Discrimination Claims Attempt to 'Browbeat' Comcast, WLF Says

Civil rights law is meant to ax racial discrimination in contracts, "not as a litigation tool that unhappy plaintiffs can use to browbeat others into making unwanted deals," like the Supreme Court taking up Comcast's appeal in litigation alleging the operator engaged in with racial animus in a programming decision (see 1906100024), Washington Legal Foundation Chief Counsel Richard Samp blogged Thursday. Rather than trying to make it more difficult for minorities to redress discrimination, the cabler is arguing only that proving racial discrimination in contracting means having to prove an injury was suffered, he said. Respondent Entertain Studios Networks, which is suing Comcast, emailed that Samp "is completely incorrect -- it was COMCAST who brought this case to the U.S. Supreme Court, not our company. Mr. Samp also fails to realize that the goal of Congress in passing Section 1981 after the racist Civil War was NOT to make dismissal of race discrimination claims easy, but rather to stamp out racism in contracting. Unfortunately, in partnership with Donald Trump’s Department of Justice, Comcast made a conscious choice to petition the U.S. Supreme Court in their attempt to eviscerate this original civil rights statute (Section 1981), which was put on the books 153 years ago, and currently protects over 100 million Americans.” Oral argument is Wednesday.