Category Archives: Civil Rights

A Musical Interlude

By DocJess | Published August 30, 2015

This week, I’ve been reading some of the European articles on Donald Trump. Let’s just say that they’re unimpressed. Very offended by his words on Mexican people. And yet, across Europe and in the Mediterranean, there are thousands of dead: all people struggling to escape war and oppression and make it to Europe. A wall going up in Hungary. All incongruous. Better we should follow JT:

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Bernie Sanders’ Black Problem

By DocJess | Published August 12, 2015

Last weekend, Bernie Sanders drew more people to events in Seattle and Portland than all the other candidates in both candidates combined for all events over the same time period. We’re talking more than 25,000 people in Seattle and Portland, and then again a few days later in Los Angeles. You may have heard that at an earlier Portland event, Sanders was unable to speak due to the stage being taken over by a BlackLivesMatter activist. BlackLivesMatter is not really a Bernie Sanders problem, but he does have a major black problem.

Polls from last night indicate Bernie Sanders currently besting Hillary Clinton in the NH primary 44-37, which is outside the margin of error. It’s been my estimation that Bernie can beat Hillary in both Iowa and New Hampshire, and probably will. But because of his “black problem”, he cannot win South Carolina or other states where the black vote is the deciding factor. When I first heard about the BlackLivesMatter dust-up in Portland, I wondered “why Bernie?” It initially seemed that the people who don’t get their heads around the concept are Republicans — so why go after someone like Bernie, who’s got more than 30 years of civil rights legislation under his belt? It turns out there are two reasons. First, one of the women who stormed the stage is a Sarah Palin supporter, and it turns out the real BlackLivesMatter people want her to apologize.

The second reason is that Bernie Sanders does have a black problem, and it’s obvious in a lot of polling. He polls well in both Iowa and New Hampshire relative to favourable/unfavourable. But that is in two lily white states. Overall, among African-Americans, Sanders trails Clinton 64/11. In North Carolina, Clinton pulls 70% of the African-American votes. The list goes on, but Sanders doesn’t do well amoungst black voters. Continue Reading...

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Civil Rights and the Supreme Court

By tmess2 | Published July 12, 2015

Depending on how you define a civil rights case, this past term was, at least, on the surface a very good year for civil rights groups.  I say on the surface because some of the “wins” were only partial wins.  Of the cases most viewed as “civil rights” cases, the side seeking to protect/expand civil rights won 4-6 cases and the only loss was on a procedural issue.

It was a particularly good year if your claim involved religious discrimination.  In Holt v. Hobbs, the Supreme Court found (in a rare win for an inmate) that Arkansas had to permit an inmate to have a half-inch beard under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act.  In E.E.O.C. v. Abercrombie & Fitch, the Supreme Court held that a person suing an employer for religious discrimination need only show that the employer’s perception of the possibility that the prospective employee would need a religious accommodation was one of the factors behind the decision to not hire that person.  (In this case, the applicant was a female Muslim who wore a hijab to the interview.  While the applicant’s religious beliefs were not expressly discussed during the interview, the store declined to hire her based on the belief that she would want an exemption from the company’s policy that employees could not wear any head covering.)

In a very technical decision, in two companion cases out of Alabama, the Supreme Court indicated that — even though preclearance is no longer required — the rules against a racial gerrymander of legislative districts will still have bite.  This case has already had a cascading effect on other reviews of the lines drawn for the 2012-20 elections.  Of course,  the fact that we are on the eve of the third round of elections under these lines is one of the reason why pre-clearance was such a big deal. Continue Reading...

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Discrimination and Affirmative Action: SCOTUS Takes Another Case

By DocJess | Published July 7, 2015

The Supremes have agreed to rehear Fisher v Texas in the upcoming term. The  version you’ll hear is that Abigail Fisher sued the University of Texas, Austin on the grounds that she was refused entry because she was white, thus a reverse-discrimination claim. The larger issue is race-based admissions, or affirmative action.

Actually, that’s not what this case is about, not even close. Abigail Fisher is a cute, young white woman chosen to be the face of a suit paid for by Edward Blum, who’d been looking for someone like Fisher for a number of years.

Abigail Fisher didn’t get into UT-Austin NOT because of the colour of her skin, but because her grades weren’t good enough. She ended up at the University of Louisiana, graduated, is gainfully employed and all she really wants is the hundred dollars she spent on application fees. Full story after the jump.
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