Fear Of Public Shame-Bombing Is Allowing Interest-Group Politics to Ruin Our Democratic Processes
With all discussion, past and present, of Judge Ketanji Jackson’s nomination for the US Supreme Court, it seems to me the real main point of the matter is being entirely overlooked in public discourse.
Presidential-Candidate Joe Biden’s campaign promise “My first nominee to the Supreme Court will be a Black woman,” and his delivery of that campaign promise when actually President, both literally broke the law; as follows:
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
United States Code Vol. 42 §2000e Pub. L. 88-352 SEC. 2000e-2. [Section 703]
(a) Employer practices
It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer –
(1) 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; or
(2) to limit, segregate, or classify his employees or applicants for employment in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status as an employee, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
White and Asian (and Indian and First-American and Inuit and Philippine, and Polynesian) are “colors” and/or “national origins.”
Male is a sex (gender).
Those colors and that gender were excluded from hiring consideration, purely on the basis of their color and gender. Candidate, then President Biden, directly stated so when promising, and when nominating.
President Biden broke the law when making this nomination: Jackson’s candidacy is now too tainted with illegality and political interests to be healthy going forward. She is vulnerable to disruption of her service or disenfranchisement of her SCOTUS opinions by direct attacks on the validity of her position as a Justice.
For any interest-group: racial, religious, or otherwise to break the law so as to get one of their own into highest office in the legal profession is simply not a dynamic the our Republic can survive.
Imagine the furor that would have ensued if Candidate Biden had said:
“We need to change the endless cycle of only Black and White Christians and Jews on the US Supreme Court: my next nominee will be either a Muslim, or a Trans-gender Hindu or Sikh.”
The sky would have fallen in.
However, Candidate Biden needed the African-American vote: so he guaranteed that voting bloc that if they voted for him, one of their own would be put on The Court in the next opening. He got their vote: he got the Presidency. He then broke the law and violated his Presidential oath so as to keep his promise; and his candidate for the US Supreme Court accepted an illegal appointment. Let that sentence sink in:
Biden’s nominee for the US Supreme Court, the highest Constitutional legal office in the country, accepted an illegal appointment to the post.
She had been pre-selected because of her sex and race – and all other genders and races had been excluded, limited, segregated, classified OUT of the position – because of their gender and races.
It is a textbook, direct violation of Title VII.
The main reason no one in law or government will say so in public now appears to be because of fear of being “cancelled” – meaning, shame-bombed in public outside due process by cries of “racism” which were hurled nearly instantly at anyone merely probing the appropriateness of the nominee – which is the specific job of Congress in regard to such appointments. Anyone questioning or opposing for any reason was publicly reviled as racist.
Breaking the law to place one of the highest Law officials in the Government is madness.
The group-interest-driven madness needs to stop.
Criticizing certain Islamic actions and ideas must cease being instantly labeled, “Islamophobia.”
Criticizing certain Jewish or Israeli actions and ideas must cease being instantly labeled, “Antisemitism.”
Criticizing certain Gender-Group actions and ideas must cease being instantly labeled, “misogyny, misanthropy, homophobia, or transphobia.”
Criticizing certain race-group actions and ideas must cease being instantly labeled, “racism.”
We must recover the skill of having non-demonizing discussions with those who disagree with us.
The sole legally-permissible qualification-set for appointment to the US Supreme Court is a supremely excellent record as a jurist, accompanied by a supremely excellent and persistent level of demonstrated character and wisdom in keeping with the legal profession’s standards. Gender and race are simply disallowed as qualifiers or disqualifiers from consideration for office.
Ironically, it was Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who said on the Capitol steps not far from The US Supreme Court: “I have a dream that one day my children will live in a country where they are judged, not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”
Judge Ketanji Jackson missed a golden opportunity to go down in history.
She should have declined Biden’s appointment by saying something like this:
“Mr. President, I am honored beyond expression to be a nominee to The Supreme Court; however, this time around, as an attorney and officer of the court, I must respectfully decline the nomination because you directly cited my gender and race as reasons for my appointment. These criteria are entirely and directly illegal, per Title VII of the US Code. I gratefully here note that the next time a seat becomes open, I would be honored to be nominated, provided no reference is made to my gender or race in any way related to my nomination. I further say, this kind of strict adherence by me to the ethics of the legal profession will be what you can expect from me in the exercise of my duties, and ongoing effort to be an example of meticulous adherence to legal and Constitutional ethics and law above group interests or pressures of any kind. Thank you.”
If Ketanji Jackson had made this speech, she would be quoted and studied in every Constitutional Law class in every American law school for the next hundreds of years.
Instead, we have an example of a candidate for President cynically politically “playing” an interest group for votes, and a legal professional from that group violating her every oath to “defend and uphold the Constitution and Laws of the United States” in order to gain the high office.
I expect to be called “a racist” for writing this.
I was asked not long ago by one African American interests-advocate, “Why can’t you just be happy for us, that we got one of our own onto the highest seat in the profession?”
My reply was based on “The Golden Rule” – what if it was some other interest group that managed to “get one of their own” into the highest court in the land by breaking the law? Would you “just be glad” for them?
The Republic comes first.
So offers this one citizen to my fellow citizens for consideration.
May The Republic endure.
BLC
Written April 2022, revised December 2023