MORNING GLORY: President Trump Restores Federal Government to Constitutional Path

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump issued an executive order rescinding President Lyndon Baines Johnson’s Executive Order 11246 of September 1965 (and many other similar orders and memoranda from decades ago). Trump’s new order is true to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the 14th Amendment. Trump’s order can be read here.

Johnson’s horrific turn toward “counting by race” was profound, a turn extended by the United States Supreme Court (SCOTUS) in the 1978 Bakke decision and only finally and completely rejected by SCOTUS in recent years is now federal policy enforceable by Civil Rights Division at the DOJ and the Office of Civil Rights at the Department of Education.

This is neither a “liberal” nor a “conservative” action. It is the Constitution that speaks, as the Constitution was amended to eradicate the great stain of slavery after the long and bloody Civil War.

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The road to the original public meaning of the 14th Amendment has taken from 1868, when the 14th Amendment was ratified, until Tuesday to complete: Citizens of the United States may not have sanctions imposed or awards given to them based on immutable characteristics or religious beliefs. No institution, from Harvard College, founded long before the Constitution was ratified, or the local convenience store, may lawfully violate this first principle of the 14th Amendment.

Do not discriminate on the basis of race, gender, ethnicity or religious belief. Period.

The 19th century SCOTUS took a terrible turn in the Slaughterhouse cases, which distorted the interpretation of the 14th Amendment and then the Plessy decision, and the Supreme Court corrected itself in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. Congress enshrined the core principle above in Civil Rights Act of 1964.

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Johnson did not understand what he was launching, but for the past 20 years, “counting by race, gender, sexual orientation,” along with hardships and discrimination against believers, has taken root in government and elite institutions.

US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh arrive for the inauguration ceremony before Donald Trump is sworn in as the 47th US President in the US Capitol Rotunda in Washington, DC on January 20. (Saul Loeb//Pool via REUTERS)

The Supreme Court has meandered for nearly 50 years to finally, and I hope irrevocably, decide what Abraham Lincoln, Dr. Martin Luther King and most recently Chief Justice John Roberts stated briefly and eloquently in the 2007 case Parents Involved in Community Schools v. 1 when he wrote, “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of. of race.”

The chief justice lacked enough originalist allies on the highest court to instill this basic principle of sound constitutional law in every fiber of government at all levels of government until President Trump nominated and the US Senate confirmed three new justices in Trump’s first term. Now the originalist majority is a solid six votes.

Trump’s executive order may be challenged. I hope it is.

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The Supreme Court, built in part by President Trump, has already reaffirmed the original meaning of the 14th Amendment and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in recent years. Let any institution challenge this new EO and they will find that it is on the strongest constitutional grounds.

Bravo to the many hands that made it and especially to President Trump who signed it.

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Hugh Hewitt hosts “The Hugh Hewitt Show,” heard weekday mornings from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. ET on the Salem Radio Network and simulcast on the Salem News Channel. Hugh wakes up America on over 400 affiliates nationwide and on all the streaming platforms where SNC can be seen. He is a frequent guest. on the Fox News Channel News Roundtable hosted by Bret Baier weekdays at 6:00 PM ET A son from Ohio and a graduate of Harvard College of Michigan Law School, Hewitt has been a professor of law at Chapman University’s Fowler School of Law since 1996, where he teaches constitutional law. has authored a dozen books and moderated a score of Republican presidential debates, most recently the November 2023 Republican presidential debate in Miami and four Republican presidential debates in the 2015-16 cycle Hewitt focuses his radio show and column on the Constitution, national security, American politics and the Cleveland Browns and Guardians. . Hewitt has interviewed tens of thousands of guests from Democrats Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to Republican Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump during his 40 years in broadcasting. This column features the main story that will drive his radio/TV show today.