December 15, 1997
legalese n. 1. The specialized vocabulary of the legal profession.
2. An obscure language, based on Latin, which lawyers use to prevent laymen from understanding what they're being charged with and for.The appointment of Bill Lann Lee to be acting assistant attorney general for civil rights raises several important issues. This week, most people probably will be talking about the President's appointment powers and the relationship between the Executive and Legislative Branches of the Federal Government, but the fundamental issue in this dispute is the meaning of equality in American life and public law.
A related issue is whether language can be used and understood by ordinary people and their legislators -- or whether even apparently simple words have acquired such complicated connotations that only Ivy League lawyers can understand and use the English language. Bill Clinton and Bill Lann Lee are, of course, leftist Ivy League lawyers.
Intriguing questions of language and law and logic have appeared most prominently in California, a State that has prohibited discrimination and preferential treatment in its own programs and activities.
Bill Clinton and Bill Lann Lee believe that California has violated the law. As near as we can tell, they reason as follows (we use the word "reason" in its loosest possible sense):
Law, Language, and Logic in the Leftist Imagination: Proof Number One
Major Premise: The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States says that "No State shall . . . deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."Minor Premise: California is a State, and the people of California have amended their state constitution (by adopting Proposition 209) to say that the State "shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting."
Conclusion: Therefore, Proposition 209 is unconstitutional. Q.E.D.
Law, Language, and Logic in the Leftist Imagination: Proof Number Two
Major Premise: Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 [42 U.S.C. 2000d] provides that no person "shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance." Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 [20 U.S.C. 1681] prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in education programs and activities that receive federal financial assistance.
Minor Premise: The University of California receives federal financial assistance (indeed, no institution receives more), and the regents of that university have adopted Policy SP-1 which says that "the University of California shall not use race, religion, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin as criteria for admission to the University or to any program of study."
Conclusion: Therefore, Policy SP-1 violates Title VI and Title IX. Q.E.D.
If a person is not laboring under the disability of an Ivy League law degree heaped upon a leftist imagination that has been smothered in racial politics, then he or she may have trouble following the ineluctable logic in the "proofs" that are shown above. Suffice it to say that the people of the State of California weren't able to follow the logic, either.
If California's actions constitute a denial of the "equal protection of the laws," then it is difficult to understand how words might still have meaning. Bill Clinton is in the White House, and Bill Lann Lee will soon find himself temporarily at the Department of Justice, but we were not aware that Mr. Humpty Dumpty had taken a position with the Administration. It was Humpty Dumpty, you will remember, who had the following conversation with Alice, who was the first to make diplomatic contact with Wonderland:
"There's glory for you!" [said Humpty Dumpty].
"I don't know what you mean by 'glory,'" Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. "Of course you don't -- till I tell you. I meant 'there's a nice knock-down argument for you!'"
"But 'glory' doesn't mean 'a nice knock down argument,'" Alice objected.
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master -- that's all."
Bill Clinton may be the most powerful man in the world, and Bill Lann Lee may be his nominee, but even they do not have the power to abolish meaning.