The Idaho Way: Plantation name change
By Scott McIntosh, Opinion editor
Plantation Country Club is changing its name, in an apparent reaction to the word plantation’s racist past.
It’s a welcome change to a name that’s steeped in our country’s history of slavery.
The California business Glass Creek LLC purchased the longtime Garden City golf course and country club on State Street in December 2018.
“We felt from the beginning that ‘Plantation Country Club’ did not reflect the vision we had for the Club’s future: a modern, inclusive, and welcoming Club for all members of the community,” general manager Jayson Petersen wrote in a Facebook post Wednesday evening.
Read my full column about how this is part of changes across the country.
Supreme Court ruling on workplace discrimination
Human rights are not special rights.
One of the more puzzling arguments against Idaho’s Add the Words movement is a complaint that “we shouldn’t be giving people special rights.”
Monday’s ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court affirms that we aren’t talking about “special rights.” We’re just talking about basic human rights.
Specifically, in the 6-3 ruling issued Monday, the Supreme Court ruled that people who are gay or transgender cannot be fired based on the fact that they are gay or transgender.
“An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the court. “Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids.”
Our editorial board welcomed Monday’s ruling and looked at ahead to what should be next.
Stanley to Redfish Trail
In case you missed it, here’s a link to my column about the proposed trail connecting Stanley and Redfish Lake.
It’s a complicated story for such a short stretch of trail, and it’s a developing story as it makes its way through the court. But it’s an important little stretch of trail that will have lasting impacts if built where it’s being proposed.
Black Lives Matter
It’s deplorable that this would happen in Boise, but someone shouted a racial slur at a Black woman in Hyde Park this month.
The woman, Charlene Taylor, was kind enough to share her story and her thoughts about the incident and the impact of white silence on the current civil unrest we’re going through.
You can read her poignant column here.
What you’re saying
We had some interesting perspectives on the news this week. You wrote to us about social media as feeding an addiction to outrage, the Boise bike bar and the Invest in Idaho education initiative effort. You can read these letters and more by clicking here.
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