The ACLU has a stunning blog post up about the Diane Schroer / Library of Congress case.
Science doesn’t matter, the Library insists, it’s what Congress was thinking of when it passed the 1964 Civil Rights Act. “Everett Dirksen,†a reporter said to me in the hall outside Court, “wasn’t thinking of Diane Schroer when he helped pass the Civil Rights Act.†“Probably true,†I said as she headed off to meet her cameraman, “but James Madison wasn’t thinking of TV when he penned the First Amendment either.â€
The issue isn’t the way someone who wrote or voted for a law was thinking it would apply; the issue is the concept embodied in the law. What was the idea? The flip answer is that on this point, Congress didn’t have an idea; many of those who voted to put sex into the 1964 Civil Rights Act were hoping it would kill the bill.
But in 1964, as today, it is hard to believe that anyone thought sex was just about chromosomes or even just anatomy. It was about the whole package. The issue in the case is how does that idea apply in a world where the package is different than we thought in 1964, a reflection of more things than we thought, maybe not including a lot of things we thought, maybe more fluid than we thought.
It was written by Matt Coles, the Director of the ACLU’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender & AIDS projects. Read it.
What an excellent post. Thanks so much for the link.
I agree with Coles that “very often, the face of wrongdoing turns out to be not evil but ignorance.” The real trouble is the action or inaction that results from ignorance. Then ignorance becomes malevolence, even if unintended, because the action or inaction hurts someone.
It made me tear up to see the ignorance of Charlotte Preece so beautifully counterbalanced by the enlightened view of Dr. Kalev I. Sepp. We need more people like him.
Veronique has an excellent point. Usually wrongdoing emerges from the lack of clear thinking not malevolence. The lack of clear thinking was amplified by the security clearance issue.