Return to Plessy v. Ferguson?

DeFacto Discrimination at the Supreme Court

Time to say the quiet part out loud:  Louisiana v. Callais is one of the most racist Supreme Court decisions since Plessy v. Ferguson.  To borrow a concept from employment discrimination case law, Plessy is de jure discrimination, and Callais is de facto.

In  Plessy, the Supreme Court decided that separate schools and facilities were fine and dandy for blacks and whites because, despite overwhelming evidence (even in 1896) that facilities were not equal, the idea that they could be equal was good enough, actual evidence of inequity be damned – de jure.

In Callais, the evidence that race plays a central role in how congressional districts in Louisiana (and other states) are drawn, as long as, wink-wink, we say it is for purely political reasons, then, evidence be damned, those gerrymanders are A OK.  But, if the state has the audacity to say that race is a factor in trying to avoid dilution of minority voting, that is racial bias precluded by the Roberts Supreme Court, evidence of inequity be damned – de facto.

Why am I writing about Callais in an environmental-focused blog site?  Loss of civil rights, evisceration of the separation of powers, Trump administration attacks on press freedom, on freedom of speech, on immigrants’ rights, on birthright citizenship, on voting rights (and voting broadly), and on environmental protection and action on climate change are all of a piece.

We need to respond.  Politicians cannot be silent, cannot simply hope that that next election changes things.  Those of us who still have a voice can’t be quiet.