Jamie Raskin Invokes Flag Flown Over Alito's House To Ask Witness If He Could Be Neutral

3 months ago

At a House Oversight Committee hearing last week, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) spoke about discrimination in work.

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Transcript

00:00Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

00:04Back to you, Ms. Wiley.

00:06Title VII has been a great American success story and the model for civil rights law and

00:13jurisprudence all over the world, and the vast majority of Americans support Title VII,

00:19which really embodies the promise of civil rights and people being treated as individuals

00:25so that they can actually succeed upon their own merits.

00:28And yet, Title VII has been opposed from the very beginning, has it not?

00:32And it's been resisted at every turn.

00:35I think that the ideological forebears of Mr. Rikita and Mr. Berry and Ms. Stepman,

00:40like Robert Bork, were arguing against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, saying that it was

00:46a violation of freedom of association.

00:48And I remember Anita Bryant and other anti-feminist activists arguing that women were not looking

00:58for equality and equal rights.

01:00Women were looking for a separate place, and there's a special place under religious and

01:05cultural heritage.

01:06So I just wonder if you would say a word about how this current attack on the Civil Rights

01:12Act and Title VII fits in with that history.

01:16Yes, Congressman.

01:19There is an unbroken ideological line.

01:23In fact, this committee hearing, I think, was noticed the day after Juneteenth, when

01:29we recognized the last state in Galveston, Texas, where black people were informed they

01:35were free after the Civil War.

01:38And the Civil War amendments themselves, the 14th Amendment, which is the underpinning

01:41of Title VII, explicitly, and after the Civil War, rejected colorblindness, in fact, in

01:49the forming of the amendment.

01:51Because it was understood that after slavery, there had to be the ability to actually create

01:57more opportunities for people who are black, and in fact, the laws passed, like the Freedmen's

02:02Bureau, were specific about finding ways to focus on creating more opportunity.

02:10When we got to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, again, the longest filibuster in the history

02:17of the country, 60 full days before, fortunately, 73 senators, bipartisan, passed the Civil

02:25Rights Act, which includes Title VII, as well as Title VI, as well as Title II.

02:33But we never saw one day end in the argument that said it was somehow going to be unfair

02:41to white people if we were paying attention to race, racial discrimination.

02:49And frankly, it's just never been true that we haven't paid attention to racial discrimination

02:54for all people.

02:56And anybody who is white can file an EEO complaint, charge right now, if they're being discriminated

03:04against based on their race, and the EEOC will investigate it.

03:08So the whole fact that we're talking about Title VII as if there is a refusal to pay

03:15attention to discrimination, or the whole fact that we're suggesting that if black people

03:21or Latinos or Native Americans are getting jobs, they must not be qualified for them,

03:28that in and of itself speaks to the same arguments we heard in opposition, whether it was post-Civil

03:35War or post-1964 or now 2024.

03:40And Mr. Berry was engaged in a colloquy with Representative Gosar about colorblindness,

03:48which they anchored in the principle of Lady Justice being blindfolded, and it made me

03:55wonder about to what extent you think there will be objective, neutral, dispassionate

04:00interpretation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by

04:05Justice Alito, Mr. Berry's former boss, whose home displayed the pro-January 6th insurrectionist

04:17upside-down American flag, and who displayed other flags in opposition to the American

04:25flag, essentially.

04:27Do you have a lot of confidence that Lady Justice is blindfolded when it comes to Justice

04:32Alito?

04:33I do not.

04:36And finally, just back on the transgender point, there seemed to be some suggestion

04:41from our colleagues that transgender individuals pose a threat of rape to American women.

04:51Are most American women who are raped raped by heterosexual men or by heterosexual cis

05:01men or by heterosexual transgender men?

05:05Well, I will say that what I have seen, which is the letter in support of transgender people

05:14being able to utilize the bathroom that matches their identity, from sexual violence providers,

05:21rape crisis counselors, is that it's transgender people who are more likely, who are often

05:28disproportionately victims of sexual violence, and that they have not seen any increase in

05:34sexual violence because of protecting the rights of transgender people.

05:37I appreciate that.

05:38I'm out of time.

05:39But I will say, without fear of being contradicted, that the overwhelming majority, if not all

05:43of the rapes in America, are conducted by men who are heterosexual cis men.

05:50And this other thing is complete paranoid conspiracy theory, mythology meant to undermine

05:56the progress of civil rights law.

05:57I yield back.

05:58Chair recognizes Mr. Khanna from California.

06:02Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Jamie Raskin Invokes Flag Flown Over Alito's House To Ask Witness If He Could Be Neutral

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