The Civil Rights Standard Turning Race-Based Employment On Its Head.

Originally published by the Daily Wire

On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of Legal Counsel informed the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) that its guidelines regarding business “disparate-impact” liability under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 violate the 14^th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Quoting Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, the letter states, “despite trying to promote equality, EEOC’s disparate impact liability interpretation under Title VII actually fosters the very discrimination its guidelines seek to address.”

To appreciate the significance of this letter and the legal battle to come, one must first understand the revolutionary character of the Trump administration’s civil rights enforcement agenda. Since taking office in January of 2025, the administration has wielded its civil rights authorities to attack racial discrimination in student admissions, faculty hiring and promotion, and workplace training (i.e., DEI). It has also taken action to restore Title IX protections for women and girls. In each case, the administration has asserted the plain meaning of federal civil rights statutes against what I have called “the unwritten constitution” of the modern civil rights state — the notion that textual commitments to equal treatment under the law may legitimately be ignored in pursuit of a higher imperative of leveling group disparities.

This campaign to restore equal treatment under the law is “revolutionary” in the original sense of the term: prior to the French Revolution, a “revolution” denoted a restoration of, or cyclical return to, an earlier, more legitimate social order. In nearly every instance, the Trump administration’s return to the text and intent of civil rights law advances the goal of ensuring equal treatment under the law for all Americans — an element of the American order that traces back to its inception in the Declaration of Independence.

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