Constitutional Race-Conscious Policies In 2021, the Biden administration created a loan forgiveness program that excluded white farmers. It was ruled unconstitutional and a violation of equal protection. (Wynn v. Vilsack et al) Washington (state) recently passed a law that gives low interest loans but bars applicants of certain races. (HB 1474) How did Washington try to change this law to avoid being struck down? Presumably Washington legislators are aware of the previous ruling and have modified the new law accordingly. Ideas: Reduction of loan principle v. loan interest? Federal law v. state law? Farm loans v. home loans? They seem to be aware that there is likely to be a constitutional challenge, since Sec 14-15 specify what to do in the case when it is held unconstitutional (it disperses the money without regard to race). EDIT: The law is explicit that it applies to anyone of a certain &quot;race, national origin, or sex&quot;. The races, national origins, and sexes will be determined by a committee. Is there precedent for racial testing? Wygant v. Jackson Bd. of Educ and Coral Construction Co. v. King County (1991) limit historical arguments about past discrimination to discrimination by the government in the recent past. Covenants were private and ceased in 1968. EDIT: Still haven't seen an answer that answers how this is consistent with Wygant v. Jackson Bd. of Educ and Coral Construction Co. v. King County (1991). Can the government impose race tests based on claims on non-governmental action in the distant past?
Washington's HB 1474 actually does not give low interest loans to all but white borrowers. It initiates the process of creating a bureaucracy that will eventually provide loans for down payment and closing cost assistance for first-time home buyers (a loan that must be repaid when the house is sold). There are various qualifications that a program participant must meet, such as below-average income, being a resident, and also they must be a state resident before April 11, 1968 or a descendant of someone who was, and was or would have been excluded from homeownership in Washington state by a racially restrictive real estate covenant on or before April 11,28 1968 The &quot;would have&quot; part refers to the fact that a person may have been interested in buying a particular house but gave up when they were told that there is a racially restrictive covenant associated with the property. It is then the duty of the covenant homeownership program commission to determine what such covenants may have existed, and also to what extent existing programs and race-neutral approaches have been insufficient to remedy this discrimination and its impacts The law simply states that eligibility is based on a recorded covenant or deed restriction that includes or included racial restrictions on property ownership or use against protected classes that are unlawful under RCW 49.60.224 which would include any covenants against sale to Irish or any other anciently discriminated-against Europeans, if such are found to exist. Referring to Wynn v. Vilsack, it was noted that A strong basis in evidence cannot rest on an amorphous claim of societal discrimination, on simple legislative assurances of good intention, or on congressional findings of discrimination in the national economy. However, a governmental entity can justify affirmative action by demonstrating gross statistical disparities between the proportion of minorities hired and the proportion of minorities willing and able to do the work. Analogous reasoning would apply to government action that deprived individuals of the opportunity to purchase a home based on their race. If (when) this new law is challenged, one of the central questions would be what remedial actions the government(s) took to correct this past discrimination. While it is clear that such discrimination was ended in 1968, it is far from clear that there was any remedial action taken by the state. Of course there is always the possibility that SCOTUS will discover new law that changes the landscape, but as it stands, such corrective actions are legal.
I don't see the contradiction. The ACLU article you link to explains that the Supreme Court found against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in principle in the 2018 ruling. Instead they found that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission had taken a dismissive attitude to the religion of the bakery's owners, and that in itself was religious discrimation and a violation of their First Amendment rights. I would say the 2018 ruling paved the way for the more recent one, which is why the article you link is titled: &quot;In Masterpiece, the Bakery Wins the Battle but Loses the War&quot;
Short Answer You can be prosecuted for lying about race on the census, but it takes some pretty specific and narrow conditions and isn't a concern for the vast majority of people. Long Answer There are two analytically distinct questions. The first is whether you can lie on the census about race. The answer is &quot;yes&quot;, you can lie on the census about race. You would do so by providing an answer that is insincere, which is to say, an answer that is not consistent with how you self-identify. If you believe yourself to be and identify as African-American, for example, but answer &quot;Alaska Native&quot; not because you identify as an Alaska Native, but because you want to screw with the census, then you have lied about race on the census. Similar issues of sincerity have been addressed by the U.S. Supreme Court in the context of the much higher stakes issue of conscientious objector status for someone seeking to avoid the draft. A 2014 law review article explores how courts test sincerity claims in practice. The second is whether you can be prosecuted about lying on the census. There is indeed a law that makes lying on a census form a crime. Refusing to answer either the short Census form or the longer American Community Survey form is a violation of federal law (Title 13, United States Code, Section 221). Refusing to answer is punishable by a fine of $100, while giving false answers carries a fine of up to $500. (As a practical matter, the Census says fines of up to $5,000 can be imposed under Title 18, Section 3571.) So, again, the answer is &quot;yes&quot; you can be prosecuted for lying on the census, but due to the obligation of the census to maintain confidentiality, knowing that a crime was committed or proving that you lied would be hard unless you did something to waive that right to confidentiality. Still, the person about whom the confidential information is maintained by the census can waive this confidentiality. 13 USC 9(a)(3). In practice, a prosecution for lying about race on the census would probably be most viable if, for example, you did a TV interview or posted a YouTube video in which you took video of yourself filling in the race item on your census form with an answer while stating that you didn't self-identify as this race but were just screwing with the government, and then showed yourself submitting that form. Thus, while the prohibition against lying on the census about race is virtually toothless, it does have enough teeth to make it possible to prosecuted someone who openly and publicly defies the requirement to be truthful on the census and admits to doing so, which can still have some utility in discouraging some kinds of open revolts calculated at undermining the integrity of the census. Also, even if you don't &quot;admit&quot; that you are insincere that isn't the end of the analysis. They can't dispute your self-identification with biological facts, but they can dispute that your answer is a sincere self-identification with either your own confession to the contrary or with circumstantial evidence that indicates you are lying (e.g. you fill out every other form before and after with a different answer and have a known animosity towards the census). If a jury believed beyond a reasonable doubt based upon circumstantial evidence that your answer was not sincere, it could find your testimony to be not credible and convict you anyway. If there are no lies, what purpose is served by having such a definition? The vast majority of people, facing no negative consequences for telling the truth, if they have cooperated enough to fill out the form at all, will try to fill it out consistently with the instructions. And, a significant share of all census responses are provided by government employees whose duty and purpose is to try to provide a correct answer. Also, most people comply with the laws even in the face of zero enforcement. For example, it has been more than 40 years since the last person was prosecuted for not filling out a census form, even though it is crime not to do so, in part, because most people try to obey the law. And, compliance with the burden of filling out a census form is quite high. What's the value (who benefits) in making what used to be a fuzzy but more or less factual item about national and ethnic origins into a belief-based one, in effect making race into a religion. Many countries (not the U.S.) have a religion question in their census as well, and this isn't problematic where it is done, or in surveys asking questions about religion, although being clear on definitions can be important (e.g. in the case of a religious v. ancestral or ethnic v. self-identified definition of who is a Jew). I strongly suspect that the differences in how people respond to the question arising from a national or ethnic origin definition, and a definition based upon self-identification, are negligible at the statistical level. A century or so from now, when census records are made public, it will be possible to confirm this definitively by examining how the same individual's race was reported on half a dozen or more successive census forms. In non-census contexts, this shift in the definition has not produced any statistically meaningful differences in how people respond. Also, if anything, the new definition based on self-identification may be more useful to researchers who are trying to examine socially coherent communities, and it makes the race data slightly more comparable to data, for example, on religion and on sexual orientation (from non-census sources).
You are correct that the federal law does not prohibit sex discrimination in &quot;public accommodations&quot;, the category that includes your examples. State laws tend to be more restrictive, see for example Washington's RCW 49.60.215 which declares that It shall be an unfair practice for any person ... to commit an act which ... results in any distinction ... except for conditions and limitations established by law and applicable to all persons, regardless of race, creed... sexual orientation, sex... PROVIDED, That behavior or actions constituting a risk to property or other persons can be grounds for refusal and shall not constitute an unfair practice. The definitions allow for a few exceptions as to what kind of place is so restricted, most notably a facility &quot;which is by its nature distinctly private&quot;, nor &quot;any educational facility, columbarium, crematory, mausoleum, or cemetery operated or maintained by a bona fide religious or sectarian institution&quot;. Here is a paper that summarizes the situation with women'-only clubs. For example, New Jersey law has the exception that nothing herein contained shall be construed to bar any place of public accommodation which is in its nature reasonably restricted exclusively to individuals of one sex, and which shall include but not be limited to any summer camp, day camp or resort camp, bathhouse, dressing room, swimming pool, gymnasium, comfort station, dispensary, clinic or hospital, or school or educational institution which is restricted exclusively to individuals of one sex... So it depends on the state, but most states prohibit any sex discrimination in public accommodations.
The official judgements do not reveal the funding for these lawyers; so where can I find this information? Nowhere. The commercial arrangements between lawyers and their clients are private and confidential like any other business transactions. You have no more right to know this then you do to know how your neighbour pays their mortgage. how could she have funded litigation in the EWHC and then EWCA before the UKSC? She may have rich parents or another benefactor who has in interest in her or the outcome of the case. She may have won the lottery. She may be the heiress of a dead rich uncle. By the way, "having" student loans does not mean you "need" student loans. Interest rates on student loans are cheap - if I need to pay $10,000 for a course and have $10,000 earning 5%, I would be nuts to use that if I could take out a loan at 3%.
The question of whether they can ask these questions will be left to the trial judge. If the parties can make any kind of reasonable argument that consumers of one product or the other are likely to be partisans, the judge should allow the question, though it would not be error to refuse. For a good comparison, look at Ham v. South Carolina, 409 U.S. 524, 525–29 (1973). There, the defendant argued he was framed for a petty drug charge because of his involvement in the Civil Rights movement. He thought jurors might be prejudiced against him because he was black and because he had a beard, but the trial court refused to let him ask jurors about either possibility. The Supreme Court said it was an error to refuse to ask the questions about race, but not about the beard: The inquiry as to racial prejudice derives its constitutional stature from the firmly established precedent of Aldridge and the numerous state cases upon which it relied, and from a principal purpose as well as from the language of those who adopted the Fourteenth Amendment. The trial judge's refusal to inquire as to particular bias against beards, after his inquiries as to bias in general, does not reach the level of a constitutional violation. Assuming the question is permitted, the mere fact of using an iPhone would not be sufficient to obtain a &quot;for cause&quot; strike, which the court will only grant if the juror does not indicate that he would be able to fairly consider the case. &quot;I like my iPhone&quot; is not enough. &quot;I like iPhones better than Android&quot; is not enough. &quot;I hate Google&quot; is not enough. &quot;I worship at the altar of Steve Jobs&quot; is not enough. Instead, the question will be whether a juror indicates that they can set aside whatever prejudices they might have. The court is not required to strike them &quot;as long as he or she ultimately asserts an ability to be fair and impartial.&quot; United States of America v. Abel Martinez-Salazar, 146 F.3d 653, 659 (9th Cir. 1998). Batson prohibits peremptory strike based on &quot;gender, ethnic origin, or race.&quot; United States v. Martinez-Salazar, 528 U.S. 304, 315 (2000). Other than that, a lawyer is generally free to strike based on anything or nothing at all (though there remain some questions about whether Batson also applies to other protected classes, such as sexual orientation, disability, age, etc.). So peremptory strikes would be the only permissible means of eliminating iPhone users from the jury.
It is entirely legal to discriminate on arbitrary grounds. What is not legal is to discriminate on the basis of a protected category, for example race. The law say that you cannot favor or disfavor a customer because of their race. Federal law specifically prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, or national origin, but not age or gender (disability is more complicated). Moreover, the grounds are not arbitrary. The establishment is at legal risk if a customer does not wear eye-protection, and you have no right to compel them to assume that risk: it's a perfectly normal business decision. The law states that "Customers are not allowed to use a tanning device unless the customer uses protective eyewear", and verifying that you have such eyewear is the minimal way of assuring compliance with the law.
In fact, the immigration quotas do not discriminate. The described limit is that "No more than 7 percent of the visas may be issued to natives of any one independent country in a fiscal year; no more than 2 percent may issued to any one dependency of any independent country". All countries get the same upper limit. Additionally, anti-discrimination laws are subject matter specific: they exist because Congress passed a law that prohibits using race as a basis for employing a person (which Congress can do because of the Commerce Clause). Congress has not passed any such law pertaining to granting of visas. There is a path of reasoning that could lead to concluding that national quotas violate anti-discrimination laws, based on an "effects test" (disparate impact). It appears to be a fact that an applicant for a visa has a much higher probability of being denied a visa is their country of origin is China or India, as opposed to Sweden, which one could spin into a disparate impact argument. In order for this argument to become the law, there would have to be a case brought to the federal courts to the effect that national quotas are illegal, and as far as I know there has never been such a case. There are no provisions in anti-discrimination legislation that support a disparate impact doctrine in immigration, and pretty clear evidence that it was not congressionally intended since Title 8 Ch. 12 clearly calls for nation-based quotas. A final point: "national origin discrimination" is based on "an individual's, or his or her ancestor's, place of origin; or because an individual has the physical, cultural or linguistic characteristics of a national origin group". A Swedish citizen of "Chinese national origin" is subject to the Swedish quota, not the Chinese quota, thus the discrimination is based on country of citizenship, not national origin.