On this episode of Dorer Daily I talk about how on this day in 1857 the owner of Dred Scott freed him. This freedom came after nearly a lifetime of slavery. Most importantly to me and my listeners as well as the country as a whole is the fact that it also came after two separate lawsuits spanning almost a decade in time, litigated with such fervor that the Decision in Scott v. Sanford, a lawsuit for Dred’s freedom, became infamously known as the Dred Scott Decision, which undid the Missouri Compromise, declared all slaves non-citizens with no standing to sue, and essentially laid the welcoming mat of hostility between the North and South that led to this Country’s Civil War.
In the news of the day, late last night the House passed a bill conferring rights on LGBT persons. Those rights are narrow, insofar as the legislation passed prohibits agencies funded by the bill to award taxpayer dollars to federal contractors that violate President Barack Obama’s executive order barring discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. On the other hand, a suit that’s headed straight to SCOTUS I’m sure is about whether or not States have to follow President Obama’s order requiring them to let students use the bathroom of their gender identity.
The last great frontier of civil rights in this country is turning out to be those of transgendered people. What once were demagogic attacks against gays about who potties where with our young children has now become the talking point of the day for those left with no one else to discriminate against. After the ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges civil rights activists have rightly turned their focus to the most marginalized group in our country: transgendered persons. In fact,
Hopefully, transgendered people won’t have to walk down the same path of lifelong oppression that Dred Scott and the Black community of this Country have endured. So long as our legislative branch continues to provide the protections transgendered persons are due under the 14th Amendment (an amendment we only have because Dred Scott fought so hard that the Country had to fight itself to reconcile it), maybe we have a chance. But, Republican-led States will continue to sue away for their right to discriminate, and hopefully SCOTUS won’t make the mistakes it made in 1857.
Follow me at @DavidTDorer, listen to the David Dorer Show live every Friday (Available on iTunes and on Stitcher). Also, make sure to check out Talking Law with David Dorer every Wednesday. (Available oniTunes and on Stitcher).