{"id":857,"date":"2011-06-07T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-06-07T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www3.law.harvard.edu\/journals\/hlpr\/?p=857"},"modified":"2015-10-02T15:57:05","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T15:57:05","slug":"tenn-smacks-down-local-anti-discrimination-laws","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/2011\/06\/07\/tenn-smacks-down-local-anti-discrimination-laws\/","title":{"rendered":"Tenn. Smacks Down Local Anti-discrimination Laws"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"color: #505050\"><em>Marshall Thompson<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #505050\">Last week Gov. Bill Haslam of\u00a0<a style=\"font-style: inherit;color: #3f6dcf\" href=\"http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20110619211859\/http:\/\/www.businessweek.com\/ap\/financialnews\/D9NEN6200.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Tennessee<\/a>\u00a0signed a new state law that prohibits local governments from passing their own anti-discrimination laws.\u00a0 The bill comes in response to a Nashville ordinance prohibiting housing and employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #505050\">According to\u00a0<a style=\"font-style: inherit;color: #3f6dcf\" href=\"http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20110619211859\/http:\/\/www.businessweek.com\/ap\/financialnews\/D9NEN6200.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Businessweek<\/a>\u00a0Haslam said, \u201cWe\u2019re not in favor of discrimination in any form at all.\u00a0 We just think that businesses should get to decide for themselves what they have in their policies.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #505050\"><!--more--><\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #505050\"><span id=\"more-5388\" style=\"font-style: inherit\"><\/span>That\u2019s brilliant.\u00a0 Why didn\u2019t we just use that solution with slavery and jim crow laws?\u00a0 Instead of a Civil War Amendments the federal government could have just said, \u201cListen businesses, you really shouldn\u2019t use slave labor or discriminate on the basis of race, but we\u2019re going to let you decide what\u2019s best for your bottom line.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #505050\">The action also highlights the hypocrisy of modern conservatives when it comes to federalism.\u00a0 States\u2019 rights are arguably important because they allow for experimentation and competition.\u00a0 They also allow affected citizens more direct access to the policymakers.\u00a0 If those truly are good things, then why mess with local government?<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #505050\">Proponents of the new law have argued that it was designed to keep uniform employment and housing regulations.\u00a0 If that\u2019s true, then the only question now is, \u201cWhen will the Tennessee Legislature pass state-wide anti-discrimination laws?\u201d Otherwise, it appears to be what many\u00a0<a style=\"font-style: inherit;color: #3f6dcf\" href=\"http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20110619211859\/http:\/\/www.keennewsservice.com\/2011\/05\/25\/showdown-brewing-over-tennessee-anti-gay-law\/\" target=\"_blank\">opponents<\/a>\u00a0have label it: an anti-gay law.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Marshall Thompson Last week Gov. Bill Haslam of\u00a0Tennessee\u00a0signed a new state law that prohibits local governments from passing their own [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZQka-dP","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}