What is so problematic with nondiscrimination in hiring, especially in the context of the Civil Rights Act of 1964?
The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of Americans would say nothing is wrong with it. The primary purpose of the law was to prevent individuals from being judged based on the immutable characteristics of race and sex.
This law was designed to counter racism and sexism, not promote it. Indeed, only those who would advocate for racism and sexism would find it objectionable.
Yet much of the mainstream media responded to the U.S. Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling in Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services with consternation.
For example, CNN headlined, “Supreme Court sides with straight woman in decision that makes it easier to win ‘reverse discrimination’ suits.” CNN’s first paragraph reads:
The Supreme Court on Thursday sided with a straight woman in Ohio who filed a “reverse discrimination” lawsuit against her employer when her gay boss declined to promote her. The ruling will make it easier to win such suits in some parts of the country.
The Hill, The Associated Press, and USA Today all followed suit using the term “reverse discrimination” in scare quotes within their headlines. That is an interesting and telling inclusion, as the term is never mentioned within the Court’s ruling, nor in the majority opinion written by arguably the Court’s most liberal member, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
“Reverse discrimination” is a nonsense term when it comes to equality under the law, the foundational standard of American jurisprudence. Marlean Ames sued her employer for discriminating against her. As Jackson wrote:
As a textual matter, Title VII’s disparate-treatment provision draws no distinctions between majority-group plaintiffs and minority-group plaintiffs. Rather, the provision makes it unlawful “to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.”
So, why is the mainstream media spinning this uncontroversial decision as being controversial? Could it be that members of the MSM are committed to a view of jurisprudence that does not embrace equality under the law as a bedrock principle for upholding justice? Could it be that the woke Marxist ethic has so captured their understanding of “justice” that they object to a color blind standard that judges individuals based upon their actions and not upon their group identity?
It is astounding that 60 years after the landmark passage of the Civil Rights Act ending discrimination, Leftmedia players still cling to racism and sexism as justification for discrimination against individuals because of their immutable group identity.
Part of the reason they find this ruling “controversial” is because of Donald Trump’s actions to root out the inherently racist DEI structure and practice from the federal government. The Leftmedia is not happy with Trump’s attacks against DEI, and they have sought to couch his efforts as “racism.” The irony is that they are objecting to Trump’s efforts to rid the government of race-based discrimination.
The truth is that Leftmedia activists are not opposed to racism; they are opposed to ending it. Hence, the disingenuous framing of this noncontroversial decision as “controversial.”
