Shanlon Wu Profile picture
May 2 11 tweets 3 min read
Good time to remember that ordinary people of color pioneered our modern Constitutional rights by bringing legal cases against racist laws & attitudes. Equal Protection owes a debt to a Chinese laundry owner who brought the case of Yick Wo in 1886 to SCOTUS. #AAPIHeritageMonth
In Yick Wo v. Hopkins 118 U.S. 356 (1886) laundry owner Lee Yick challenged the racist application of a San Francisco law requiring permits for laundries housed in wooden buildings. Why was it racist? Because of the 320 laundries in SF, 310 were wood & 240 were owned by Chinese
but not a single Chinese laundry was granted a permit. Chinese immigrants Lee Yick & Wo Lee were jailed after refusing to pay fines. They sued, arguing that the law violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment even though it was race neutral on its face.
The case ultimately reached SCOTUS where a unanimous court made the landmark decision that a law might appear to be race neutral on its face - meaning it could apply to all races - but still violate the Equal Protection Clause if the intent in its administration was racist.
"Though the law itself be fair on its face and impartial in appearance, yet, if it is applied and administered by public authority with an evil eye and an unequal hand... the denial of equal justice is still within the prohibition of the Constitution." Justice Matthews
This holding undercut 10 years later by Plessy v. Ferguson - upholding separate but equal mandated state education - but the Yick Wo case principle made a resurgence as a fundamental basis for modern civil rights cases starting in the 1950s & has been cited in 150+ SCOTUS cases.
The very name of the case reflects the racism of the times - case is named Yick Wo but neither of the plaintiffs were named Yick Wo - the sheriff who arrested Lee Yick booked him as Yick Wo b/c that was the name of the laundry so the Sheriff assumed that was his name...
Lee Yick's fate has been lost in time - we do not even know what happened to him later but his legacy lives on in each day of our country.

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More from @shanlonwu

May 3
The Supreme Court's institutional flaws run far deeper than any one case or one justice. Sotamayor's warning that overruling #RoeVWade would cause a "stench" that SCOTUS likely could not survive recognized a loss of legitimacy that only expansion & term limits can hope to remedy.
Current system of confirmation is meaningless - all nominees are coached to avoid giving actual opinions about legal issues like #RoeVWade that will come before SCOTUS even as the Presidents who nominate them & Senate who confirms them blatantly brag about their nominees views.
At a more basic level Chief Justice John Roberts continues to refuse to have the Supreme Court adopt a code of judicial ethics - making them the only federal judges without a code of ethics.
Read 7 tweets
May 3
As Chief Justice, John Roberts held the power to determine which SCOTUS justice would draft the opinion overturning #RoeVWade. He chose Justice Sam Alito to draft the opinion leaving no doubt that Roberts favors depriving women of their right to choose. Revisions will not matter.
SCOTUS justices take a quick vote shortly after oral arguments - ironically juries are cautioned to NOT take votes right away but to work their way through evidence first - and this vote doomed #RoeVWade from the start. Neither Sotomayor's expected dissent nor any concurrences
will matter - those typically are written for future cases to find authority for new lines of analysis BUT until the structure of the Supreme Court is changed none of that will matter because the legitimacy of SCOTUS is now beyond repair.
Read 5 tweets
Apr 29
What's really stopping criminal prosecution of Donald Trump & his inner circle after the Mueller Report & Jan 6 panel investigation? Hint: it's what former Attorney General Bill Barr used to shield Trump & an essential part of every criminal case...
It's a common misperception that mere existence of criminal evidence means a crime will be charged but reality is that subjective discretion controls whether a case brought. That's how people of color & the vulnerable get over-charged while crimes AGAINST them are under-charged.
Same is true of arrests. Probable cause is a low standard really - just what a reasonable person might believe - but so many times police choose not to make an arrest eg. historically failing to make arrests in domestic violence cases so case never even gets to a prosecutor.
Read 5 tweets
Apr 29
Elon Musk tweet: "the far left hates everyone, themselves included" shows common misunderstanding. The "left"questions existing institutional biases & ends up disagreeing about nature of those biases & solutions. That's not hate. It's free thinking expressed as free speech.
In contrast "the right" conservatives seek to conserve exiting institutional power so often more united in view points - holding aside Lauren Bobert & Marjorie Taylor Greene type disagreements - their common effort to preserve racist sexist oppressive structure is more hateful.
Preserving power more easily veers toward hatred because it so based on fear of losing power & fear is what generally leads to hate. Elon Musk's tweet fudges by using the terms "far" left & "far" righ but use of that term is usually just speaker masquerading as a centrist.
Read 4 tweets
Apr 27
Asian American & Pacific Islander American Heritage Month starts May 1st! I'll be doing posts each day in May #AAPIHeritageMonth focused on legal & other contributions by AAPIs - good time to remember: Asian American Studies curriculums began 50 years ago but still hard to find.
We have close to 4000 colleges degree granting colleges & universities in the United States today but only about 32 offer Asian American Studies curriculums.
Students have always been the catalyst starting in 1968 with a 5-month strike led by the Third World Liberation Front - a coalition of student groups demanding the creation of academic programs focused on histories of people of color.
nbcnews.com/news/asian-ame…
Read 5 tweets
Apr 27
Indefensible: Sen. Rand Paul's argument today to Secretary of State Tony Blinken about how countries attacked by Russia had been part of Soviet Union since 1920s implying that Putin had perfect right to attack them. Rand Paul can hide behind his supposed "libertarian" views but
Reality is that Rand Paul just spouting Putin's spin. Not first time Rand Paul actively advocated for Putin's views - in 2017 he filibustered treaty to admit Montenegro into NATO causing late Sen. John McCain to say Rand Paul was "working for Putin."
Rand Paul speaking for Putin true in 2017 & true now as posted by @WUTangKids:
Read 5 tweets

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