Dana El-Kurd

As has often happened, the Fifth Circuit court ruling conflicts with that of another circuit court, the Ninth Circuit, which upheld the power granted by the NLRB.

This split almost certainly guarantees the case will end up in front of a Supreme Court that has been no friend of American workers.

On rare occasions, the Fifth Circuit might still acknowledge that society is tilted against the poor and people of color.

A panel made up of Fifth Circuit judges ruled that Labine Conan could proceed with her lawsuit against the United States Post Office.

A landlord who owns two properties in Euless, a suburb between Dallas and Fort Worth, Conan claimed that beginning in 2020, two local postal employees abruptly stopped delivering mail first to her and then to her tenants because she said they didn't like the idea that a black person owned the properties.

The post office is mostly shielded from lawsuits by a legal doctrine called sovereign immunity.

under which, as legal analyst Ellie Mistal explains, quote, the government cannot be held liable for monetary damages arising out of actions taken by the government.

What was unique about the United States Postal Service Buchanan case, however, was that in this circumstance, the government was causing intentional damage to a private citizen.

This time, the Fifth Circuit ruled in the favor of a marginalized citizen and ruled the suit could go forward.

This rare progressive ruling was for naught, however.

The Supreme Court overturned the Fifth Circuit once again.

Clarence Thomas wrote the opinion for the 5-4 majority, essentially ruling, as Mistal summarized the case, quote, that the post office is immune from liability even when its workers intentionally refuse to do their jobs.

Mistal suggested that this decision carries ominous implications for the upcoming election should the U.S.

Postal Service, for instance, refuse to deliver mail-in ballots.

In spite of James Howe's status as an immigrant, his most alarming opinion might be regarding birthright citizenship.

Ratified in 1868, just three years after the end of the Civil War, the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution declares in its opening sentence that, "...all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside."

For 128 years, the Supreme Court has rejected claims that citizenship can be denied to persons born or naturalized here based on their race or the immigration status of their parents.

In the 1898 United States v. Wong Kim Ark case, the Supreme Court upheld the citizenship of a man born in the United States to Chinese parents.

The government tried to block Ark from returning to the United States after he visited China based on the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, which barred the Chinese from immigrating here.

The court ruled 6-2 that Ark's birth in the United States established his American citizenship and his right to reside here.