Extemporaneous musings, occasionally poetic, about life in its richly varied dimensions, especially as relates to history, theology, law, literature, science, by one who is an attorney, ordained minister, historian, writer, and African American.
Wednesday, July 8, 2015
DALLAS' ENDURING 'DISPROPORTIONALITY' DILEMMAS
The paradox of American jurisprudence is that while ratios, statistics, numbers are necessarily used to prove the presence of the racially disparate impact of a law or policy, its illegal "disproportionality"—if you will—that same quantitative symbology or methodology may not be used to establish its legal "proportionality," its lawful compliance; for, then, the judicial fear, the illogical specter of the 'racial quotas' canard is used. It is a catch – 221! So, by this deceptive evidentiary legerdemain nothing substantively changes but appearances, and confusing frustration ensues.
Such a dilemma of plaintiff's proof in racial discrimination cases is lain bear yet again in this June 25, 2015, case https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/576/13-1371/opinion3.html; as was more famously in1981, "Burdine," another Dallas case, when defendant were required to "prove" nothing, the entire evidentiary burden of proof and production remaining exclusively on the plaintiff in racial discrimination cases--particularly, especially--or others facially prohibited by law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Department_of_Community_Affairs_v._Burdine