Civil rights are not reversible. Once the ratchet of rights has been opened, they cannot tighten.

This was the argument of Martin Luther King, Jr, who stated numerous times, including after the famous march to Selma, that “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Reversals on the protection of individual rights are not just ethically wrong, but they are also constitutionally impermissible.

The Iowa Legislature’s decision to repeal civil rights protections for members of the transgender community is problematic for many reasons.

For one, it flies in the face of the first three words of the U.S. Constitution, “We the people.”

Former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, on the anniversary of the bicentennial of the Constitution, once declared that these three words were a promise that in 1787 were far from real. The framers who drafted the Constitution created a document that allowed for slavery. It did not call for the right to vote. It also failed to protect the rights of women, the poor, and members of religious minorities who were denied the protections that “We the people” proclaimed.

But Marshall was an optimist as he read American history. He argued that the Civil War, the civil rights movement, the women’s right movement, the constitutional amendments, and even the push post-Stonewall to address discrimination against members of the LGBTQ+ community spoke to the arc of history expanding rights and making the promise of “We the people” more real for all.

He was right. America has become a fairer, more just, and equal society because of anti-discrimination laws. We have developed, as described in the law, a reliance interest in not being discriminated against by the government, or where we work, shop, or live.

Over time, the courts, Congress, and the states have sought to level the playing field by banning discrimination against people of color, women, and gays and lesbians. For the latter, decisions by the Supreme Court such as Obergefell v. Hodges declaring that the Constitution protects the rights of same-sex couples to marry, or Bostock v. Clayton County declaring that the 1964 Civil Rights Act bars employment discrimination against gays and lesbians, show how evolving standards of justice can protect groups previously excluded from “We the people.”

There are in recent years state and federal court decisions that have come to recognize that discrimination against members of the trans community is no less invidious than other forms of discrimination

In the process of fighting for the rights of gays and lesbians there were setbacks. But in 1996, in Romer v. Evans, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that retrenchment on civil rights was unconstitutional. In that case Colorado cities such as Denver and Boulder made discrimination against gays and lesbians illegal. The State of Colorado then sought to override these anti-discrimination laws.

The Supreme Court declared this override unconstitutional. The court argued that repeal of such laws effectively targeted gays and lesbians by withdrawing from them the same rights not to be discriminated against that everyone else in society enjoyed. In effect, once you say you cannot legally discriminate against someone, that withdrawal is a violation of the Constitution.

In repealing its laws banning discrimination against members of the trans community, what the Iowa Legislature is saying is that it is yet again permissible to discriminate against these individuals. It is saying that they are no longer entitled to the same legal protection as everyone else in Iowa. This is no different than passing laws saying it is okay to discriminate. It is effectively saying that members of the trans community can be treated separately and unequally compared to the rest of us.

This is contrary to Romer v. Evans, the Constitution, and the promise of “We the People” which is supposed to be ever more inclusive and arcing toward justice and fairness for all.

David Schultz is Hamline University Distinguished Professor of Political Science in St. Paul, Minnesota, and an adjunct professor of law at the University of Saint Thomas. This opinion is republished from Iowa Capital Dispatch.