Mediaboss Marketing

Urged by some for at least a year to adopt an anti-hate resolution, the Thousand Oaks City Councilfinally did Tuesday night in the wake of a recent white supremacist demonstration in Newbury Park.

"It is of deep concern to me that they choseour town … perhaps thinking that their views might be welcomehere," Mayor Bob Engler said. "These reprehensible views are not welcome anywhere, much less in the city we all love."

"The resolution has been attacked as not strong enough or too strong or unnecessary," hesaid. But "to not pass this resolution tonight sends a message, and I'm afraid it will be the wrong message."

Subscription sale:Get 6 months of unlimited access for just $1. Subscribe today!

The resolution, introduced by council memberClaudiaBill-de la Pea, was passed on a 4-0 vote with council member Kevin McNamee abstaining on free speech grounds.

Voting for it wereBill-de la Pea, Engler, and councilmen Al Adamand Ed Jones.

The resolution states that while the city "supports the First Amendment rights of all people, and will protect the rights of all to peaceably speak and assemble, the city will also vigorously protect the rights, equality, and safety of all.

Thus, the resolution authorizes the City Council to take "an official position againstbigotry, white supremacy, anti-Semitism and hate speech in the city."

It states that in doing so, the City Council continues to be guidedby its No. 1 goal of creating a "more equitable, accessible, safe, welcoming, and inclusive government and community regardless of race, color, ethnicity, religion, sex, physical or mental ability, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, age, language, education, and/or socio-economic status."

Speak out:White supremacists rally in Thousand Oaks; some wonder why city leaders lag in response

The council adopted the resolution atthe conclusion of a lengthy hearing in which several dozen public speakers addressed it, many in favor,many against.

Thousand Oaks resident Cindy Goldberg supportedthe resolution, noting that the councilrefusedto adopt one last year.

"I support the city's public affirmation denouncing racismand bigotry in our community," she said. "There'san old saying that ends, 'if not now, when?'" shesaid.

"I understand that there was anti-racism resolutionpresented to the council last year for review, and it never materialized on the agenda," Goldberg said."I hope this time, the city takes action. It should not be difficultto publicly state that there is no room forhate in Thousand Oaks."

Bill-de la Pea agreed, saying, "I'm glad to have an opportunitythis eveningto do something that should have been done a year ago."

La Shaun Aaron told the councilshe is continually surprised that "you all are so surprised about racism and acts of racism" in Thousand Oaks. "We have spoken time and time again at council meetings … (and)I see complicity and I see silence.

"Some council members and unfortunately some community members as wellkeep coming to these meetings saying, 'Well, I don't see racism.'" said Aaron, co-founder of anti-hate racismgroup 805 Resistance, which unsuccessfully pushedthe councillast year to adopt an anti-hate resolutionand to create an equity commission.

Tim Totonis one of them, saying, there is"a non-existent, manufactured racistsociety narrative.

"The good people of Ventura Countyare sick and tired of race-baiting," he said.

In deciding to abstain, McNamee said that while he does not tolerate any kind of hate, "the challenge here is that it's under freedom of speech and as much as I deploreit, they have the freedom of speech to say so."

"Thereare some racists within our community," he said. "There are some white supremacists within our community. But in total, I don'tsee Thousand Oaks asbeing aracist community."

Hate not welcome:Ventura City Council reaffirms condemnation of racism, white supremacy

Bill-de la Pea introduced the resolutionin response to the white supremacist demonstration Feb 12.

About a dozen masked white supremacistsbriefly unfurled banners from the Highway 101 Borchard Road overpass, including two that said, "White Lives Matter," and "Honk If White Lives Matter."

Another banner said, "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children."

According to the Anti-Defamation League'swebsite, that sentence is the so-called "14 words," "the most popular white supremacist slogan in the world."

Using a drone, the demonstrators made a video of the so-called "banner drop," and posted it online on a messaging app calledTelegram.

Officials say the demonstration action was meant to be a recruitment tool.

Newbury Park resident DanielMoody, who monitors hate groups online, said he's certain the white supremacists who conducted the Newbury Park action were members of the Southern California chapterof a white supremacist/neo-Nazi group called White Lives Matter.

Dan Meisel, the ADL's regional director for Ventura, Santa BarbaraandSan Luis Obispocounties, also said the demonstrators appear to be partof the White Lives Matter network. The nonprofit ADL fights anti-Semitism and hate.

Thousand Oaks Police Chief JeremyParis said at Tuesday night's council meeting that the demonstrators don't appear to be local.

"All indications are that … these people came from out of the area," hesaid. "And that this was part of a nationwide planned activity."

Mike Harris covers the East County cities of Moorpark, Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks, as well as transportation countywide. You can contact him at mike.harris@vcstar.com or 805-437-0323.

SUPPORT LOCAL JOURNALISMand get all the latest Moorpark, Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks, and transportation news from Star reporter MikeHarris. Get a digital subscription

Read the original post:
Thousand Oaks adopts anti-hate resolution in wake of white supremacist demonstration - VC Star

These are scary times for teachers and academics, and the situation is only getting worse. The pace and scope of educational gag orders, laws regulating what can and cannot be taught about divisive topics, such as race in America, is increasing.

Texas, where I live and teach at a public university, saw the passage of new legislation last year regulating K-12 curricula around issues of race. This caught my eye, because it will affect what my children learn in school. But truth be told, the anticritical race theory agenda driving this legislation has been on my radar for some time now, since it makes me worried for my academic career. I teach and publish on topics such as racial disparities in the criminal justice system.

At the moment, my state is not on the growing list of those with pending or enacted legislation targeting institutions of higher education. But it seems only a matter of time. Just this past week, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick announced his desire to see legislation dismantling tenure protections for Texas public university faculty who teach critical race theory. The optimistic take is that this is mere posturing for the coming election cycle. Im not so sanguine.

Why am I so worried? Because of what the past and present portend.

Teachers all over the country are even more under the microscope than just a year ago. The Texas legislation includes provisions that effectively deputize parents to police those working hard, for little pay, to educate their children. Making matters worse, the language in these bills is often vague. With their livelihoods on the line, who could fault teachers for playing it safe and shying away from presenting students with unpopular truths?

And its not just those explicitly targeted by these bills who should be alarmed. Even though it doesnt (yet) apply to higher education, the legislative attack on the free discussion of ideas here in Texas is already having a chilling effect on college campuses. A colleague recently wondered aloud how much longer shed be able to teach Black history; in the next breath, she worried about the risks of doing so. I dont blame her. Indeed, I share her concern.

Its tempting to think this is just another outrage cycle that will soon pass and that, in the meantime, we can rely on the protections afforded us by institutional commitments to academic freedom and our individual right to free speech. But we should resist the temptation. When push comes to shove, theres no guarantee our universities will have our backs. And even if these laws are found unconstitutional, which I hope they will be, it will come too late. To generate the kind of test case typically required for the courts to decide the issue, someone will need to be prosecuted for something. In the time it takes to get answers, harm will be done.

How do I know? Because of what my family endured more than a half century ago.

My grandfather Ed Yellin was summoned to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee in the winter of 1958. Citing the First Amendment, he refused to answer questions about his ties to the Communist Party. The saga dragged on for five years, until his conviction for contempt of Congress was reversed on a technicality by the U.S. Supreme Court in the summer of 1963.

Together with my grandmother Jean Fagan Yellin, he wrote a memoir about this ordeal. In Contempt: Defending Free Speech, Defeating HUAC (University of Michigan Press, 2022) contains some important lessons for those of us concerned with combating similar forces in the current moment.

As my grandparents put it, with a nod to Henry David Thoreau, it isnt much fun to be the friction that slows the machine. Its hard to know what effect their ordeal had on their careers. At one point, my grandfathers National Science Foundation fellowship was revoked, and his plans to pursue his doctoral research as a special student at Johns Hopkins University were scuttled. They had to move their young family across the country, from Baltimore to Urbana, Ill., on short notice and a shoestring budget.

Despite all this, they were both able to complete their degrees at the University of Illinois and had very successful academic careers. Ed retired as professor emeritus in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and Jean retired as Distinguished Professor Emerita of English at Pace University, both in New York. But the toll on their young children was clear. They endured social ostracization when neighbors got word of their fathers conviction. Too young to understand he was only leaving for a Supreme Court hearing in D.C., they worried this was the last time theyd kiss their father goodbye. The whole family lived for some time haunted by the specter of his yearlong jail sentence. These heartbreaking details show the collateral damage wrought by government persecution for ideas, even when the one being persecuted doesnt serve time and is eventually acquitted.

Their story also illustrates the important truth that systemic injustice can outlast those who set it in motion. My grandfather appeared before HUAC years after Senator Joseph McCarthy was censured, and even after his death. Cries of a new McCarthyism are useful to contextualize whats going on, but its important not to fetishize particular figures. Fixing the current problem isnt simply a matter of ensuring the Dan Patricks and Donald Trumps of the world dont occupy positions of power.

At the same time, the solution isnt just about replacing bad laws with good ones. True, these are mechanisms by which injustice gets institutionalized, but attending to them alone can serve as an evasive maneuver.

The U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari because my grandfathers case presented constitutional questions of continuing importance. And yet they did not take up the constitutional questions, instead reversing his conviction for refusing to testify on the grounds that HUAC violated one of its own rules. Disappointingly, there was no discussion of the First Amendment issues. Focusing just on rules and policies is one way the ideology underlying the system escapes scrutiny. And its the ideology that really powers the machine.

Surely, political participation is key to resisting current efforts to prohibit the discussion of controversial ideas. Knocking on doors and getting out the vote are key, but they arent enough on their own. This is a struggle over who gets to shape the collective memory. How things turn out will depend, in crucial part, on shaping the hearts and minds of our fellow citizens of all ages. Those flexing their political muscle to regulate what gets taught in classrooms across the country understand this. Those of us doing the teaching need to as well.

See the original post:
Lessons from the past show dangers of attacks on ideas (opinion) - Inside Higher Ed

A "one-of-a-kind case." Judge Amit Mehta's description of the litigation against four principal speakers at the Jan. 6 Trump rally may have been as much a prayer as a portrayal. As famed Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, "Hard cases make bad law and the litigation against President TrumpDonald TrumpJudge strikes down part of Biden surprise billing rules in win for doctors Overnight Defense & National Security More Westernpressure as Russia moves in Jan. 6 defendant who said 'this is war' on social media sentenced to 45 days in jail MORE and his associates is a hard case that just proved Holmes right.

In consolidated cases brought by Democratic members of Congress and Capitol Police officers, Judge Mehta ruled on motions to dismiss by the former president, his son Donald Jr., former Trump counsel Rudy GiulianiRudy GiulianiJudge in Trump conspiracy case links Jan. 6 to history of racist violence 'What-aboutism' Ruling against Trump leaves more questions than answers on free speech Judge rules Trump must face civil suits over Jan. 6 MORE and Rep. Mo BrooksMorris (Mo) Jackson BrooksAll eyes on Trump as Timken gains momentum in Ohio 'What-aboutism' Ruling against Trump leaves more questions than answers on free speech Britt in new ad tells 'boys in Washington' to 'man up' MORE (R-Ala.), as well as several extremist groups like the Oath Keepers. The judge dismissed the claims of a violent conspiracy against Trump Jr. and Giuliani, and he invited Brooks to file a motion to dismiss on the same grounds. He rejected arguments that their speeches at the rallycaused the subsequent rioting in the Capitol. Yet, while admitting that the case raised difficult constitutional questions, he declined to dismiss the claim against Trump.

The ruling will now allow a long-awaited appeal on core constitutional questions, including the protections for inflammatory speech.

Most analysts expected that groups like the Oath Keepers would likely remain in the lawsuit, given their active role in the rioting and therecent chargesof seditious conspiracy filed against them. The most controversial parties were the speakers at the rally near the White House before the riot.

The judge's112-page opinionmakes easy work of dismissing the claims against the other speakers. These speeches were reckless but constitutionally protected. Giuliani's declaration Let's have trial by combat" has been cited by some critics as a clear incitement to an insurrection, but the judge found such arguments were implausible and that Giuliani's words "were not likely" to cause a riot. He also found that Trump Jr.'s comments on the election were "protected speech, and he rejected claims that Brooks urging Trumps supporters to "start taking names and kicking ass" could be the basis for liability.

Ipreviously wrotethat the claims against these four Jan. 6 speakers might find "a sympathetic trial judge" but that "they will likely fail on appeal, even if they survive the trial level litigation." All but one of those claims are now dismissed on the trial level. Moreover, Judge Mehta's opinion seems to reinforce the view that Trump's speech was protected, too.

The judge could well be reversed on the threshold question of immunity, raised by Trump, that presidents cannot be sued for speaking on matters of public interest. Mehta was honest in saying that "this is not an easy issue" and that "the alleged facts of this case are without precedent." Yet, he offered a detailed explanation of why he believes such immunity should not extend to a speech contesting election results the strongest portion of his decision. In so holding, Mehta is making new law and some jurists on appeal, particularly on the Supreme Court, are likely to be concerned over the implications of such liability for a sitting president.

However, it is thefree speech issuethat is most concerning. My concern is not based on any agreement with Trump's view of the election or Congresss certification of it; Icriticized his speechas he gave it and later called forCongress to censure him; nevertheless, his remarks fall well short of the high standard set for criminal or civil liability for speech.

The Supreme Court has repeatedly rejected such liability despite the use of inflammatory or even violent words.

In1969, inBrandenburgv. Ohio, the Supreme Court ruled that even a Ku Klux Klan leader calling for violence is protected under the First Amendment unless there is a threat of imminent lawless actionandis likely to incite or produce such action. InHess v. Indiana, the court rejected the prosecution of a protester declaring an intention to take over the streets because at worst, (the words) amounted to nothing more than advocacy of illegal action at some indefinite future time. In a third case,NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co., the court overturned a judgment against the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People after one of its officials promised to break the necks of opponents.

Although Trump pumped up his Jan. 6 supporters with allegations of election fraud and calls to "fight like hell," Judge Mehta acknowledged that Trump also told the crowd that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard. His comments were consistent with a protest in saying that we are going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women.

In fairness to the court, it is merely saying that the cases plaintiffs could possibly prove a conspiracy between Trump and some Jan. 6 groups. But he cites little support for such a conspiracy beyond facts like Trumps earliercontroversial statement in a debatethat the Proud Boys should stand back and stand by.Thecourt's careful, meticulous analysis on the earlier claims seems to break down over Trumps status; it struggles to ignore the clear weight of prior case law and countervailing interpretations of Trumps words.

Despite a lengthy, detailed discussion of issues like presidential immunity, Mehta becomes more curt and cursory over Trump's constitutional claims. When Trump's lawyers said his language was largely indistinguishable from that of many Democrats like Rep. Maxine WatersMaxine Moore Waters'What-aboutism' Ruling against Trump leaves more questions than answers on free speech On The Money House panel mulls future of 'stablecoin' rules Lawmakers clash over how to regulate 'stablecoins' MORE (D-Calif.), Mehta chided them for playing "a game of what-aboutism."

That "what-aboutism," however, is precisely the point. The selective imposition of liability for speech is the very thing that the First Amendment is designed to prevent.

Asrioting raged in Brooklyn Center, Minn. and nationwide in 2020, Congresswoman Waters went to Minnesota and told protesters there that they gotta stay on the street and get more confrontational.Others have used language very similar to Trumps in declaring elections to be invalid (includingHillary Clinton calling Trump an "illegitimate president") or urging supporters to "fight" or "battle" against Republicans; Rep. Ayanna PressleyAyanna PressleyTlaib to deliver progressive response to Biden State of the Union address 'What-aboutism' Ruling against Trump leaves more questions than answers on free speech Green groups press for progressive upset in Texas House race MORE (D-Mass.) once said, "There needs to be unrest in the streets for as long as there's unrest in our lives.

All of those statements arguably were reckless but clearly protected speech.

Free speech demands bright lines. While this is a "one-of-a-kind case," Trump's comments were hardly unique. And Judge Mehta does not clearly establish why Giulianis "trial by combat" remark or Brooks taking names and kicking ass" exhortation are not calls for imminent violence or lawlessness but Trumps fight like hell would be.

With three of the four speakers now dismissed from the case, only Trump remains. Along with him remains the most looming question: whether the Jan. 6 speech, which was central to his impeachment, was protected under the Constitution. If Trump prevails on appeal, he may claim a degree of vindication thanks to some of his fiercest opponents.

What the court dismisses as "a game of what-aboutism" is all about free speech.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. You can find his updates on Twitter@JonathanTurley.

Read the original here:
'What-aboutism' Ruling against Trump leaves more questions than answers on free speech | TheHill - The Hill

The Supreme Courts recent decision, reversing that of a lower federal court, to reinstate Alabamas evidently gerrymandered voting map did more than just make it harder for affected voters to have a meaningful say in the November midterms. To be sure, according to the lower courts three-judge panel (which included two Trump appointees), the new map adversely impacts Black Alabamans in a way that violates the Voting Rights Act. The electoral stakes could hardly be higher, potentially determining whether control of Congress will shift to Republicans, leading to a cascade of implications, such as the termination of the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack, efforts to impeach President Joe Biden, and possible election trickeryto say nothing of what would come of the normal business of legislating.

But beyond that, the frightening takeaway from Merrill v. Milligan is that a majority of Americas highest court again evinced a disdain for voters and their ability to pick their leaders, intent on cementing a system where this works in reverse, with the entrenched leaders picking their voters in a bid to stay in power indefinitely. By joining the dissent, even Chief Justice John Robertsnot exactly a historical champion of voting rightsseems to think the majority has gone too far, missing the most fundamental message of the U.S. Constitution: no more kings.

Adam Serwer: The lie about the Supreme Court that everyone pretends to believe

The Court neednt have allowed this to happen. Gerrymandering is the practice by which every 10 years, state and local governments carve up and manipulate the geographical boundaries of an electoral district to maximize the power of one political party over the other. Two common techniques are packingthat is, drawing a district in a tortured way that smushes in voters of a certain party, making it all but impossible for others to choose a candidate from a competing party for that district. And crackingtaking a logical geographic boundary that happens to contain a predominant number of voters from a particular party, breaking it up into pieces, and adding those fragments to other districts dominated by the competing party so that those voters voices no longer matter.

With Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Congress drew a legislative line banning gerrymandering based on race and enabling lawsuits to enforce it. And in Shaw v. Reno, the Supreme Court in 1993 held that gerrymandered boundaries that cannot be explained on grounds other than race violate the Constitutions equal-protection clause, declaring that bizarrely shaped districts strongly indicate racial intent. The Voting Rights Act, combined with the Courts earlier constitutional interpretation, provided it with a solid foundation for protecting voting rights and strengthening American democracy. But thats not what the Courts new conservative majority has chosen to do with its power. Instead, it has made an abject constitutional power grabthe tragic outcome of a judicial assault on voting rights that dates back to when, over a trio of rulings, the Supreme Court unnecessarily struck at the very heart of American democracy, potentially fatally.

The slide away from voting-rights protection began in 2010, in the Courts 54 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which held that legislative restrictions on independent political spending from corporations violate the First Amendment right to free speech. Meanwhile, donations directly to campaigns and their committeessomething that individuals, but not corporations, can makeare capped. So, for individuals, donating more than $2,900 to a single candidate is illegal, on the rationale that a greater amount could corruptly sway an elected politicians decision making once in public office. However, if an individual or a corporation buys a $1 million Super Bowl ad containing electioneering communications, the majority reasoned, that speech cant be congressionally restricted, so long as the ad isnt coordinated with the candidate. The trick is that only extremely wealthy individuals and corporations can do such a thingleaving them with much more political power than average people. Its a David-versus-Goliath problem caused not by Congress but by the Supreme Court, which all but obliterated the legislatures gains in leveling the playing field on influencing elections through funding.

The Court ruled this way even though corporations are pure legal fictions, and even though Congress determined in legislation dating back more than 100 years that such spending might unduly influence candidates for office, and warrants regulation. It could easily have gone the other way, in accordance with its earlier precedents, as well as a commensurate respect for the U.S. Congress and the commonsense notion that ours is a democracy by the people, not corporations. To be sure, the Framers did not include an affirmative right to vote in the original Constitution, but corporate entities were nascent in 1791 when the First Amendment was ratified. For conservatives who bill themselves as textualists and originalists, it would have been easy to justify a ruling that the First Amendments free-speech protections were intended for individuals who work for corporations, but not for the legal creation of a corporate entity.

Three years later, in Shelby County v. Holder, the Court, in an opinion written by Chief Justice Roberts, again struck down a key portion of an act of Congressthis time, Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Section 5 was designed to push back on states outmaneuvering of the Fifteenth Amendments postCivil War prohibition on laws restricting ballot access based on race. To keep Black voters from the polls, states enacted arbitrary hurdles to votingsuch as reciting the Declaration of Independence or counting the bubbles in a bar of soapas a precondition to ballot access. These schemes disproportionately impacted Black voters. Section 5 required states with unsavory histories of imposing such barriers to run proposed laws by the Justice Department before the laws could take effect.

The program was a legislative triumph, and Roberts himself wrote in Shelby County that the Act has proved immensely successful at redressing racial discrimination and integrating the voting process. Section 5 was reauthorized multiple times by substantial supermajorities in Congress. Nonetheless, the Supreme Court held that Section 5 was outdated and sent Congress back to the drawing board. Conceding that voting discrimination still exists; no one doubts that, Roberts wrote for the majority that the conditions that originally justified these measures no longer characterize voting in the covered jurisdictions. The formula for determining which states needed the DOJs approval to enact new voting lawsa process known as preclearancewas based on decades-old data and eradicated practices, Roberts reasoned, because minority-voter access had made great strides since 1965. The Court thus deemed the formula an unconstitutional infringement on states ability to regulate elections under the Tenth Amendment.

This was a sharp departure from prior precedent, as the Court had already rejected a similar constitutional challenge brought by Texas after Congress reauthorized the law in 2006. According to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, that congressional determination was based on exhaustive evidence-gathering and deliberative process. Surely, the Court didnt have to strike it down this time. Ginsburg famously quipped in dissent: Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet. The majoritys maneuver, she noted, was instead about the separation of powers: who decides this Court, or a Congress charged with the obligation to enforce the post-Civil War Amendments.

The third nail in the voting-rights coffin came in 2019, with Rucho v. Common Cause. Although the Court had banned racial gerrymandering in Shaw v. Reno, in Rucho, Roberts wrote for a 54 conservative majority that constitutional claims of partisan gerrymandering are political questions that cannot be heard in court. The courthouse doors are thus permanently closed to claims that packing and cracking electoral districts for purposes of entrenching party power are unconstitutional. Voters must go back to gerrymandered politicians for help by asking that they give up the reins of power that gerrymandering provides them with and divide up districts more fairly.

Again, the Court neednt have gone down this path. The political-question doctrine is notoriously squishy and untethered from the constitutional text, and the majority did not deny the broader constitutional implications with political gerrymandering. It just refused to hear them. Justice Elena Kagan bemoaned in dissent: For the first time ever, this Court refuses to remedy a constitutional violation because it thinks the task beyond judicial capabilities. By 2019, Kagan was heavily outnumbered by five staunch conservatives who exercised their collective discretion to put a boot on the neck of voting rights, rather than championing them.

Read: The Supreme Courts dead hand

Voting-rights activists have grasped at other straws. The pending John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which has been languishing for months because of the threat of a Republican filibuster, was Congresss answer to Shelby County. In addition to working via Congress, voters turned to Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act for relief through the courts in the interim. But that strategy, too, was met with the Courts antipathy. In 2021, in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, Justice Samuel Alito wrote a 63 majority opinion (with Justice Amy Coney Barrett now on the Court) that effectively inserted a five-part legislative test into the Voting Rights Act as a prerequisite to voters seeking relief from laws inhibiting ballot access, making Section 2 lawsuits much harder.

By the time the Alabama case reached the Court this winter, voting-rights activists faced a panel with six far-right conservative justicesenough that they can lose Roberts to the Courts moderate wing and still have the majority. And thats just what happened.

Following the 2020 census, Alabama redrew its seven seats in the House of Representatives. Although its statewide population is 27 percent Black, only one of the newly drawn districts has a Black majority. All of the remaining six have a majority-white population. The lower court stayed the plan, giving the state legislature two weeks to draw another map that includes two majority-Black districts. Otherwise, the court said, it would hire an outside expert to do it.

In a single paragraph issued on a motion for a stay of the lower courts order, the Supreme Court reversed that decision and issued an injunction effectively putting the contested plan back in place. The Court did this without the benefit of full briefing and argumentanother invocation of its quick-and-dirty shadow docket procedure. (The Court declined to use this power to stay an unlawful ban on abortion in Texas, mind you.) In a concurring opinion, Justice Brett Kavanaugh emphasized that the stay order is not a ruling on the merits, but instead simply stays the District Courts injunction pending a ruling on the merits. His partial rationale was that the lower courts ruling was in the period close to an election.

Kavanaughs pretense that the injunction was only a technicality elevates form over substance. As with Texass S.B. 8 abortion law, the Court effectively left in place a potentially illegal law pending full briefing. Roberts again shot back: I respectfully dissent from the stays granted in these cases because, in my view, the District Court properly applied existing law in an extensive opinion with no apparent errors for our correction. Justice Kagans dissent, which Justices Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor joined, was sharper: After considering a massive factual record, developed over seven days of testimony, and reviewing more than 1,000 pages of briefing, a three-judge District Court held that Alabamas redistricting plan violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

Roberts and Kagan underscored the ABCs of how the judicial system works. Unhappy litigants must wait patiently for their bid to come up on appeal. In the meantime, the lower-court rulings stand, absent some egregious immediate harm and a clear error of law.

So there we have it. Congress has in fact passed numerous laws to make elections fairer and ballot access easier. But based on its 1803 decision in Marbury v. Madison making it the arbiter of constitutional ambiguity, the Supreme Court has either slapped such legislation down or added material requirements to a statute to make bringing cases harder for voters. For a particularly problematic category of casespolitical gerrymanderingthe Court has barred all constitutional court actions and sided with states for statutory claims, regardless of the merits, on the theory that its better to err on the side of a potential Voting Rights Act violation because elections are around the corner (inevitably every year in some form or another).

This Court is going to continue to make voting more difficult, leaving it up to a Congress that was substantially voted in under those same unfair standards to fix the problem. Good luck with that. In the meantime, the revisionist justices are deep in the business of snatching power from a supposedly co-equal branch of governmentone that, unlike the Court, is accountable to the voters at the ballot box. This is the sleeping dragon, friends. One-party rule will come to federal, state, and local legislatures across the country. But it is already here on the Supreme Court, in the form of four men and one woman in black robes, with jobs for life and nothing to slow them down other than individual conscience.

See the original post here:
How the Court Became a Voting-Rights Foe - The Atlantic

AP Feb 24, 2022 9 hours ago

In this March 22, 2012 file photo, protestors, Lakesha Hall, of Sanford, center, and her son, Calvin Simms, right, participate in a rally for Trayvon Martin, the black teenager who was fatally shot by George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch captain in Sanford, Fla. The killing of Trayvon Martin at the hands of a stranger still reverberates 10 years later -- in protest, in partisanship, in racial reckoning and reactionary response, in social justice and social media. (AP Photo/Julie Fletcher, File)

FILE - Tracy Martin, left, father of Trayvon Martin, Jahvaris Fulton, second from left back, brother of Trayvon Martin, attorney Daryl Parks, center, Sybrina Fulton, mother of Trayvon Martin and attorney Benjamin Crump, right, arrive at the Seminole County Criminal Justice Center to attend a bond hearing for George Zimmerman, on June 29, 2012, in Sanford, Fla. The killing of Trayvon Martin at the hands of a stranger still reverberates 10 years later -- in protest, in partisanship, in racial reckoning and reactionary response, in social justice and social media. (AP Photo/John Raoux, File)

FILE - Miami Heat forward LeBron James wears a message honoring Trayvon Martin on his shoe before their NBA basketball game against the Detroit Pistons, on March 23, 2012, in Auburn Hills, Mich. The killing of Trayvon Martin at the hands of a stranger still reverberates 10 years later -- in protest, in partisanship, in racial reckoning and reactionary response, in social justice and social media. (AP Photo/Duane Burleson, File)

FILE - A protester picks up signs during a demonstration in reaction to the acquittal of neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman in Beverly Hills, Calif on July 17, 2013. The Black Lives Matter movement emerged amid anger over the acquittal of Zimmerman, the Florida man who shot and killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in 2012 after Zimmerman assumed the black teen was a potential burglar. The killing of Trayvon Martin at the hands of a stranger still reverberates 10 years later -- in protest, in partisanship, in racial reckoning and reactionary response, in social justice and social media. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

FILE - Demonstrators pray during the Million Hoodie March in Union Square, March 21, 2012 in New York. The killing of Trayvon Martin at the hands of a stranger still reverberates 10 years later -- in protest, in partisanship, in racial reckoning and reactionary response, in social justice and social media. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File)

NEW YORK (AP) Trayvon Martins final night began with a convenience store run, a quick trip for candy and something to drink. It ended in a confrontation with a neighborhood watch volunteer, a shot fired, the 17-year-old dead on the street.

Subscribe Now to Breaking News

It might have been expected to end there -- the violent deaths of Black teenagers have rarely drawn even fleeting attention.

But the killing of this baby-faced, hoodie-wearing, unarmed youth at the hands of a stranger still reverberates 10 years later -- in protest, in partisanship, in racial reckoning and reactionary response, in social justice and social media.

It was the thing that broke everybody, all at the same time, said Nailah Summers-Polite, co-director of Dream Defenders, an organization founded in Florida during the protests following Martins death.

Were the Trayvon Martin generation, we are the people who were moved into action because of it.

It happened on Feb. 26, 2012. Martin was visiting his father in a gated community in Sanford, Florida, a suburb of Orlando. Walking on the way back from the store, he was eyed by George Zimmerman, then 28, a member of the communitys neighborhood watch.

The initial police report said Zimmerman called authorities to report a suspicious person, a guy who, he said, looks like he's up to no good. When Zimmerman said he was following the man, a dispatcher said, We dont need you to do that. But armed with a gun, Zimmerman got out of his car.

In the confrontation that followed, Zimmerman would tell authorities, Martin attacked him, forcing him to use his gun to save himself. Zimmerman was allowed to go free.

From the start, Martins parents, Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, were outraged. They questioned Zimmermans account. Had their son had been profiled as suspicious merely because he was Black? Zimmermans family was adamant that their son and brother, who identified as Hispanic, was not racist.

As media attention picked up in early March, others joined in, first locally and then far beyond.

For many Black people, the idea that Trayvon had been profiled because of his race hit a nerve, echoing their own experiences in all walks of life. In his death they saw their own vulnerabilities.

It felt like, `Oh, wow, I cant walk down the street, even in the realm of my everyday life, normal happenings, that could have easily been me, said Jonel Edwards, another co-director of Dream Defenders.

It was especially jarring in 2012, when the occupant of the White House was Barack Obama, the countrys first Black president. His election had some insisting that America had turned a real corner in its troubled racial story; even many skeptics thought there had been progress.

And yet, Martin was dead. The United States had elected a Black president and had a Black attorney general, and they are still killing us and not even arresting the killer ... we all saw our kids were still vulnerable, said the Rev. Al Sharpton, who early on met with Martins family and their attorney Ben Crump as they worked to draw more attention to his death.

For years, police killings of Black people -- like Amadou Diallo in 1999, Sean Bell in 2006 and Ramarley Graham, just weeks before Martins death -- had caused outrage. But Zimmerman was not law enforcement, said Jenner Furst, co-director of the documentary, Rest in Power: The Trayvon Martin Story.

This person did not have a badge, he said. This person had not been trained how to operate a firearm in the case of an emergency and not been trained in conflict management, had no skills for determining who is and who isnt the risk.

Said Sharpton: I think the fact that it wasnt a real police officer made it even more egregious that authorities didnt take action. Here is a wanna-be security guard ... Theres no reason for reluctance here.

As word spread of Martins death, many looking to speak out turned to the digital space. Social media had already shown its potential as a platform for protest, and now the trend went into hyperdrive.

Kevin Cunningham, then a 31-year-old graduate of Howard Universitys law school who was working as a social media consultant for a Muslim organization, had been intrigued by the power of social media since he saw the role it played in the 2011 Egyptian revolution. He posted a petition on Change.org calling for Zimmermans prosecution, and it soon had about 10,000 signatures.

Article continues after sponsor message

That number increased exponentially when he turned the petition over to Martins parents, who made a personal plea for support for Zimmermans prosecution. Celebrities on social media encouraged people to sign. In the end, more than 2.2 million people signed on to the petition.

It was the right place and time as far as that adoption of social media and just sort of the right egregious case that was able to touch peoples hearts, Cunningham said.

While Zimmerman set up a site to seek donations to help his defense, his online detractors were many. Social media brought together multitudes for protests like the Million Hoodie March, as well as countless celebrities and everyday folk who posted images of themselves wearing hoodies with the hashtag, I am Trayvon Martin.

Among them: LeBron James, then playing with the Miami Heat, who posted an image of him and his teammates wearing hoodies, their heads bowed.

Obama himself was drawn into the furor, framing it in terms no other president could.

I can only imagine what these parents are going through. And when I think about this boy, I think about my own kids, Obama said.

If I had a son, hed look like Trayvon.

Six weeks after the shooting, Zimmerman was charged with second-degree murder; he would be acquitted the next year. But the ferment unleashed by Trayvon Martins death did not stop.

The verdict inspired a Facebook post written by Alicia Garza, a hashtag created by Patrisse Cullors and a social media strategy spearheaded by Ayo Tometi -- and the result was Black Lives Matter, a movement to combat racism and racial violence against Black communities.

And many of the same demonstrators incensed by Martins killing took to the streets to protest the death of Michael Brown, 18 and unarmed, killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, in August 2014, just weeks after Eric Garner, also unarmed, was killed by police in New York City.

The moment of Trayvon Martin really opened our eyes, said Edwards, of Dream Defenders, adding there was much more of a general consciousness that had started in 2012 that then erupted in 2014.

Then the 2020 death of George Floyd, killed by Minneapolis police, brought out a wide range of people around the country and the world.

When the George Floyd tragedy happened, we all saw what played out with Trayvon, film director Furst said. And so many people said, never again, this cannot happen that way again.

But that public anger also inspired a reaction. There have been those who took exception to Obamas words of affinity to Martin, and saw the protests as anti-police chaos and disorder.

Others acknowledge that Martins death and its aftermath changed the country, but question whether the change was even remotely sufficient.

Sharpton, while disappointed that there has not been more federal legislation put into place, said a cultural change has happened.

He pointed to the case of Ahmaud Arbery, the 25-year-old Black man chased and killed in 2020 by three white men who saw him running in their Georgia neighborhood. The shooter in that case also claimed self-defense, but an almost entirely white jury found them all guilty.

I think Trayvon shifted the culture where people started looking at things a little differently and nothing to me personifies that more than Arbery, Sharpton said. These two young men, I think, are the two pillars where we are on race.

___

Hajela is a member of the APs team covering race and ethnicity. Shes on Twitter at http://twitter.com/dhajela.

More here:
Trayvon Martin, 10 years later: Teen's death changes ...