Highbrow Magazine - Supreme Court https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/supreme-court en Confidence in the Supreme Court Is Declining – For a Valid Reason https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/21003-confidence-supreme-court-declining-valid-reason <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/news-features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News &amp; Features</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Mon, 08/08/2022 - 10:53</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1supremecourt_rep._carbajal-wikipedia_0.jpg?itok=gm0bAE6c"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1supremecourt_rep._carbajal-wikipedia_0.jpg?itok=gm0bAE6c" width="480" height="359" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/16/jan-6-panel-leaders-prepare-to-call-ginni-thomas-00040208" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline">Recent evidence</a> showing that Virginia Thomas, wife of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/24/us/politics/ginni-thomas-trump-mark-meadows.html" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline">sent at least 29 text messages</a> to former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows urging him to help <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/20/us/politics/ginni-thomas-election-trump.html" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline">overturn the 2020 election</a> has reignited a long-simmering debate about judicial ethics and the nation’s highest court.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><a href="https://judicialstudies.duke.edu/2019/11/what-does-fair-and-impartial-judiciary-mean-and-why-is-it-important/" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline">Fair and impartial</a> judges are <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-04-02-0241" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline">essential</a> to the health and legitimacy of the judicial system and are a critical component of the system of government established in the U.S. Constitution.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">In the past, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/28/thomas-ginsburg-past-recusals/" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline">both liberal and conservative justices’ actions</a> have raised questions about ethical standards for the court. <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/conflict-interest-supreme-court-justices-stocks" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline">Justice Stephen Breyer’s wife</a> owned personal stock in a company involved in a Supreme Court case, for example, and former Justice Antonin Scalia <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/scalia-cheney-trip-raises-eyebrows/" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline">went duck hunting with then-Vice President</a> Dick Cheney in 2003 when the court was considering a case focused on Cheney.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Legal scholars and pundits have <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/25/us/supreme-court-clarence-thomas-recusal.html" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline">debated</a> whether given justices should have voluntarily removed themselves from particular cases given potential conflicts of interest.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">As <a href="https://www.everingsmuth.com/" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline">a Supreme Court scholar</a>, I think it is important to recognize that there is no formal code of conduct guiding the work of the Supreme Court, which contributes to a lack of clarity regarding the ethical boundaries for justices.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/4supremecourt_supremecourtdotgov.jpg" style="height:434px; width:651px" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>A code of ethics for some judges, not all</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Unlike Supreme Court justices, other federal judges follow a <a href="https://www.uscourts.gov/judges-judgeships/code-conduct-united-states-judges" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline">code of conduct</a> developed by the Judicial Conference, a government <a href="https://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/governance-judicial-conference" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline">policymaking group for lower federal courts</a>.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">The code outlines ethical principles for judges, saying that they should remain independent and abstain from political activity, like giving money to a political candidate.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">The code also has a process <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/publicinfo/year-end/2011year-endreport.pdf" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline">for reviewing</a> if and when judges should not participate in a case because of a conflict of interest.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">But the Judicial Conference does not have any authority over the Supreme Court.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">So, as <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/publicinfo/year-end/2011year-endreport.pdf" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline">Chief Justice John Roberts has pointed out</a>, the code does not apply to the Supreme Court – and does not “adequately answer some of the ethical considerations unique to the Supreme Court.”</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">A <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/455" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline">federal law</a> applying to both Supreme Court justices and lower court judges does say that judges should remove themselves from a case when their “impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” This process is <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/recusal" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline">known as recusal</a>.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">While this law applies to Supreme Court justices, it does not cover other areas, such as political activity, that are part of the code of conduct for lower court judges.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">It is also difficult to enforce this law with Supreme Court justices, since there is no higher judicial body in the country that can review the justices’ actions. Congress could pursue impeachment of a justice for violating this law. But, as is the case for other government officials, if the House of Representatives votes to impeach a justice, removal from office still requires a two-thirds Senate vote – a very tall order.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/1clarencethomas_supreme_court.jpg" style="height:600px; width:480px" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>Designed for independence – not accountability</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">The U.S. Supreme Court was designed to operate differently from the legislative and the executive branches.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Presidents appoint Supreme Court justices to lifetime positions, making it possible for them to make decisions independent of politics and the pressure of elections – even if those decisions are at times unpopular.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">The U.S. Constitution’s writers developed some important constraints on the court that were intended to balance out this lack of public accountability.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">For example, the country’s <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-04-02-0241" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline">founders noted</a> that the judiciary must rely on Congress for funding and lacks an army or other mechanisms for directly enforcing its own decisions.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/limits-of-judicial-independence/1EBA3F818DC4DC18FA085DBAAD8CE360" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline">Some scholars argue</a> that because of this, the court strives not to stray too far from public opinion, because doing so could damage people’s respect for the court – and its authority.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">If people do not think the court is legitimate, its decisions could be <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1789-1850/31us515" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline">ignored</a> or not fully <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1955/349us294" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline">carried out</a>.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>The court’s decline in public support</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Several <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/394103/confidence-supreme-court-sinks-historic-low.aspx" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline">polls show</a> that public support for the Supreme Court has been declining to historic lows, even before the court’s <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline">controversial ruling</a> on abortion rights in June.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">A July 2022 <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/20/politics/supreme-court-job-approval-marquette-poll/index.html" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline">Marquette Law School poll</a> showed that 61% of individuals disapprove of the court’s work. This same poll showed that 60% of people approved of the court in July 2021.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Several factors contribute to this decrease in esteem for the court.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">There is a <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/02/02/publics-views-of-supreme-court-turned-more-negative-before-news-of-breyers-retirement/" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline">growing perception</a> that partisan politics – rather than neutral legal analysis – is driving the court.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">In September 2019, 50% of the public viewed the court as “moderate,” while only 21% reported this in <a href="https://law.marquette.edu/poll/2022/07/20/mlspsc09-court-press-release/" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline">July 2022</a>. During that same time period, the percentage of those viewing the court as “very conservative” increased from 5% to 34%.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">The Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision to overturn <em>Roe v. Wade</em> also contributed to the perception that it has become more political – in part because it represented a major policy shift. This is also connected to the fact that some justices <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/collins-manchin-misled-kavanaugh-gorsuch-abortion-rights-rcna35230" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline">made comments</a> during their confirmation process that were interpreted as indicating that the constitutional right to an abortion was settled law – and then voted to undo this protection.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/1amyconeybarrett_supreme_court-wikimedia.jpg" style="height:650px; width:539px" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>A drying ‘reservoir of goodwill’</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24363602" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline">Scholars have shown</a> that the Supreme Court has a substantial “reservoir of goodwill” that has insulated the court from long-term effects of past controversial decisions, such as <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2000/00-949" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline"><em>Bush v. Gore</em></a> in 2000, when the court ruled in President George W. Bush’s favor regarding an election recount dispute.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Democratic lawmakers have <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/29/democrats-urge-supreme-courts-clarence-thomas-to-recuse-himself-from-election-cases.html" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline">called</a> for Thomas to recuse himself from court cases that address the 2020 election or the Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Thomas was the only justice who dissented from the Supreme Court’s <a href="https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-supreme-court-formally-ends-trumps-fight-over-capitol-attack-records-2022-02-22/" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline">early 2022 decision</a> to refuse former President Donald Trump’s request to withhold documents from the U.S. House committee investigating the Capitol attacks.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">“This is a textbook case for removing him, recusing him from these decisions,” <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/27/clarence-ginni-thomas-supreme-court-texts/" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline">said Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar</a>.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Thomas has not indicated whether he would recuse himself from future cases about this issue.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">This position, combined with <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/07/06/majority-of-public-disapproves-of-supreme-courts-decision-to-overturn-roe-v-wade/" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline">public opposition</a> to the court’s abortion decision and low levels of overall <a href="https://law.marquette.edu/poll/2022/07/20/mlspsc09-court-press-release/" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline">public approval</a>, suggests the court may be testing the limits of its “reservoir of goodwill.”</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>Author Bio:</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong><em>Eve Ringsmith is an associate professor of political science at Oklahoma State University.</em></strong></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>This article was originally published in </strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/confidence-in-the-supreme-court-is-declining-but-there-is-no-easy-way-to-oversee-justices-and-their-politics-187233" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline"><strong>the Conversation</strong></a><strong>. It’s republished here with permission under a Creative Commons license.</strong></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>Highbrow Magazine                        </strong></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>Image Sources: </strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><em>--Fred Schilling - Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States (Supremecourt.gov, <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States_-_Roberts_Court_2020.jpg" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline">Wikimedia.org</a>, Creative Commons)</em></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><em>--Steve Petteway – Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States (Supremecourt.gov, <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Clarence_Thomas,_official_SCOTUS_portrait,_crop.jpg" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline">Wikimedia.org</a>, Creative Commons)</em></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><em>--Rep. Salud Carbajal (<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:My_Right_My_Decision_rally_United_States_Supreme_Court_%28March_4,_2020%29_05.jpg" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline">Wikimedia.org</a>, Creative Commons)</em></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><em>--U.S. Supreme Court (<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Amy_Coney_Barrett.png" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline">Wikimedia.org</a>, Creative Commons)</em></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p> </p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/us-supreme-court" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">U.S. Supreme Court</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/supreme-court" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Supreme Court</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/supreme-court-justices" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Supreme Court Justices</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/brett-kavanaugh" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">brett kavanaugh</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/amey-coney-barrett" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">amey coney barrett</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/clarence-thomas" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">clarence thomas</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/ginny-thomas" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">ginny thomas</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/republicans" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Republicans</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/law-0" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">the law</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/roe-v" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">roe v</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/wade" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">wade</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/congress" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">congress</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Eve Ringsmith</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">In Slider</div></div></div> Mon, 08 Aug 2022 14:53:46 +0000 tara 11242 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/21003-confidence-supreme-court-declining-valid-reason#comments The Supreme Court and the Ongoing Debate About Originalism https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/12000-supreme-court-and-ongoing-debate-about-originalism <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/news-features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News &amp; Features</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Mon, 03/29/2021 - 10:07</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1supremecourt_rep._carbajal-wikipedia.jpg?itok=zycYXW_1"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1supremecourt_rep._carbajal-wikipedia.jpg?itok=zycYXW_1" width="480" height="359" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p>The U.S. Supreme Court is now fully benched once again. The confirmation of two of its newest members, Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch, spurred a renewed conversation around originalism. This is the legal doctrine that Justice Antonin Scalia <a href="https://www.npr.org/2016/02/14/466744465/originalism-a-primer-on-scalias-constitutional-philosophy" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">professed</a> and adhered to, and one that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg often repudiated.</p> <p> </p> <p>In an ironic twist of fate fit for 2020 (and by twist of fate I mean a process perfectly orchestrated by the Republican-led Senate), Justice Scalia’s former mentee would go on to fill Bader Ginsburg’s newly vacated seat. During her confirmation hearing, Coney Barrett was asked to explain originalism, which is the principle that she would presumably use on the Supreme Court bench to make rulings. She <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/10/17/originalism-diverse-america-how-does-amy-coney-barretts-judicial-philosophy-square-with-who-was-left-out-constitution/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">explained</a>:</p> <p> </p> <p>“So in English, that means that I interpret the Constitution as a law, that I interpret its text as text and I understand it to have the meaning that it had at the time people ratified it. So that meaning doesn’t change over time. And it’s not up to me to update it or infuse my own policy views into it.”</p> <p> </p> <p>So far so good. In its most basic sense, originalism dictates that a judge must consider what the plain text of the Constitution says and apply it to rulings; and if the text of the Constitution is not explicit, then a judge must infer what its writers must have meant it to be by deducing the intent of the text for the public at the time it was written. This sounds like an elastic description full of deep hidden and philosophical meanings, but that really is what originalism is about in a nutshell.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/2supremecourt_motiqua-creativecommons.jpg" style="height:398px; width:600px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>Justice Scalia himself <a href="https://www.npr.org/2016/02/14/466744465/originalism-a-primer-on-scalias-constitutional-philosophy" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">said</a> that the Constitution, “means today not what current society, much less the court, thinks it ought to mean, but what it meant when it was adopted.” In other words, any ruling that is not explicitly dictated by the words of the Constitution is simply “judicial lawmaking,” where a judge makes a ruling based on their own beliefs being applied to the law. Within these parameters, proponents of originalism argue, judges are limited to make rulings that are fully and explicitly based on the law of the land, even if they don’t necessarily like the decision they must make. And if the citizens no longer agree with a Constitutional law, the democratic process is thankfully already in place in which new laws can be enacted or old laws can be ratified by electing our political representatives to do so.</p> <p> </p> <p>At its most straightforward then, originalism limits judicial power to a written text to avoid personal biases when handing down decisions. We don’t want an ultraconservative judge suddenly ruling that non-binary persons are not allowed to hold an passport unless they “choose” a gender, for example; just as we don’t necessarily want a very liberal judge willy-nilly deciding that paying rent is unconstitutional (or, rather, if we do want that it should be thoroughly thought out and fully debated, not a decision made on the fly). And importantly, originalism attempts to place the power to enact and ratify laws and amend the Constitution squarely on the citizens, thus fulfilling one of the most crucial tenets of democracy. </p> <p> </p> <p>In theory, this makes sense; it sounds great, in fact. But because we live in a pluralistic society in a country that’s a couple centuries old, of course it can’t be as simple as it sounds. Originalism has a few problems to contend with, some of which are clear and easy to point out, and others that require a broader understanding, and perhaps even appreciation, of all the peoples who call America home.</p> <p> </p> <p>For starters, the Constitution is very short. It’s just a little over 7,500 words including all its amendments. By the sheer power it has as being the sole law of the land, it’s a lot of weight to carry in a piece of text that’s about as long as three times the size of this article you’re reading now. Naturally, the Constitution cannot possibly hold all the laws explicitly written in full detail that will dictate the lives of 325-plus million people. Sometimes the Constitution does a good job at laying things out. It says very clearly that to be president, a person must be at least 35 years old; it also says that each state gets two senators - not one, not three, not two only during leap years. </p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/3supremecourt_supremecourtdotgov.jpg" style="height:472px; width:600px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>But more often than not, the Constitution is objectively <a href="https://www.vox.com/21497317/originalism-amy-coney-barrett-constitution-supreme-court" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">vague</a>. We know what “due process” is, technically, but how do we actually measure “due?” What constitutes the “general welfare” of the United States? Surely, the general welfare of a country is measured differently during times of war than during peacetime. And what does “general” mean here, anyway?</p> <p> </p> <p>In order to fill in the gaps, originalists attempt to surmise what the writers of the Constitution had in mind when they put these words down on paper. For instance, the Constitution explicitly gives Congress the power to establish and to fund an Army and a Navy. But the text says nothing about an Air Force, since it would be a century after the Constitution was written that the Wright brothers would start flying around Kitty Hawk. To the writers of the Constitution, human flight was naught but a fantasy, and so there is no ambiguity in the text about what kind of armed forces Congress can establish: an Army and a Navy, that’s it. Could a lawsuit make its way to the Supreme Court arguing that the entire institution of the Air Force is actually unconstitutional and must be disbanded? Unlikely. But even if it did, the justices would probably infer that when the Founding Fathers wrote that Congress could establish an “Army and a Navy,” the public, and therefore judges, understand that to mean the establishment of “armed forces” so that our country can be protected, as that is the most logical interpretation of what the Constitution means to say.</p> <p> </p> <p>This way, originalists argue, the Constitution does indeed allow the flexibility to accommodate its text in a changing, modern society, as Justice Gorsuch himself <a href="https://time.com/5670400/justice-neil-gorsuch-why-originalism-is-the-best-approach-to-the-constitution/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">reasoned</a>. It’s how and why free speech now also applies to the things we post on the internet. But it is this same faux flexibility that highlights some of the shortcomings of originalism. Because even taking the most “logical” explanation to justify the existence of an Air Force, that conclusion still had to be inferred, interpreted, arrived at with the morsels of text available and the context in which the question was framed, which is inevitably influenced by the societal environment in which we live in at any given time.</p> <p> </p> <p>The rigidity of the ideals of originalism, at the end, doesn’t allow for healthy democratic debate (whatever that means) like its proponents <a href="https://time.com/3937626/gay-marriage-antonin-scalia/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">contend</a>, or limit the whims of judicial lawmaking within a scant text of rules. On the contrary, originalism must wrestle with what may be the two biggest issues it tries to pass as features, which are issues that it mostly takes for granted but that people, especially the most vulnerable, must fight against every day, namely that: originalism assumes that all laws mandated by the Constitution are fair and just, and that all persons have equal democratic representation to ratify any laws that may, in fact, not be fair or just. </p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/2statueofliberty_pikist-creativecommons.jpg" style="height:400px; width:600px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>One of the most blatant <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/scalias-contradictory-originalism" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">examples</a> of this is the landmark Supreme Court <em>case Brown v. Board of Education</em>, in which the justices unanimously decided that segregation in public schools is unconstitutional. This ruling, which was based on the regularly contested 14<sup>th</sup> Amendment, partially overturned the Plessy v. <em>Ferguson</em> decision from fift50  years earlier, which established the infamous “separate but equal” doctrine in America. Originalists concede that, within the scope of originalism, <em>Brown </em> was technically <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/10/originalism-barrett/616844/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">wrongly</a> decided. To be clear, they all agree that the decision was indeed the <em>correct</em> one, and that segregation has no place in schools; but the rigidity of originalism would not have allowed for that decision. There is just no directives about race relations in the Constitution. The 14<sup>th</sup> Amendment was also at the center of similar landmark cases handed down by the Supreme Court, such as <em>Roe v. Wade</em> regarding abortion, and <em>Obergefell v. Hodges</em> regarding same-sex marriage.</p> <p> </p> <p>This is an interesting dichotomy of opposing forces, because originalism gives itself an out when it conveniently needs one, but grasps hard at its tenets when that’s better suited. Justice Coney Barrett herself has <a href="https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4734&amp;context=ndlr" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">conceded</a> that while <em>Brown</em> was correctly decided, it would not have been so if it had been fully analyzed through the decrees of originalism. She and other originalists take umbrage in the fact that, presumably, no one would try to argue against <em>Brown</em> now. In other words, since the question of segregating schools would never actually reach the Supreme Court, there is just no reason to worry about it. And so Justices like Coney Barrett and Gorsuch see <em>Brown</em> as a sort of super-precedent that could never be successfully argued against in court.</p> <p> </p> <p>But this is an easy out, and also a convenient one. Segregation is plain wrong and unacceptabel, and so it is easy to “bend” the rules a little to allow schools to be desegregated. But when the question is same-sex marriage, or even just consensual same-sex intimacy, then the best thing to do is to <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2013/06/26/scalia-warned-in-lawrence-v-texas-dissent-that-striking-down-sodomy-laws-would-lead-to-gay-marriage" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">contemplate</a> a piece of text and donnishly point out that it doesn’t mention same-sex marriage at all and it must therefore be unconstitutional. This is a layman’s outlook of the issue, to be sure, but it still serves to highlight how sometimes we should in fact question the morals and ethics of our laws.</p> <p> </p> <p>Just like school segregation was lawful but unjust, so should we be able to look at other societal issues and gauge whether vague laws that were written over two centuries ago by men who owned other people are indeed fair. Justices can infer that the Constitution meant “armed forces” when it explicitly listed only an “Army and a Navy” as being under control of Congress; why can’t they infer that when the Constitution says that marriage is “between a man and a woman” surely what it means to say is that marriage is a civil pact between two consenting adults. The fact that marriage is “defined” in the Constitution is why Justice Scalia argued against same-sex marriage. In his view, there was no jurisdictional path he could have taken to interpret what the writers of the Constitution actually meant when defining marriage; or, at least, not in the same way that justifies the existence of an Air Force, I suppose.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/5supremecourt_steve_petteway-supremecourtdotgov.jpg" style="height:600px; width:480px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>It is this same argumentative viewpoint of legality and fairness that originalists use to call into <a href="https://thebaffler.com/latest/originalism-is-dumb-hartman" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">question</a> the <em>Roe v. Wade</em> decision. It’s why there are still lawsuits making their way up to the Supreme Court that seek to overturn <em>Obergefell</em> and <em>Roe v. Wade</em>. And this is a slippery slope because in its quest to “limit” judicial power, originalism places the burden of slow progress in the hands of the people while erroneously assuming that everyone has equal representation in Congress. In other words, originalists like Scalia argued that he, for one, wasn’t necessarily <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/14-556_3204.pdf" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">opposed</a> to same-sex marriage, since the Court should strive to make all decisions apolitical anyway; but rather that the question of the legality of same-sex marriage should have been left in the hands of the people. If the people decide that something should be the law of the land, the Congress that represents them can then carry out those wishes.</p> <p> </p> <p>This, again, in theory should not pose a problem. In fact, we have seen it in action when we have states like New York and California that allowed same-sex marriage before the federal government did and that have more lenient abortion laws than other conservative states. But this hands-off approach is a wistful assumption that everyone can equally participate in the democratic process and so, eventually, the will of the people will prevail.</p> <p> </p> <p>But in 2013 the Supreme Court itself infamously <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/26/us/supreme-court-ruling.html" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">struck</a> down key provisions of the Voting Rights Act, and now Republican states are <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/03/15/supreme-courts-voting-rights-act-case-could-gut-civil-rights-protections-then-what/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">enacting</a> over 250 laws that make it harder for people to enforce their right to vote. These laws are nothing new, but they will now be more difficult to challenge. Laws that blatantly target Black voters, and Native American voters, and poor voters.  And so for these minority groups, it must seems like a bit of a parody for the highest court of the land to effectively say that if people don’t like a law, they change it by voting like-minded representatives into Congress, while at the same time allowing states to enact laws that make it harder to vote.</p> <p> </p> <p>After Democrat Heidi Heitkamp was marginally <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/10/31/18047922/north-dakota-voter-id-suppression-heitkamp" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">voted</a> into Congress with the substantive help of Native American voters, the Republican-controlled state legislature moved to pass laws that made it more difficult <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/10/heidi-heitkamp-native-americans-vote-north-dakota/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">specifically</a> for Native Americans to vote: they required an ID that explicitly notes a street address, which had never before been a requisite, with full knowledge that many Native Americans live in reservations that don’t have street addresses. Heitkamp then lost her reelection. Lawmakers in <a href="https://apnews.com/article/senate-elections-bills-legislation-elections-georgia-842d9ad16a78901322f4b952f6c0d8dd" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Georgia</a> are enacting laws that make it more difficult specifically for Black voters to exercise their democratic right. Mail-in voting is being challenged all throughout the country. It is disingenuous, for anyone but specially for judges, to think that the will of the people is being carried out when a large swath of the population is not given the rightful access to the democratic process that originalism purports to support and protect. Just like it is disingenuous to think that every decision the Court makes must be apolitical - for everyone else on the ground, every decision can be nothing but political.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/4supremecourt_stevemasker-creativecommons.jpg" style="height:400px; width:600px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>The complete opposite of originalism has its faults too, certainly. This is what is commonly <a href="https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-amy-coney-barrett-us-supreme-court-courts-antonin-scalia-038ec1d4de30d1bd97a0ce3823903f0c" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">known</a> as having a “living Constitution,” one that evolves as society changes around it. This is what Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg argued for and what Justice Scalia fully rejected. Certainly, judicial overreach can be a big problem, and there should be a way to limit the power of judges, especially of those in lifetime appointments. In fact, some argue that it is preferable to have an originalist on the bench who will at least be constricted within a jurisprudential framework rather than a wildcard conservative wielding their judicial lawmaking powers all across the land.</p> <p> </p> <p>But sometimes it is necessary to have a moral voice of reason; a person to see that because the word “sex” was not explicitly included in the Voting Rights Act as a basis of discrimination, that didn’t mean that women should not be allowed to vote (Scalia famously <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/520891-amy-coney-barrett-the-cruel-irony-of-a-female-originalist" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">argued</a> that, in fact, the 14<sup>th</sup> Amendment does not prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex because when it was written, people did not actually think that women should be treated equally). To see that disability laws are unfair to disabled people and they are not equally and democratically represented in Congress. Or maybe just to see that a woman’s right to choose has nothing to do with “due privacy” (on which <em>Roe v. Wade</em> is based on) and everything to do with women being rational human beings.</p> <p> </p> <p>As it goes, democracy is the worst kind of government except for all the others. A similar sentiment can be applied when it comes to judicial ethics and judicial powers. We shouldn’t just rely on the conscience of a person when it comes to our liberties and hope they do they right thing. But we also shouldn’t limit the ethical and moral necessity of striking down unfair and unjust laws -- certainly not under the guise of a jurisdictional dogma that veils itself as the protector of the law, when what it mostly achieves is stump on progress.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Author Bio:</strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong><em>Angelo Franco is</em> Highbrow Magazine’s <em>chief features writer.</em></strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>For Highbrow Magazine</strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Image Sources:</strong></p> <p> </p> <p><em>--</em><a href="https://search.creativecommons.org/photos/24bb917a-5ff4-4fc9-b801-6452a5e2958a" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><em>Motiqua</em></a><em> (Creative Commons)</em></p> <p><em>--</em><a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/about/justices.aspx" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><em>SupremeCourt.gov</em></a><em> (Creative Commons)</em></p> <p><em>--</em><a href="https://search.creativecommons.org/photos/87ebd3f0-8360-4c4d-9e57-6be0e739d626" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><em>Steve Masker</em></a><em> (Creative Commons)</em></p> <p><em>--</em><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ruth_Bader_Ginsburg_2016_portrait.jpg" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><em>Steve Petteway</em></a><em> (SupremeCourt.gov, Creative Commons)</em></p> <p><em>--</em><a href="https://www.pikist.com/free-photo-srrsf" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><em>Pikist</em></a><em> (Creative Commons)</em></p> <p><em>--</em><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:My_Right_My_Decision_rally_United_States_Supreme_Court_(March_4,_2020)_05.jpg" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><em>Rep. Carbajal</em></a><em> (Wikipedia, Creative Commons)</em></p> <p> </p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/supreme-court" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Supreme Court</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/originalism" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">originalism</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/supreme-court-justices" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Supreme Court Justices</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/amy-barrett-cohen" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">amy barrett cohen</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/antonin-scalia" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">antonin scalia</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/ruth-bader-ginsburg" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">ruth bader ginsburg</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/sonia-sotomayor" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">sonia sotomayor</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/chief-justice-roberts" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">chief justice roberts</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/originalists" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">originalists</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/constitution-0" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">constitution</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/law-0" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">the law</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Angelo Franco</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Mon, 29 Mar 2021 14:07:33 +0000 tara 10242 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/12000-supreme-court-and-ongoing-debate-about-originalism#comments What Joe Biden’s Victory Means for Race Relations, the Supreme Court, and U.S. Foreign Policy https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/11020-what-joe-biden-s-victory-means-race-relations-supreme-court-and-us-foreign-policy <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/news-features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News &amp; Features</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Sat, 11/07/2020 - 18:24</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/2joeandjillbiden_bidenforpresident_-_creative_commons.jpg?itok=PhqjGkLp"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/2joeandjillbiden_bidenforpresident_-_creative_commons.jpg?itok=PhqjGkLp" width="480" height="320" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p><em>The American public has had its say and for the first time in a generation denied a sitting president a second term.</em></p> <p> </p> <p><em>President Trump’s tenure lasted just four years, but in that time, he dragged policy on an array of issues in a dramatic new direction.</em></p> <p> </p> <p><em>Three scholars discuss what a Biden presidency may have in store in three areas: race, the Supreme Court, and foreign policy.</em></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>--Brian J. Purnell</strong></p> <p><em>Associate Professor of Africana Studies and History, Bowdoin College</em></p> <p><strong>--Morgan Marietta</strong></p> <p><em>Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Massachusetts Lowell</em></p> <p><strong>--Neta C. Crawford</strong></p> <p><em>Professor of Political Science and Department Chair, Boston University</em></p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/1blacklivesmatter_anthony_quintano-flickr_1.jpg" style="height:401px; width:600px" /></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Racism, policing, and Black Lives Matter protests</strong></p> <p><em>Brian Purnell, Bowdoin College</em></p> <p>The next four years under a Biden administration will likely see improvements in racial justice. But to many, it will be a low bar to clear: President Donald Trump downplayed racist violence, egged on right-wing extremists and described Black Lives Matter as a “symbol of hate” during his four-year tenure.</p> <p>Indeed, according to polls, most Americans agree that race relations have deteriorated under Trump.</p> <p>Still, Biden is in some ways an unlikely president to advance a progressive racial agenda. In the 1970s, he opposed busing plans and stymied school desegregation efforts in Delaware, his home state. And in the mid-1990s he championed a federal crime bill that made incarceration rates for Black people worse. He bungled the hearings that brought Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court by allowing Republican senators to dismiss Anita Hill’s damming testimony of Thomas’s sexual harassment and by failing to allow other Black women to testify.</p> <p> </p> <p>But that was then.</p> <p> </p> <p>During the 2020 campaign, Vice President Biden consistently spoke about problems stemming from systemic racism. Many voters will be hoping that his actions over the next four years must match his campaign words.</p> <p> </p> <p>One area that the Biden administration will surely address is policing and racial justice. The Justice Department can bring accountability to police reform by returning to practices the Obama administration put in place to monitor and reform police departments, such as the use of consent degrees. More difficult reforms require redressing how mass incarceration caused widespread voter disenfranchisement in Black American and Latino communities.</p> <p> </p> <p>“My administration will incentivize states to automatically restore voting rights for individuals convicted of felonies once they have served their sentences,” Biden told the <em>Washington Post</em>.</p> <p> </p> <p>The killing of George Floyd earlier this year reinvigorated talk of addressing systemic racial discrimination through fundamental changes in how police departments hold officers accountable for misconduct and excessive force. It is unclear how far President Biden will walk down this road. But evoking the words of the late civil rights icon and Congressman John Lewis, he at least suggested at the Democratic National Convention that America was ready to do the hard work of “rooting out systemic racism.”</p> <p> </p> <p>President Biden can help address how Americans think about and deal with unexamined racial biases through reversing the previous administration’s executive order banning anti-racism training and workshops. In so doing, President Biden can build on psychological research on bias to make American workplaces, schools and government agencies equitable, just places.</p> <p> </p> <p>Making progress fighting systemic racism will be a slow, uphill battle. A more immediate benefit to communities of color could come through President Biden’s COVID-pandemic response – the Trump administration’s failure to stanch the spread of coronavirus has led to deaths and economic consequences that have disproportionately fallen on racial and ethnic minorities.</p> <p> </p> <p>On matters of race relations in the U.S., most Americans would agree that the era of Trump saw the picture worsen. The good news for Biden as president is there is nowhere to go but up.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/1supremecourt_supremecourtdotgov.jpg" style="height:472px; width:600px" /></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>The Supreme Court</strong></p> <p><em>Morgan Marietta, University of Massachusetts Lowell</em></p> <p> </p> <p>Despite the fact that American voters have given Democrats control of the presidency, the conservative Supreme Court will continue to rule on the nature and extent of constitutional rights.</p> <p> </p> <p>These liberties are considered by the court to be “beyond the reach of majorities,” meaning they are intended to be immune from the changing beliefs of the electorate.</p> <p> </p> <p>However, appointees of Democrats and Republicans tend to have very different views on which rights the Constitution protects and which are left to majority rule.</p> <p> </p> <p>The dominant judicial philosophy of the conservative majority – originalism – sees rights as powerful but limited. The protection of rights recognized explicitly by the Constitution, such as freedom of religion, speech, press and arms, will likely grow stronger over the next four years. But the protection of expansive rights that the Court has found in the phrase “due process of law” in the 14th Amendment, including privacy or reproductive rights, may well contract.</p> <p> </p> <p>The Biden administration will probably not agree with the Court’s future rulings on voting rights, gay rights, religious rights or the rights of noncitizens. Ditto for any rulings on abortion, guns, the death penalty and immigration. But there is little a President Biden can do to control the independent judiciary.</p> <p> </p> <p>Unhappy with what a strong conservative majority on the court may do – including possibly overturning the Affordable Care Act – many Democrats have advocated radical approaches to altering what the Court looks like and how it operates, though Biden himself has not stated a clear position.</p> <p> </p> <p>Suggested options include term limits, adding a retirement age, stripping the jurisdiction of the court for specific federal legislation, or increasing the size of the Court. This strategy is known historically as court packing.</p> <p> </p> <p>Ruth Bader Ginsburg opposed expanding the court, telling NPR in 2019 that “if anything would make the Court look partisan, it would be … one side saying, ‘When we’re in power, we’re going to enlarge the number of judges, so we would have more people who would vote the way we want them to.’”</p> <p> </p> <p>The Constitution does not establish the number of justices on the court, instead leaving that to Congress. The number has been set at nine since the 1800s, but Congress could pass a law expanding the number of justices to 11 or 13, creating two or four new seats.</p> <p> </p> <p>However, this requires agreement by both houses of Congress.</p> <p> </p> <p>The GOP seems likely to maintain a narrow control of the Senate. A 50/50 split is possible, but that won’t be clear until January when Georgia holds two runoff elections. Any of the proposed reforms of the Court will be difficult, if not impossible, to pass under a divided Congress.</p> <p> </p> <p>This leaves the Biden administration hoping for retirements that would gradually shift the ideological balance of the Court.</p> <p> </p> <p>One of the most likely may be Justice Clarence Thomas, who is 72 and the longest-serving member of the current Court. Samuel Alito is 70 and Chief Justice John Roberts is 65. In other professions, that may sound like people soon to retire, but at the Supreme Court, that is less likely. With the other three conservative justices in their 40s or 50s, the Biden administration may be fully at odds with the court for some time to come.</p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/1irannucleardeal_state_department_-_wikipedia.jpg" style="height:400px; width:600px" /></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Foreign policy and defense</strong></p> <p><em>Neta Crawford, Boston University</em></p> <p> </p> <p>President-elect Biden has signaled he will do three things to reset the U.S.‘s foreign policy.</p> <p> </p> <p>First, Biden will change the tone of U.S. foreign relations. The Democratic Party platform called its section on military foreign policy “renewing American leadership” and emphasized diplomacy as a “tool of first resort.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Biden seems to sincerely believe in diplomacy and is intent on repairing relations with U.S. allies that have been damaged over the last four years. Conversely, while Trump was, some say, too friendly with Russian President Vladimir Putin, calling him a “terrific person,” Biden will likely take a harder line with Russia, at least rhetorically.</p> <p> </p> <p>This change in tone will also likely include rejoining some of the treaties and international agreements that the United States abandoned under the Trump administration. The most important of these include the Paris Climate Agreement, which the U.S. officially withdrew from on Nov. 4, and restoring funding to the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.</p> <p> </p> <p>If the U.S. is to extend the New START nuclear weapons treaty, the arms control deal with Russia due to expire in February, the incoming Biden administration would likely have to work with the outgoing administration on an extension. Biden has also signaled a willingness to rejoin the Iran nuclear deal jettisoned by Trump, if and when the Iranians return to the limits on nuclear infrastructure imposed by the agreement.</p> <p> </p> <p>Second, in contrast to the large increases in military spending under President Trump, President Biden may make modest cuts in the U.S. military budget. Although he has said that cuts are not “inevitable” under his presidency, Biden has hinted at a smaller military presence overseas and is likely to change some priorities at the Pentagon by, for instance, emphasizing high-tech weapons. If the Senate – which must ratify any treaties – flips to Democrats’ control, the Biden administration may take more ambitious steps in nuclear arms control by pursuing deeper cuts with Russia and ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.</p> <p> </p> <p>Third, the Biden administration will likely continue some Bush, Obama, and Trump foreign policy priorities. Specifically, while a Biden administration will seek to end the war in Afghanistan, the administration will keep a focus on defeating the Islamic State and al-Qaida. Biden has said he would reduce the current 5,200 U.S. forces in Afghanistan to 1,500-2,000 troops operating in the region in a counterterrorism role. The Biden administration is likely to continue the massive nuclear weapons modernization and air and naval equipment modernization programs begun under the Obama administration and accelerated and expanded under President Trump, if only because they are popular with members of Congress who see the jobs they provide in their states.</p> <p> </p> <p>And like Bush, Obama and Trump before him, the Biden administration will prioritize the economic and military threats it believes are posed by China. But consistent with its emphasis on diplomacy, the Biden administration will likely also work more to constrain China through diplomatic engagement and by working with U.S. allies in the region.</p> <p> </p> <p>Biden’s long foreign-policy record signals how he’ll reverse Trump, rebuild old alliances, and lead the pandemic response</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/1kamalaharris_gage_skidmore-creative_commons.jpg" style="height:400px; width:600px" /></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>This article was originally published in <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/biden-wins-experts-on-what-it-means-for-race-relations-us-foreign-policy-and-the-supreme-court-149327" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">The Conversation</a></em>. It’s republished here with permission under a Creative Commons license. </strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Image Sources:</strong></p> <p><em>--Biden For President (<a href="https://search.creativecommons.org/photos/b4e63a81-eb96-494e-b22b-4bc92e3aea8e" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Creative Commons</a>)</em></p> <p><em>--Anthony Quintano (<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/quintanomedia/49984521671" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Flickr</a>, Creative Commons)</em></p> <p><em>--State Department (<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Negotiations_about_Iranian_Nuclear_Program_-_the_Ministers_of_Foreign_Affairs_and_Other_Officials_of_the_P5%2B1_and_Ministers_of_Foreign_Affairs_of_Iran_and_EU_in_Lausanne.jpg" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Wikipedia</a>, Creative Commons)</em></p> <p><em>--<a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/about/justices.aspx" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">U.S. Supreme Court</a></em></p> <p><em>--Gage Skidmore (<a href="https://search.creativecommons.org/photos/539e068a-ddea-4cb1-b91b-bd39357145e1" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Flickr</a>, Creative Commons)</em></p> <p> </p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/biden-wins" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">biden wins</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/joe-biden-victory" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Joe Biden victory</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/president-elect-joe-biden" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">President-elect Joe Biden</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/kamala-harris" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">kamala harris</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/2020-elections" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">2020 elections</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/white-house" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">White House</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/democrats" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Democrats</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/presidential-elections" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">presidential elections</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/supreme-court" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Supreme Court</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/black-lives-matter" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">black lives matter</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/racial-justice" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">racial justice</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/american-foreign-policy" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">american foreign policy</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/obama" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Obama</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/jill-biden" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">jill biden</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Brian J. Purnell, Morgan Marietta, and Neta C. Crawford</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Sat, 07 Nov 2020 23:24:39 +0000 tara 9960 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/11020-what-joe-biden-s-victory-means-race-relations-supreme-court-and-us-foreign-policy#comments The GOP Is a Greater Threat to Free Elections https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/9980-gop-greater-threat-free-elections <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/news-features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News &amp; Features</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Mon, 05/13/2019 - 05:22</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/3blackvoters_2.jpg?itok=KLCmzT2q"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/3blackvoters_2.jpg?itok=KLCmzT2q" width="480" height="350" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p><strong>TriceEdneyWire.com Columnist</strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong><em>This is an excerpt from an article originally published in the May 6, 2019 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper. Read the rest <a href="http://www.louisianaweekly.com/gop-not-russia-is-greater-threat-to-free-elections/">here</a>.</em></strong></p> <p> </p> <p>We all have heard about WikiLeaks and Russian interference in the 2016 election. The report of special counsel Robert Mueller has once more put that on the front pages.</p> <p> </p> <p>Too often lost in the furor, however, is the far more damaging TrikiLeaks – the tricks and laws used to suppress the vote by partisans, largely Republicans here at home. After the Supreme Court’s right-wing gang of five gutted key sections of the Voting Rights Act in <em>Shelby v. Holder</em>, Republican-controlled states immediately ramped up efforts to create obstacles for voting, particularly for people of color.</p> <p> </p> <p>They mandated specific forms of state ID, made it harder for students to vote, eliminated same-day registration, reduced early voting days, closed polling booths in African-American neighborhoods leading to long delays, purged voters from the rolls, perfected partisan gerrymandering and more.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/3voters_1.jpg" style="height:369px; width:625px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>In some cases, as in North Carolina, their discriminatory intent was so public that the laws were overturned in federal court, but in most places, the new barriers were in place in 2016. Did it make a difference? Voting rights expert Ari Berman says, “Absolutely.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Overall, 14 states had new restrictions in place, passed since the <em>Shelby</em> decision. Look at Wisconsin. Trump won by 22,000 votes. In Wisconsin, 300,000 African-American voters didn’t have the newly required strict photo ID. Black voter turnout in Milwaukee declined by 51,000 votes from 2012, while as Lawyers Committee President Kristen Clarke noted, voter turnout rates were depressed across the state. Now we’re headed into 2020.</p> <p> </p> <p>Republican bastions like Texas, Tennessee and Arizona witnessed surges of Democratic support in 2018. Not surprisingly, they are launching new efforts to suppress the vote. In Texas, the secretary of state announced a plan to purge 95,000 people from the voter rolls because they weren’t citizens.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/mediumvotebuttons_6.jpg" style="height:336px; width:600px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>Independent research then demonstrated that in Harris County, which includes Houston, 60 percent of the 30,000 people on the list had received citizenship long ago. Some of the supposed research was 25 years old. Once more, citizens had to go to court to try to stop the suppression.</p> <p> </p> <p>In Texas, state lawmakers are also moving to add criminal penalties for people who improperly fill out voter registration forms, an effort to intimidate nonprofit groups that work to register people to vote. In Arizona, Republicans are making it harder to cast an early ballot. In Tennessee, GOP lawmakers are pushing legislation to fine voter registration groups that submit incomplete forms, even by mistake, up to $10,000.</p> <p> </p> <p>Tequila Johnson, co-founder of the Equity Alliance that focuses on registering people of color, called them out: “We have never seen a bill like this on the floor, until we dared to register 86,000 black and brown people to vote. This screams racism.” Much, much more attention should be paid to this battle.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong><em>This is an excerpt from an article originally published in the May 6, 2019 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper. Read the rest <a href="http://www.louisianaweekly.com/gop-not-russia-is-greater-threat-to-free-elections/">here</a>.</em></strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Highbrow Magazine</strong></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/gop" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">GOP</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/republicans" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Republicans</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/voting-rights" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">voting rights</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/voting-rights-act" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Voting Rights Act</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/shelby-v-holder" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">shelby v. holder</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/supreme-court" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Supreme Court</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/minorities" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">minorities</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/afrrican-americans" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">afrrican americans</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/black-voters" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">black voters</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/elections" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">elections</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Jesse Jackson</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photographer field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Photographer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">New America Media; Wikipedia Commons</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Mon, 13 May 2019 09:22:57 +0000 tara 8719 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/9980-gop-greater-threat-free-elections#comments How the First Amendment Trumps Political Correctness https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/7714-how-first-amendment-trumps-political-correctness <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/news-features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News &amp; Features</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Sun, 06/25/2017 - 12:15</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1slants.jpg?itok=FcA8uvTM"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1slants.jpg?itok=FcA8uvTM" width="480" height="270" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p><strong>From <a href="http://punditwire.com/2017/06/23/a-different-slant-on-the-first-amendment/">PunditWire.com</a></strong>:</p> <p> </p> <p>On Monday June 19, in the case of <em>Matal v. Tam</em>, a unanimous Supreme Court ruled yet again that the First Amendment trumps political correctness.</p> <p> </p> <p>This time, though, the circumstances were a bit unusual. Simon Tam, an Asian-American musician, founded the first all-Asian-American dance-rock band. The band chose to call itself the “Slants” as a way of thumbing its nose at anti-Asian stereotypes and prejudices—such as slant eyes.</p> <p> </p> <p>According to Mr. Tam, the name worked because it allowed these young, cutting-edge performers to talk about their “slant” on life as musicians of color, and also to pay tribute to those Asian Americans who had been using the racially-loaded term in a “re-appropriated, self-empowering way for about 30 years.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Mr. Tam argued, sensibly enough, that “irony and wit can neutralize racial slurs, because it shifts the dynamics of power.”</p> <p> </p> <p>I say “sensibly enough” because there are plenty of instances where derogatory terms have been adopted as badges of honor by the persons that they were meant to wound. Think of “Queer,” “Mick,” “Jock,” “Southie,” “Aggie”—or even “Methodist.” (It is often overlooked, but when John and Charles Wesley started a movement at Oxford to devote regular hours to prayer, Bible study, and helping the poor and unfortunate, they were derided as “Methodists” by their more worldly peers.)</p> <p> </p> <p>Unfortunately for him, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office disagreed with Mr. Tam’s argument. When he applied for trademark protection for the name of his band, he was refused on grounds that persons of Asian descent would be likely to find the term offensive.</p> <p> </p> <p>Here in a nutshell is why the First Amendment should always trump political correctness. If government can ban any exercise of free speech because of the mere possibility that it may “offend” someone, how can we have free speech at all?</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/1scjustices_4.jpg" /></p> <p> </p> <p>In challenging the government’s refusal of a trademark, Mr. Tam pointed out that his band had been touring for several years using the name “Slants” and they had not received a single complaint from Asian Americans.</p> <p> </p> <p>Fortunately, the Supreme Court set the [matter] straight unanimously in <em>Matal v. Tam</em>. Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito said that the very idea that government may ban speech that offends “strikes at the heart of the First Amendment.”</p> <p> </p> <p>In a concurring opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy added, “A law that can be directed against speech found offensive to some portion of the public can be turned against minority and dissenting views to the detriment of all. The First Amendment does not entrust that power to the government’s benevolence.”</p> <p> </p> <p>In 1929, in the case of <em>United States v. Schwimmer</em>, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes sagely observed that “if there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other, it is the principle of free thought—not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Justice Holmes was right. If the First Amendment does not guarantee freedom for the thought that we hate, then no thought is safe.</p> <p> </p> <p> <strong>Author Bio: </strong></p> <p> </p> <p><em><strong>Hal Gordon, who wrote speeches for the Reagan White House and Gen. Colin Powell, is currently a freelance speechwriter in Houston. Web site: <a href="http://www.ringingwords.com/">www.ringingwords.com</a>.</strong></em></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>From <a href="http://punditwire.com/2017/06/23/a-different-slant-on-the-first-amendment/">PunditWire.com</a></strong></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/slants" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">the slants</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/trademark" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">trademark</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/uspto" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">uspto</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/supreme-court" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Supreme Court</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/simon-tam" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">simon tam</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/music" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Music</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/asian-bands" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">asian bands</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/asian-musicians" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">asian musicians</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Hal Gordon</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photographer field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Photographer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Google Images; the Slants</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Sun, 25 Jun 2017 16:15:36 +0000 tara 7588 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/7714-how-first-amendment-trumps-political-correctness#comments Neil Gorsuch Will Be the Next Clarence Thomas https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/7496-neil-gorsuch-will-be-next-clarence-thomas <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/news-features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News &amp; Features</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Sun, 04/09/2017 - 14:04</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1gorsuch_1.jpg?itok=YAtSOIcu"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1gorsuch_1.jpg?itok=YAtSOIcu" width="480" height="360" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p><strong>From our content partner <a href="http://newamericamedia.org/2017/04/gorsuch-like-thomas-will-get-his-big-payback.php">New America Media</a></strong>:</p> <p> </p> <p>Even worse than the GOP’s ramming Neil Gorsuch on the high court, is what Gorsuch is now poised potentially to do on the SCOTUS. He can comfortably over the coming years do exactly what his Constitutional Originalist Siamese Twin Clarence Thomas vowed that he would do and has been as good as his word. That’s take revenge in his dissents, opinions, writings, and most importantly, rulings on the most crucial cases of the era against his opponents.</p> <p> </p> <p>The pattern with Gorsuch is almost identical as it was with Thomas, sans Anita Hill. He was reviled, lambasted and picked at by liberal and moderate Democrats and every liberal and progressive political advocacy group in the country. His appellate court rulings, dissents and writings were ripped apart. He suffered the ultimate indignity of having his nomination delayed as long as possible, and then filibustered, by virtually every Senate Democrat.</p> <p> </p> <p>Even Thomas didn’t suffer this indignity. He was hotly opposed by a sizeable number of Democrats, but there was no filibuster. In fact, you’d have to go back more than a half century to cite the only other time a presidential pick to the high court has been filibustered. That was Lyndon Johnson’s nomination of Abe Fortas to SCOTUS in 1965. His nomination was subsequently pulled.</p> <p> </p> <p>Thomas warned early just what he would do on the high court. When asked how long he’d stay on the court, he reportedly said that he’d stay there for the next 43 years of his life. He was 43 at the time he made that prediction. In a more revealing aside, he supposedly quipped to friends that it would take him that long to get even. Whether that was hyperbole or an apocryphal tale, it didn’t take him 43 years to wreak his revenge.</p> <p> </p> <p>He’s done everything humanly and legally possible to get his revenge for being picked at. The death penalty, voting rights, gay rights, women’s rights, school prayer, campaign financial reform, corporate financial abuses, in fact, any issue that even remotely touches on any protective rights for minorities, labor, women and gays, you can nail Thomas’s to the letter vote or dissent against it in. Thomas has been so hard-line and predictable on these issues that he’s often been the only judge to say no to a case such as death penalty racial disparity redress.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/1scjustices_3.jpg" style="height:339px; width:625px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>His decisions make sense because they have less to do with his warped interpretation of law than with his publicly expressed warped and frozen view of the Constitution, and his private vow to get revenge.</p> <p> </p> <p>Gorsuch isn’t likely to be as obvious in his vow to wreak revenge on his detractors or make any outrageous public statement as his other judicial hero, Antonin Scalia, would do from time to time about a legal or public policy issue facing the court. That’s not his style. He will do his judicial dirty work quietly, scholarly, and always with an impeccable tone of judicial and public civility. However, the result will be the same on every case that lands before the Court from voting rights to protecting corporate interests.</p> <p> </p> <p>Unlike Thomas, who had the scantest judicial track record before he was confirmed, Gorsuch’s anti-labor, pro-business, blind eye toward discrimination rulings, dissents, opinions and writings were well-honed, and well-documented. In the overwhelming majority of 14 cases involving discrimination, he shot down all union and employee litigant arguments charging discrimination in back pay, hiring, and termination cases.</p> <p> </p> <p>Gorsuch could even be more dangerous than Thomas in two ways. He’s a thoughtful jurist who is careful in how he frames his opinions on cases. And unlike Thomas, he’ll do what Scalia occasionally did, and that’s stray from the strict constructionist Constitutional read, and side with the court’s moderates and liberals on a decision. This will bolster his legal cachet just enough to mark him as a judge who’s not a rigid ideologue. However, when the big-ticket cases such as an almost certain challenge to what’s left of the Voting Rights Act that ultra-conservatives want undone, his vote will be just as predictable as Thomas’s.</p> <p> </p> <p>There’s more. If he plays his Court cards right, he could take over the role that Scalia had. That’s was prodding, pushing, and hectoring other court justices to see, if not agree, with his view of how a case should be decided.</p> <p> </p> <p>Gorsuch’s role of the Court enforcer could be even more impactful without another Trump pick to the Court which as he has promised would again be in the mold of Thomas and Scalia. It will ensure that the narrow five to four majority that conservatives have had in the past with Scalia to decide cases their way will remain firmly intact.</p> <p> </p> <p>Thomas hasn’t given a hoot about the insults, derision, and abuse that’s been heaped on him for his nutty dissents. It’s just been his continuing payback. Now Gorsuch, in his way, will have his turn.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Author Bio:</strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong><em>Earl Ofari Hutchinson is a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on Radio One. He is the host of the weekly Hutchinson Report on KPFK 90.7 FM Los Angeles and the Pacifica Network. He is the author of the forthcoming ebook How the Democrats Can Win in The Trump Era (Amazon Kindle).</em></strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>From our content partner <a href="http://newamericamedia.org/2017/04/gorsuch-like-thomas-will-get-his-big-payback.php">New America Media</a></strong></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/neil-gorsuch" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">neil gorsuch</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/clarence-thomas" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">clarence thomas</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/supreme-court" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Supreme Court</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/antonin-scalia" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">antonin scalia</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Earl Ofari Hutchinson </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photographer field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Photographer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">New America Media; Wikipedia Commons</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Sun, 09 Apr 2017 18:04:50 +0000 tara 7464 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/7496-neil-gorsuch-will-be-next-clarence-thomas#comments Democrats Must Stand Firm Against Judge Gorsuch https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/7480-democrats-must-stand-firm-against-judge-gorsuch <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/news-features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News &amp; Features</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Sun, 03/26/2017 - 14:25</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1gorsuch_0.jpg?itok=PAGx8lki"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1gorsuch_0.jpg?itok=PAGx8lki" width="480" height="360" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p> </p> <p><strong>From our content partner <a href="http://newamericamedia.org/2017/03/if-democrats-cave-on-gorsuch-theyll-be-sorry.php">New America Media</a></strong>:</p> <p> </p> <p>The day the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died, Appeals Court Judge and Scalia’s nominated replacement, Neil Gorsuch, said he could barely get down a ski run in Colorado because he was so blinded by tears at his death. This was not a private utterance or personal feeling of deep emotion that he shared with friends and family. He told of his profound sorrow in a speech in April 2016 at Case Western University. Gorsuch wanted the world to know that Scalia was more than just a heartfelt friend. He was a man and a judge whose legal and judicial ideas he was in total lockstep with.</p> <p> </p> <p>Scalia represented judicially everything that liberal Democrats, civil rights, civil liberties, women rights, and public interest groups regard as wrong with the Supreme Court. His opinions and votes on crucial cases read like a what’s what of legal horror stories. Scalia tipped the White House to Bush in Bush versus Gore in 2000, voted to gut voting rights, oppose same sex marriage and gay rights protections, to scrap the checks on corporate spending on elections, whittle away at abortion rights, and give free rein to corporations to discriminate by narrowing down who could file class action lawsuits.</p> <p> </p> <p>The only reason that Gorsuch hasn’t matched his mentor and idol Scalia’s 19th century grounded voting record on key cases, is because he hasn’t been on the court for the decades Scalia was on the high court. But there’s enough in his thin resume on some cases that pertain to abortion rights, Planned Parenthood funding, a powerhouse federal judiciary, and most menacingly the strictest of strict reading of the constitutionalism, branded “originalism,” to serve as fair warning of what’s to come if he gets on the SCOTUS. And, as with Scalia, it won’t be pretty.</p> <p> </p> <p>This is one of the few times that Senate Democrats can do exactly what Senate Republicans did with Obama’s pick to replace Scalia, Merrick Garland, use the filibuster to say no. The GOP concocted the blatant lie to justify their obstructionism that Obama was a lame-duck president, and lame-duck presidents don’t and shouldn’t have the right to put someone of the high court on their way out. They pooh-poohed the fact that the Senate has approved other lame-duck president’s picks to the courts including Reagan’s pick of Anthony Kennedy in 1988, Reagan’s last year in office.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/1scjustices_2.jpg" style="height:339px; width:625px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>They blocked Garland not because of protocol, propriety, or tradition, but raw, naked and brutal partisan politics. The GOP understands that the Supreme Court is not just a neutral arbiter to settle legal disputes. It is a lethal weapon to skirt congressional gridlock and serve a dual role as a judicial and legislative body. This meant scrapping the long-standing tradition on the court where justices based their legal decisions solely on the merit of the law, constitutional principles and the public good, and not ideology. Trump and his hard-right conservative backers are fully aware that the court’s power to be de facto legislators could last for decades. After all, presidents and congresspersons come and go, but justices can sit there until death if they choose. Scalia was proof of that. He sat for 30-plus years on the bench.</p> <p> </p> <p>Gorsuch is young and fit, and conceivably could duplicate Scalia’s tenure on the high court. He would sit there long after Trump is gone, and long after other future Democratic presidents that sit in the Oval Office depart. During those years, he will be a key vote, if not the key vote, on many cases involving labor protections, civil rights, civil liberties, gay and abortion rights, corporate power, environmental issues, education, the death penalty, criminal justice system reforms, voting rights, and many other issues that will alter and shape law and public policy for years, perhaps decades to come.</p> <p> </p> <p>Gorsuch was carefully vetted by the Heritage Foundation when it submitted its list to Trump of reliable ultraconservative judges who would rigidly toe the ultraconservative line. They took no chance of recommending any judge who might in any way be a high court turncoat, and experience a judicial conversion in philosophy as a few judges thought reliably conservative have done in the past. The stakes are simply too high to risk that in the relentless drive by ultraconservatives to roll back the gains in civil, women’s and labor rights of the past half century.</p> <p> </p> <p>The pressure will be enormous on conservative Democratic senators in the red states to cave quickly and support Gorsuch, by rejecting a filibuster. They’ll be hit with everything from the stock argument that presidents have the right to pick their SCOTUS justices to outright threats that they’ll be top targets when election time rolls around. It will take much for them to do what the GOP did with Garland, that’s to say no, and back a filibuster. If they cave, they’ll be terribly sorry.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Author Bio:</strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong><em>Earl Ofari Hutchinson, author of How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge, is a weekly co-host of the “Al Sharpton Show” on American Urban Radio Network. An associate editor of New America Media. He hosts the weekly “Hutchinson Report Newsmaker Hour” on the Hutchinson Newsmaker Network.</em></strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>From our content partner <a href="http://newamericamedia.org/2017/03/if-democrats-cave-on-gorsuch-theyll-be-sorry.php">New America Media</a></strong></p> <p> </p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/neil-gorsuch" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">neil gorsuch</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/donald-trump" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Donald Trump</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/democrats" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Democrats</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/supreme-court" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Supreme Court</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/antonin-scalia" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">antonin scalia</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Earl Ofari Hutchinson </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photographer field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Photographer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Google Images; Wikipedia Commons</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Sun, 26 Mar 2017 18:25:45 +0000 tara 7437 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/7480-democrats-must-stand-firm-against-judge-gorsuch#comments Title VII, Affirmative Action and the Search for Common Ground https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/5193-title-vii-affirmative-action-and-search-common-ground <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/news-features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News &amp; Features</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Sun, 08/16/2015 - 13:13</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1affirmativeaction.jpg?itok=q6s_4ZgN"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1affirmativeaction.jpg?itok=q6s_4ZgN" width="480" height="295" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p>At the end of this year’s U.S. Supreme Court session, the highest ruling body in the land h<a name="_GoBack" id="_GoBack"></a>anded down a decision that put a major American retailer on the wrong side of the law. In 2008, a young Muslim woman interviewed for a sales position at Abercrombie &amp; Fitch and, after being recommended for hire by the interviewer, was denied the position because she did not conform to the company’s “look policy,” which states certain rules on attire and appearance that its employees must follow. One of these rules bans the use of caps and headwear and Ms. Samantha Elauf, the young woman in question, wore a headscarf (or hijab) as an observance to her Muslim faith. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) sued on behalf of Ms. Elauf on the grounds of religious discrimination, and the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in favor of the plaintiff. </p> <p> </p> <p>The decision made by SCOTUS had immediate effects, exemplified by the change of policies imparted by Abercrombie &amp; Fitch. The company (which had been the center of controversies and other similar lawsuits <a href="http://afjustice.com/pdf/20041116_consent_decree.pdf">before</a>, and not <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8200140.stm">only</a> in the United States) has since updated it policies, including revisiting the ban on caps and headwear, changing the titles from “models” to “brand ambassadors” for their salespersons, and discouraging hiring decisions based on an individual’s attractiveness. But more so than affecting a retailer’s hiring practices, the <em>EEOC v. Abercrombie &amp; Fitch</em> case brought to question the stark reality that issues on religious freedom and employment based on nondiscrimination are far from black and white, given perhaps the gamut of procedures relating to specific instances, misinformation, and the fluidity of what is protected by freedom of religion laws.</p> <p> </p> <p>The Civil Rights Act of 1964 includes Title VII, which protects equal employment opportunities by <a href="http://www.justice.gov/crt/about/emp/overview.php">prohibiting</a> employers from discriminating against employees on the basis of sex, race, color, national origin, and religion. Title VII doesn’t have a list of questions that an employer is or is not allowed to ask a potential employee, but it rather outlines what would be illegal practices. There are ways in which employers protect themselves from possible lawsuits by circumventing potentially problematic questions to which answers they believe may be important in the hiring decision. An interviewer may not, for example, ask whether an individual has or plans to have kids, under the assumption that a parent of small children may have a limited work schedule or frequent family-related emergencies – they would instead ask, for instance, if the individual is available to work overtime or travel for extended periods of time to surmise a similar answer.  If the morality of such practice may be questionable, it does point out the intricacies of remaining within the law while adhering to not only what may be the best financial outcome for the employer, but also to its integrity as an institution. </p> <p> </p> <p><br /> <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/2affirmativeaction.jpg" style="height:469px; width:625px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>In the <em>EECO v. Abercrombie &amp; Fitch </em>case, for example, the defendant argued that, according to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a potential employee must inform the employer of any accommodations that must be made if employment is offered, whether it be for any of the protected clauses laid out by the law. In this case, they contended, Ms. Elauf should have made Abercrombie &amp; Fitch aware that an exception would have had to be made to its look policy to allow her to wear a hijab because it is a religious observance. The argument stated that because of Title VII itself, the company could not ask Ms. Elauf to offer any facts regarding her religion or assume that she followed any one faith. The plaintiff claimed, in turn, that the company’s policy was already discriminatory and that it must have, indeed, assumed that Ms. Elauf’s hijab was a religious observance and that she would not be able to remove it in order to conform to the company’s look policy.</p> <p> </p> <p>Ms. Elauf’s case is a prime example of how equal employment opportunity laws help protect employees, especially from marginalized groups, from discrimination in the workplace. It may be worth noting, however, that this case reached the Supreme Court because of a circuit split, in which a circuit court first decided in favor of the plaintiff, and then another in favor of <em>Abercrombie &amp; Fitch</em>, effectively forcing the Supreme Court to intervene and render a decision. And it is this gray area, illustrated by the split of the circuit courts, in which many employers and employees find themselves.</p> <p> </p> <p>Recently, a former Ford Motors Co. engineer <a href="http://www.advocate.com/business/2015/07/15/ex-ford-employee-fired-antigay-post-claims-religious-discrimination">filed</a> a lawsuit against Ford and Rapid Global Business Solutions—the staffing company that placed him in his position at the automaker—on the grounds of religious discrimination. The man, Thomas Banks, was terminated after he posted a comment criticizing Ford’s stance on the inclusion and celebration of LGBT employees and their families. The automaker company had sent out a newsletter sharing its policy to promote pro-homosexual ideas, to which Mr. Banks wrote a single, public online comment on the sin of homosexual behavior, which he held based on his Christian faith. Two weeks later, Mr. Banks was terminated on the grounds of his presumed violation of Ford’s anti-harassment policy. The lawsuit, <a href="https://www.libertyinstitute.org/Banks">placed</a> on behalf of Mr. Banks by Liberty Institute, claims that the termination was unlawful because it violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and Mr. Banks had been discriminated against because of his deeply held religious belief.</p> <p> </p> <p><br /> <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/3affirmativeaction.jpg" style="height:295px; width:625px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>Whether Mr. Banks’ comments, however incendiary or offensive they may be to some, are protected by Title VII remains to be seen. But this case may be particularly poignant because it calls upon the same protections imparted to Ms. Elauf. Instead of suing on the bases of freedom of expression or unlawful termination because of personal beliefs that do not impact his work performance, for instance, the complaint seeks reparations based on religious discrimination against Mr. Banks’ biblical beliefs. Ford, meanwhile, terminated Mr. Banks because of an apparent violation against its anti-harassment polices, not anti-discrimination ones (in this case, perhaps, against any LGBT employee of the company), which Ford does have in place. </p> <p> </p> <p>And the private sector is only one side of the coin. Companies that do business with the government must adhere to the same processes and procedures while also observing affirmative action rules. Executive Order 11246, signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965, states that federal contractors—generally those with 50 or more employees and who receive $50,000 or more in payments from the government—must produce and sustain an affirmative action plan to <a href="http://www.dol.gov/ofccp/TAguides/sbguide.htm">ensure</a> that all individuals have an equal opportunity for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or national origin. And while Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Executive Order 11246 seem to set in place procedures to compliment one another, this sometimes reveals yet another ambiguous area, especially given cases like Mr. Banks’ and Ms. Elauf’s.</p> <p> </p> <p>According to regulation, federal contractors must actively pursue the opportunity to employ qualified personnel from underserved groups. Further, all federal contractors that must have a written affirmative action plan in place ,as well as private employers that are subject to Title VII and have 100 or more employees, must submit yearly reports to the EEOC on their number of employees by age, ethnicity, and gender. In order to comply, companies often pose these questions to their current and potential employees as optional inquiries for the purpose of governmental reporting. And while the number of employees hired through affirmative action plans cannot be used to prove compliance (in the 1978 <em>Regents of the University of California v. Bakke </em><a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/438/265">case</a>, the Supreme Court decided that affirmative action must not be based on quotas—academic institutions funded by the government must also comply with affirmative action laws), balancing Title VII and affirmative action strategies may prove a rather delicate process.  </p> <p> </p> <p><br /> <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/4affirmativeaction.jpg" style="height:351px; width:625px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>Federal contracts and awards sometimes require that federal contractors working on any given task order be United States citizens, predominantly those put forth by defense agencies, such as the U.S. Department of Homeland Security or the U.S. Department of Justice. Some contracts may also require contractors to have security clearance, which are almost exclusively granted to U.S. citizens except on rare exceptions when compelling reasons are in place and must be proven. Such clauses for governmental defense and security agencies may seem logical, but companies wishing to do business with them must still adhere to Title VII and affirmative action plans, which prohibit the willing discrimination of an individual based on her country of origin or ethnicity. Willingness or not, this puts federal contracting companies (which range from small businesses to multi-million dollar corporations) in precarious situations when sourcing for qualified staff, attempting to obey federal regulations which may put them at odds within their own laws.</p> <p> </p> <p>The benefits of a diversified workplace are countless. Employers should be encouraged to broaden their hiring practices for the sake of inclusion, which is a proven policy to drive innovative and financial growth, as demonstrated by <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/ekaterinawalter/2014/01/14/reaping-the-benefits-of-diversity-for-modern-business-innovation/">numerous</a> studies. Abercrombie &amp; Fitch, since the Supreme Court decision in July, has since paid Ms. Elauf a reported $25,000 as restitution, and is now in the middle of a class action lawsuit filed by approximately 62,000 employees – based on the company’s notorious look policy. Federal contractors, particularly small businesses who cannot compete with larger corporations to accommodate the conditions set by government contracts while complying with federal regulations, are left destitute of such contracts because of their inability to contest for government awards without opening themselves up to potential lawsuits.</p> <p> </p> <p>Title VII and Executive Order 11246 present guidelines to ensure diversification and inclusion. But they are oftentimes at odds with each other, and such incongruities may, in some cases, discourage employers from actively seeking to diversify for fear of repercussions.  </p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Author Bio:</strong></p> <p><strong><em>Angelo Franco is</em> Highbrow Magazine’s <em>chief features writer.</em></strong></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/supreme-court" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Supreme Court</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/abercrombie-and-fitch" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">abercrombie and fitch</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/samantha-elauf" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">samantha elauf</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/discrimination" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">discrimination</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/affirmative-action" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">affirmative action</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Angelo Franco</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photographer field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Photographer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Google Images</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Sun, 16 Aug 2015 17:13:38 +0000 tara 6270 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/5193-title-vii-affirmative-action-and-search-common-ground#comments How the Supreme Court Obamacare Ruling Helps Millions of Americans https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/5096-how-supreme-court-obamacare-ruling-helps-millions-americans <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/news-features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News &amp; Features</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Mon, 06/29/2015 - 14:41</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/6healthcare.jpg?itok=0OaSUvFf"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/6healthcare.jpg?itok=0OaSUvFf" width="480" height="268" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p><strong>From our content partner <a href="http://newamericamedia.org/2015/06/supreme-court-rules-nationwide-subsidies-should-stay.php">New America Media</a>: </strong></p> <p> </p> <p>Debbie Richardson, 62, said she had been having the “heebie-jeebies” for the last few months, wondering if she might be forced to disenroll from Florida’s health care exchange should the U.S. Supreme Court strike down the nationwide tax subsidies under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Now, she can breathe easy.</p> <p> </p> <p>In a 6-3 ruling handed down by the high court Thursday, the justices said that the 8.7 million people like Richardson who are currently receiving subsides to make heath insurance affordable on the exchange will continue receiving it no matter where they live. The ruling was a resounding affirmation of Congress’ intention of subsidizing insurance coverage under ACA.</p> <p> </p> <p>“I was a wreck wondering what I’d do if Florida lost its subsidies,” said the Clearwater, Fla., resident, who didn’t want her real name used for this story, in a telephone interview.</p> <p> </p> <p>Florida is among 37 states where the federal government set up a health care exchange – HealthCare.gov -- under ACA because those states decided they would not set up their own.</p> <p> </p> <p>At 1.4 million, Florida leads the nation in the number of people who get subsidies, said Nick Duran, director of the Florida chapter of Enroll America, the nation’s leading health care enrollment coalition.</p> <p>He said 93.5 percent of Florida residents enrolled on the exchange are getting financial assistance. Nationwide, about 85 percent who purchased insurance on exchanges qualify for assistance to help pay for coverage, based on their income.</p> <p> </p> <p>The plaintiffs in the King v Burwell case, which generated the ruling, maintained that people who bought insurance on the federal exchanges were not entitled to subsidies. They noted that the law says financial help is available for those who enroll through exchanges “established by the state.” The Obama administration argued that Congress clearly intended to help everyone who qualified for it.</p> <p> </p> <p>Had the court ruled against the administration, many of those on the federally run exchanges would have been unable to afford insurance, forcing them to drop their coverage. The court’s majority agreed that this would have left insurers with a large pool of sicker customers, who would need to stay insured to get required care. That would have resulted in premiums going up across the board, putting the ACA in jeopardy and caused what the justices called a “death spiral” for the law.</p> <p> </p> <p><br /> <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/4healthcareObama.jpg" style="height:363px; width:650px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>California, a leader in making health care accessible to most of its residents, and one of the first states to set up its own exchange, had nothing immediate to fear about which way the Supreme Court ruled on the King v Burwell case. Even so, had the ruling gone against the Obama administration, it could have resulted in changes to the ACA down the road, observed Peter Lee, executive director of Covered California, the state’s exchange.</p> <p> </p> <p>Dana Howard, deputy director of Covered California, strenuously dismissed reports in the media that enrollment on the state’s exchange has dropped by almost 30 percent this year. He said that the state registered 85 percent of renewals in January 2015, bringing the number of enrollees to 1.35 million.</p> <p> </p> <p>“The exchange is working extremely well,” Howard asserted. “We have exceeded our projections (of 1.3 million.)”</p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p>Of the 9 million people enrolled in exchanges nationwide, the federal government pays an average subsidy of $272 a month. Richardson pays $356 for the $800-a-month plan she’s on.</p> <p> </p> <p>She said she couldn’t afford to be without health care because she has a genetic disorder that makes her a prime candidate for a stroke unless she manages her cholesterol. Within months after her employer-sponsored health insurance ended two years ago when her company folded, the federal government stepped in to set up Florida’s health care exchange.</p> <p> </p> <p>Richardson purchased a Silver Plan, but when it came up for renewal last October, she switched to a lower-level Bronze Plan, which has a $6,000 deductible needed to be paid out-of-pocket before coverage kicks in.</p> <p> </p> <p>“Thanks to the ACA, no insurer could deny me coverage because of my pre-existing condition,” she said.</p> <p> </p> <p>Richardson was more recently diagnosed with cancer. Between the two serious health challenges she faces, she said, she wouldn’t be able to afford to pay for her medications but for her insurance.</p> <p> </p> <p>“I am not alone in this situation,” Richardson said. “There are millions out there who are like me.”</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>From our content partner <a href="http://newamericamedia.org/2015/06/supreme-court-rules-nationwide-subsidies-should-stay.php">New America Media</a></strong></p> <p> </p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/supreme-court" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Supreme Court</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/obamacare" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Obamacare</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/health-care" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">health care</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/affordable-care-act" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Affordable Care Act</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tax-subsidies" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">tax subsidies</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/health-care-exchange" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">health care exchange</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Viji Sundaram</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photographer field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Photographer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">New America Media</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Mon, 29 Jun 2015 18:41:08 +0000 tara 6138 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/5096-how-supreme-court-obamacare-ruling-helps-millions-americans#comments Black Voters Face New Hindrances in the South https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/4288-black-voters-face-new-hindrances-south <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/news-features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News &amp; Features</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Fri, 09/12/2014 - 15:31</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/2votersuppression%20%28Collumbia%20City%20Blog%20Flickr%29_0.jpg?itok=Agn9tVC3"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/2votersuppression%20%28Collumbia%20City%20Blog%20Flickr%29_0.jpg?itok=Agn9tVC3" width="480" height="319" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p><strong>From <a href="http://www.louisianaweekly.com/black-voters-in-the-south-face-new-threats/">NNPA</a> and reprinted by our content partner New America Media: </strong></p> <p> </p> <p>WASHINGTON (NNPA) – Despite major advances to access to the ballot box nearly 50 years after the passage of Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA), Blacks, living primarily in the South and Southwest, continued to face challenges at the ballot box, according to National Commission on Voting Rights (NCVR) report.</p> <p> </p> <p>“Though protection under the Voting Rights Act has produced significant gains, African Americans are continually subjected to new threats to their full enfranchisement,” stated the report. “The ongoing protection of the Voting Rights Act is vital to the inclusion of this community.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Last summer, the United States Supreme Court invalidated the Section 4 coverage formula in the Voting Rights Act that required jurisdictions with a demonstrated history of voter discrimination to “pre-clear” any changes in voting laws with the Justice Department of a federal court. The ruling effectively neutered Section 5 of the VRA.</p> <p> </p> <p>“Four states formerly covered by Section 5 of the VRA – Texas, Louisiana, South Carolina and Georgia – rank as the worst offenders,” according to the report. The study found that, when it comes to voting discrimination, Texas was the worst state in the country, “including multiple state-level violations.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Last August, Attorney General Eric Holder filed a lawsuit against Texas over a restrictive voter ID law that went into effect after the <em>Shelby</em> decision, and also sought to support groups who took the Lone Star State to court over redistricting policies.</p> <p> </p> <p>Following the <em>Shelby v. Holder</em> ruling, civil rights lawyers have increasingly used Section 2 of the VRA to defend voters’ rights across the nation, but the report acknowledged the limitations of Section 2 lawsuits.</p> <p> </p> <p>“While Section 2 provides important and considerable safeguards against discrimination, it does not provide the same level of protection that Section 5 afforded minority voters,” stated the report. “Section 2 litigation is often complex and can be slow, time-consuming, and expensive,” especially for poor, minority voters with access to limited resources.</p> <p> </p> <p>Under Section 5, covered jurisdictions had to prove that new laws didn’t create added hardships for poor and minority voters. Section 2 reverses that burden of proof, placing it squarely on the shoulders of the voters and civil rights lawyers.</p> <p> </p> <p>Since the <em>Shelby v. Holder</em> decision, new, controversial voting laws have been passed, forcing civil rights and Justice Department lawyers to expend resources battling over whether those laws hurt thousands of voters.</p> <p> </p> <p>The report covered a number of forms of voter discrimination, including minority vote dilution, voter challenges and intimidation, felony disenfranchisement, voter purges and restrictive photo ID requirements.</p> <p> </p> <p>“The findings show that contrary to the court’s assertion voting discrimination is still rampant and that states and localities previously covered by Section 4 and Section 5, the [Voting Rights Act] provisions struck down by the court, continue to implement voting laws and procedures that disproportionately affect African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans and Native Americans voters,” said Arnwine.</p> <p> </p> <p>From 1995-2013, redistricting changes made up 58 of 113 Section 5 preclearance denials, the report said.</p> <p> </p> <p>“Redistricting plans that dilute minority voting strength typically submerge minority voters in overpopulated districts, divide minority population concentrations to prevent them from comprising the majority of a fairly-drawn district (“fragmentation” or “cracking”), or unnecessarily overconcentrate them in a minimal number of districts (“packing”),” stated the report.</p> <p> </p> <p>Robert Kengle, co-director of the Voting Rights Project at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said that redistricting is the reallocation of political power and there is always a temptation to make minority voters the pawns in that process.</p> <p> </p> <p>“Whether you’re talking about disputes between political parties or disputes between incumbents or one faction or another it’s tempting to dilute minority voter strength to achieve your political goals,” said Kengle.</p> <p> </p> <p>Kengle added: “Sometimes it’s just as simple as saying, ‘We don’t want minority voters electing candidates,’ and the district lines are drawn to prevent that.”</p> <p> </p> <p><br /> <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/mediumblackvoters.jpg" style="height:279px; width:500px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>Jurisdictions that pass plans are usually more discreet today than they were in the 1960s or 1970s, but when you look at the results, sometimes the results are very similar, observed Kengle.</p> <p> </p> <p>Leon Russell, the vice chairman of the NAACP Board of Directors called redistricting ‘a partisan tool.’</p> <p> </p> <p>“For legislatures that are dominated by one particular party, it’s that party that usually draws those lines to protect its political power,” said Russell. “If you can control who votes and where they vote, you can control the power.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Following the <em>Shelby</em> decision, the Justice Department made severe cuts to its federal observer program.</p> <p> </p> <p>“The federal observer program provided an important deterrence against voter discrimination with 10,702 observers deployed from 1995-2012,” the report said.</p> <p> </p> <p>Kengle said that federal election observers serve multiple purposes and one of the most important purposes doesn’t result in litigation. Election officials often request federal election observers from the Justice Department to calm tense situations when there have been concerns about claims of voter intimidation or other misconduct at the polls.</p> <p> </p> <p>Election observers monitor the polls “not so much with an eye toward bringing a lawsuit, but rather allowing people to vote without concerns for intimidation,” said Kengle, adding that, in recent years, observers have documented compliance with the language minority provisions of the Voting Rights Act.</p> <p> </p> <p>Federal observers also keep an eye on the voting process on the ground and take notes in a way that attorneys or other election observers are not able to do, said Kengle, who worked in the Voting Section at the Justice Department for about 20 years and supervised election coverage.</p> <p> </p> <p>Losing that monitoring power will be a huge loss for minority voters, said Kengle.</p> <p> </p> <p>“Blacks are conscious of the history that produced the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and all the sacrifices that people made so that act could become law,” said Arnwine.</p> <p> </p> <p>Arnwine disagreed with the majority decision in the Supreme Court Shelby County case that concluded that the rise in Black voter turnout and the number of minority elected officials signaled that the Section 4 pre-clearance formula in the VRA was outdated and that voter disenfranchisement was largely a problem of the past.</p> <p> </p> <p>Arnwine sees if differently, noting that increased Black voter turnout doesn’t mean that it’s easier to vote, “it means that people are more determined to vote.”</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>From <a href="http://www.louisianaweekly.com/black-voters-in-the-south-face-new-threats/">NNPA</a> and reprinted by our content partner New America Media</strong></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/black-voters" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">black voters</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/voter-rights" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">voter rights</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/voter-discrimination" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">voter discrimination</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/african-americans" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">African Americans</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/voting-rights-act" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Voting Rights Act</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/supreme-court" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Supreme Court</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/voters" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">voters</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/minority-voters" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">minority voters</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Freddie Allen</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photographer field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Photographer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Columbia City Blog (Flickr); Wikipedia Commons</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Fri, 12 Sep 2014 19:31:09 +0000 tara 5182 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/4288-black-voters-face-new-hindrances-south#comments