Senator
Mike
Lee,
your
constant
reminder
that
Supreme
Court
clerkships
don’t
necessarily
signal
intellectual
accomplishment,
took
to
social
media
to
applaud
a
new
Justice
Department
memo
declaring
that
disparate
impact
liability
is
unconstitutional,
despite
being
enshrined
in
over
half
a
century
of
legal
precedent
and
its
explicit
codification
over
30
years
ago.
The
new
opinion
took
the
Supreme
Court’s
shadow
docket
order
allowing
Alabama
to
impose
new
election
maps
as
proof
that
it’s
unconstitutional
for
the
EEOC
to
use
its
enforcement
power
to
make
employers
follow
the
Civil
Rights
Act.
Theoretically,
the
shadow
docket
is
for
emergency
orders
strictly
limited
to
the
parties
involved,
but…
YOLO.
And
that’s
how
an
interim
order
allowing
Alabama
to
run
an
election
with
racist
maps
became
the
basis
for
ending
laws
against
employment
discrimination.
For
such
a
fierce
defender
of
true
merit-based
hiring,
one
might
easily
forget
that
Lee
got
a
Supreme
Court
clerkship
with
his
dad’s
former
assistant.
Nepo
babies
always
manage
to
have
the
deepest
thoughts
about
minorities
lacking
“merit.”
If
only
Mike
Lee
had
a
connection
to
an
historically
persecuted
religious
group
that
could
very
easily
become
victims
of
discrimination
that
only
disparate
impact
liability
could
catch…
Mike
seems
to
have
learned
nothing
from
the
previous
week.
That’s
when
his
social
media
turned
into
non-stop
whining
about
the
Defense
Department
releasing
a
new
coding
system
for
religious
affiliations
that
classified
the
LDS
church
as
a
non-Christian
religion.
After
Lee
complained
about
the
DoD
policy,
the
Pentagon
“fixed”
the
situation,
not
by
adding
Mormons
back
to
the
community
of
Christian
religions,
but
by
deleting
the
whole
“Christian”
category
rather
than
acknowledge
Mormons
as
“real”
Christians.
It’s
like
those
conservative
localities
that
banned
marriage
altogether
so
they
didn’t
have
to
let
gay
people
get
married.
Pete
Hegseth’s
decision
to
ice
out
Mormons
had
no
practical
impact,
but
as
a
symbolic
act
served
as
a
reminder
that
the
Christian
nationalists
that
Lee
actively
supports
will
gleefully
throw
him
overboard
at
the
first
opportunity.
But
that’s
the
thing
about
civil
rights…
taking
them
away
is
all
fun
and
games
until
someone
comes
for
you.
Joe
Patrice is
a
senior
editor
at
Above
the
Law
and
co-host
of
Thinking
Like
A
Lawyer.
Feel
free
to email
any
tips,
questions,
or
comments.
Follow
him
on Twitter or
Bluesky
if
you’re
interested
in
law,
politics,
and
a
healthy
dose
of
college
sports
news.