Unequal application of the law has dire ramifications

OPINION:

The French, whose agricultural roots are often reflected in their adages, have a saying when confronted with unfairness: “deux poids, deux mesures” (“two weights, two measures”). We Americans tend to use the formulation “double standard.” For lawyers, the applicable terminology is “equal protection.” All of these formulas address the vital matter of elementary fairness in our societal dealings.

In sophisticated societies such as ours, the rule of law is considered the pillar on which fairness is based. Appropriately, our nation has, since the days of the Founding Fathers, proclaimed its devotion to the adherence to the rule of law and the fair application of the law. The notion of equal protection under the law for all of our citizens was incorporated into the Constitution and made applicable to every American through the 14th Amendment after the Civil War.

Due to legal requirements and our own commonsense expectations, Americans have presumed that our laws would be applied fairly to all. We know that this has not always been the case, but it has assuredly been a national aspiration. Today, however, many in our leadership class do not seem to share this aspiration and fail to promote it.

Over the last few years, we have been witness to a selective application of certain laws concerning the maintenance of order in our public spaces. Recent high-profile events seem to confirm the failure of many authorities to adhere to any sense of equal protection, and no recent event has more flagrantly demonstrated this failure than the demonstrations that took place last week during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Washington.

While the prime minister was addressing a joint session of Congress, demonstrators protested his visit in front of Union Station a couple of blocks from the U.S. Capitol. In the course of the unauthorized gathering, the participants took down the American flags from the tall flagpoles in front of Union Station and replaced them with Palestinian flags. Then they took one of the American flags and set it on fire using fluid that they had brought with them (indicating premeditation).

Not satisfied with burning the flag, some demonstrators went on to vandalize a statue and other public monuments. They overtly and in full public view wrote hateful propaganda on the statuary. Using red paint, several vandals wrote a variety of pro-Hamas statements on a statue, thereby promoting a group that our government has recognized as a terrorist organization. They also intimidated passersby whom they presumed to be opposed to their ideology (as videos sent to me indicate).

Those were reprehensible acts, but they were overshadowed by the actions (or, more accurately, the inaction) of our public authorities.

As the destruction of the American flag (an item of public property) and the vandalizing of the public monuments were ongoing, our law enforcement officials were engaging in their own form of desecration. They stood by and did nothing. Worse, by standing aside, they seemed to encourage the lawbreakers.

The inaction of the police gave the impression that our local government approves of the destructive actions of the pro-Hamas demonstrators. A failure to enforce the law and to prevent the destruction of public property is nothing short of an endorsement of the lawbreaking action. Thus, by standing down, as D.C. police did at Union Station, the anti-American, pro-Hamas demonstrators were given tacit approval of their reprehensible actions.

It can be noted that the police inaction at Union Station is reminiscent of the unwillingness of our authorities to act during the “mostly peaceful demonstrations” of 2020 or, more recently, to remove the obstructive and destructive pro-Hamas encampment at George Washington University, despite calls from university administrators for them to do so.

Yet worse is juxtaposing the manner in which our law enforcement authorities are treating those who call for the destruction of our society by promoting barbarism and terrorism with how the “insurrectionists” of Jan. 6, 2021, have been treated. Of course, all those who engaged in violence on Jan. 6 deserved to be prosecuted. Still, the obsessive manner in which the nonviolent participants have been pursued stands in stark contrast to the gentle treatment being afforded to the current spate of violent anti-American and pro-Hamas demonstrators.

It is assuredly time to return to fundamental legal and moral concepts in enforcing our laws. A growing sense of unfairness in applying our laws, if not remedied, will ultimately destroy the foundation of our society. We are reminded of this in the book of Deuteronomy, the fifth book of the Bible, where it is written: “You will not keep two different measures, one large and one small. Rather, you will keep a full and honest weight and full and honest measure, in order that your days may be prolonged on the land which the Lord your God gives you.”

As a society, if we want to protect and preserve the nation that we have been bestowed, we must always strive to apply our laws fairly and evenhandedly. Unfairness breeds anger, and anger breeds violence, which destroys nations. Our laws are enacted to protect all of our citizens equally, not to promote a particular political agenda. It is high time that our law enforcement leaders embraced this most fundamental principle.

• Gerard Leval is a partner in the Washington office of a national law firm. He is the author of “Lobbying for Equality: Jacques Godard and the Struggle for Jewish Civil Rights During the French Revolution,” published by HUC Press.