ICYMI: and I sat down with law professor , who argues that the 1991 Civil Rights Act precipitated much of what we now call wokeness.
We take for granted that culture affects law. But law affects culture too.
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Sexual harassment training wasn't really a thing before the 1991 CRA. Then Congress made it possible to sue employers for emotional damage caused by discrimination—which you couldn't do under the original CRA.
Ten years later, every employer required sexual harassment training.
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The problem is that harassment was defined both vaguely and cumulatively. Any little thing—any single microaggression—could count toward the "severe OR pervasive" standard enshrined by the courts. Firms thus adopted zero tolerance policies to protect their bottom line.
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Indeed, the idea that lots of little slightly can add up to a big harm just IS the concept of microaggresions. When Congress made emotional damages a remedy for civil rights violations, it effectively wrote the concept of microaggressions into federal law.
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As noted on his podcast with Professor Heriot, Republicans have a vested interest in arguing that "politics is downstream from culture." If culture were downstream from politics, Republicans would bear much of the responsibility for what's happened to the culture.
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This is wrong. Not a root of wokeness. Should be a protection from it. CRA prevents discrimination and harassment based on membership in a protected class. Objective, reasonable person standard applies.
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