By Mark Angelides
Chuck Schumer, Senate Minority Leader, voted “No” for a judicial nominee based on one thing only…His skin color. In a nation that has allegedly moved past judging people by the color of the skin, Schumer’s actions show that the Democrat party under his leadership is still the party of racism and identity politics.
Why no calls of “racist!” or demanding that he step down? Because this particular prejudice was directed against an eminently qualified man who just happens to be white.
Marvin Quattlebaum was, nonetheless, voted in 69 to 29 to the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina. So evidently, the majority of Senators seemed to think his skin color was not a hindrance to the job. What was behind Schumer’s ridiculous position?
“The nomination of Marvin Quattlebaum speaks to the overall lack of diversity in President Trump’s selections for the federal judiciary,” Schumer said.
He continued:
“As of February 14th, 83 percent of the President Trump’s confirmed nominees were male, 92 percent were white. That represents the lowest share of non-white candidates in three decades. It’s long past time that the judiciary starts looking a lot more like the America it represents. Having a diversity of views and experiences on the federal bench is necessary for the equal administration of justice.”
The idea that the judiciary should represent what modern America looks like sounds fine and noble, but to achieve this through discrimination can never be right. Discrimination is still discrimination even if it is “positive” discrimination.
As of 2016, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, 12.3% of Americans are identified as black. Of these, around 52% are female. Consider this… If more than 6.5% of judges were black females, would Schumer be voting against them assuming a position?
We should all be for equality and equal representation, but this should never be achieved through the diminishing of one group in favor of another. But the idea that a judicial system (or any other system) for that matter should be an exact mirroring of the racial, gender (and any other characteristic) population mix is ludicrous at best. It implies that (in Schumer’s words) the “diversity of views and experiences” can only be experiences or dealt with by people of the same view and experience. If this were followed through to its “logical” conclusion, no black person should ever sit in judgement on a white person, no white in judgment on a black person, no woman on a man, no man on a woman, because they would not have the necessary diversity of views or experience.
Particularly in the case of the law, justice should be blind. Laws and verdicts should be applied equally regardless of race, gender or sexuality. To suggest that more “X” is needed in a system that professes to be fair and equal is not only wrong, it is dangerous.
Schumer’s views are repellent. I wonder if he will be taken to task for them?