By GARY L. BLEDSOE
Texas NAACP
Attorney General Opinion 0505 is an affront to the decency, justice and humanity that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stood for. Issued without any formal request and released on the very day our nation honors King’s legacy, this opinion undermines the principles of equality, fairness and moral courage that defines his vision for America.
The opinion purports to advance King’s dream while in fact elevating those who have consistently opposed his beliefs. It turns the 14th Amendment on its head. It attempts to place its author above the United States Supreme Court, even a conservative one, by asserting that the 14th Amendment has no meaningful remedial reach beyond individual claims, despite decades
of precedent expressly permitting narrowly tailored remedial measures to address discrimination. Even state programs such as the Historically Underutilized Business program, which merely provide an opportunity to be considered, akin to the Rooney Rule in professional sports – are
condemned without regard to their limited, remedial nature.
This sweeping denunciation of remedial efforts, without regard to their scope or impact, echoes a jurisprudential regression reminiscent of Dred Scott, and is fundamentally wrong as a matter of constitutional law as well as public policy. By distorting history and effectively equating Black Americans with historic White beneficiaries of segregation in Plessy v. Ferguson, the opinion reverses moral and factual reality and falsely suggests that Black communities receive “special benefits” that common sense and lived experience flatly disprove.
The opinion also poses a real threat to the corporate community by inviting lawsuits and unwarranted hostility toward institutions that have attempted, however imperfectly, to broaden opportunity in workplaces that still do not reflect full equality for Black and Brown Americans. It
functions as a political wager on racial resentment, rather than a good-faith interpretation of the law. We reject that wager. There are more people of good will and common decency than there are voices of racial bias or separation, and they will ultimately prevail in defending the constitutional and moral commitments that King gave his life to advance.
Gary L. Bledsoe is the president of the Texas NAACP. He is also an attorney who specializes in public interest law, employment and civil rights law. He can be reached through http://www.texas-naacp.org.