Discriminations

In cultural news from the Left Coast, the Mendocino Beacon reports that the “‘I want my democracy back’ message resonated in at least three documentary films shown at the Mendocino Film Festival that ended Sunday.”

One of those three is of special interest here.

United States District Judge Thelton Henderson, an African-American who received his law degree from Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California at Berkeley, is the subject of “Soul of Justice,” as told by filmmaker Abby Ginzberg, a former attorney. Ginzberg highlights three of Judge Henderson’s many famous and controversial rulings and battles with political forces.

In one of those famous and controversial rulings, Judge Henderson ruled that California’s Proposition 209, barring the state from discriminating against or granting preferential treatment to anyone on the basis of race, ethnicity, or sex, itself discriminated on the basis of race, ethnicity, and sex. Really. As I noted here (among other places), “even the Ninth Circuit rejected [Judge Henderson's opinion], virtually laughing [it] out of court”:

The Fourteenth Amendment, lest we lose sight of the forest for the trees, does not require what it barely permits.... It would be paradoxical to conclude that by adopting the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the voters of the State thereby had violated it. [Citations omitted]

You’ve heard of damning with faint praise. But have you ever heard of praising with what to most people would sound like this damn from filmaker Ginzberg?

Henderson's career is a statement of protection extended to the most innocent dolphins and the most violent of criminals.

I suppose Judge Henderson would be even more protective of guilty dolphins.