Originally Posted by
enhanced_deficit
To give credit where due, MAGA is emerging as one of the biggest champions of diversity in the new bipartisan governance phase. He has come a long ay since he used to invoke term slike "Mexican Judge" :
Trump nominates Indian American to replace Kavanaugh
Northwest Asian Weekly
Neomi Rao
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is nominating administration official Neomi Rao to fill the appeals court seat previously held by Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Trump’s announcement came on Nov. 13 during the White House’s celebration of Diwali, the Hindu festival of light. Rao, who is Indian American, was present at the event.
Trump said he was nominating Rao for the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit — sometimes referred to as the
nation’s second-highest court. Rao currently serves as the administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), which is part of the Office of Management and Budget.
Some of her earlier writings are replete with the kind of opinions that we've come to expect now that the president* has subcontracted his judicial nominees to the folks at the Federalist Society. From BuzzFeed News: In pieces reviewed by BuzzFeed News that Rao wrote between 1994 and 1996 - she graduated from Yale University in 1995 - she described race as a “hot, money-making issue,” affirmative action as the “anointed dragon of liberal excess,” welfare as being “for the indigent and lazy,” and LGBT issues as part of “trendy” political movements. On date rape, Rao wrote that if a woman “drinks to the point where she can no longer choose, well, getting to that point was part of her choice.”
Rao, in her role as head of the White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, has supported the Trump administration’s rollback of Title IX protections for victims of sexual assault on college campuses. These rules would reduce the mandatory reporting requirements institutions currently face on the matter and require live hearings on sexual assault allegations where accusers could even be cross-examined by a representative of their attackers.
So, that takes care of the "relevance" dodge regarding Rao's college writings. She's moved on to putting those views to work on behalf of an administration* dedicated to enshrining them into policy.
And then, later, Senator Mazie Hirono opened up an entirely new line of questioning. It began with Hirono's asking Rao about something the latter had written in opposition to affirmative action, which relied on what Rao called "dignatory harm." Hirono asked her to explain the concept. Rao said:
The term dignity is used by the Supreme Court and other constitutional courts in other countries and that was an attempt as an academic to explain the different senses in which dignity was used in those cases.
Which is about where they began talking about dwarf-tossing.
Back in 2011, Rao wrote a post at The Volokh Conspiracy blog in which she defended on libertarian grounds the practice of dwarf-tossing, a popular spectator sport in the kind of bars where Florida Man drinks before going out and doing the Florida Man thing that gets him on TMZ. Basically, Rao wrote, if someone wants to get tossed, it's that person's right to get tossed:
In a much-discussed French case, Mr. Wackenheim, a dwarf, made his living by allowing himself to be thrown for sport. The mayors of several cities banned dwarf tossing events. Mr. Wackenheim challenged the orders on the grounds that they interfered with his economic liberty and right to earn a living. The case went to the Conseil d’Etat (the supreme administrative court), which upheld the bans on the grounds that dwarf throwing affronted human dignity, which was part of the “public order” controlled by the municipal police. The Wackenheim case demonstrates how a substantive understanding of dignity can be used to coerce individuals by forcing upon them a particular understanding of dignity irrespective of their individual choices.
The issue is not whether laws prohibiting dwarf throwing, burqa wearing, prostitution, or pornography may be desirable social policy. Rather these examples demonstrate that the conception of dignity used to defend such policies is not that of human agency and freedom of choice, but rather represents a particular moral view of what dignity requires. These laws do not purport to maximize individual freedom, but instead regulate how individuals must behave in order to maintain dignity (and in the case of criminal prohibitions, stay out of jail).
So, Senator Hirono wondered, how does a defense of dwarf-tossing square with an idea of "dignatory harm"? Rao replied:
There was an individual, Mr. Wackenheim, who made his living doing that, and he said that this ban affected his dignatory interests. But, in my article, I don't take a position one way or another on these issues.
More at: https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/...221100460.html
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