Minneapolis School District Adopts Race-Based Layoffs
From a nation of laws to whatever this is
In violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which proscribes race-based discrimination in nearly every employment circumstance, a new collective bargaining agreement between the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers and Minneapolis School District adopts a race-based layoff framework that would see white teachers axed in the event of necessary layoffs, before any layoffs reach “members of a population underrepresented among licensed teachers.”
The collective bargaining agreement also violates a 1986 decision by the Supreme Court to specifically outlaw layoffs structured with the intent of remediating social inequalities, particularly inequalities faced by blacks (Wygant v. Jackson Board of Education). Here’s more information from Liberty Unyielding:
This violates a well-known Supreme Court decision overturning the race-based layoff of a white teacher, and contradicts a well-known federal appeals court decision, which ruled that race-based layoffs of white teachers violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
It is illegal under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. When it comes to termination (as opposed to hiring or promotion under an affirmative-action plan), an employer can’t racially discriminate even against whites. The Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 1996 that a school district can’t consider race even as a tie-breaker, in deciding who to lay off, even to promote diversity, because that (a) unduly trammels the white teacher’s rights — even affirmative action plans are supposed to be mild and not unduly trammel someone’s rights, and getting fired as opposed to being denied a promotion unduly trammels someone’s rights — and (b) putting that aside, the school district couldn’t consider race to promote diversity when black people weren’t seriously underrepresented in its workforce as a whole. That ruling was Taxman v. Board of Education of Piscataway, 91 F.3d 1547 (3d Cir. 1996).
It is also unconstitutional, for more complicated reasons, under the Supreme Court’s decision in Wygant v. Jackson Board of Education (1986). In that case, the Supreme Court overturned race-based layoffs by a 5-to-4 vote. Five justices said a school district can’t lay off white teachers to remedy societal discrimination against blacks. Four of those five also said that the Constitution forbids laying off people based on race (as opposed to considering race in hiring and promotions) even to remedy a school district’s own discrimination. (Justice Powell’s opinion announcing the judgment of the court, and also Justice White’s concurrence).
Minneapolis School District is simply following in the wake of the new ascendant ideals cascading over the institutional pillars which once undergirded our nation. The new ascendant class has no use for laws as guides of conduct and organization, but would rather see the state of regulation of society by principles consigned to the dust bin. Whim, anger, impulse, these are the new guiding stars of the ascendant elite. This is a revolution, one of total liberation of humans from humanity.
We don’t have to look further than the New York Times to see the acolytes of the new faith calling for an end to the things like the United States constitution:
And here a member of the ascendant class, writing from The Guardian, gives its verdict on the nation’s highest court:
What’s happening now is really remarkable, I just wonder how far it will go.