To the Editor:
What Noah Rothman describes is essentially the extension of “affirmative action”—from college admissions and job-hiring to our judicial system—undermining the basic principle of equal protection under the law (“The Social-Justice Injustice,” December). Social justice is like a virus that infects the very cells we depend on to protect us. Things don’t get any more insidious than that.
Stanley Spatz
Hollywood, Florida
To the Editor:
Noah Rothman uses the words of Brett Kavanaugh’s persecutors in the press and the Senate to show—irrefutably and chillingly—that they cared not a whit about what he did or didn’t do as a teenager.
The ideology of identity was the only thing that mattered. The individual fate of the enemy was of no consequence.
Let’s be clear about what these people represent: It is Stalinism writ small.
Howard F. Jaeckel
New York City
Noah Rothman writes:
In a way, Stanley Spatz is correct. Modern social-justice activism is an extension of efforts to achieve racial equality through policies that encourage positive discrimination, such as affirmative action. Traditionally, advocates for that kind of social leveling have tried to paper over the fact that positive discrimination also necessitates negative discrimination. What distinguishes this form of social-justice activism from its predecessors is that oppressive discrimination is seen by its advocates not as an unfortunate byproduct but as the primary desired effect. As for Howard F. Jaeckel’s point, those who may benefit from the reckoning that privileged white males such as Bret Kavanaugh presumably deserve are a secondary consideration. The objective is to mete out the comeuppance due those of certain circumstances of birth. It’s prejudice, pure and simple, but prejudice is nothing new. What’s truly shocking is how many elites in positions of influence have adopted it.