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Blind justice keeps favoring white Republicans for some reason.

Within a week of the Supreme Court’s decision to effectively ban affirmative action at universities, America First Legal sent politely worded threats to 200 law schools. It used these ramblings to kindly tell the law schools what the ruling meant for the school administrators. In exchange for their service, AFL took a few liberties and made up some stuff about how the decision required law schools to stop factoring in race when it came to selecting articles for law review and pooh-poohed proxies for race and gender like socioeconomic status. On July 6th, I claimed that I’d give it a week before somebody sent a similar letter to companies that recruit from these schools. I was wrong. It took two weeks for something like that to happen. From Law.com:

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Thirteen state attorneys general sent a letter late last week to the nation’s largest employers warning them that they’ll “face serious legal consequences” if they use racial preferences in recruiting, hiring and contracting decisions….“We urge you to immediately cease any unlawful race-based quotas or preferences your company has adopted for its employment and contracting practices,” they write.

“If you choose not to do so, know that you will be held accountable—sooner rather than later—for your decision to continue treating people differently because of the color of their skin,” the states’ top law enforcement officers added.

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You know, all this equality talk is nice, but does it strike anyone else weird that it only gets bandied about when targeting affirmative action policies that benefit minorities? Because trust me, the number of affirmative action policies that act toward minority detriment are far greater. Here’s a small sample of some of the other things these AGs could be drawing attention to:

Connecticut Police Allegedly Issued 26,000 Fake Tickets To Cover Up Racism https://t.co/p3Iud1jdPO

— Kenny Akers (@KeneAkers) July 13, 2023

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Here’s another instance of “treating people differently because of the color of their skin” that they could sound the horn on:

Boise mayor botched contract with law firm to investigate Boise police racism | Opinion https://t.co/6p0I3YYbX2

— Sara (@tzingona) July 10, 2023

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Okay, this time I have a non-protect and serve flavor of racial preferences they could rally around ending:

"we found that, in comparison to similar white applicants, lenders were:

80% more likely to reject Black applicants

70% more likely to deny Native American applicants

50% more likely to turn down Asian/Pacific Islander applicantshttps://t.co/tax1BSgHJK

— @[email protected] on Mastodon (@timnitGebru) October 29, 2021

Don’t let the race-neutral dressing fool you. If given the option to target and sue institutions that actively use race to harm minorities or institutions that want to think equitably about education and employment opportunities, they will go to lengths to sue the brakes off the latter each and every time. Because there are so, so many racially discriminatory housing cases that are just waiting to be tried.

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A Black professor who studies housing discrimination had his home estimated to be worth $472K. A mortgage lender then denied a refinance loan.

After he and his wife removed info that Black people lived there, a 2nd appraiser valued it at $750K 😯 pic.twitter.com/3S5rtNkqS2

— SAY CHEESE! 👄🧀 (@SaycheeseDGTL) August 18, 2022

It bears repeating — the Harvard and UNC opinions were limited to universities. Affirmative action policies in employment are no less lawful now than they were before the Court’s *limited* decision. These threats are just fishing expeditions to find out what could be the next would-be Supreme Court case that lets Clarence & Co. strike down the practice elsewhere. Until that happens, this is just a lot of huffing and puffing. Here’s to employers not falling for it.

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Republican AGs Tell Fortune 100 They’re Ready To Pounce On Discriminatory DEI Programs [Law.com]

Earlier: The Slippery Slope Of Ending Affirmative Action Has Moved On To Its Next Target: Women And ‘Proxies For Diversity’

Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s.  He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at [email protected] and by tweet at @WritesForRent.

Topics

Affirmative Action, Courts