Happy Tuesday!
My sincerest apologies, faithful FR readers, I totally spaced out on posting Stephen’s article yesterday morning. We can totally pretend it was on purpose for an April Fool’s joke. Have a great day everyone!!!
It must be said that social media has a marvelous capacity for illuminating stupidity. With all that goes on in our day to day lives, much of the stupidity of this world would pass by unnoticed and often correct itself in the natural processes of society, however, with social media it can be highlighted and broadcast around the world in minutes. Stupidity has never enjoyed such a golden age.
Our present stupidity comes out of a federal court in North Carolina via the AP newswire by way of the WBTV broadcasting station. “A federal judge says a North Carolina charter school promoting traditional values is engaging in unconstitutional sex discrimination by requiring girls to wear skirts.” http://www.wbtv.com/2019/03/30/us-judge-schools-rule-girls-wear-skirts-breaks-law/
What this headline fails to disclose is the precise origin of the stupidity in question. Did WBTV paraphrase the AP story poorly in order to create a sensational click-bait headline? Did AP phrase the reporting in such an intentionally vague and misleading way as to profit from people picking up an otherwise uninteresting story? Did the source of the stupidity originate not in the reporting but in the federal court or the North Carolina legislature?
Permit me to explain. The statement focuses upon “requiring girls to wear skirts”, not to the requirement that boys have to wear pants or that all students are required to wear school uniforms of a gender specific nature. Obviously the sexual titillation of the mental images of girls in skirts is designed to foster greater attention and more internet clicks than more mundane language. But, they can at least pretend that they are not appealing to the reader’s libido.
However, the obfuscating phrase which is more concerning is the “unconstitutional sex discrimination” phrase. Well, obviously, which constitution? Is this a violation of the North Carolina Constitution, or do they seek to imply some U.S. Constitution violation of skirt wearing mandates? Surely the body of this “news” article will clear up that ambiguity intentionally embedded in the click-bait headline.
And, it doesn’t. The entire article is only four very short paragraphs long and only six sentences in total, yet still can’t clarify the central theme of its point of whether this pertains to the federal or state constitution. If you haven’t taken the time to click the link above, please do so now, ‘tis very brief m’lord. “As woman’s love.” – Hamlet.
One presumes that it must refer to the North Carolina Constitution, as state constitutions are far more subject to frequent change and more inclined to have articles and precepts which have had far less, if any, public debate or actual thought put into those provisions.
For example, the West Virginia Constitution states that every minor has a right to a free public education, which if taken literally would be a mathematical and logical impossibility. If that education were free then would the state not be prohibited from taxing people to pay for it? A state, being a governmental corporation, has no wealth of its own so if they can’t tax people to pay for it, where could they get the money? And don’t even get into the fact that they are completely getting the meaning of the word “right” incorrect.
They have the time and wherewithal to write such complete non-sense into the state constitution but not the time to remove antiquated restrictions such as the prohibition of any man who has ever participated in a duel to be prohibited from holding public office. A provision I find most unjust and unfairly limiting to any man of honor.
However, back to the present foolishness, as the West Virginia Constitution provides that all of the laws of the state must be read in such a manner as to be gender neutral regardless of the actual words of the statute. Thus, I am inclined to imagine that the aforementioned article refers to the North Carolina Constitution rather than the federal Constitution along a similar provision prohibiting gender discrimination.
I presume this because there is no provision whatsoever in the U.S. Constitution prohibiting gender discrimination, or really any discrimination whatsoever among the citizenry but only except in the actions of the government itself. This is merely a specific expression of the Rule of Law given form and expression in the Fourteenth Amendment, though the Twenty-Sixth does prohibit age discrimination with regards only to voting privileges at the age of Eighteen.
So back to the ambiguity of the article, if it is claimed to be a violation of the state Constitution, then why is the case being heard before a federal judge? Interpretation of the NC Constitution is properly a matter for the state courts, and by the Lake Erie Doctrine, the federal court is obliged to follow the state’s substantive law.
If this has not been adjudicated at the state level, then the federal judge is merely speculating on how the NC Constitution might be interpreted by the state’s courts. I’ll admit that there may have been a similar state cases involving public schools in North Carolina rather than charter schools, but I would think that such a detail would be important in the news article to elucidate the court’s ruling.
It is also almost certain that it was brought in federal court because the plaintiffs brought up a number of issues, some state and at least one federal to make it a mixed jurisdiction case so that the federal judge could hear the case, but that begs the question that if this was such a clear case, why go forum shopping in federal district court rather than the appropriate state court? In quite literal slang terms, “why make a federal case out of it?”
It seems pretty clear that this is really a tug-of-war regarding how “charter schools” are to be treated, whether more as a public school or more as a private school, being created to be intentionally in the middle. There are many vested interests behind the scenes of this trivial case of chasing little girls in skirts through the nation’s courtrooms.
None of those vested interests are mentioned in the rather terse, uninformative news posting which provides almost no information to the reader and invites people to take up sides on an otherwise trivial local issue as if it were of momentous national importance as to the proper vestments of minor females in their academic endeavors.
On an important last minute side note, it occurs to me that those very people who are likely the ones taking this issue to the federal courts are those very people who continually cite the Harry Potter series for all of their political views. You know, that Harry Potter where everyone wore school uniforms where the boys wore pants and the girls all wore skirts. Another leftist icon destroyed in its prime; ironically making feminist Emma Watson THE symbol of patriarchal oppression.
De minimis non curat lex: the law does not concern itself with trifles. And yet, it apparently does just that. Here we have the power and majesty of the law, the federal courts concerning themselves with the rules for the school uniforms of grade school and middle school girls at schools where there attendance is not compulsory but voluntarily chosen by their parents, that of charter schools.
Next, I expect this court to be ruling on whether or not being placed in time-out was a proper and fitting punishment for little Bobby pulling on little Suzie’s pigtails. I think that really demands a trial by jury, it being such a serious offense of national concern.
But seriously, I do want to know just when unisex fashion became an issue of such merit as to warrant constitutional scrutiny by our federal court system. And the real important question remains that if this makes it all the way to the Supreme Court, what will be Ruthy’s opinion on the matter of little girls wearing skirts?
