Thankfully, the Feldblum era at the EEOC is over

The Senate has declined to vote on Chai Feldblum's renomination as head of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Um, gee, why would they do that?

Feldblum’s parting tweet illustrates why she was unfit to be an EEOC commissioner and never should have been confirmed in the first place:

Today at noon my commission on the EEOC expires. What a wonderful almost nine-year run I have had! TY to all who worked so hard on my confirmation. We certainly gave it our best shot. Now we must fight even harder for diversity, safety, and equity. There is no other way!

(Emphasis added)

It’s not the job of the EEOC to fight for abstractions like “diversity, safety, and equity.” The EEOC’s job is to enforce federal employment discrimination law. Federal employment discrimination law mandates non-discrimination. It doesn’t call for diversity or safety, or even equity in the abstract. 

Non-discrimination will produce greater diversity, safety, equity in some cases, but these aren’t the touchstones of federal law. The touchstones are the words of the relevant statutes. 

Feldblum’s unwillingness properly to conceive the EEOC’s role led her to push for radical positions not supported by federal statutes as written. This should have disqualified her from remaining on the commission.

Unfortunately, it didn’t. The way the system works is that Democrats get to pick some of the commissioners. Democrats prefer activists who will pursue a radical agenda regardless of what the relevant statutes say.

Feldblum’s renomination failed because she was too candid about one aspect of her radicalism. She famously said: 

There can be a conflict between religious liberty and sexual liberty, but in almost all cases the sexual liberty should win because that’s the only way that the dignity of gay people can be affirmed in any realistic manner. . . .

I’m having a hard time coming up with any case in which religious liberty should win.

The statutes Feldblum was supposed to enforce don’t speak of “the dignity of gay people.” They don’t speak about “gay people,” qua gay people, at all.

Feldblum made her offending statement before she joined the EEOC. However, during her time at the commission, she demonstrated her adherence to the principle she had articulated. The EEOC’s positions on gay and transgender rights belied her last minutes attempts to portray herself as a moderate in the tradition of Justice Kennedy. These attempts didn’t pass the straight face test.

The stench of God-hatred emanating from the bowels of the post-American federal bureaucracy momentarily abated.

But, as the last few posts have made clear, the legislative branch is stepping up to the task of making sure government in general continues down that path.