As more and more troubling questions regarding Amy Coney Barrett’s testimony in her Supreme Court nomination hearing continue to arise, so do more and more troubling decisions from her judicial record. A report by the Associated Press now points to a written decision by Coney Barrett which claims that use of racist language does not create a hostile workplace.
Really.
Coney Barrett penned an opinion just last year in the case of Smith v. Illinois Department of Transportation in which a former transportation employee, Terry Smith, sued for discrimination following his firing. Smith claimed he endured workplace discrimination, including use of the “n-word” by his supervisor.
In her opinion, Coney Barrett decided that enduring racial slurs does not constitute discrimination or the creation of a hostile work environment. “The n-word is an egregious racial epithet,” Barrett wrote. “That said, Smith can’t win simply by proving that the word was uttered. He must also demonstrate that Colbert’s use of this word altered the conditions of his employment and created a hostile or abusive working environment.” She further ruled that Smith “introduced no evidence that Colbert’s use of the n-word changed his subjective experience of the workplace. To be sure, Smith testified that his time at the Department caused him psychological distress. But that was for reasons that predated his run-in with Colbert and had nothing to do with his race. His tenure at the Department was rocky from the outset because of his poor track record.”
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Ironically, Coney Barrett clashed with an unlikely opponent in her ruling: conservative Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. “But, in my view, being called the n-word by a supervisor … suffices by itself to establish a racially hostile work environment. That epithet has been labeled, variously, a term that ‘sums up . . . all the bitter years of insult and struggle in America,’ ‘pure anathema to African-Americans,’ and ’probably the most offensive word in English,” Kavanaugh wrote in 2013. “No other word in the English language so powerfully or instantly calls to mind our country’s long and brutal struggle to overcome racism and discrimination against African-Americans. In short, the case law demonstrates that a single, sufficiently severe incident may create a hostile work environment actionable under federal anti-discrimination laws.”
Coney Barrett is the mother of two Black children through adoption.
Goforit
So, when the repulsive Republicans in the Senate rubber stamp her nomination: if Chief Justice Roberts calls her the “C” word, does that also not constitute a hostile work environment?
enlightenone
If someone on the hearing committee had balls, it would have been asked, but this is just another shitty reality show as if we needed another one!
MrMichaelJ
Could you even imagine?
Creamsicle
Trumpism will have its biggest impact on the SCOTUS. At the same time, maybe a 17-member SCOTUS could be a very good thing.
Maybe next we can consider establishing a term on the time the Juistices serve. Something like 16 years, so that a Justice appointment still has generation-shaping influence. Given the age that most Justices are appointed and retire, it wouldn’t even necessarily alter the nature of court appointments that much.
James
SHE’S A STUPID LOSER IDIOT. FUK REPUBLICAN GARBAGE. FUK THE LOG CABIN REPUBLICAN GARBAGE.
frapachino
Grow up cupcake!
missvamp
wow= just another dumb bitch who will do trump’s bidding. ugh
frapachino
Misogynist!
Cam
So in other words, she says that somebody could call you the N word at work every day but THAT in itself isn’t a hostile act. You have to prove that the person saying that altered something else about the workplace?
Calling you that word IS a hostile act.
This is what the racist Republicans want. A situation where they can be as racist as they want and then claim they aren’t racist. This woman is very very dangerous.
Liquid Silver
I kinda wonder why we’re bothering. Of course they’re going to. You know they are. I know they are. There’s no doubt of it–if not before, then right after the election when Susan Collins doesn’t care about any of you any longer and Lindsey can go back to his pool boy.
Spend the time and the energy assuming they will, and getting enough of a majority in the Senate that conservadems don’t matter. Obviously.
Fname Optional Lname
What’s more insulting is to listen to an intelligent person play dumb! Yes, she has a certain level of intelligence but her involvement in religious based cult activity has blinded her sense of logic and most definitely affected her sense of right and wrong. The fact that she is raising children from another culture is alarming also. At this point her approval can’t be stopped. All the Dems can do is stand up to her, look her straight in the eye and scream “BULLS&^T”!!!!! She knows she was put there for a reason, she is on a mission to undo anything and everything they deem Unholy and Blasphemous (except Trump of course). When she acts like she has no idea what they’re talking about shove it right back in her face and let all of America know we have her number.
Kevan1
How do we stop this B_tch?
Liquid Silver
You don’t. You can’t.
So now you get Dems elected, stack the courts, and make her not matter. That’s your only move remaining since you also don’t have a time machine to go back and undo the chicanery that got Trump elected.
Jon in Canada
I’m loathe to quote Trump, but he did say that some things needed a “2 Amendment solution.”
WashDrySpin
I do not at all feel sorry for the Democrats. There is blame to assign to RBG here. Someone who is so old with cancer in remission, should have retired when Obama was elected for a second term to retain that seat for Democrats. Nobody is that irreplaceable. Instead RBG has allowed the Republicans to now undo her life’s accomplishments.
Justice Kennedy was wiser. He did not play Russian Roulette with death.
ljbivins
Well said. I second.
Cam
So Republicans could have stonewalled and blocked anybody from being appointed to her seat too?
Nice try.
Kangol2
As appalling as her ruling was, it’s even more so given that she has adopted two Black children, from Haiti. Is she actually saying that if those children are being subjected to racist epithets, that’s not a “hostile” environment or discriminatory? And she calls herself a Christian and a Roman Catholic? I swear, the absurd horror of this woman keeps increasing. I also pray for those poor Black kids, who are clearly living with someone who apparently has no grasp of what they may be experiencing in the world based on who they are.
The other thing revealed today is that she, like John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh, worked to help install George W. Bush in 2000, when he lost the popular vote to Al Gore and Bush’s brother Jeb, along with the then-conservative Supreme Court, essentially threw the election to W Bush. We are still living with that disaster of a presidency. She should be disqualified for her ties to W Bush alone. Instead, like Roberts and Kavanaugh, she’s being rewarded with a lifetime post on SCOTUS. Absolutely disgusting.
Cam
In her racist mind, she probably feels that she “Saved” those two kids by allowing them into a white household.
jorgecruz
I blame the morons that believed Trump was anything more than a narcissistic crook. You can throw in some blame for the idiots that cast a protest vote for Jill Stein.
curiobi
If she does not grasp the simple concept that being called that word is offensive she should not be raising black children. She clearly has taken tokenisum to new and disgusting lows here. When Kavanaugh is the voice of reason, you know you done phucked up! >:/
frapachino
Fuk calm down and put away your torches, there will be retirements or deaths and Biden or Harris or whoever on the left will get to replace them!
Goforit
“Calm down and put away your touches”? Is that the advise that you will give to your fellow Trump cult followers when the next Democratic Congress expands the Supreme Court by 4 or (my prediction) 6 new justices? What the Republicans have done with Barrett, Kavanaugh and Merit Garland is disgusting. It may have been legal, but it was dishonest and definitely did not adhere to any rules of fair play.