11-20-25 *INTERVIEW* Atty. Chris Barnewolt on White Actress Canceled for Playing Harriet Tubman

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
We were able to get Chris Barniwolt to join us.
Chris as an attorney at the Pacific Legal Foundation, which
is a wonderful organization, and have their guests on the
show somewhat frequently. Chris, I think you might need to
unmute yourself before you start talking, otherwise we probably won't
hear you. There you go, And I saw a very

(00:21):
interesting note about a lawsuit where Chris is one of
the attorneys on the case. Here's the headline. Historian, author,
and actor wins fight to tell stories of historical women,
regardless of their race, and this is one of those
stories that to me, when I hear what happened to
this woman, I think, how did anyone think they would

(00:41):
get away with that? And of course sometimes they do,
but thanks to Chris, whoever they are didn't. So Chris,
first of all, thanks for being up early, Thanks for
joining us, and just give us some of the bones
of this case and then we'll talk about how you
worked through it in a court of law.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
Hi, ros, thanks so much for having me on. So
this case is about a lovely woman named Annette Hubble,
who is a San Diego native. She retired from a
career in water management, and she decided to pursue her
interest in writing and acting. She wrote a book about
historical characters who she admired and turned it into a

(01:18):
one woman play where she would dress up in historical
costume and do performances. She would read from the diaries
and letters of these individuals, and she was scheduled to
perform her play at a San Diego County public library,
the Rancho Santa Fe Branch, and they originally asked her
to perform three characters, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Harriet Tubman, and

(01:44):
Mary McLeod Beffoon, But just a couple of weeks before
her scheduled performance, the library reached out to her and said,
two of these characters, Harriet Tubman, Mary McLoud Buffoon are
African American. You're a white woman, and we want you
to change the characters to white characters. Were not comfortable

(02:04):
with a white woman performing an African American person, and
at Hubble did not agree with us. She thought that
that kind of race based limitation on the stories that
people can tell wasn't right. So when she wouldn't play
all of them, they just canceled her show entirely.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
And just to be very clear in case anybody is wondering,
Anette was not using any black face or makeup or
anything like that. Maybe a very small costume change, put
on a different jacket or something like that. Right, So
there's nothing from my perspective, there was nothing even slightly
offensive about this. But this is the world we live in.

(02:42):
I thought your client made a really interesting point, which
is in this sort of video guys, you guys made
tell me the title of the can't tell me the
title of the video? Again, the storyteller's role, right, is that.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
It the storyteller's role. Yes, wonderful video put out by
our communications team portraying a net and telling her story
in her own words.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
Right, And folks, if you want to see this, it's
up on my blog at Rosskominski dot com today if
you go to the Thursday blogcast. But one of the
comments she made that really kind of struck a chord
with me, Chris, was she said, would I not be
allowed to portray as an actor a patient with a
terminal illness? Since I personally don't actually have a terminal illness?

(03:26):
And you know, if the answer is, of course you
could portray that, then what's the argument moral, legal or otherwise,
for saying you can't portray a person who happens to
have a slightly different skin tone from you, the whole thing.
I mean, it seems so, it seems so twenty twenty one,
that level of wokeness or whatever it is. So tell

(03:48):
me about how you pursued this in court.

Speaker 2 (03:50):
Yeah, So we reached out to Annette and we asked
if she was willing to be a client for PLF.
We were able to represent our client pro bono, and
we brought a complaint in federal court alleging unconstitutional and
illegal race discrimination against a net We would also be

(04:11):
able to argue the First Amendment free speech violations, but
we decided that it was kind of a straightforward case
of discrimination by the government saying here is something that
you cannot do specifically because of your race, and there
are so many laws and constitutional provisions which forbid the
government from doing that to anybody. The Fourteenth Amendment's Equal

(04:34):
Protection Clause, the California Constitution, which forbids race discrimination and
public contracting, as well as Civil Rights laws Section nineteen
eighty one forbidding race discrimination and contracting, and Title six
of the Civil Rights Act, which forbids race discrimination in
any program which receives federal funding.

Speaker 1 (04:55):
We are talking with Chris Barnowolf from Pacific Legal Foundation
Pacifically Org. So the headline that I started this conversation
with says actor wins fight. So it sounds like you one.
I'm just kind of curious. Did they give up because
they knew they were going to lose or did this
actually go to trial?

Speaker 2 (05:16):
That's a great question. It did not go to trial.
I'm pretty sure they knew that they were eventually going
to lose on this. It's pretty straightforward. The government cannot
discriminate against individuals and treat them differently because of their race.
The only question was are they going to lose now
dignity voluntarily on their own terms by offering some sort

(05:37):
of settlement or are they going to drag it out?
And I think they made the right call. They did
the right thing and offered in that a settlement in
which they agreed to allow her to perform her playing.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
Well Very well done. That's the right outcome. It should
never have come to this, And I do wonder from
time to time how so many folks think they can
get away with these kinds of of race based things
that we know generally are illegal, and especially now with
this particular federal government, they have no tolerance for that

(06:10):
kind of thing at all. So, you know, little a
little surprising that she that she even faced this problem,
although I guess the problem actually happened during the prior
administration and not not during this one. But still it's
a it's a welcome evolution. Chris Barnowalt is an attorney
at Pacific Legal Foundation, a really great organization doing great

(06:30):
pro bono work, meaning they don't charge their clients. Upholding liberty,
upholding the American Constitution. Pacific Legal dot org. Thanks for
being here, Chris, appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (06:41):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (06:41):
Ross