So Donald Trump has demanded that Gonzalo Curiel, a federal judge from California, be barred from overseeing the class-action lawsuit against the now-defunct Trump University that was filed by countless students who paid up to $36,000 a year in tuition for a “university” that New York’s attorney general called “a bait-and-switch scam.” Trump argues that because Curiel is “a Mexican,” and because Trump has promised to build a wall keeping Mexican “rapists” and other undesirables out of the country, Curiel has a conflict of interest and should be recused.
First, Curiel is not Mexican. He is of Mexican descent but he was born in Indiana, making him 100 percent American.
Second, Trump probably knows that the lawsuit will show that Trump University was a total rip-off, so — typical Trump — the way to soften that blow is to distort the facts in order to whip up prejudicial sentiments against the judge.
But what should grab our attention is what might ultimately result from this attempt, either deliberate or inadvertent (probably the latter; Trump isn’t smart enough to do this deliberately), to disqualify Curiel because of his ethnic heritage. Call it “Trump Justice,” in which Trump establishes that there are ingrained biases that automatically prevent a judge from interpreting the law disinterestedly or applying it uniformly and dispassionately.
Yet consider the ramifications. In addition to ethnic bias, there are racial, religious, gender and even socio-economic biases, which means that, at any time, all judges can be disqualified from ruling on a case. Suppose a case comes before the Supreme Court regarding disparities in how men and women are treated. By the logic of Trump Justice, all eight members of the court would have to recuse themselves because of a distinct gender bias — five of them are men and three are women.
Justice Sonia Sotomayer is also Hispanic. Under Trump Justice she would have to recuse herself from immigration cases. Clarence Thomas is African-American, meaning he would have to recuse himself in cases where blacks were plaintiffs or defendants. Under Trump Justice, the late Justice Antonin Scalia, a devout Catholic, would never have been allowed near the Hobby Lobby case over whether deeply religious owners of businesses are exempted from the Obamacare requirement that their employer-provided health insurance includes contraception. Both Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg were occasional hunters. No cases involving gun rights for them. Also, Ginsburg is Jewish, so no cases involving anti-Semitism for her.
America has always prided itself on being “a nation of laws, not of men.” Under Trump Justice, a judge’s gender, family tree, religion and skin color would “trump” his or her ability to soberly reason and impartially rule on the law.
Welcome to Trump Nation.
