{"id":154374,"date":"2026-06-11T15:22:37","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T23:22:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/06\/11\/mike-lee-learned-nothing-from-trump-administration-openly-discriminating-against-mormons\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T15:22:37","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T23:22:37","slug":"mike-lee-learned-nothing-from-trump-administration-openly-discriminating-against-mormons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/06\/11\/mike-lee-learned-nothing-from-trump-administration-openly-discriminating-against-mormons\/","title":{"rendered":"Mike Lee Learned Nothing From Trump Administration Openly Discriminating Against Mormons"},"content":{"rendered":"

Senator Mike Lee, your constant reminder that Supreme Court clerkships don\u2019t necessarily<\/em> signal intellectual accomplishment, took to social media to applaud a new Justice Department memo declaring that disparate impact liability is unconstitutional, despite being enshrined in over half a century of legal precedent and its explicit codification over 30 years ago. <\/p>\n

The new opinion took the Supreme Court\u2019s shadow docket order allowing Alabama to impose new election maps<\/a> as proof that it\u2019s unconstitutional for the EEOC to use its enforcement power to make employers follow the Civil Rights Act. Theoretically, the shadow docket is for emergency orders strictly limited to the parties involved, but\u2026 YOLO<\/a>. And that\u2019s how an interim order allowing Alabama to run an election with racist maps became the basis for ending laws against employment discrimination.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
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Disparate impact is yet another perverse conception of civil rights that pushes \u201cgood\u201d discrimination to supposedly combat bad discrimination. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s why I introduced the Restoring Equal Opportunity Act with @RepBrandonGill<\/a> to ban disparate impact policies that incentivize racial\u2026 https:\/\/t.co\/Ek8XO0AaMF<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Mike Lee (@SenMikeLee) June 9, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

For such a fierce defender of true merit-based hiring, one might easily forget that Lee got a Supreme Court clerkship with his dad\u2019s former assistant. Nepo babies always manage to have the deepest thoughts about minorities lacking \u201cmerit.\u201d<\/p>\n

If only Mike Lee had a connection to an historically persecuted religious group that could very easily become victims of discrimination that only disparate impact liability could catch\u2026 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Mike seems to have learned nothing from the previous week. That\u2019s when his social media turned into non-stop whining about the Defense Department releasing a new coding system for religious affiliations that classified the LDS church as a non-Christian religion. After Lee complained about the DoD policy, the Pentagon \u201cfixed\u201d the situation, not by adding Mormons back to the community of Christian religions, but by deleting the whole \u201cChristian\u201d category rather than acknowledge Mormons as \u201creal\u201d Christians. It\u2019s like those conservative localities that banned marriage altogether<\/a> so they didn\u2019t have to let gay people get married.<\/p>\n

Pete Hegseth\u2019s decision to ice out Mormons had no practical impact, but as a symbolic act served as a reminder that the Christian nationalists that Lee actively supports will gleefully throw him overboard at the first opportunity. But that\u2019s the thing about civil rights\u2026 taking them away is all fun and games until someone comes for you.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Mike Lee Learned Nothing From Trump Administration Openly Discriminating Against Mormons<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Senator Mike Lee, your constant reminder that Supreme Court clerkships don\u2019t necessarily<\/em> signal intellectual accomplishment, took to social media to applaud a new Justice Department memo declaring that disparate impact liability is unconstitutional, despite being enshrined in over half a century of legal precedent and its explicit codification over 30 years ago. <\/p>\n

The new opinion took the Supreme Court\u2019s shadow docket order allowing Alabama to impose new election maps<\/a> as proof that it\u2019s unconstitutional for the EEOC to use its enforcement power to make employers follow the Civil Rights Act. Theoretically, the shadow docket is for emergency orders strictly limited to the parties involved, but\u2026 YOLO<\/a>. And that\u2019s how an interim order allowing Alabama to run an election with racist maps became the basis for ending laws against employment discrimination.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

Disparate impact is yet another perverse conception of civil rights that pushes \u201cgood\u201d discrimination to supposedly combat bad discrimination. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s why I introduced the Restoring Equal Opportunity Act with @RepBrandonGill<\/a> to ban disparate impact policies that incentivize racial\u2026 https:\/\/t.co\/Ek8XO0AaMF<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Mike Lee (@SenMikeLee) June 9, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

For such a fierce defender of true merit-based hiring, one might easily forget that Lee got a Supreme Court clerkship with his dad\u2019s former assistant. Nepo babies always manage to have the deepest thoughts about minorities lacking \u201cmerit.\u201d<\/p>\n

If only Mike Lee had a connection to an historically persecuted religious group that could very easily become victims of discrimination that only disparate impact liability could catch\u2026 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Mike seems to have learned nothing from the previous week. That\u2019s when his social media turned into non-stop whining about the Defense Department releasing a new coding system for religious affiliations that classified the LDS church as a non-Christian religion. After Lee complained about the DoD policy, the Pentagon \u201cfixed\u201d the situation, not by adding Mormons back to the community of Christian religions, but by deleting the whole \u201cChristian\u201d category rather than acknowledge Mormons as \u201creal\u201d Christians. It\u2019s like those conservative localities that banned marriage altogether<\/a> so they didn\u2019t have to let gay people get married.<\/p>\n

Pete Hegseth\u2019s decision to ice out Mormons had no practical impact, but as a symbolic act served as a reminder that the Christian nationalists that Lee actively supports will gleefully throw him overboard at the first opportunity. But that\u2019s the thing about civil rights\u2026 taking them away is all fun and games until someone comes for you.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Mike Lee Learned Nothing From Trump Administration Openly Discriminating Against Mormons<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Senator Mike Lee, your constant reminder that Supreme Court clerkships don\u2019t necessarily signal intellectual accomplishment, took to social media to applaud a new Justice Department memo declaring that disparate impact liability is unconstitutional, despite being enshrined in over half a century of legal precedent and its explicit codification over 30 years ago. The new opinion […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-154374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154374\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}