Opinion ID: 2330508
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Bad Publicity

Text: Todd Blodgett joined The University Club, a Washington D.C. private social club, in August of 1993, and he used the Club regularly to entertain business clients, to socialize, and to exercise. Blodgett was known to be active in Republican politics; he also worked for groups that promoted right-wing political causes, and he was hired as an independent contractor for Liberty Lobby, an organization run by Willis Carto. Blodgett sold advertising in The Spotlight, a newspaper in which Liberty Lobby took anti-Israeli and anti-Zionist stands. Blodgett's association with Carto and Liberty Lobby was unpopular with many of the Club's members. Its Jewish members in particular were offended by the anti-Zionist views of Carto, Liberty Lobby, and The Spotlight. No by-law or rule purports to limit the type of guest who may be invited, but, in an effort to placate his fellow members, Blodgett voluntarily stopped bringing Carto to the Club. In March 1999 Dr. William Pierce, a nationally known white supremacist and chairman of an organization called the National Alliance, contacted Blodgett, seeking to purchase his shares of stock in Resistance Records, which Blodgett himself has characterized as a purveyor of hate music. The two men dined at the Club in April 1999 and discussed a sale of the stock. A month or two later, Blodgett sold his interest in the record label to Dr. Pierce for $15,000. The Club acknowledges that Dr. Pierce's appearance at the Club did not cause a disturbance or engender controversy at the time. However, on January 12, 2000, The Washington Post published an article about Dr. Pierce entitled The Pied Piper of Racism. It reported that Pierce and Blodgett had dined at the Club in April of 1999 and had haggled over control of Resistance Records. The next day Blodgett sent the Club's Board of Governors a letter apologizing for the publicity caused by Dr. Pierce's visit. Despite Blodgett's apology, controversy erupted within the Club's membership. In addition to creating general tension and consternation in the Clubhouse, the Post article prompted several members to write the Club's Board of Governors, demanding Blodgett's expulsion. [2]