The “libertarian socialists” have struck again.
It began when a state Libertarian Party chapter posted a link to a court decision about an employer that did not allow its employees to have dreadlocks.
This was “discrimination,” the suit against it alleged.
Not so, said the court. The “race-neutral grooming policy,” it declared, was not discriminatory, since a hairstyle, unlike a racial identity, is not an “immutable physical characteristic.” Therefore, an employer is at liberty to enforce such a requirement.
Now that isn’t quite how a libertarian would argue the question, since the crux of the matter is that no contract should be entered into unless both sides agree to its terms, period. The employer may offer terms, and the employee may offer terms. If one side offers terms the other opposes, then they go their separate ways and find people willing to engage with them on terms they prefer.
The Politically Incorr…
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This is also how we deal with the notorious “bake the cake” case. If the baker prefers not to bake the cake, that ends the discussion. Violently forcing him to bake the cake is out of the question. The Supreme Court may spend its time tying itself in knots analyzing whether cakes themselves are endorsements of relationships, or just the icing on them, or whether a cake is a form of expression, or whatever. We libertarians don’t need any of that nonsense.
All the same, the court reached the correct decision in the dreadlocks case from a libertarian point of view. Not a “right-wing libertarian” point of view, mind you, but a plain-vanilla libertarian one.
Now enter one of the two or…