Rediscovering the Equal Protection Clause, The Hard Way

Sorry, Social Justice Warriors, there’s still an Equal Protection Clause, plus lots of federal anti-discrimination laws.  They trump all your Woke nonsense demanding special rights for privileged groups, and rightly so.   Ignore equal protection of the law at your peril – you will get sued, and you will lose.

Comcast settled a discrimination lawsuit over its small business grant program limited to companies 51 percent owned by someone who is “Black, indigenous, a person of color, or female.”

Pfizer altered a fellowship program after it got sued for “blatant racial discrimination” against white and Asian American applicants.

Boston got sued after imposing a fee on restaurants in an Italian neighborhood seeking to offer outdoor dining, but no fee anywhere else.  The lawsuit referred to Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s comment that she is used to dealing with problems that are “expensive, disruptive, and white.”

Federal authorities are investigating a Massachusetts high school for civil rights violations after holding a ‘no whites need apply’ audition for a school play entitled ‘Our Stories as People of Color’.  The play was intended as a safe space and support vehicle for minority students.  Sorry, no dice, not allowed, not when the government of all the people is involved.

Another federal civil rights investigation is underway at USC’s medical school over its visiting clerkships offered exclusively to minorities.  Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination based on race.

You can expect more of these legal challenges ahead.  There is a move on the political Right to get rid of all racial preferences, including debt relief for black farmers, financial stipends for minority entrepreneurs, federal subsidies for minority and women-owned restaurants, and school admissions affirmative action policies designed to reduce the number of white and Asian students.  One effort, called the Equal Protection Project, is scrutinizing exclusionary events for non-white educators in Rhode Island.   The Project objects to the Woke notion that the remedy for past discrimination is more discrimination.

That’s a clear thought that sticks like a hatchet in the brain.  I hope the legal warriors wielding it look at some other cases that cry out for equal protection litigation.  White students are barred from applying for a research fellowship and other exclusionary scholarships at the University of North Carolina.  A white student at the University of South Florida was denied access to group therapy mental health services because he is white.

Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia has a discriminatory college prep program offering counseling and other special assistance to students who are not Asian or white.  An elementary school in Olympia started a student club that won’t allow white kids to join.  A public school in Charlottesville hosted a black-only catered dinner event for parents.  San Francisco is giving $1,200 a month in guaranteed income to transgender residents.   “Black young adults” and “Black and Pacific Islander mothers” are guaranteed lesser amounts. How is that constitutional?

It’s not.  The drafters of the 14th Amendment and Martin Luther King had a dream, and it wasn’t special rights for privileged groups.  It was racial integration and equality under the law.  The thinking in civil rights circles no longer finds that adequate.  Too bad.  Until you succeed in getting the 14th Amendment off the books, you’re stuck with racial equality under the law and the simple justice it affords to every individual fortunate enough to live under its jurisdiction.

©Christopher Wright. All rights reserved.

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