Recent editorials from North Carolina newspapers:
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June 16
The Winston-Salem Journal on the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling protecting LGBT workers from job discrimination:
There was much celebration in the land among people who value equal rights on June 15 after the Supreme Court announced its landmark ruling that workers cannot be fired for being gay or transgender. The decision that they are protected by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits sex discrimination, was authored by Justice Neil Gorsuch and passed 6-3.
It’s in keeping with many lower court rulings that anti-discrimination laws cover sexual orientation and transgender status, as well as the conclusions of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
After many of the hair-splitting justifications and arguments over definitions of gender and sex that have muddied conversations in the public square, Gorsuch’s ruling cut to the heart of the matter: “An individual’s homosexuality or transgender status is not relevant to employment decisions. That’s because it is impossible to discriminate against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex.”
Sarah Kate Ellis, the president and CEO of GLAAD, a pro-LGBTQ group, said the decision “affirms what shouldn’t have even been a debate: LGBTQ Americans should be able to work without fear of losing jobs because of who they are.”
The decision involved the cases of two gay men who were fired because of their sexual orientation and a woman who was fired after she came out as transsexual.
One of the plaintiffs in the case, Gerald Bostock, was fired from his job as a child welfare services coordinator in 2013 after joining a gay recreational softball league.
He said, “I feel some validation right now.”
The ruling was somewhat surprising, considering President Trump’s overhaul of the Supreme Court. His two conservative appointees were supposed to prevent “legislating from the bench,” as Justice Samuel Alito’s dissenting view described this decision.
But that’s not what this is, Gorsuch asserted, writing, “In Title VII, Congress adopted broad language making it illegal for an employer to rely on an employee’s sex when deciding to fire that employee. We do not hesitate to recognize today a necessary consequence of that legislative choice: An employer who fires an individual merely for being gay or transgender defies the law.”
Put aside the legalese and it should be obvious that discriminating against qualified workers for their sexual or gender identity is wrong. Codifying it would have increased the suffering of a group of people who are already marginalized - and, in many cases, brutalized - and for no good reason. Why anyone would want that is a question for the ages.
While running for office in 2016, Trump claimed that he would protect LGBT rights, but the Trump administration’s Justice Department argued against the plaintiffs in this case. Since his election, Trump’s administration has moved to ban trans people from serving in the military, eliminated rules protecting trans students and pushed to allow businesses to turn away gay and trans customers if they seek a religious exemption. And last week his administration finalized a regulation that rolls back protections for LGBT people against sex discrimination in health care. These are attacks on their rights and their dignity.
When asked by the president, “What do you have to lose?” voters should keep this in mind.
We don’t have to like or agree with everyone we meet or with their decisions about their lives. But when it comes to the law, every American deserves equal rights. It’s long past time to accept that we share this country and abandon efforts to write sexual or gender discrimination into law.
Online: https://www.journalnow.com
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June 12
The News & Observer and The Charlotte Observer on a North Carolina law limiting who can make decisions about moving Confederate memorials:
In Birmingham, Ala., home of Bull Conner, a five-story monument that honored Confederate soldiers and sailors was removed by workers with a mandate from the mayor and relative silence from the Republican-led state legislature.
In Richmond, Va., home of the Confederacy, the governor and mayor announced they would remove the Confederate monuments on Monument Avenue, where George Floyd protesters tagged the statues with messages reflecting the burden of decades of racial and economic inequality.
We are living an extraordinary moment right now. Mississippi is rethinking the stars and bars in its flag. NASCAR is removing the Confederate flag from its events. Cities and counties and states are becoming emboldened - or at least awoken - and having new conversations about symbols of racism and the pain they bring.
In North Carolina, we have dozens of such symbols - monuments and statues across the state that city and county leaders would like to revisit. But unlike most other states, many of our local leaders can’t have conversations about what’s best for their communities. In 2015, the Republican-controlled General Assembly approved a law that banned removing an “object of remembrance” on public property that “commemorates an event, a person, or military service that is part of North Carolina’s history.” Local governments can move monuments that belong to them, but decisions on all other monuments and statues are made by a state-appointed monuments commission, which says its hands are tied by the 2015 law.
That needs to change. Especially now.
Republican lawmakers need to let North Carolinians participate in the healing and uniting we’re seeing in so many other places. Specifically, that means N.C. Senate leader Phil Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore, who in the wake of George Floyd’s death last month, said: “Recent events have created a unique opportunity to address long-standing issues facing our society.”
That statement came in a news release announcing the creation of a state task force on justice, law enforcement, and community relations, but Moore and every member-to-be of that task force know that such words ring hollow if the state persists in protecting symbols that were constructed to justify the segregation and inequity Moore says he wants to address.
In response to an Editorial Board question about statues and monuments, Berger spokesperson Pat Ryan said: “Though no senator has approached him recently with an alternative proposal, Sen. Berger continues to be open hearing the case for a different policy on this.” Democrats and Gov. Roy Cooper, who called for removal of Confederate monuments on the capitol grounds three years ago, should take him up on the offer.
Battles over Confederate symbols have long divided North Carolina, but the 2015 law was passed in the wake of renewed discussions about monuments following the deadly shootings of nine black members of a Charleston church by white supremacist Dylann Roof. In response, S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley removed the Confederate flag from the state capitol, calling it “a deeply offensive symbol of a brutally oppressive past.” N.C. Gov. Pat McCrory showed no such courage, complaining that North Carolina’s monument bill was an “overreach into local decision making” but signing it anyway.
The law has since shackled N.C. communities that want to rid themselves of the distress the monuments bring. That includes the UNC system, which has suffered years-long torment surrounding Silent Sam, a statue topped by protesters on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus in 2018. Last year, the UNC Board of Governors decided to pay millions of dollars to a Confederate sympathy group to take the statue off the UNC System’s hands. That deal was struck down by a judge in February.
Now, in the wake of George Floyd’s death, Americans are examining race and inequity in a new and profound way, and they’re deciding that one step toward eliminating division is to remove the symbols that cause it.
Do North Carolina Republicans want our state to be part of this promising moment, or are they going to embrace the past once again?
Online: https://www.newsobserver.com
Online: https://www.charlotteobserver.com
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