The Lady Justice statue, often seen in courthouses, has become the most recognized symbol of American justice. It is portrayed as a blindfolded woman carrying a sword in one hand and a set of scales in the other. She represents the morality and fairness the legal system was meant to uphold. The blindfold signifies that justice is intended to be impartial and objective. 

Ex ternal factors such as partisan politics, wealth, status, race or fame should be removed so they do not prevent courts from carrying out an honest and objective process when rendering decisions. Justice does not see who is before her. This is meant to be true regardless of whether a person is rich or poor, Black or white, friend or foe; everyone is to receive equal treatment. Because balance is critical, justice is symbolically represented by scales. The scales imply a rational process of fairness in which both sides of a case are considered evenhandedly. This stands in contrast to an unashamed segment of society that believes in a “thumb on the scale” approach to justice. This unfair approach occurs when biased influence is placed on one side, causing the scales of justice to tilt in one direction. 

Balance represents an even distribution and a healthy condition in which different elements are kept in equal proportion. When governing an economically and culturally diverse nation, a truly just society must be politically balanced. A balanced political system occurs when opposing conservative and liberal ideologies offset one another. Society is shaped by a wide range of human emotions, tribalism, egos, generational traditions, apathy, complacency, exploitation, cultural influences, racial prejudice and ignorance that cannot always be neutralized, making consistent political balance difficult, if not impossible. Government policies can have cruel motives, resulting in serious harm to innocent people. 

The United States developed a system of checks and balances but faces the reality that harmful policies embraced on one side cannot be offset when too many well-intentioned people on the other side are entrenched in apathy, complacency and ignorance. The Founding Fathers were not perfect men; many were enslavers. Yet they drafted a Constitution that allowed for corrective amendments, eventually creating a balanced system. A balanced system, however, is ineffective when ill intentions control it. 

There are reasons George Washington is called the “Father of the Nation.” In his farewell address at the end of his second term, Washington warned: “However [political parties] may now and then answer political ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.” 

Washington’s warning has proven prescient. Many of today’s elected leaders are, without a doubt, cunning, ambitious and unprincipled men and women whose goal is to dismantle systems of checks and balances to the detriment of people of color. One example is the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. Typically, the office resolves dozens of racial harassment cases each year, including during President Donald Trump’s first administration. Given the current cultural climate, harassment has grown bolder. 

Black students in a small district in Ohio were called the N-word by white peers starting on their first day of school. They became accustomed to hearing slurs such as “porch monkey” and being told to go pick cotton. At a school in Illinois, white students included Confederate flags in PowerPoint presentations for class assignments and shook a school bus as Black students were exiting in an attempt to make them fall. In each case, the Office for Civil Rights investigated and concluded the districts did not do enough to stop racial hostility. The agency entered into agreements requiring changes and monitoring. 

That level of accountability no longer exists under the current Trump administration. Nearly a year after Trump’s second administration took office, the agency has not entered into a single new resolution agreement involving racial harassment of students, according to a ProPublica analysis. Since Jan. 20, it has opened only 14 investigations into racial harassment of Black students, despite receiving more than 500 complaints. 

The shift is clear. A “thumb on the scales” approach to justice is now in effect as the Office for Civil Rights has shifted to resolving cases involving allegations of discrimination against white students while moving to dismantle diversity, equity and inclusion programs across American institutions. This is what Washington warned of in 1797: the subversion of the power of the people. 

The writer is the founder of the faith-based organization TRB: The Reconciled Body.