On this evenings “Factor’ Megyn Kelly was a guest and discussed the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC) decision to handle a case in which a Muslim teenager, Samantha Elauf, asserts she was illegally discriminated against by Abercrombie & Fitch which instructed Samantha, as an employee she could not wear a head scarf while on the job. Megyn indicated the law is on Samantha’s side, and Abercrombie & Fitch will loose the case.


What Megyn seems to forget is, our Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and, the irrefutable fact is, the EEOC is without jurisdiction over the subject matter in question.


The assertion is the EEOC is acting under the 14th Amendment and that the 14th Amendment was adopted to forbid the people in the various united States during the course of their ordinary affairs and activities to discriminate against each other on the bases of race, color, etc. But the truth is, which is supported by the historical record (the debates during which time both the 14th Amendment and first Civil Rights Act was being framed and ratified), the intention of the 14th Amendment, aside from defining citizenship, was very narrow in scope and was intended to preclude State Legislation as opposed to people’s activities, which made distinctions based upon race, color or previous condition of slavery. In addition, the intention of the 14th Amendment was to guarantee civil rights to Blacks such as the right to make and enforce contracts, to sue, to inherit and purchase property, etc., as was then enjoyed by white citizens. This is the prevailing and narrow objective of the Fourteenth Amendment, and was repeatedly stated during the Congressional debates during which time both the Civil Rights Act and Fourteenth Amendment were framed. In fact, the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted and intended to incorporate the objectives of the first Civil Rights Act into the Constitution and make it constitutionally enforceable. Keep in mind that political rights such as voting, were not included in the 14th Amendment’s protection.. The first section of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 reads as follows:


An Act to protect all Persons in the United States in their Civil Rights, and furnish the Means of their Vindication.


Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That all persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States; and such citizens, of every race and color, without regard to any previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall have the same right, in every State and Territory in the United States, to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, and give evidence, to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property, and to full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property, as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, and penalties, and to none other, any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, to the contrary notwithstanding.


The adoption of the 14th Amendment gave Congress constitutional authority to enforce, by “appropriate legislation“, what was intended to be accomplished under the first civil rights act which had nothing to do with people in their ordinary and everyday activities.


For example, Representative Shallabarger, a supporter of the 14th Amendment, puts it this way.


“Its whole effect is not to confer or regulate rights, but to require that whatever of these enumerated rights and obligations are imposed by State laws shall be for and upon all citizens alike without distinctions based on race or former condition of slavery…It permits the States to say that the wife may not testify, sue or contract. It makes no law as to this. Its whole effect is to require that whatever rights as to each of the enumerated civil (not political) matters the States may confer upon one race or color of the citizens shall be held by all races in equality…It does not prohibit you from discriminating between citizens of the same race, or of different races, as to what their rights to testify, to inherit &c. shall be. But if you do discriminate, it must not be on account of race, color or former conditions of slavery. That is all. If you permit a white man who is an infidel to testify, so you must a colored infidel. Self-evidently this is the whole effect of this first section. It secures-not to all citizens, but to all races as races who are citizens- equality of protection in those enumerated civil rights which the States may deem proper to confer upon any race.” ___ SEE: Rep. Shallabarger, Congressional Globe, 1866, page 1293


Now, in harmony with the most fundamental rule of constitutional law which is to be obedient to the documented intentions and beliefs under which our Constitution was adopted, I would just love to see Megyn Kelly, Bill O’reilly’s beloved but uniformed guest, provide the evidence from the Congressional debates during which time the 14th Amendment was being debated that the intention was to forbid a store owner to make the rules under which employees are hired. In fact, Megyn’s silly notion violates one of mankind’s most fundamental inalienable rights, the right of people to mutually agree in their contracts and associations, a right never intended to be subjugated under the 14th Amendment but is one which is being trampled upon by ’progressives” which Megyn seems to give a free pass to by ignoring the intentions and beliefs under which the 14th Amendment was adopted.


JWK


"On every question of construction [of the Constitution], carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed."--Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Johnson, June 12, 1823, The Complete Jefferson, p. 322.