Disparate Impact—A Weapon of the Feds

The Federal government is fond of using “disparate impact” as an excuse for taking authority and decision-making away from states and municipalities in the name of political correctness and with the goal of increasing the strangle hold it has on those lesser polities.

The concept of disparate impact (unequal or incongruent effect) is the idea that some rules and regulations agreed upon by local government agencies cause undue harm and personal intrusion to various ethnic, economic, and religious groups.

In order to undo these intrusions, the Feds use the judicial organization to declare these rules (unacceptable to the Federal government) unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment (the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution) because of the disparate impact the rules have on the target ethnic or religious group.

Examples of use of the disparate impact concept include the laws passed by states for voter identification, various zoning laws, employment, and housing regulations. The Feds often claim that regulations in these areas discriminate unfairly and disproportionately against persons or groups in certain protected classes. These classes of people include people with characteristics of race, color, religion, national origin, gender, disability, and other traits, as well.  

All this disparate impact policy seems good and fair; but…the concept is being greatly overused. Of course, we must all remember that part of the function of the Supreme Court and the lesser courts of the land is to see that minority groups do not suffer the loss of their legitimate civil rights at the hands of an uncaring, selfish, and inconsiderate, majority. Nevertheless, I feel that MY rights and privileges are being disparately impacted by a “politically correct” judicial system that is seeing the concept of disparate impact as a tool to advance the pet schemes of a far-left, liberal, group of elite power managers and people-planners. I think that the principle of majority rule in our supposedly democratic society should have some impact of its own.

One example of a place where I strongly believe the idea of “disparate impact” has been abused is in the situation involving voter identification laws. I believe that photo-ID and other measures to ensure voter identification works no “disparate impact” on anyone. All legitimate voters in the United States can obtain state-issued ID cards without any difficulty. To declare that minority people cannot obtain ID cards easily is not true. I strongly suspect that those who would oppose voter ID laws are those who would like to have many Latino votes, even if those votes were cast by ineligible voters.

Another area where the idea of “disparate impact” has been abused is in the situation of same-sex marriage. If same-sex people want to live together, then, they can do so. But, to denigrate the time-tested institution of marriage because of the wishes of a very small minority of Americans is just foolish and extremely unfair to a large majority of us who revere marriage as the cornerstone of a healthy society.