The objective
of my research is to give attorneys a new tool to combat white supremacy groups
that intimidate minority employees.
Let me boil
this down. Walmart is a workplace. Whether a Walmart employee was killed or
hurt— or not— the shooter terrorized this place of employment.
The Ku Klux
Klan Act was passed in 1871 to combat this type of brutal racist violence. The
law had a criminal and civil component. The Supreme Court struck down the
criminal part in 1883.
The civil law
part has been given a very stunted interpretation. The Court has applied it
almost entirely to white supremacist violence directed at political actors—voters,
civil rights protesters, politicians.
I found evidence
that Congress also intended to prevent white supremacists from terrorizing
blacks and their supporters into leaving the South to find work in the North.
A justice of
the Iowa Supreme Court has already cited this research at some length.
How might my
legal theory work in El Paso?
Walmart employees
could sue under the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 to pursue damages from the racial
conspiracy that was directed at them.
Slow that down. The
law is about racial conspiracies. If the shooter acted alone, no KKK 1871
lawsuit. If he acted in concert with others, that’s where the civil law comes
into play.
The point of my
research is not to get damages for employees. It’s to use their terrorized
experience to find, sue, and hale into court the conspirators that sold the shooter
his gun, aided his planning, focused his target on this particular Walmart, housed
him on the way to El Paso, gave him money or a car, or bullets.
In short, it is
meant to pry open the dark corners of these racist conspiracies, expose
co-conspirators to the harsh light of publicity, and seek damages or
injunctions to shut them down.
Some of these aiders
and abettors cannot be pursued on criminal charge. My research gives victims a
tool to go after these enablers.
***
SUMMARY OF “TARGETING
WHITE SUPREMACY IN THE WORKPLACE”
Resurgent white supremacy is leading to segregation in
some workplaces and local labor markets, long after Title VII and executive
orders dismantled Jim Crow. My research conceptualizes a new way to apply the
Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871. Much of the law—passed to combat a white terror
campaign to deny blacks and their political supporters rights equal to those of
white citizens—has been struck down by court rulings. The surviving part,
codified in 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3), is limited by its narrow text and Supreme Court
rulings that have largely ignored congressional intent in passing this law.
Using extensive legislative history, I show that Congress heard testimony from
ex-Klan members about the group’s strategy to boycott black workers and
segregate them in a caste system that approximated slavery. A major floor
speech by Rep. Luke Poland emphasized congressional intent to interdict this
economic segregation. I show the relevance of this history by analyzing four
current and recent cases involving white supremacist planning and commission of
acts to drive blacks, Mexicans, a Jew, and a Navajo from their workplace or a
specific labor market. I demonstrate how these cases fit the demanding textual
requirements to state a claim under Section 1985(3). In response to a growing
number of conspiracies in a work setting to attack minorities, this study
provides victims, lawyers, and courts a new way to confront today’s resurgent
and aggressive white supremacy movement.
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