Legal Insurrection by William A. Jacobson 10/8/2024
NY Equal Rights Amendment Ballot Initiative “sets up … racial retribution and favoritism under the guise of ‘dismantling discrimination’”Our Op-ed in The NY Post: “If adopted, Prop One would embed racial retribution in the form of reverse racism, critical race theory and diversity, equity and inclusion principles into the state Constitution, without most voters realizing its far-reaching effects.”Since April 2024, I have been sounding the alarm about Proposition 1 in New York, the so-called “Equal Rights Amendment.”
When I first wrote about the ERA last April it was the subject of an ongoing court challenge because the Democrats in the legislature didn’t follow the procedure for constitutional amendments set forth in the New York Constitution. The ERA was a rushed reaction to the Dobbs abortion decision, supposedly to protect abortion rights in New York (which were not in any way threatened by the decision), but Democrats used that as cover to load up the constitutional amendment with a bevy of protected classes, such as gender identity. which has spurred a vigorous opposition movement based on the threat to parental rights, girls and women’s spaces, and girls sports.
But I was focused on the other sneaky measure in the proposed amendment, in a completely new paragraph B, allowing for discrimination done in the name of dismantling discrimination. In our Equal Protection Projects statement opposing the ERA, we wrote, in part:
It is alarming that Paragraph B has not received any public attention for its possibly disastrous impact on the cause of nondiscrimination, as already embodied in the NY State Constitution (before the amendment) and numerous state and local laws. E.g. NY Human Rights Law and NYC Human Rights Law.
Under Paragraph B, discrimination becomes a NY State constitutional right provided the discrimination is “designed to prevent or dismantle discrimination.” This embeds what is commonly referred to as “reverse discrimination” into the NY State Constitution. Discrimination against certain groups in order to protect other groups would be exempt from the sweeping protections of the current constitution and Paragraph A of the Amendment. Arguably, this would mean that the NY and NYC Human Rights Laws would be preempted merely by claiming the motivation was to “dismantle discrimination.”
The exemption under Paragraph B would severely damage efforts at fighting discrimination. It would create a loophole allowing persons engaging in objectively discriminatory programs and practices to claim that the motivation was to “dismantle discrimination.” This is the language of Critical Race Theory and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, and would create a DEI exception to the anti-discrimination laws in NY State. Such ideologies have no place in the NY Constitution, and are contrary to our tradition of protecting individuals from invidious discrimination based on immutable characteristics.
More:
https://legalinsurrection.com/2024/10/ny-equal-rights-amendment-ballot-initiative-sets-up-racial-retribution-and-favoritism-under-the-guise-of-dismantling-discrimination/
