Yoiu have not supported your premise that the law says what Cooch claims it says.
Including their independence to implement disciplinary policies.
If you were a lawyer in 1940 Mississippi, would you be defending Jim Crow in court and in discussions with other lawyers and laymen, because it’s the law, regardless of your conscience?
You do recall that Jim Crow ended in large part because of changes to the law, right?
That’s not an answer to the question.
It seems to be you could easily be asking the same question of the AG. If the Virginia legislature wants to rescind it’s prior grant of power to handle hiring and student discipline to the Universities, why don’t they write a new law to do so? Why are you not questioning the AG’s decision because the legislature hasn’t enacted legislation that clearly states Universities in Virginia are not allowed to not discriminate (must discriminate?) on the basis of sexual orientation. You put the burden on the groups that have traditionally had the power to do so, instead of the groups that want to discriminate against homsexuals. Seems to me in a case like this, where I think we can all agree discrimination against homosexuals is a bad thing, the burden should be on the ones who want to discriminate, and not those who want to protect.
Had there been a case pending for the AG to “stand up for the law”, I’d be much more inclined to cut him some slack in taking his position. But there wasn’t. He’s using his discretion to create a problem where there wasn’t one before. He took his pulpit, and is using it for bad things. I see no problem calling him out for that.
Yes, but the law wouldn’t have changed if everyone had simply said “It’s the law!” and didn’t fight it.
A lawyer?
No.
The Attorney General of Mississippi? Yes, until my resignation became effective.
Because the legislature has had in front of it, a dozen times, proposals to add sexual orientation to the list of attributes compromising forbidden reasons for discrimination, and they’ve refused to every time.
The law is a tool for social change in the hands of legislators. It’s not a tool for social change in the hands of prosecutors or judges.
cf. Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas.
And they’ve granted the power to Universities to handle hiring and student discipline, which the Universities properly used to enact their anti-discrimination policies. If the legislature wants to now take that power away from the Universities, they can through legislation. Get enough votes to say “When we said that Universities can handle hiring and student discipline, we didn’t mean that they could not discriminate against homosexuals.” Apparently, there is an issue in the interpretation of these laws, and you put the onus for legislative change ONLY on one side of the issue. If Cooch was that concerned about universities not being able to discriminate against homosexuals, perhaps he should have had the legislators change the law.
I’m curious then.
Do you think the AG’s letter was meant that Virginia universities must discriminate based on sexual orientation?
I mean, as it stands the universities have their own policies which say they will not discriminate based on sexual orientation (among other criteria).
Now the AG comes along and says they cannot use sexual orientation as a criteria because the legislature has not included them on that list.
Soooo…then what?
Virginia universities now must actively discriminate against these folk?
I guess I am missing why the universities cannot decide for themselves if they do not want to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation even if, technically, they legally could on this basis.
My guess is that their policies cannot be too far afield of the state’s since they are state owned - and there is that Dillon rule to contend with.
We have seen no evidence that Dillion applies to any entity other than municipal and county/borough governments. Until that issue is resolved against the clear letter of the law empowering universities to regulate student and faculty discipline, Dillion does not appear to have any bearing on the matter.
This is from the Virginia Code. Similar legislation applies to each of the state institutions of higher learning. So Dillon rule aside, the General Assembly right from the start asserted their overall control of these institutions.
Really? You don’t understand why a letter from the state government that controls your funding, saying “drop protections against sexual-orientation discrimination at your university,” might imply that he wants to see sexual orientation discrimination? Sounds pretty willfully obtuse to me.
I don’t quite understand. Are you saying anti-discrimination policies are “contrary to the law” now?
I completely understand that the GA has control over the Universities. But they also gave the Universities the power to make rules and regulations to cover the hiring of workers and for student discipline. Pursuant to that power, the Universities enacted anti-discrimination policies. Now, if the GA wants to take that power away, or limit it to exclude homosexuals, I suppose they can. But they haven’t.
Don’t know how this might change things but (got this from TV so no cite) the Virginia governor signed an Executive Directive which does not have the force of law that an Executive Order does. Apparently, the pundits say, he is trying to thread a needle here keeping all sides happy.
No idea if that directive actually means anything or is just a nice piece of paper with no more use than wiping your ass at this point.
McDonnell’s problem is that, if the Republican party ever drops its policy of treating homosexuals like the Nazis treated Jews and demanding their total second-class status in all social institutions, then it will both be without a platform and alienate the majority of its base.
My guess is that Cooch and his boy toy had a big fight and Cooch wants to show him who’s boss.
Seriously, I’m becoming more and more convinced that anti-gay bias is, in nearly every instance (and in every instance where it’s actively hostile), merely a reaction to the repression of homsexual longing.
I am straight. I have a fair number of friends and/or acquaintances that I assume are straight. All of us feel (some more strongly than others) that gays are people too and don’t deserve to be discriminated against.