So glad Senate Democrats used their constant filibustering of everyone Shrub nominated to keep this piece of shit off the nation's highest court. Oh, wait.
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito lacks “either understanding or interest” in the discrimination faced by women, African Americans or Latinos, according to federal Judge Harold Baer.
SNIP
Whatever the wisdom of Judge Baer’s practice, however, it is
difficult to look at Alito’s record and see a judge who is very
concerned at all by discrimination against women or minorities. Alito
authored the Court’s infamous opinion in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire,
a decision that was widely criticized for rolling back women’s right to
equal pay for equal work. That decision was eventually overruled by
Congress.
More recently, Alito authored an opinion making it far easier for workplace supervisors to get away with racial or sexual harassment. Although federal law provides fairly robust protection to workers harassed by their supervisor, Alito’s opinion in Vance v. Ball State University defined the term “supervisor” so narrowly as to render it meaningless in many workplaces. Under Vance,
a person’s boss is only their “supervisor” if they have the power to
make a “significant change in [your] employment status, such as hiring,
firing, failing to promote, reassignment with significantly different
responsibilities, or a decision causing a significant change in
benefits.” Thus, in many modern workplaces where final employment
decisions are made by distant human resources managers and not direct
supervisors, many victims of racial or sexual harassment will find
themselves without recourse thanks to Justice Alito.
On the same day that Alito handed down Vance, he also voted
in another case to make it easier for employers to retaliate against
workers that complain about workplace discrimination and get away with it.
Alito’s also voted to give employers an easy way to immunize themselves from class action lawsuits brought by their workers. And he’s a strong supporter of “forced arbitration,”
a practice which allows employers to shunt discrimination lawsuits into
a secretive and privatized arbitration system rather than allowing
those cases to be heard by a real court.
Yet, for all that Justice Alito has done to prevent women and racial
minorities from fighting discrimination in Court, he took a very
different tone when faced with a group of mostly white plaintiffs
alleging discrimination.
SNIP
The skepticism Alito showed in so many other opinions towards
plaintiffs alleging discrimination suddenly abandoned him when white
people made such an allegation.
SNIP
But Justice Alito has also had several years on the Supreme Court to
demonstrate his commitment to abolishing discrimination against women
and racial minorities. What he’s shown instead is a desire to roll back
anti-discrimination law, even while he rails against discrimination
against white people.
No comments:
Post a Comment