you are in a job where you are publicly a fool or a liar, we do not have to discover that you are a fool in the restaurant, because we know you are. "
What if the restaurant is in a state that does not include gender identity as a protected trait, and, López-Alt said: "And if your customer is" gay "in front of your staff, and your staff n & # Do not like homosexuals? "Is there a double standard? Yes, he said." In some cases, I would ask the client to leave, and in other cases, I would say that I hired the wrong person, and I would ask this staff member to leave. "
Secretary for Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen. (Jim Lo Scalzo / EPA-EFE / Shutterstock)
Washington is a particularly interesting place to consider how politics can influence a culinary experience, given the broadband of politicians present; just look Last week, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen's protest at the MXDC Cocina Mexicana was proof of that.
Diane Gross, co-owner of Cork Wine Bar, said that she has hosted personalities of "diverse political opinions" and that she would never ask a customer to leave unless they are disruptive.
"I think the bottom line is that we are in the hospitality industry, and we have to be hospitable," said Gross, who has filed a lawsuit with her husband alleging that the property of President Trump's Trump International is unfair competition that hurts their business. "That's why we do this, to welcome people to our restaurants or hotels or other lodges and provide people with the same level of service regardless of who they are or what is their political affiliation or their origin or other. "
Some guests experience everything but hospitality in public places.
A Free Cuba official in the District recently threatened to call the police after Charlotte Clymer, a trans woman who works as an activist and spokesperson for the Campaign for Human Rights, refused to show an identity card. She knew that she was in the right and showed the director's human rights law on her phone, she told Amy B Wang of the Post on Sunday, but was still deported. Clymer's experience echoes that of characters from recent episodes of the FX series "Pose", which takes place in the 1980s in New York. Two trans women visit a gay bar and end up being deported after a director told them that he was not interested in hosting a "costume party."
[Transgender woman says she was asked for ID to use restroom, then kicked out of D.C. restaurant]
A recent survey found that 53% of the 6,450 transgender and gender non-compliant respondents had been "verbally abused or disrespected in a public place, including hotels, restaurants, buses, airports, and government agencies ".
Sepper also recounted Clymer's experience to that of Charlie Craig and David Mullins, the Colorado couple who, in 2012, was denied a wedding cake because of the religious opposition of the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop at their wedding. The Supreme Court rendered a decision by 7 votes to 2 in favor of the baker at the beginning of the month, leaving undecided whether religious beliefs or rights to freedom of expression can justify a company's decision to refuse homosexual services.
"[Sanders] We do not refuse service based on any category of group or affiliation, "said Sepper." In a sense, she is denied service on a very individual level. "
Jack Phillips, the bakery centerpiece of the Masterpiece Cakeshop case. (Chip Somodevilla / AFP / Getty Images)
Some state laws against discrimination in public places date back to the 1880s, according to Sepper. A number of northern states codified the common law to specify that service could not be denied to newly emancipated racial minorities, she said, but this did not affect segregation, which persisted throughout the Jim Crow era.
"I think we are going through a period where people are starting to remember that equality in public places is very important and tends not to cause economic harm," Sepper said. "We've seen it with the Starbucks affair, right?" The black citizens of Philadelphia were expelled from a company while their fellow white people were not, doing exactly the same thing . "
Dinner at the restaurant, that's politics, noted López-Alt, where we choose to eat to show his support for the institution. Similarly, the people you serve in your restaurant can show where you are on certain issues.
"You are not just eating in a bubble, is not it?" He said. "Saying in a restaurant that your job is to serve the customer and that's all, that's not true.As a restaurateur, you're also a real person and you're getting a message out, that you wish it to be a pleasant message or not.
More than Food:
A brief look at the hectic visits of Trump officials to Mexican restaurants D.C.
The catering industry is committed to fighting the decision of D.C. voters to increase workers' wages
The culinary diplomacy of the Trump-Kim Summit lunch menu
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