American Federalism and Equal Protection: Transsexual Children in Tennessee

On June 18, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a Tennessee law blocking transsexual children from being able to undergo puberty-blockers and gender-changing surgeries does not violate the Equal Protection clause of the U.S. Constitution. The court’s 6-3 opinion in U.S. v. Skrmetti was reported at the time to fall “largely along conservative-liberal lines.”[1] By this is mean ideological lines, both moral and political in nature. Such is grist for the mill for the broad judgment of an electorate, in what is otherwise known as popular sovereignty, which is superior to governmental sovereignty in a republic. Add in the fact that Tennessee is a member-state in a federal system in which the U.S. Supreme Court is on the federal level, and the broad judgment of the electorate takes on more significance to the extent that a federal system of an empire-scale union is in part supposed to take into account and protect interstate ideological differences that defy one-size-fits-all union-level policies. In other words, as cultural heterogeneity can be expected in going from state to state in an empire-scale union-of-states, efforts “from the top” to impose a single policy on every state do not allow the federation to breath. Political pressure could be expected to build over time if such a suffocating tendency eventuates, with the risk of dissolution increasing over time as if depreciation.

The full essay is at "American Federalism and Equal Protection."

---

1. Josh Gerstein, “Supreme Court Upholds Tennessee’s Ban on Gender-Affirming Care for Minors,” Politico.com, June 18, 2025.

The Ministerial Exception: A Religious Right to Discriminate

In early 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court recognized, for the first time ever, a “ministerial exception” to employment discrimination laws, saying that churches and other religious groups must be free to choose and dismiss their leaders without government interference. In his written opinion, Chief Justice Roberts wrote, “The Establishment Clause [of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution] prevents the government from appointing ministers, and the Free Exercise Clause prevents it from interfering with the freedom of religious groups to select their own.” The wrench in the works here concerns the matter of delimiting the exception, given the inflation in what constitutes “ministerial” in terms of tasks.

The full essay is at "The Ministerial Exception."

American Businesses as Police-States: The Case of Hilton Hotels

Days before Christmas in 2018, Jermaine Massey was on a phone call with his mother. It being personal, he was in a remote area and was thus not disturbing anyone—that except for Earl, Doubletree’s security guard. Massey subsequently accused Earl of harassment. While the video that Massey took of the guard during the altercation shows Earl to be quite calm, the passive aggression was doubtless off the charts. The incident points to a growing problem at the time as American businesses were increasing their security presence, at the very least in terms of exposure, and last but not least, with considerable discretion and thus power. The incident shows that guards were well aware of how to mask personal power with the air of staid professionalism.  This only makes the latent authoritarian mindset more dangerous to the public.

The full essay is at "Businesses as Police-States."



Toronto Police as Aggressors at G-20 Summit

Police employees “ignored basic rights,” jailed people illegally, used excessive force and escalated violence at protests surrounding the G-20 meeting in Toronto in 2010, according to the Office of the Independent Police Review Director. The report could lead to charges against police employees and strengthen the hand of civil lawsuits filed against the police department. Because the police employees acted with an attitude of impunity, anything less than stiff prison sentences would be insufficient as a deterrent.

The full essay is at "Toronto Police as the Aggressors: A Conflict of Interest." 

The Schengen Agreement: Germany Discriminating Against the Roma?

In the case of the U.S., once someone enters one of the states, that person can move from state to state without having to show a visa or passport. The open borders correspond to the states that are members of the United States. In the case of the E.U., however, the open borders do not necessarily dovetail with the states that are members of the European Union. This presents problems that do not exist in the U.S.

German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich.

The full essay is in Essays on the E.U. Political Economy, available at Amazon.com