Let us now, forever, and always dispense with the propaganda that today’s “anti-racism” movement is about ending or addressing “racism” as a societal ill. It is, quite simply, a beard to mask another kind of racism that has nothing to do with “justice” and everything to do with the raw exercise and accumulation of power.
Grasping for power is as American as apple pie, and using the historical inequality between whites and blacks in America as a device to gain influence and exact revenge on the oppressor has developed into an art form.
That said, the justice of trying to “right historical wrongs” by creating contemporary inequities never made much sense to me. “Two wrongs don’t make a right” is a no-brainer for most of us — even if it is an inconvenient truth for the racial-justice crowd.
In Minneapolis, hypocrisy, stupidity, and breathtaking racism are fully on display. The local teachers’ union signed a contract that turns fairness on its head by requiring that when layoffs become necessary, seniority becomes secondary to the color of a teacher’s skin.
The agreement, which the union reached in March following a two-week strike, upends the seniority-based layoff system under which teachers who have been employed the least amount of time are the first to be fired. Under the new rules, if a minority teacher is set to be laid off, the district will instead fire the next least senior teacher who is white.
“If [laying off] a teacher who is a member of a population underrepresented among licensed teachers in the site, the district shall excess the next least senior teacher, who is not a member of an underrepresented population,” reads the agreement, which goes into effect next spring.
The justification for the racial discrimination is to “remedy the continuing effects of past discrimination,” according to the school district.
Two wrongs make a right, and while all teachers are equal, some teachers are more equal than others.
It shouldn’t surprise you to learn that this policy is, on its face, incredibly unconstitutional.
This violates a well-known Supreme Court decision overturning the race-based layoff of a white teacher, and contradicts a well-known federal appeals court decision, which ruled that race-based layoffs of white teachers violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
It is illegal under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. When it comes to termination (as opposed to hiring or promotion under an affirmative-action plan), an employer can’t racially discriminate even against whites. The Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 1996 that an school district can’t consider race even as a tie-breaker, in deciding who to lay off, even to promote diversity, because that (a) unduly trammels the white teacher’s rights — even affirmative action plans are supposed to be mild and not unduly trammel someone’s rights, and getting fired as opposed to being denied a promotion unduly trammels someone’s rights — and (b) putting that aside, the school district couldn’t consider race to promote diversity when black people weren’t seriously underrepresented in its workforce as a whole. That ruling was Taxman v. Board of Education of Piscataway, 91 F.3d 1547 (3d Cir. 1996).
It will be challenged, of course, and it will probably go all the way to the Supreme Court.
And when it finally gets on the docket, what kind of court will be there to rule on it? Nine “wise Latinas”? Or perhaps an “expanded” court made possible by pouting Democrats who don’t believe that losing elections should keep them from imposing their agenda on the rest of us.
That’s what we have to look forward to if Democrats increase their majorities in Congress. The crazies on the left are rising, and once they take control, “restorative justice” will be more than just rhetoric.
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