Stephen Miller's group seeks to fight "racial preferences" with ... racial preferences
In the wake of the Supreme Court's college admissions ruling, America First Legal has been looking on Twitter for new clients to fight diversity efforts in corporate America.
A tweet from a far-right group led by former Trump senior advisor Stephen Miller advertised on Twitter over the weekend that “racial preferences” are “UNCONSTITUTIONAL” — while also revealing the group’s racial preference for “Asian” people to contact the group if they’ve faced discrimination in the workplace.
The somewhat contradictory request is just one piece of the fallout from the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in late June effectively ending race-conscious admissions in higher education.
From the day of the ruling, there has been discussion about the decision’s effect on corporate America. It wasn’t just chatter. As with last year’s abortion decision, extremist groups and lawyers were working even before the decision came down to push the boundaries of that forthcoming decision.
Miller’s America First Legal was one of those groups. Since the ruling, the group has been trawling the web for new clients to challenge diversity programs. In one of the videos posted to Twitter, an animated Miller explained that he is fighting the “poisonous, woke ideology” that “crushes the human spirit.”
Miller’s history — the Jeff Sessions Senate staffer turned Trump White House senior advisor to the president — has been told many times. Miller was behind many of the Trump administration’s harsh and discriminatory anti-immigrant policies, and the Southern Poverty Law Center has documented how Miller regularly cited to white nationalist sources in emails in the run-up to his time working in the White House.
With America First Legal, where Miller is the president, the non-lawyer is attempting to advance his goals outside of the White House. (Gene Hamilton — the former Homeland Security senior counselor and, later, counselor to the attorney general in the Trump administration — is the top lawyer in the group, serving as vice president and general counsel.)
In the advertised tweet in question, which is dated July 5 but was viewed by Law Dork on July 23 as a promoted tweet, America First Legal stated that “racial preferences … violate the CONSTITUTION.” In the accompanying image, however, the organization expressed a racial preference, stating, “If you’re Asian, and were denied a job, promotion, or professional opportunity because of your skin color, call AMERICA FIRST LEGAL today ….”
Given that many of America First Legal’s recent tweets have been viewed less than 10,000 times and almost all of them were viewed less than 100,000 times, per Twitter’s public analytics, the 7.5 million views noted for the promoted tweet suggested the tweet was heavily advertised beyond the organization’s usual reach.
In a longer video posted to Twitter on July 17, the organization was somehow both more and less direct, stating that, “[o]ften,” the “victims” of “illegal ‘DIVERSITY’ policies are white, Asian, male or straight.”
The focus on Asian Americans in such cases is not new. It was, of course, the criticized approach taken by Ed Blum, the white lawyer behind the higher education cases that were decided by the court in June.
While America First Legal filed an amicus brief in those cases, it was a relatively narrow brief arguing that the justices didn’t even need to reach the question about the constitutionality of affirmative action policies.
But America First Legal is taking a much more direct — and likely more broad — role in litigating against diversity policies in corporate America, filing complaints against companies with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission even before the June decision came down.
The July 17 video and promotion of at least one of its other Twitter requests for new potential claims make clear those were just the beginning.
Visually and rhetorically, the video looks and reads like the offspring of a personal injury law firm’s advertisement and a political ad. Which, in effect, it is.
If nothing else, the ramp-up is a reminder to those who support diversity efforts in businesses and elsewhere that they had better be prepared for the aggressive approach that opponents of those efforts are almost certain to take in the months ahead.
Update, 11:00 a.m. Aug. 1: America First Legal is now also advertising explicitly for “white” clients.
Stephen Miller is a snake. He's always been one and
a fascist at heart. He's the
last person I'd ever trust to
see to my welfare in any matter. He'd be one of the
first to step off footage for
cages and concentration camps.
Stephen Miller is an embarrassment to my faith. He stands against everything that my religion is supposed to espouse.