Welcome slap at bigotry (York, Pa. Dispatch editorial)
It was welcome eloquence indeed: "The genius of our Constitution is that it provides rights even to those who evoke the least sympathy from the general public. In that way, all in this nation can be confident of equal justice under its laws."
Thus did U.S. District Court Judge James Munley in Scranton yesterday issue a resounding slap to Hazleton, Pa., and its mayor, Lou Barletta, for an ordinance passed last year that officials in that northeastern community said was needed to curb illegal immigration and crime.
That, of course, was racist nonsense, and an attempt to play local politics with an issue of national concern.
The ordinance would have imposed $1,000 fines on property owners for each illegal immigrant found renting and would have denied licenses to business employing such individuals.
The sheer bigotry of the Hazleton city action certainly should have been sufficient for any court of common sense to condemn it for what it was.
Even before the vote by the city council, a Hazleton resident and critic had warned the community would be tainted as "the first Nazi city in the country."
And despite Barletta's claim before a U.S. Senate panel last year that his city was "buckling under the strain of illegal immigration" and was forced to "take steps from within to secure our future," the court and the United States Constitution held a very different view.
Regarding the city council's and Barletta's attempt to write racism and vigilantism into the law of a Pennsylvania city, Judge Munley wrote that "Hazleton, in its zeal to control the presence of a group deemed undesirable, violated the rights of such people, as well as others within the community."
The Hazleton ordinance was arrogant in the extreme, attempting to interfere in the control of immigration and override what clearly falls within the province of the federal government.
Witold J. Walczak, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, called the decision "a blaring red stoplight for local officials thinking of copying Hazleton's misguided and unconstitutional law."
Other communities across the state and nation had passed ordinances modeled on Hazleton's ill-advised attempt to override the Constitution.
Hazleton's attorney, who labeled Judge Munley an activist, claims to be confident of overturning his decision on appeal.
Hopefully, the federal appellate bench also will see Hazleton's flagrant act of bias as unacceptable to any reasonable community.
The mean-spiritedness of Hazleton's actions will not go away with Munley's ruling -- grandstanding is in the very nature of bigotry. But an attempt to codify racism in one Pennsylvania city, thankfully, has been curbed for now.