4 days ago
- Politics
- Wall Street Journal
The L.A. Riots Hand Republicans a Political Edge
The Supreme Court's ruling last week in Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services struck a welcome blow for equal treatment under the law. Even better, it was a unanimous decision written by a reliable liberal, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, and praised in a concurring opinion written by a reliable conservative, Justice Clarence Thomas.
The case involved a heterosexual woman who alleged that she had been denied a job promotion because of her sexual orientation, and that a less-qualified gay candidate had been chosen instead. The court held that federal civil-rights statutes give members of majority groups the same right to sue as minorities. 'By establishing the same protections for every 'individual'—without regard to that individual's membership in a minority or majority group—Congress left no room for courts to impose special requirements on majority-group plaintiffs alone,' Justice Jackson wrote. Discrimination is discrimination, regardless of whether the target is black, white, gay or straight.
This sort of principled clarity is useful, and it can be contrasted with the fuzzy logic our political class employs as protests against the Trump administration's immigration raids accelerate. Rioting is wrong, and it ought to be condemned. Yet President Trump and his Democratic opponents seem to believe that it depends on the circumstances.
Mr. Trump had no trouble vilifying troublemakers who were out in force following George Floyd's murder. But he praised and ultimately pardoned virtually all of the Jan. 6 rioters who assaulted police officers, smashed windows and left feces in the Capitol's corridors. Mr. Trump is back to denouncing violent street protests again, but only a fool would believe that his law-and-order rhetoric is based on principle rather than political expediency.
