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发帖数: 29853 | 1 Aided by the same organization that sued the University of Texas over its
race-sensitive admissions policy, a white Austin lawyer has sued to overturn
a law requiring that four positions of the State Bar of Texas governing
board be held by women and racial or ethnic minorities.
Filed Monday in federal court in Austin,the lawsuit by Greg Gegenheimer,
a 38-year lawyer who focuses on family law, argues that the practice
discriminates against white men in violation of the U.S. Constitution and
federal anti-discrimination laws.
“For the last 40 years, numeric racial and gender quotas like those
mandated by the Texas Bar have been struck down by the courts as
unconstitutional,” said Edward Blum, president of the Project on Fair
Representation, which provided the lawyers who researched and filed
Gegenheimer’s lawsuit.
Blum’s Virginia-based organization also sponsored the lawsuit by Abigail
Fisher, who unsuccessfully challenged a UT policy that weighed race as one
of many factors in deciding which undergraduate applicants to admit to the
school. The U.S. Supreme Court narrowly upheld the policy in June.
The state bar, which oversees the state’s lawyers, was reviewing the
lawsuit and had no comment, a spokeswoman said Monday.
White lawyer sues state bar over minority rules
The board of directors, which sets policy for the state bar, includes 30
board members elected by lawyers in geographic districts, six public members
who are appointed by the Texas Supreme Court and confirmed by the state
Senate, and four so-called minority directors who are appointed by the bar’
s elected president and confirmed by the board of directors. The 46 voting
members also include three statewide officers and three members of the Texas
Young Lawyers Association.
Under state law, minority directors must be lawyers who are “female,
African-American, Hispanic-American, Native American or Asian-American,”
the lawsuit said.
The bar is currently accepting applications for a minority director whose
term will begin next summer.
Gegenheimer wants to apply for the position but is not eligible because he
is not a woman or racial minority — an exclusion that amounts to racial and
sexual discrimination in violation of the Constitution’s equal-protection
clause, his lawsuit argued.
Gegenheimer’s lawyers — including Jonathan Mitchell, former Texas
solicitor general under then-Attorney General Greg Abbott — are seeking a
court ruling declaring the minority director law unconstitutional.
They also request that the judge issue an injunction barring enforcement of
the law and an order “forbidding the (state bar) to discriminate against
white men by conferring any form of preferential treatment on women or
racial minorities.”
http://www.mystatesman.com/news/white-lawyer-sues-state-bar-over-minority-rules/4iEGXtUouwFveEbzGrn7QP/ |
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