Clyburn: Supreme Court Is 'Attempting to Reinstate Plessy Versus Ferguson'
Rep. James Clyburn argues the Supreme Court is attempting to revive the 'separate but equal' doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson, signaling a potential rollback of decades of civil rights protections.
Representative James Clyburn's statement on MSNBC—that the current Supreme Court is 'attempting to reinstate Plessy versus Ferguson'—is a direct and urgent call to recognize the Court's trajectory. While the bundle lacks details on a specific ruling, Clyburn's framing points to a pattern of decisions that chip away at the post-Brown v. Board of Education consensus. The mechanism of this rollback is often through narrow rulings on standing, jurisdiction, or statutory interpretation that functionally permit discrimination under the guise of local control or colorblindness. The harm is to millions of people of color who face segregated schools, voter suppression, and unequal justice, as the Court shields these outcomes from federal remedy. The concrete progressive alternative is a legislative restoration of civil rights protections, including a strengthened Voting Rights Act and clear federal standards against systemic discrimination, that renders the Court's retreat irrelevant.
The humanitarian alternative
Congress should immediately pass a comprehensive Civil Rights Restoration Act that codifies the full scope of Brown v. Board of Education and subsequent rulings, explicitly banning any form of state-sanctioned separate-but-equal treatment in education, housing, voting, and public services. This law must include a provision requiring federal courts to apply strict scrutiny to any policy with a disparate impact on protected groups, effectively overturning the Court's narrowing of equal protection claims. Additionally, Congress should expand the jurisdiction of the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division to preemptively review and block state laws that would create separate systems for different demographic groups.
Falsifiable predictions
What this entry claims will happen, and what data would prove it wrong. The Reckoner revisits these against current reality.
- The Supreme Court will issue a ruling within the next 12 months that explicitly endorses a separate-but-equal framework in a case concerning school desegregation or public services.
- Congressional Democrats will introduce a Civil Rights Restoration Act within the next 6 months in response to the trajectory Clyburn identifies.
- At least two more states will pass laws permitting publicly funded separate facilities for different racial or demographic groups within the next year.
Original source — excerpted
news Clyburn: ‘This Supreme Court Is Attempting to Reinstate Plessy Versus Ferguson’"Saturday on MS NOW’s “PoliticsNation,” Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) said the Supreme Court was trying to reinstate Plessy v. Ferguson, the overturned ruling ..."