Who is Really Politically Correct?

Back in the 1990’s I lived in Lexington, KY. The city was the first in the state to pass a “Fairness Ordinance” barring discrimination against LGBT people in housing, employment, or public accommodations. (Louisville had a similar ordinance but it did not include bisexual or transgender people.) After two city council meetings filled with opposition and controversy the ordinance passed. A few weeks later I was on a business trip to a distant part of the state. A local woman there, when she heard I was from Lexington, brought up the Fairness ordinance and said, “I think that city council up there just wanted to look politically correct. I think all this gay stuff is just about political correctness.”

She did not know that I was a gay man, nor that I served on the Lexington Fairness Campaign which had created the wording and the organized drive for that ground-breaking ordinance. We weren’t trying to “look good” to some group of people; we wanted equal treatment under the law in a time and place where LGBT people had few protections. I never mixed politics with my professional work with the public – I had to train and work with people across the political spectrum – so I let the comment slide. But I have never forgotten it. It was dismissive of an effort to get equal treatment under the law.

The memory resurfaced again today when I read about President Biden’s nomination of Dr. Rachel Levine as Assistant Secretary of Health with the U.S. Department of Health and Human services. Dr. Levine is well qualified, but also transgender and, if confirmed, will be the first transgender person to ever be confirmed to a Federal post by the U.S. Senate. Predictably, there are already charges from conservatives that this appointment was all about “political correctness.” Pardon me?  

Dr. Levine is a highly qualified healthcare professional, a former Physician General of Pennsylvania and currently serving as their State Secretary of Health. She is a credentialed pediatrician, a graduate of Harvard and Tulane Medical School, and a Professor of Pediatrics and Psychiatry at the Penn State College of Medicine. Her current state position required her confirmation by a Republican-controlled state senate. She won accolades for spearheading the state’s response to the corona virus pandemic and has decades of professional practice and administrative managing of medical care. We are fortunate to have someone with her credentials in this position.

When you hear her appointment – and others like it – labeled as mere “political correctness” it means the accuser believes the person is unqualified apart from belonging to a politically favored group; that her appointment is just meant to look good to certain people. It is a slur on the reputation of qualified professionals. The “PC” charge is not like nepotism where, for example, a public official appoints his children and in-laws to positions for which they have zero expertise. Rather, nominations such as Dr. Levine’s mean that qualified individuals are no longer barred from consideration because of ignorance and bigotry. They can be freely and fairly considered for positions for which they are highly qualified without the fear that irrelevant issues such as sexual orientation or gender identity are viewed as pertinent. It is the exact opposite of being politically correct. It means that person has been appointed despite the likelihood the ignorant and the bigots will scream their heads off. It’s not being “politically correct;” it’s being fair.

In fact, denying equal treatment to groups of people in order to curry favor among voters can more legitimately be viewed as trying to be politically correct, because the discrimination is not based any actual facts about the individual but on the political persuasions of the person doing the appointing without reference to the person’s credentials. It’s just as “politically correct” to deny an appointment because of belonging to some group as it is to appoint them for belonging to some group. In both cases. it ignores the individual’s actual qualifications.

“Politically correct” has become conservative short-hand for not having to consider an individual’s actual fitness for a position. In the coming days we are likely to hear a lot of accusations of political correctness as a liberal and progressive administration recognizes people of color, LGBT Americans, Native People’s and other groups “suspect” to conservatives. It is a mentally lazy way to snub individuals and reduce respect for their work once they are in place. It is also a big, red flag revealing far more about the person making the PC accusation than anyone else.  

When you hear “politically correct” aimed at anyone, take a look at who they are speaking about, and then take a longer and harder look at the person saying it.

Tikkun Olam,

AB