Below is my column in The Hill on the calls for a boycott of SEC schools by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries over the Supreme Court banning racial gerrymandering under the Voting Rights Act. The use of such sports legends as Jackie Robinson to fight for a form of racial discrimination shows how politics can outstrip our principles.
Here is the column:
“It’s a Jackie Robinson moment.” That declaration by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries struck a curious chord because Jeffries was calling for Black athletes to boycott SEC conference teams to protest not the existence but the elimination of racial discrimination.
Jeffries was upset that the court had ended racial gerrymandering designed to guarantee the election of non-white (and largely Democratic) House members. It was as if Jackie Robinson were to join a protest calling for the return of race-based discrimination in baseball.
Robinson played his first year in the Negro League with the Kansas City Monarchs before becoming the first African-American player in the Major Leagues when he took the field for the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947.
He ushered in a new era in baseball, in which race had no role in competitive sports. There would be no racial division of leagues, no race quotas and no segregation — just an equal playing field.
Almost 50 years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court found that racial quotas in university admissions violated the 14th Amendment. The court later declared all racial preferences to be unconstitutional. Yet, for decades, a form of political affirmative action has persisted under the Voting Rights Act, where federal courts required racial gerrymandering to guarantee the election of minority members to Congress.
That ended with the Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais, which found that was also unlawful racial discrimination.
The Callais decision brought something long missing from our constitutional jurisprudence: consistency. In 2007, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that “the way to stop discriminating on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” Yet for decades, certain forms of racial discrimination were tolerated in the name of diversity or equity. The Callais decision put an end to this pretense and declared all such racial gerrymandering is illegal and discriminatory.
In response, the NAACP called for both players and fans to boycott SEC teams. MS NOW host Chris Hayes asked whether Jeffries would support the effort. Jeffries declared that black athletes should turn down potential career-making offers from SEC powerhouse teams to preserve political affirmative action. He said that existing students should “abandon SEC schools,” even though such moves might effectively end their careers. “There should be no athletic or sports participation. … You know, this is a Muhammad Ali moment. This is a Bill Russell moment. It’s a Jackie Robinson moment.”
Jeffries acknowledged that such moves will “require a level of courage and character and conviction,” but he added that it would be worth it. Politicians often ask others to make sacrifices that would benefit them, but this was truly the Super Bowl of self-serving political pitches. Some of these young athletes would give up their hopes for an NFL career, just to fight for racial gerrymandering so that Black voters can be either cracked or packed into districts.
It is a system that has yielded Democratic districts for decades. But are these athletes’ careers really worth sacrificing to Jeffries’s all-consuming desire to be the next Speaker of the House?
Self-serving demands are nothing new for politicians. They often ask for sacrifices from others to further their own ambitions. This week, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) called on Californians to boycott Chevron after the company launched a campaign reminding them that they are paying the highest gas prices in the nation. For years, Democrats have added gas taxes to both pay for bloated budgets and to encourage the expansion of public transportation. Environmental policies have devastated the state’s oil and gas industry and increased its reliance on foreign oil.
Newsom’s response was to call for Californians to potentially pay more at other stations, in order to punish Chevron for telling the truth about his policies. “Californians,” he tweeted, “if you’re hitting the road this holiday weekend, be sure to AVOID Chevron.”
In fairness to Newsom, though, asking residents to potentially pay a little more at the pump to punish Chevron for embarrassing him is trivial in comparison to the ask of athletes to derail or discontinue their football careers.
What is particularly dishonest is how the Callais decision has been portrayed by many pundits, professors, and politicians. What neither the NAACP nor Jeffries will mention is that the Supreme Court preserved the original intent of the VRA to ban intentional racial discrimination in the design of electoral districts. Far from being “gutted,” the law will still be used to bar efforts to deny minority voters their equal voting rights. It will also now bar racial discrimination in any form in the design of these districts.
To invoke Jackie Robinson to support racial discrimination in politics is to denigrate his legacy. Ironically, Robinson was a Republican who spoke out against what he saw as the rise in racial politics in the 1960s in the Republican Party. He warned that there is “a new breed which is seeking to sell to Americans a doctrine which is as old as mankind — the doctrine of racial division.”
He added what could be the perfect retort to Jeffries today in the use of his name to support racial gerrymandering: “It would make everything I worked for meaningless if baseball is integrated but political parties were segregated.”
So, maybe Jeffries is right. This is “a Jackie Robinson moment” after all.
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.“
I have an idea. Instead of athletes boycotting SEC schools, let’s encourage faculty and administrators to hit the road. I am sure that that assistant professor teaching 18th Century Lesbian Literature would have no problem sacrificing her career to score cheap political points.
“. . . Jeffries was calling for Black athletes to boycott SEC conference teams . . .”
If Jeffries truly had the courage of his convictions, he would demand that black *politicians” boycott those southern states and abandon their current offices.
On Memorial Days in the past I have often visited Arlington National Cemetery, which is just a few miles from the home I lived in for many decades. I recall wondering on one of those occasions if there ever was a time in our history when the Cemetery had separate sections for black and white veterans. I suppose that there was, but I never did learn the answer. In any event, I think I can say, with certainty and immense satisfaction, that if that was ever the case it is not now. Truly, we finally have “E Pluribus Unum” there, and we are finally getting there in the living nation as well. Hakeem Jeffries and his ilk are being recognized as the racists of today.
Jeffries is asking young black athletes to risk their future. He should set the example. He should resign from Congress as his own Jackie Robinson moment.
Hakeem Jeffries flunks the duck test. In the standard test, if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and talks like a duck, then it is a duck. Now Jeffries looks like a black, walks like a black, but talks like a wild-eyed leftist. So, what is he? A self-serving, self-promoting, ambitious socialist, promoting racism to gain power. He’s now willing to sacrifice aspiring young athletes. simply to promote his career.
Nobody fights harder to preserve racism, segregation and discrimination than the Democrat party. That includes all party leaders, on every level. It is shameful, and should serve as a reminder that National Socialists always turn their focus on race and racial identity.
Here in Columbia SC we are now having black only events, Black Expo, some Black Chef cookoff. I guess next is separate water fountains and entrances to establishments- all brought to you by the NAACP…you know, the ones that called for equality and a level playing field.