#Hetoo movement fights for men’s rights in Calif. courts
SAN DIEGO — Rich Allison is a former Marine Corps captain who was never in combat. Now he is on the front lines of the culture wars.
Allison, 47, is a key player in a movement of men’s rights activists challenging female-focused businesses, marketing strategies, educational programs and civic projects that have surged since the election of President Donald Trump in November 2016 and the #Metoo movement.
He has been a plaintiff in 13 lawsuits, most of which cite discrimination against men in violation of California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act, named for the politician Jesse Unruh, known as “Big Daddy.” It outlaws discrimination against all people by any type of business establishment in the state, regardless of a person’s sex, race and other characteristics. Allison and his cohort would like to remind everyone that Unruh’s broad promise of “full and equal accommodations, advantages, facilities, privileges or services” extends to men.
“I believe in social justice and fairness,” Allison said.
Since September 2017, he has filed three lawsuits, including one last month against Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center, a nonprofit that helps the financial services industry with physical security and cybersecurity. In 2016, the organization started a “Diversity Scholarship” that awards female recipients $5,000 apiece, along with covering the costs of attending an industry conference.
“Cybersecurity is made up of well over 90 percent men, and the idea is that diversity of thought, including from gender, will really improve our cybersecurity as a nation,” said Bill Nelson, the organization’s president and CEO. “We saw this lawsuit and felt like, ‘No good deed should go unpunished.’”
The use of Unruh by men’s rights activists reflects “a gross misunderstanding of the nature of our sexist society and of what is specifically going on in the state of California,” said Larry Organ, the lead lawyer at the California Civil Rights Law Group, whose headquarters are in Oakland.
Yet it is also revealing potential legal holes in certain current feminist strategy.
Meet the plaintiffs
On a sunny Thursday in June, Allison walked slowly down the stairs of a strip mall commercial center in downtown San Diego to talk about his efforts.
Shy-seeming, he declined to have his photograph taken. “Just trying to keep a relaxed state,” he said, as he sat down in the national headquarters of the National Coalition for Men, which is decorated with posters (“Combat