Jonathan Turley Skewers Massachusetts AG Over Decision on Michelle Wu's 'Electeds of Color' Holiday Party

In early December, we learned through local media reports that Boston Mayor Michelle Wu's (D) office had sent out an email invite to all city council members to request their presence at an "Electeds of Color" holiday party.

If you're thinking, hey, that sounds kinda discriminatory for a government office to be engaged in, you'd be right.

There are 13 members of the city council, and seven of them are white.

The invitation was only meant for the six council members who aren't.

When an apology email was sent out afterward, it wasn't to apologize for excluding white council members. It was for the "confusion" the invite sent to all members "may have caused," not the potential hurt and anger.

Perhaps not wanting to create waves, the council members who weren't meant to receive the invite were mostly muted when asked about the issue. The ones who were meant to get the invite made a whole lot of predictable excuses for why they felt in their view it was okay.

Wu herself, in a clear campaign to make "separate but equal" great again, defended the party when asked about it, proclaiming that "There are many, many events that are private events for all different sorts of groups, so we've clarified that and look forward to seeing everyone at one of the dozens of other opportunities to celebrate the holidays together."

READ: Boston Mayor Michelle Wu Exposes Her Inner Richard Nixon by Targeting Political Enemies

In an update to this story, Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell, a Democrat, has weighed in on this controversy after receiving four complaints, at least three of which were reportedly out of state. Her conclusion, which conveniently was reached just before the Christmas holiday when not many were paying attention, will not surprise you:

The Dec. 13 party, however, did not appear to violate the public accommodation law “since it was not open to the public,” state Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s office told the Herald in an email.
[...]
Under Massachusetts law, the AG enforces the public accommodation law, which “prohibits discrimination in places of public accommodation” based on race, color, religion, national origin, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, deafness, blindness, or any physical or mental disability, or ancestry.
Campbell is a former city councilor. Her office did not elaborate on why Wu’s party was not in violation. The Parkman House is listed as the mayor’s official reception hall.

Not only is Campbell a former member of the city council, Campbell is... well, let's just let her do the talking on this one:

I was one of few Black students in class at times at Princeton, but affirmative action didn't benefit just me.

It benefitted those around me.

Diversity benefits our education system. Our healthcare system. Our innovation. Our economy.

We should all care about this decision. pic.twitter.com/9Aejk0RIRv
— Andrea Joy Campbell (@MassAGO) June 30, 2023

George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley has been following this story closely and pointed to it as evidence of a larger problem with woke Democrats like Wu and Campbell:

Some supporters defended Wu by arguing that such racial segregation is needed to make minorities feel safe or accepted, even on the ultra-left Boston city council, on which members of color are one seat short of an outright majority.
The case for such race-exclusive dinners was made by then-Justice Henry Billings Brown almost 125 years ago, when he explained that some people simply find the “commingling” of races to be “unsatisfactory.” He said that for a 7-2 majority in Plessy v. Ferguson.
It is not the taste of discrimination but the ease of the discrimination that is so alarming. Racial segregation now appears to be an article of faith for too many on the left.

On Twitter in response to Campbell's decision, Turley wrote that "Plessivus received a major boost as a new holiday tradition after the Mass. AG declared that the Boston Mayor can discriminate so long as she does it at a closed event at a city-owned mansion. "

As I've noted before, after Michelle Wu was elected in 2021, the Usual Suspects treated it as a momentous occasion in the city's history considering she was the first woman and "person of color" elected to lead Beantown

A focal point of her time in public office has been "inclusion, diversity, and equity," but one is hard-pressed to understand how holding government-funded segregated holiday parties fits into the "inclusion" part of that equation.

In summary, Democrat privilege is picking up in 2024 right where it left off in 2023: thriving and booming, and showing no signs of going away anytime soon.