Or perhaps they just don’t believe in the Constitution in Minneapolis—you know, like in California. The Minneapolis Federation of Teachers struck a deal last March 25 with the Minneapolis Public Schools ending a teacher strike, and among the provisions was “educators of color protections.” If a non-white teacher is first on the list to be let go for budget reasons, the school system must fire a white teacher with the “next least” seniority instead.
Got that?
The agreement reads in part,
“Starting with the Spring 2023 Budget Tie-Out Cycle, if excessing a teacher who is a member of a population underrepresented among licensed teachers in the site, the District shall excess the next least senior teacher, who is not a member of an underrepresented population.”
Needless to say…wait, I guess it does need to be said!—this is flat out illegal under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. The provision violates a Supreme Court decision overturning the race-based layoff of a white teacher. It violates contradicts a federal appeals court decision ruling that race-based layoffs of white teachers violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
It is wrong. It is discriminatory and unfair. It is biased and prejudiced. It is unethical.
Hey, but it satisfies the current cult of “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion,” so there’s no problem!
Kidding! This is simply defiance of the law and the bedrock principle of equal protection on multiple fronts. Since the teachers union supported this discriminatory provision, it may well be liable for discrimination along with the school district. Unions are subject to liability for racial discrimination under Title VII and 42 U.S.C. 1981, see, e.g., Woods v. Graphic Communications (1991) The Supreme Court has ruled that people who conspire with the government to discriminate can sometimes be sued along with it under the Constitution,in Adickes v. S.H. Kress & Co. (1971).
In addition to directly contradicting SCOTUS’s striking down of race-based lay-offs in Wygant v. Jackson Board of Education (1986) and Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co. (1989), But wait! There’s more!
Race-based layoff provisions also breach the law against racial discrimination in contracts, 42 U.S.C. 1981, as Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 244, 276 n.23 (2003) made clear.
So how could the unions and the Minneapolis school officials adopt such a policy? It’s simple: they have malfunctioning ethics alarms, they don’t believe in the Constitution, and all participants believe in radically changing the nation’s norms regarding fairness, equality and respect for individuals by any means necessary, means that include pay-back racial discrimination.
Naturally, any white Americans who object to being fired or otherwise harmed because of their race are just racists and unwilling to atone for their privilege, that’s all.
“Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” is ethics rot, cleverly packaged. It needs to be exposed for what it is.
Ethics Alarms 
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion
The late Robin Williams had a skit mocking Muammar Gaddafi.
He impersonates Gaddafi saying “this is the line of death cross it and you die”. Multiple times he steps backward repeating the line, “if you cross this line you die”. The skit reminds me of the progressive’s approach to providing “equality for blacks”. Progressives look at the achievements of blacks as a whole and have determined that blacks have not had the same level of achievements as whites because of whites. To be sure blacks have systematically been discriminated against in the United States through the mid-twentieth century.
In the1960’s through the passage of the Civil Rights Act and other legislation. Racial discrimination became illegal. The goal was ostensibly equality for all. This alone was not enough. To atone for past sins and affirmative action was instituted. Then set-asides were instituted for government projects specifically for black businesses. As with all government programs these programs have no sunset clauses nor stated outcomes or benchmarks to determine the efficacy of the programs so as to modify them to achieve a goal. Despite these laws and programs apparently, blacks were still not attaining the level of achievement progressives felt was appropriate. To compensate for this failure institutions lowered standards to increase black participation and enrollment. This was still not enough for progressives so White Privilege was invented. Then we found out that blacks were still not succeeding to the unstated required level. This brings us now to equity programs and the propaganda that all whites are racist.
It seems to me the true racists in America are the progressives. They have promoted the notion that if you are black and you are not succeeding it is because you were not allowed to succeed because of whites. There are no discussions regarding the level of effort required in school to improve your chances of success later in life. There are no programs emphasizing critical thinking, morals, ethics, and character. Progressives always tell underachieving blacks it’s not your fault they are victims. I think that is BS. I said to a black associate of mine that barring physical limitations you can achieve any level of success you want providing, you are willing to pay the price. He totally disagreed. Mind you he is an engineer from a good university in a well-paying job for a Fortune 50 company. Another black friend told me he wanted to be a lawyer but couldn’t because he was black. He too was a college graduate in a well-paying job with a major corporation. The frustrating thing about indoctrination and mind fucks is they work.
We need to encourage all youth to work hard and put the effort in so they can achieve what they want in life. The catch is there need to be opportunities for them to reward them for their effort. There in lies the problem. Progressives have systematically dismantled industry in the United States. This has been done through crippling regulations and taxation. Progressives in their quest for Utopia have offshored so many jobs that we have a shortage of good opportunities for young people to aspire to.
We as a nation need to encourage achievement and not condemn it. We need to stop focusing on meaningless crap. To do that however politicians need to stop demonizing businesses. We need politicians to stop looking to corporations to implement their social engineering programs. They need to stop looking to corporations as sources for income redistribution.
We need to onshore industry. We need to understand that progressivism is a march toward totalitarianism. Regrettably, my version of utopia has as much chance of success as the progressive’s version. Maybe even less. As can be seen from the actions of the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers, indoctrination is effective and these are the individuals responsible for educating the future of our country.
I feel we are headed toward a tipping point where the continuation of the current path is intolerable, or society totally collapses. This has happened throughout history. Sometimes the result of a tipping point being reached is positive, most times it is not. It will always result in innocents getting grievously hurt.
Your analysis assumes that the liberal elite want blacks to succeed and achieve the same results as whites eventually. With this assumption, everything they have done is illogical. You noted the lack of programs to raise the critical thinking or moral education of blacks. You also noted that none of these programs were checking to see if they worked. What if your first assumption is wrong. What if the liberal elites are the same people who enslaved blacks in this country for hundreds of years then controlled them with Jim Crow laws? What if they believe that blacks are actually intellectually inferior to whites, but they want the power that can be gained by instituting these programs and controlling black Americans? Look at the programs and see if they make sense now.
Agreed. Didn’t LBJ state that the government needed to give a few benefits to keep the Black community happy, but otherwise, keep them under foot? The Great Liberator turned out to be the Great Oppressor, and a committed racist.
jvb
Michael R.
You use the amorphous term liberal elite. My quarrel is not necessarily with liberals. It is with progressives. A classic liberal will look at a problem and demand the government spend money on the problem to fix it. A progressive will look at the same problem and demand money be spent but also look for government to impose a multitude of regulations on businesses and the populous. The classic liberal sees themselves as the most moral and compassionate of society. The progressives see themselves as the smartest people on earth their goal is not compassion their goal; is control. Total control. The progressives don’t want to control just blacks, they want to control everyone.
You state, “What if they believe that blacks are actually intellectually inferior to whites, but they want the power that can be gained by instituting these programs and controlling black Americans?” I don’t discount there is a portion of society that believes blacks are intellectually inferior to whites. The eugenicist of the early 20th century were very open about that belief. Margaret Sanger, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Linus Pauling are three prominent eugenicists who specifically singled out blacks.
I have no doubt that some politicians may have viewed civil rights legislation as a possible means of controlling blacks. Throw the blacks a bone so to speak. It is also likely some viewed the legislation to garner white liberal’s votes and help them buy black votes. It is also possible the legislation was viewed as a means of tamping down the increasingly violent civil rights movement.
As you concede the progressive programs and woke movement being foisted on our society are illogical. They are also divisive and destructive. As Lincoln stated, “A house divided against itself cannot stand” The remedies I suggest are not just for blacks they are I believe for the benefit of all of America.
Classic Liberals, ala Claude-Frédéric Bastiat are in frightfully short supply.
It gets worse; they’ve been replaced, to the detriment of the fact-based Universe, by the hive-minded, easily herded Post-Modern-Neo-Lefty.
When fairly mainstream publications like the Atlantic and it’s ilk are starting to publish articles entitled “The Last White Man” and “Imagine a Future Without White People,” the mask really slips and you see what the goal really is. Of course, if you dare voice that opinion, or point out what articles like this are really saying, they accuse you of racism and want you locked up.
I pointed this out once when I wrote about Julius Stretcher and how bad what he wrote really was. Most of what he wrote was so bad that it doesn’t find its way into the history books, the mainstream ones, anyway. His ideas and those of his Fuehrer, of certain races being inherently superior and inferior, and there being a right, and in some cases an obligation, for the superior to take away the inferior’s success, force them into servitude, and ultimately destroy them, took off in under a decade because they had dynamic leaders pushing them, and a population so fed up with lack of success that it was entirely receptive to them. Those ideas have not taken off as quickly here partly because this nation, at least usually, has enough success to go around to the point where most people are not looking for someone else to blame for their own failures, partly because most of the aggrieved groups have not sufficient numbers to make their brand of totalitarianism a reality. At least they had not sufficient numbers until now. Like it or not, black people in this nation still only constitute at most between 13% and 15% of the population. On their own, they will never be able to turn this nation into a Zimbabwe or a South Africa. Introduce a whole lot of entitled migrants and a whole lot of woke white people, and it becomes a different situation. In Nazi Germany they talked about how the Jews had stabbed the fatherland in the back and made a deserved victory impossible. In woke America, they talk about systemic racism and how the whites have been successful only at the expense of the blacks. In Nazi Germany they talked about ill-gotten Jewish wealth, in woke America they talk about white privilege. In Nazi Germany they used the Bellamy salute, in woke America it’s the raised fist. In Nazi Germany it was young men with short hair in brown shirts who did the dirty work. In wok America it’s scruffy skinny young men with ragged hair and black t-shirts who do the dirty work. In Nazi Germany, if you voiced an objection, you were told to get out of the way but the future was coming and you were not part of it. In woke America, if you say you are getting uncomfortable with what you are seeing, they tell you that what you are seeing was meant to make fascists uncomfortable, ergo if it makes you uncomfortable you must be a fascist. In Nazi Germany the rallying shout was “Heil Hitler!” In woke America the rallying slogan is “Black Lives Matter!” and no other slogan will do. If you will not say it or you dare ask questions about it, they wonder if you’re a racist and maybe you need to be looked at. In Nazi Germany they reduced the power of the individual states and turned the place into a national rather than a federal state, with all police power resting with the central authority. In woke America they want to hire a de facto army of police agents for the federal government to mobilize against anyone and everyone they accuse of holding out on the government and to hobble those who disagree with the government as was already done in 2012. In Nazi Germany, they plastered swastikas everywhere. In woke America they tear down any statue or Memorial that someone in the New order of, no matter how old, nor how relatively benign. In Nazi Germany, they had the emergency services stand down while mob violence was directed against those out of favor. In woke America, governors and mayors told the emergency services to stand down while mobs of those they favored destroyed the property, the lives, and sometimes even the bodies of those they did not favor, sending the message that it was okay to do all these things
In Nazi Germany they locked up the opposition after accusing them of starting a fire in the legislative building, then voted themselves ultimate power when there was no one to oppose that vote. We aren’t quite there yet, but when federal agents storm the home of the powerful opposition figure while the supporters of the current party and power dance with glee at the prospect of indictments, and they start seizing phones from members of the opposition party in the legislature, the prospect of locking up the opposition while amassing more power doesn’t seem so remote. In Nazi Germany they reserved special hatred and extermination for Jews, but they also attempted to exterminate anyone else branded undesirable, this included the physically disabled, homosexuals, gypsies, Slavs, and generally anyone else that those in power decided did not meet there idea of what society should look like. In wok america, they are now starting to seriously talk about a future where the white race simply does not exist, where conservatives simply don’t exist where anyone who disagrees with wokeism simply doesn’t exist. Are you starting to see some parallels yet? I’m almost certain you are, because the commentary out here is not made up of idiots. It is also not made up of the historically illiterate. All the same, I’m also certain that a lot of you I thinking as you read this, “Don’t be foolish, Steven! Don’t be an alarmist! Don’t try to gin up anger or fear or hatred where none is necessary, you’re just making a fool of yourself!” Am i? How many people in history warned against going too far down a dangerous path, but were ignored? And what happened after they were ignored?
Well, I can tell you for a fact that 600,000, Americans all, lie in marked and unmarked graves from Gettysburg to New Orleans because this nation, and elements of this nation, went a lot farther than necessary down a very dangerous path. I can also tell you for a fact that a lot of Europe right now is built on the ashes of the Europe before it because the rulers of Europe went down the dangerous path of tyranny, and that Europe was built on the ashes of the Europe before it because a cadre of French leaders decided to go too far down a very dangerous path and one French leader almost went all the way. As we read this this morning we are all of us damn lucky that the United States and more the Soviet Union did not go farther than they did down the dangerous path of the Cold War. Almost all of these times except the last no one listened to the voices of reason or of moderation. Nothing good has ever come of the Henry Clay’s of the world getting shoved aside by the John Calhoun’s, nor of the Kerensky’s being pushed off the stage by the Lenin’s. It has always been a net negative when people and nations have bought into the group superiority or inferiority myths that get peddled regularly by those seeking power. And don’t let yourself be fooled, it’s almost always about power. The names and faces and symbols and slogans change, but it almost always all boils down to one group seeking to impose its will on another. I was hoping that with the end of the Cold War and the toppling of several of the Middle East tyrants that it would be a long time before we would see tyranny try to rear its ugly head again. I guess I hoped in vain. So far the human race has been fortunate, and every time tyranny has ascended, it has ultimately been beaten back by those who stood against it. Not so fortunate, however are those whose lives and fortunes it has consumed before it has been beaten back. There is also always the risk that the attempt to beat it back will not succeed or will not succeed for generations, and then what?
We’re not there yet, but we are playing a very high stakes game, higher stakes than a lot of people realize or want to realize. They say that all that is necessary for evil to win is for good men to do nothing. Well, it’s time for the good men to speak up and do something.
EXCELLENT post Steve; going into my EA Archives!
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more pointedly accurate correlation between a well known past totalitarian cultural shift and modern totalitarian cultural shift.
Well done Steve, well done!
It gets even freakier when you look at what the democrats are doing with the IRS. Hiring 87k new IRS agents, then posting job openings asking for people willing to use deadly force. For what? Declaring to many deductions on your taxes? Or for saying things the gestapo doesn’t want you saying? The latter seems more likely. Then add all the ESG score bullshit and carbon wallet crap to the list, and it starts to get even scarier.
Null Pointer wrote, “It gets even freakier when you look at what the democrats are doing with the IRS. Hiring 87k new IRS agents, then posting job openings asking for people willing to use deadly force.”
Steve alluded to that when he wrote “In woke America they want to hire a de facto army of police agents for the federal government to mobilize against anyone and everyone they accuse of holding out on the government and to hobble those who disagree with the government as was already done in 2012.”
Ah, yes. I see that now. They have also been doing weird things with the capital police and my brain went there for some reason when I read that.
I raised the alarm when the EPA did this. They hired thousands of ‘SWAT-like” officers to enforce their rules. I pointed out at the time, that the EPA currently could requisition the Marshall’s service for any raid that needed armed officers and that the EPA only needed this a few times a year. If they have full-time SWAT officers, they will feel the need to use them whether they are needed or not (which is what has happened). Now, the EPA can go into a company waving submachine guns, put everyone on the floor, handcuff them, and march them out to the tactical vans while they pull the files out of the filecabinets (only to find out there was no violation). I guess the real problem was when every police department started getting their own SWAT teams. How may cities have had SWAT teams for 40+ years and never needed to use them? I said NEEDED to use them. If you have them, you will use them. Why do we see all of these excessive force searches? Is it because the SWAT guys need something to do? The truth is that all these SWAT teams are probably a waste of time, training, and resources. and never needed to use them? I said NEEDED to use them. If you have them, you will use them. Why do we see all of these excessive force searches? Is it because the SWAT guys need something to do? The truth is that all these SWAT teams are probably a waste of time, training, and resources. How well did the Uvalde situation work out with their tactical team that had just been to active shooter training the month before? If the first officer on scene knew that he was it and it was up to him, would things have been better? It couldn’t get much worse. The only time my city has used their MRAP was for a standoff situation involving the MRAP, a dozen SWAT officers, a helicopter, and an empty house.
With thousands of armed, tactical officers, IRS audits will now feature a lot of kicking in doors, handcuffs, and reckless waving of automatic weapons. There soon be a death toll for audits, because the tactical teams have been known to shoot anyone who makes a sudden move, especially when you advertised for people who are willing to kill.
SWAT teams are a product of the 1960s, when it became necessary to deal with violent criminals, riots, and hostage situations more often. Actually the first one was created by the LAPD in response to a slew of bank robberies. Then you had the SLA siege in 1974, then the War on Drugs, and SWAT really ook off. It took off even more with the war on terror, and now not just the big cities, but every county force and a lot of smaller towns all boast at least the ability to field a SWAT team, though it might take come time to get the men together, dressed, armed, and on the scene. Of course the states and the Feds got in on it too, which is where you get the paramilitary units like the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team.
At the same time there has also been the general spread of weapons and arrest authority throughout the Federal government. Believe it or not, FBI agents had no authority to carry and no arrest authority until, I believe, 1933. Prior to that they would hsve to call on the US Marshals if they needed arrests made. As we started to move into the 1970s and 1980s almost EVERY government agency acquired armed agents. It was probably necessary, given the spread of armed and even heavily armed criminals. However, it’s also opened that many more slots for “cowboy” agents and cops who are overly eager to use force as a first resort. Philip Brailsford, who shot Eric Shaver dead while he was sobbing and begging for his life, with an assault rilfe that had “You’re fucked” stenciled on it, is typical of those officers.
Daniel Shaver.
Another original hit, by the original artist. Well done!!
Steve-O-in-NJ,
I thought you should know that your comment inspired a new post on my blog.
Thanks, and yikes!
Every worthwhile/substantive comment has been made by those above. I will only add my puzzlement that the city and the teachers’ union in Minneapolis have neither a lawyer in their groups nor a pro bono one with whom to consult. How hard was it to find those cites? Did they not know? Or just did not care? I assume it was the latter, though the law suits which will inevitably follow may force them to regret their decision making.
So, how many civil rights were violated by Bollinger while he was President of Michigan? OK, don’t bother, that would take way too much time. The good question is why did he never have to suffer any consequences at all over the violations?