Those who think that Sam Walton’s spawn needs to be taken down a peg or two will no doubt be heartened by the news of a recent court ruling stating that Georgia native Charles Smith should be allowed to continue selling his Wal-Qaeda and Walocaust T-shirts. Rather than arguing on good taste, Smith had the sense to argue his case on First Amendment grounds; luckily for him, the judge agreed. The irony here is that Smith—whose sales at the time the ruling was handed down had barely broken 60 shirts—has gone, in a couple days time, from relative nobody to minor celebrity. Had Wal-Mart ignored him, it’s likely he would have remained in obscurity. As it is, they’ve given him his fifteen minutes of fame while simultaneously reinforcing a reputation for heavy-handedness.
Not that they needed Smith’s help, mind you. The company is also taking a beating in the news and the blogosphere this week over its countersuit against Deborah Shank (the backstory, if you’re not already familiar, is available here and here). While I will grant that the company technically had a contract, and the law, on its side, I’d also assert that just because something is legal doesn’t make it right.
Wal-Mart makes billions of dollars a year (the company’s estimate of fourth-quarter earnings topped 106 billion dollars). The company decided, however, to make an example of an employee who will never work again, and waited three years to do so. Wal-Mart’s defenders insist that the law is the law; while they’re technically correct, the legality of the thing doesn’t make it right. While I’ll grant that we’ve apparently left the time when a company felt any responsibility for its employees, Wal-Mart could easily have let it go, citing mitigating circumstances; they could also have written off the cost, and reaped both a tax deduction, PR coup, and moral victory all at once. The tax deduction apparently wasn’t enough of an incentive, they’ve proven time and again that they don’t care about the negative press, and when it comes to money, the moral argument is usually the last one to make. Oh well.