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Images from the Jim Crow era in America are seared into the minds of those who lived through it, and of anyone who attended an American history class after the victory of the civil rights movement: side-by-side drinking fountains with signs reading white and colored; parks and recreation facilities separated into racial enclaves; small-town main streets with whites-only theaters, restaurants, grocers, and amenities.

Fortunately, all that ended by the mid-1960sor so we had thought. In recent years, segregation has been resurrected, but this time under the guise of racial equity. As I reported in late 2020, government agencies in Seattle, Washington, including the King County Library, King County Prosecutors Office, and the Veterans Administration, began segregating employees by race for diversity training programs, so that whites could accept responsibility for their own racism and minorities could be insulated from any potential harming [that] might arise from a cross-racial conversation.

This year, the new segregation has extended itself into new domains: public education and public-health policy. In Denver, Centennial Elementary School launched a racially exclusive Families of Color Playground Night as part of its racial equity programming. In Chicago, Downers Grove South High School held a racially exclusive Students of Color Field Trip as part of its own equity initiatives. In the words of Denver Public Schools officials, the administrators implemented the segregated program to create a space of belonging, which, they said, without a hint of irony, is about uniting us, not dividing us.

The new segregation has also been implemented in public health-care systems, with state and federal agencies denying Covid vaccines and treatment to individuals based on race. This trend began last year, when Vermont provided the vaccine to all members of racial minorities over age 16 but denied it for whites without specific age or health conditions. Later, New York State, Minnesota, Utah, and the federal government adopted health policies that explicitly discriminate against whites, rationing Covid treatments based on race. (After public outcry, Minnesota recently backtracked on this policy, and Utah announced that it is reevaluating its policy, but both Utahs and New Yorks arrangements remain in place as of this writing.)

The most common justification for the new segregation is that racial minorities suffer disparities that must be rectified through positive discrimination, which is presented as a solution for Americas historical racism. In practice, however, these policies often descend into illogic, cruelty, and malice. Minnesotas recently rescinded criteria, for example, would have prioritized Covid treatment for a healthy 18-year-old black female over a 64-year-old white male with hypertension, who, given the totality of circumstances, faces a much greater risk of serious illness and death. The new politics of race supplants the old science of medicine, with potentially catastrophic consequences for disfavored racial groups.

How is this kind of policy even possible? As legal scholars have made clear, all of these programs are blatantly unconstitutional: they violate the Fourteenth Amendments Equal Protection Clause and, additionally, the Civil Rights Acts prohibition against racial segregation. Nevertheless, the new segregation is slowly embedding itself in every domain of public policy. The gambit, for the progressives who support it, is to establish a new status quoso-called antiracist discriminationand to use their superior cultural power to intimidate the majority into acquiescence.

For now, they appear to be succeeding. Conservative groups, such as the Southeastern Legal Foundation and Parents Defending Education, have challenged the new segregation on legal grounds, but those cases will take years to wind their way through the federal courts. Meantime, progressives are likely to solidify their position and continue to normalize the policy of segregation for social justice. If they succeed, they will send the country backward, reviving old antagonisms and hollowing out the Constitutions civil rights protections.

Voters of all persuasions should be appalled by this development and work to subvert it. There is, no doubt, a strong majority of Americans who oppose state-mandated racial discrimination. Unless they speak out publicly against it, however, the new segregation will continue to spread through our institutionsthreatening the foundations of civil rights law and fundamental principles of American society and government.

Christopher F. Rufo is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. Sign up for his newsletter here.

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Woke Segregation and the Ghost of Jim Crow - City Journal

In a major setback for top-down, corporate-model business unionism, Teamsters United candidate Sean OBrien defeated Steve Vairma the chosen successor to Teamsters President James Hoffa Jr. by a two-to-one margin. The results were announced Nov. 18, with Fred Zuckerman, Teamsters United candidate for Secretary-Treasurer, and the entire OZ slate sweeping the elections for International officers.

Former Teamsters President Ron Carey and the Rev. Jesse Jackson lead a rally during the 1997 UPS strike

This was the first win since 1996 by a candidate for union president backed by Teamsters for a Democratic Union. After militant, anti-corruption leader Ron Carey won reelection to a second term that year, he went on to lead the successful UPS strike a year later. The strike pushed back attempts by UPS management to expand the lower-paid, part-time workforce.

OBrien, like the late Carey, is not a TDU member, but TDU supported the OZ slate as part of the broader Teamsters United effort. The president and the rest of the General Executive Board are directly elected by the rank and file.

A key issue in Vairmas defeat was the way the Hoffa administration handled negotiations with UPS in 2018. A majority 54% of the 250,000 UPS Teamsters voted against the contract, which created a lower pay scale for newer workers and allowed UPS to subcontract more work. But, applying the unions two-thirds rule, the bargaining team was able to declare the contract ratified, because less than two-thirds of UPS members voted to reject it.

The unions convention, held earlier this year, voted to eliminate the two-thirds rule in their constitution. A priority of the new team is reversing contract concessions at UPS when the current contract expires in 2023.

The break by the rank and file with Hoffa who has held the reins of power since 1998 is part of a broader trend in the working class, expressed by strikes and unionization drives. Workers want to fight, and they want and need fighting unions.

Teamsters Local 25 truck, in background, at Feb. 6 rally in Bessemer, Alabama to support union drive. Local 25 President and now Teamsters International President Sean OBrien arranged for the truck to be there.

Amazon: the existential threat

Taking on Amazon is a stated priority for OBrien. As president of Greater Bostons Teamsters Local 25, he has pushed City Councils in Boston and surrounding communities to pass resolutions calling on Amazon to adhere to specified labor standards; the union must be consulted before a new facility opens. Now, OBrien said, as a result of this [union] election, were going to be in a better position where we can use our influence to do that nationwide. (Boston Globe, Nov. 19)

During the union drive at the Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, OBrien drove a truck emblazoned with the Teamsters emblem to a rally in Bessemer.

In 2020 the union appointed a National Director for Amazon. At the Teamsters national convention in June, delegates passed a resolution stating it recognizes the existential threat of Amazon to our members and commits all levels of the union to unite with core platforms of member engagement, worker and community engagement, antitrust enforcement and policy reform, and global solidarity. (teamster.org)

One aspect of a multipronged strategy against Amazon is, according to OBrien, winning a good contract and reversing concessions at UPS. Our biggest selling point to potential members is showing in black and white what a union contract can do, he said. (Labor Notes, Nov. 18)

Getting rid of two-tier at UPS, where new hires starting pay is currently below what Amazon workers make, would undoubtedly help win Amazon workers to unionization. But there is a crying need for representation at Amazon now, not when the UPS contract expires in 2023. Organizing Amazon has a do-or-die urgency for organized labor comparable to winning against General Motors in 1936-37.

Hopefully, now that the election is over, the union will immediately move forward with the commitments made in June.

Amazon workers need the Teamsters, and the Teamsters union needs Amazon workers.

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Progressives sweep Teamsters election time to organize ...

Illustration by Serge Bloch.

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The year 2021 demanded every bit as much from progressives as the difficult years that preceded it. Joe Biden replaced Donald Trump only after the outgoing president urged on a coup attempt and was impeached for the second time. In the face of an ongoing pandemic and the economic uncertainty extending from it, Biden found himself struggling not just with Republicans but also with corporate-aligned centrist Democrats who were disinclined to govern boldly. That set the stage for a year that saw progress come slowly and presidential approval ratings decline. Progressives had to fight to keep the administration from missing historic opportunities, while at the same time they championed an urgent racial justice agenda that faced a growing backlash, defended abortion rights, and struggled to save the planet. It wasnt an easy year, but these leaders fought the good fightand gave us hope for 2022. John Nichols1

Carol Anderson2

(Emory University)

The Emory University professor employs deep historical analyses to identify the roots of current crises, and in 2021 her voice was vital. In her latest book, The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America (Bloomsbury), Anderson revealed how the Second Amendment has been used to arm and empower white supremacists from the founding of the republic to the night Kyle Rittenhouse started shooting in Kenosha, Wis. And in a column for The Guardian on impunity, titled White Supremacists Declare War on Democracy and Walk Away Unscathed, Anderson explained why the Capitol insurrectionists felt so confident that they could attack the very underpinnings of our democracy. American democracys most dangerous adversary is white supremacy, Anderson wrote. Throughout this nations history, white supremacy has undermined, twisted and attacked the viability of the United States. What makes white supremacy so lethal, however, is not just its presence but also the refusal to hold its adherents fully accountable for the damage they have done and continue to do to the nation. The insurrection on 6 January and the weak response are only the latest example.3

Ai-jen Poo4

(Getty Images for Supermajority)

When Speaker Nancy Pelosi spoke before the Houses approval of the Build Back Better agenda in November, she gave a shout-out to Ai-jen Poo, the Domestic Workers Alliance executive director who in 2011 launched Caring Across Generations to address the nations crumbling care infrastructure. A decade after the campaigns launch, its call to action, Care Cant Wait, echoes throughout the halls of Congress, as legislators propose to invest in a too-long-delayed expansion on the promises of the New Deal and the Great Society. And President Biden has embraced that campaigns proposals for federal investment in Medicaidwhich would expand access to home- and community-based services for people with disabilities and aging adults and provide caregivers with fairly compensated, union-protected jobs.5

Robin Rue Simmons6

(Teresa Crawford / AP)

The House Judiciary Committee took historic action in April when it marked up HR 40, the bill by Texas Representative Sheila Jackson Lee to establish a commission to study and develop proposals for reparations to Black Americans. But less than a month earlier, on March 22, Evanston, Ill., became the first US city to create a government-funded reparations program. The plan to provide grants to Black residents to address historic patterns of housing discrimination and segregation was spearheaded by Rue Simmons, who represented the citys predominantly Black Fifth Ward. Were not a unique city in Evanston, she said. We reflect the racial disparity across the nation. What makes us different is that we decided to take this first stepnot perfect, not complete. Now the executive director of FirstRepair, which advocates for local reparations, Rue Simmons explained in August that actual reparations, not just their study, can be enacted by cities nationwide. All it takes is determination, humility and an unwavering commitment to reparatory justice.7

Lori Wallach8

(Public Citizen)

When Covid vaccines began to be widely distributed, this veteran fair-trade activist recognized that getting Americans vaccinated, while essential, would not be enough to end the pandemic. People around the world would have to be vaccinated. Utilizing knowledge gained from her decades of work as director of Public Citizens Global Trade Watch division (a position she left in December to launch the Rethink Trade program for the American Economic Liberties Project), Wallach worked with the Our World Is Not for Sale network and others to advocate a waiver of global intellectual property rules that would allow for ramped-up vaccine production in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. And shes continued to put the pressure on the World Trade Organization, which shes argued must get out of the way.9

Shannon Brewer10

(Joy Asico / AP images for the Center for Reproductive Rights)

For the past 20 years, Brewer has worked at the Jackson Womens Health Organization, the Mississippi clinic at the epicenter of the fight to overturnRoe v. Wade. Should the Supreme Court reverse Roeand we have no reason to believe it wontBrewer, who took the helm of JWHO in 2010, just might be the last director of the last abortion clinic in Mississippi, which serves people from across the South, where access has been decimated in recent decades. But Brewer is far from alone. As she defends the Pink House, as the clinic is known, from a steady stream of anti-abortion zealots outside its building and a dizzying number of targeted restrictions on abortion providers (or TRAP laws), she does so with the support and admiration of next-generation activists from far and wide. As she acknowledged to hundreds of demonstrators in front of the Supreme Court as the justices heard oral arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization on December 1: Im realizing that even when you think youre doing this by yourself, there are so many people out here, fighting with us and continuing to fight with us. Regina Mahone11

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The Sunrise Movement12

According to Bill McKibben, The Sunrise Movement is the most supple and smart political crew in the country, and these young activists proved him right in 2021, demanding that Democrats make climate justice a priority. When Biden moved in the right direction, Sunrise activists urged him on. When the administration wavered, or when West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin undermined efforts to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, they answered with protests and hunger strikes. The historic commitments to fund climate-sustaining projects in the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the Build Back Better plan illustrate Sunrises effectiveness. This movement wont bend to compromising Democrats or slow down until it wins approval of the Green New Deal, which New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey have reintroduced.13

Greta Thunberg14

(Sipa via AP images)

The unignorable voice on planetary climate catastrophe, Greta Thunberg, started early and has kept up her commitment. With statements as clear as they are persistent, she has returned us again to the facts when we avert our eyes. We dont have another world to live in if we lose this one, and for many the loss has already begun. We dont just need goals for 2030 or 2050, Thunberg said in a speech last year. We need them for every month of every year, starting now. David Bromwich15

Pramila Jayapal16

(Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)

Holding up the progressive cause while negotiating with centrist Democrats became crucial in 2021 as the Build Back Better Act wound its way through Congress, and that task fell to Washington Representative Jayapal. Some concessions to corporate-aligned centrists were inevitable, but progressives needed to hold the line long enough to make clear that their votes counted. Jayapal combined a moral visionespecially in advocating for immigrant rightswith astuteness and dealmaking skills. While the Build Back Better Act was stalled in the Senate by Manchin, its progress through the House remains a major achievement. Jayapal deserves credit for that as much as anybody. Jeet Heer17

The Brennan Center for Justice18

From revealing the anti-democratic impact of gerrymandering and voter suppression to identifying new threats to election integrity, Brennan Center staffers such as Wendy Weiser, Wilfred Codrington III, and Michael Li have been essential advocates for democracy during a year when it was under threat in states nationwide. Especially vital in 2021 was their exposure of how legislation enabling partisan interference in election administration is part of a broader election sabotage or election subversion campaign, a national push to enable partisans to distort democratic outcomes, as they described in a groundbreaking report. As usual, the Brennan Center is anticipating the next fight, even as it wages the current one.19

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Jamie Raskin20

(Alex Wong / Getty Images)

The Maryland representative led the charge to impeach and convict Trump for high crimes against the republic, with a depth of knowledge that extended from his decades as a professor of constitutional law, and with a righteous passion grounded in his faith that no one is above the law. The tally of Senate votes for conviction was the highest in a modern-day presidential impeachment trialwith seven Republicans joining all of the Democrats. Do not doubt for a moment that this level of support for accountability reflected the legal and moral power that Raskin and his team brought to the prosecution of Donald Trump.21

Free Speech For People22

Although the Senate failed to remove Trump from office for inciting the January 6 insurrection, that doesnt change the fact that the former president violated Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which disqualifies from public office any individual who swore an oath to uphold the Constitution and then engaged in insurrection. Free Speech For People has launched a national 14point3 campaign demanding that secretaries of state and other election officials bar Trump and his fellow insurrectionists from appearing on state ballots in 2022, 24, and beyond. Constitutional lawyer John Bonifaz, FSFPs president, promises, If [Trump] runs in 2024, we will go into court and argue that he has disqualified himself.23

Lina Khan24

(Saul Loeb-Pool / Getty Images)

Of all Joe Bidens best appointments, the most electrifying was that of legal scholar Khan, who has taken over as chair of the Federal Trade Commission. Her groundbreaking 2017 paper Amazons Antitrust Paradoxwhich The New York Times described as having reframed decades of monopoly lawand her academic advocacy for taking bold steps to address the emergence of new monopolies in the 21st century influenced Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren and spurred a revival of interest in antitrust enforcement. Now, Khan is in a position to turn theory into practice. Katrina vanden Heuvel25

The UAW Workers Who Struck John Deere26

The pandemic and its disruption of the economy are sparking the biggest surge in labor activism in decades. This welcome resurgence of labor power is essential for redressing the core problem of American democracy: economic inequality. In a five-week strike, UAW workers from John Deere showed fortitude and solidarity and won major concessions, including cost-of-living increases. Jeet Heer27

Cori Bush28

(Alex Wong / Getty Images)

Too many members of Congress are satisfied to say the right thing and then bemoan the barriers to actually getting the job done. Not Bush, the first-term Democratic representative from St. Louis. In July, she was fighting inside the Capitol to extend the federal moratorium on evictions that was established in September 2020 and previously extended four times. When Congress failed to act, Bush joined activists who slept overnight on the steps of the Capitol in order to convince the Biden administration to extend the protections. The White House responded, temporarily saving millions of Americans from the threat of losing shelter during a pandemic. When the Supreme Court overturned the moratorium, Bush teamed up with Elizabeth Warren to write legislation that would give the Department of Health and Human Services permanent authority to enact eviction bans during public health crises. We didnt sleep on those steps just to give up now, Bush said.29

Nadarius Clark30

When Clark beat three-term conservative Democrat Steve Heretick in Virginias House of Delegates primary this past June, his victory in Novembers general election seemed preordained, given the heavy Democratic tilt to his district, which encompasses parts of Norfolk, Portsmouth, and Chesapeake. Endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America, Clark ran on a thoroughgoing platform of health care, education, and police reform. But then came the red tide, which swept away even the few incumbents perceived to hold safe seats. Clark won nonetheless, 56 to 44 percent. At 26, he is the youngest Democratic delegate in Virginias history and the first African American to serve the 79th District.He is also the opposite of the losing former Democratic governor, Terry McAuliffewho is, of course, white, wealthy, and more than twice Clarks age. Clark wont criticize McAuliffe or other Democrats. Still, his message carries an implicit critique of campaigns conducted from on high. Being deep in your community, you can combat lies, he told me. We dont teach critical race theory in our schools. Education was nonetheless his top issue, he added.We did something our district hasnt seen, including knocking on more than 40,000 doors between the primary and the general election. You have to show up, Clark stated. Joan Walsh31

The Rise of Dreama Caldwell, by Joe Troop32

A banjo-wielding social justice activist, Troop writes songs in the tradition of Woody Guthrie. As the Grammy-nominated leader of the folk ensemble Che Apalache, which includes players from Argentina and Mexico, Troop has always written songs that are musically and intellectually compelling. That was surely the case with his 2021 single The Rise of Dreama Caldwell, a searing indictment of the cash bail system told through the eyes of a real-life Alamance County, N.C., woman who could not afford to pay bail and ended up in jail. Caldwell eventually became a criminal justice reformer, an activist with the Down Home NC rural organizing project, and a county commission candidate, as Troop recounts in this story of how she stared a sick system point blank in the eye, / And vowed come hell or high water, one day shed watch it die.33

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These Progressives Fought the Good Fight in 2021and Gave Us Hope for 2022 - The Nation

Left: Rep. Pramila Jayapal; Right: Sen. Joe Manchin(Mandel Ngan/Pool; Joshua Roberts/Reuters)

After Senator Joe Manchin delivered the likely death blow to Build Back Better, House progressives responded alternately by declaring him a liar, proceeding as if negotiations were ongoing, and calling on President Biden to enact an unspecified series of executive actions.

The call for executive action is seen as a Plan B to achieve the same results by bypassing the normal legislative process. In reality, its a way to try to put pressure on Manchin and keep the legislative path alive.

If you read Representative Pramila Jayapals Washington Post op-ed closely, however, its pretty clear this is a big bluff by progressives. In her piece, Jayapal makes the standard pitch for the radical spending package (laughably, she now tries to argue that the spread of Omicron brings a renewed urgency to pass the bill).

She eventually writes, We are calling on the president to use executive action to immediately improve peoples lives. Taking executive action will also make clear to those who hinder Build Back Better that the White House and Democrats will deliver for Americans. The [Congressional Progressive Caucus] will soon release a plan for these actions, including lowering costs, protecting the health of every family, and showing the world that the United States is serious about our leadership on climate action.

Reading the fine print, its pretty clear that there are no executive actions available that would be the equivalent of Congresss authorizing trillions of dollars in spending and new government programs. Progressives could call for various actions related to green energy or drug costs. But the reality is that if the action is legal, it is not likely to come anywhere near what Build Back Better was trying to do. And if it actually approximates Build Back Better, it can in no way be constitutional.

If it were simple for Biden to somehow enact his entire agenda with the stroke of a pen, Democrats would not have wasted months trying to pass something into law.

It is ironic, however, that as much as progressives like to talk about the need to protect democracy, they are awfully quick to jump toward doing things unilaterally when they dont have the votes to pass their agenda.

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Progressives Are Bluffing on Build Back Better via Executive Action - National Review

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., chair of theCongressional Progressive Caucus, has introducedlegislationthat would game the nations regulatory system. Under her bill, regulations primarily would be based on studies that support expanding the regulatory power of government agencies.

Amongmany other troubling things, Jayapals bill would require agencies to publicly label studies and research submitted and developed by regulated entitiesincluding property owners, farmers, truckers, and local governmentsas having a conflict of interest.

Its not clear how ones own research reflects any conflicts of interest. Apparently, its a conflict when research conflicts with the agencys interest.

Of course, theres no such conflict-of-interest label for research from organizations that likely would support regulations, such as environmental pressure groups and researchers who receive grants from agencies.

This conflict-of-interest label, along with other aspects of Jayapals legislation, would discourage those who are regulated by federal agencies from even submitting comments on proposed rules.

The process of public comment is Americans chance to provide feedback to government agencies so they can educate officials on the impact of their regulations. Its a chance for regulators to hear from people who have real-world experience and an on-the-ground perspective of how the regulations will affect Americans.

If there were less public participation, agencies wouldnt get the benefits of important analysis and perspective that could improve their regulatory decisions.

For years, conservatives have been trying to give the public a greater voice in the regulatory process. This includestransparencyefforts to ensure the public can have a say on the science and data informing regulatory decisions.

The Trump administrations Environmental Protection Agency finalized a rule that would have helped ensure that the public could access underlying science and data informing regulatory decisions. It wouldnt have mattered who developed the studies; the rule required transparency, and the public would have been better able to evaluate how agencies make regulatory decisions.

Did the left support this effort? Of course not.

Itfoughtthe rule, and the rule no longer exists. Instead, as seen in Jayapals bill, the left apparently wants agencies to be able to use whatever science they can, so long as the sciencesupports their cause. The left is willing to limit the ability of those who oppose their objectives from providing regulatory comments and having a meaningful voice.

But chilling the voice of the people is a major aspect of the administrative state in the first place. Progressives have long pushed for technocrats to dictate the lives of Americans, as Congress sits on the sidelines having given up its legislative power.

This needs to change.

Concern over the administrative state, for good reason, is often focused on the number and scope of regulations. But this is a symptom of a much bigger problem. Through the growing administrative state, the American people have significantly lost and are further losing their voice in policies that affect their lives.

Many on the left may want to make this nation a technocracy with their experts running the show, as in a socialist nation.

But this is the United States, a representative system of government, and conservatives should fight for ambitious changes to bring back representative government where legislators, not bureaucrats, make the policy decisions.

Conservatives should be outraged at the existing administrative state and the rules of the game that have allowed it to become the behemoth it is today. The rules of the game must change back so that representative government is restored.

Progressives want government bureaucrats, not elected representatives of the people, to make the policy decisions that affect the lives of Americans.They dont appear to want anything or anyone, especially those who dare disagree with them, to get in the way of their extreme leftist policies and ideological objectives.

Policymakers should ensure that Congress, not bureaucrats, are the lawmakers.

Further, when agencies issue regulations, there should be clear statutory authority and transparency. And anyoneregardless of view or ideologyshould have the same opportunity to have his voice heard in the rulemaking process.

This piece originally appeared in The Daily Signal

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We Shouldn't Allow Progressives to Limit Participation in Regulatory Process - Heritage.org