An Argument for Diversity
Pardon the vague wording — that which is poorly written is poorly thought, etc.
When I was a dopey college kid taking endless political theory classes, I remember a class discussion about the importance of marginalized groups being present on boards or teams. The purpose for this, my class more or less agreed, was that it was crucial to have people who understood what it was to exist as such-and-such member of a marginalized group to ensure that their experiences aren’t ignored — I think the case under discussion was the issues of people with disabilities and some well-meaning gentleman saying ‘well, why does every public restroom need such a huge stall anyway?’ or something like that, to which a woman with a special needs child reminded him that there are a lot of disabled people out there who need large bathroom stalls.
That said, here’s a bit of some blog post from the whole strip search case in front of the Supreme Court yesterday:
Adam Wolf, the ACLU lawyer who represents Redding, explains that “the Fourth Amendment does not countenance the rummaging on or around a 13-year-old girl’s naked body.” Wolf explains that he is arguing for a “two-step framework,” wherein schools can use a lower standard to search “backpacks, pencil cases, bookbags” but a higher standard when you “require a 13-year-old girl to take off her pants, her shirt, move around her bra so she reveals her breasts, and the same thing with her underpants to reveal her pelvic area.” This leads Justice Stephen Breyer to query whether this is all that different from asking Redding to “change into a swimming suit or your gym clothes,” because, “why is this a major thing to say strip down to your underclothes, which children do when they change for gym?”
This leads Ginsburg to sputter—in what I have come to think of as her Lilly Ledbetter voice—”what was done in the case … it wasn’t just that they were stripped to their underwear! They were asked to shake their bra out, to stretch the top of their pants and shake that out!” Nobody but Ginsburg seems to comprehend that the only locker rooms in which teenage girls strut around, bored but fabulous in their underwear, are to be found in porno movies.
8 months ago • 0 notes