This could get spicy.
he U.S. Department of Justice has opened an investigation into whether the City of Austin is violating federal law by engaging in discriminatory employment practices tied to its diversity, equity, and inclusion agenda.
In a notice sent Thursday to Mayor Kirk Watson, the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division said it is examining whether Austin is involved in a “pattern or practice of discrimination” based on race, color, sex, or national origin in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Title VII is the section that prohibits discrimination based on an “individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.”
“The Department of Justice will not tolerate discriminatory race-based employment practices and DEI policies, in Austin or other cities,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon. “Such practices are illegal and un-American, and we will vigorously protect equal opportunity and hold accountable those who seek to perpetuate vestiges of outlawed discrimination.”
At the center of the probe is the City of Austin’s Office of Equity and Inclusion. On its website, the office describes its mission as working “across all City departments … to build capacity and leadership in working from a racial equity lens.”
The office promotes citywide guidance that instructs managers to set racial equity expectations in hiring, urges stronger racial equity criteria in executive-level searches, and directs departments to collect demographic data on employees in order to identify gaps and set targets for eliminating them.
The office also encourages the use of “racial equity tools” designed to inject race into city decision-making on policies, programs, and budgets.
According to the DOJ, these directives raise legal concerns that Austin is discriminating against job applicants, employees, and even participants in training programs. Officials stressed that no conclusions have yet been reached but confirmed that a full investigation has been authorized.
Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General Eric Sell has been assigned to lead the probe.
This is likely to put Austin Mayor Kirk Watson in a bind. Watson is a Democrat, but he campaigned on being a moderate Democrat, someone who was going to reverse the far-left excesses of the Steve Alder era. While Watson did tack closer to the center on a few key issues (like reinstating the homeless “camping” ban), he has done very little to dismantle various other hard left policies enacted by the Austin City Council and the city bureaucracy.
Numerous federal laws ban discrimination based on race, but the whole point of “equity” is that it allows social justice democrats to discriminate based on race to hand out jobs and goodies to favored groups (blacks, Hispanics, gays, transsexuals, Muslims, women) while denying the same to disfavored groups (whites, Asians, Jews, straights, Christians, men). Favoring group rights over individual merit is one of the “features” of social justice, and is the theoretical glue that binds together the Democratic Party’s increasing fractious coalition. A DOJ investigation has the potential to uncover all sorts of illegal discriminatory policies, including graft grants to favored victim group NGOs.
It could discover a whole lot of things the Watson Administration and Austin leftists don’t want dragged out into the sunlight.
I’m hoping for fireworks.
Tags: Austin, Austin Equity Office, Brandon Waltens, Civil Rights Act of 1964, Democrats, Department of Justice, Eric Sell, Harmeet Dhillon, Kirk Watson, liberal racism, racism, Social Justice Warriors, Steve Adler, Texas Scorecard
Off Topic:
Do you think the H1B visa surcharge will help your employment travails?
Worth a post.
No, companies don’t hire Senior Technical Writers from India, only developers, QA, etc. Even then, if they’re going to hire one from India, they’re going to be in India anyway, because it’s a lot cheaper.
The only exception seem to be people with very high-end skills or credentials (PhD, etc.), or if they’re trying to get extended family members into the US (“My cousin Sanjay knows Sharepoint. Let’s write the rec so narrowly tailored he’s the only one that qualifies.”).
Best thing I can say about Watson is the city now occasionally cleans out large homeless camps, even if they just set up shop somewhere else or come back in a few months. Still a far cry from what needs doing.
Looks like Austin is about to find out that that the Obama/Biden exception – “doesn’t really apply to white males” – isn’t actually in Title VII. Austin is an example of how our penchant for giving money to anything labeled “education” has been exploited by the left to fund themselves. How many faculty are teaching or researching anything even remotely useful, and of the ones studying Patriarchal Language in Media Advertising, how many are left activists? How many “students” are taking cake courses on a scholarship then joining black bloc activities at night? Of course, it’s not exclusively UT in this crap, but UT acts as a center for the accretion of left activities, including the violence that seems to accompany them.
Incidentally, – and this is going to sound racist – I think.that the US has lost a step or two in the global technical footrace due to the nepotistic tendencies of any dot.Indian placed in a management position. Between make-work positions for cousin Sanjay and preferring an IIT grad to an OSU grad and justifying it on cost, we’re dragging a lot of tech deadweight.