Why does the mayor of Chicago think that it’s all right for her to announce that she won’t talk with journalists who are the wrong skin color?
Well, I’m afraid that one of the many bad results of the Supreme Court’s penchant in the past for carving out exceptions to the laws against racial discrimination has been that — no matter how much the Court thinks it has qualified and limited those exceptions — it is assumed by most people that they are much broader than they are. In contracting, employment, and education, the Court has carved out such exceptions, and we see PC racial discrimination in those areas to a much greater extent than I’m sure the Court intended. More broadly, it’s assumed that any woke discrimination raises no constitutional or legal problem.
Political and corporate and academic leaders do not automatically assume that they cannot engage in racial discrimination: The contrary seems to be the case. Coca-Cola and the mayor of Chicago and just about any university are some of the many examples.
Perhaps the only way for such leaders to change their assumptions is for the Supreme Court to overturn the exceptions it has created. In the meantime, here’s hoping that lawsuits are filed in the lower courts to ensure the limited exceptions to the bans on racial discrimination remain limited.