Watch your back, Wal-Mart

Government oppression remains government oppression, no matter how big the target.

Individual or company, big or small, mom and pop, or publicly traded, all enjoy equal protection under the law.

But if government can do what it looks like it's getting ready to do to Wal-Mart, then all may be in jeopardy.

The background is this: A huge class-action lawsuit was filed against Wal-Mart alleging job discrimination against women. The suit tried to encompassed 1.5 million women at Wal-Mart and show they all were systematically discriminated against.

Because Wal-Mart is union-free, left-wing partisans (like a good many in the Obama Administration) have had Wal-Mart on its public enemy list for years. They applauded this historic lawsuit in hopes it would bring the company to bended knee. But Wal-Mart would not bow, contesting the validity of the class-action status of the suit.

If individual employees wanted to sue, they could. But bringing suit on behalf of 1.5 million women employees of Wal-Mart (most of whom were completely unknown to the plaintiff lawyers) was an improper action.

The plaintiff lawyers, of course, hated that because it challenged the very heart of what class-action lawyers do. You know the type. They advertise on daytime TV looking for people who think they have been exposed to asbestos and such. (Can you say "Mesothelioma"?) If lawyers like that actually had to sue one client at a time, they contended, they'd have to work too hard for to little payout.

Poor babies. But that's a different topic for another day.

In this case, Wal-Mart fought all the way to the Supreme Court. And it won. Employees who believe they were wronged, could sue -- but one at a time.

That's caused a big disturbance in the force for the Mesothelioma lawyer crowd as well as for unionistas and left-wing haters of successful union-free American businesses.

So now just some 30 days after the Supreme Court ruled against the plaintiff attorneys in the Wal-Mart case, President Obama announces he plans to appoint Jenny R. Yang to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

And who is Jenny R. Yang? She's one of those lawyers who lost the Wal-Mart suit.

Obama looks to achieve administratively what the lawyers could not in court. Unless Ms. Yang recuses herself on all things Wal-Mart (and I doubt seriously that will happen), Wal-Mart best watch its back on this appointment. She thinks the company systematically wronged all -- all! -- of its women employees. It doesn't take a fertile mind to think that her bias will somehow find it's way into the hands of the EEOC.

You'd like to think that the first instincts of the people who make our government work would be to protect our rights, provide a level playing field, dispense fairness and maybe, just maybe, give people and companies the benefit of the doubt. This sequence of events looks like a government out to punish those who don't adhere to a set political agenda.

Postscript: Before you call all this the suspicion of a free-market conservative generally wary of government (this I freely admit), you might want to take a look at this exchange with Ms. Yang before the Supreme Court struck down her lawsuit. Ms. Yang was asked what impact she expected this case may have?

She said: "I think the impact of this case could potentially be very significant. If the Court restricts access to class actions it can really bar the effective enforcement of civil rights and other employment discrimination laws. Often Courts have not allowed individuals to obtain the kind of broad, systemic relief that the women are seeking in this action. They are trying to get Wal-Mart to change its pay and promotion practices and provide real equal opportunity. And without a class action, individuals will typically not be able to get that kind of relief. Many of the challenges that Wal-Mart brings here to the kind of proof that can be used, whether damages can be calculated in a sort of aggregate, formulaic way, which we believe is appropriate based on the evidence here, those same arguments could be used to try to preclude the federal government from bringing similar pattern or practice enforcement cases. And the theories that we rely on are very much the same theories that the government relies on in challenging patterns of discrimination. So there is a risk that if the Court decides to roll back civil rights protections in this case, it will not only affect the ability of individuals to privately enforce the civil rights laws but it can also tie the hands of government as well."

Do you think Ms. Yang might have just a little bias toward Wal-Mart in future EEOC cases? Just a little?