A Wisconsin chief justice faced backlash for blaming a county's coronavirus outbreak on meatpacking employees, not 'regular folks'

• Wisconsin Chief Justice Patience Roggensack was blasted for her remarks saying the uptick in coronavirus cases in Brown County was due to meatpacking employees testing positive and not "regular folks."
• Brown County, Wisconsin — where a JBS meatpacking plant is located — saw a rise in coronavirus cases after reported cases at the plant increased ten fold, from 60 cases to more than 800 in the span of two weeks, The Washington Post reported.
• Some people said it was "elitist" for separating meatpacking workers from "regular folks" of a state county.
• Others came to defense of Roggensack, noting that her comment was simply referring to the way the coronavirus spread.

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A Wisconsin Supreme Court justice was condemned for her offhand comment blaming a state county's coronavirus case flare-up on meatpacking employees and not "regular folks."

Brown County, Wisconsin — where a JBS meatpacking plant is located — saw an uptick in coronavirus cases after reported cases at the plant increased ten fold, from 60 cases to more than 800 in the span of two weeks, The Washington Post reported.

An attorney for Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers defended the need for the state's stay-at-home orders, citing the JBS plant as an example of the rapid spread of the coronavirus during oral arguments discussing the legality of the orders.

Chief Justice Patience Roggensack interjected in response, saying the cases "were due to the meatpacking, though. That's where Brown County got the flare. It wasn't just the regular folks in Brown County."

Roggensack faced backlash for the comment, with some people calling it "elitist" and "classist" to separate meatpackers from "regular" folk of the county. Melanie Bartholf, political director of the local union of United Food and Commercial Workers, said, "Regular folks work in meatpacking plants."

"Our members who work at these packing plants, who work at JBS and other plants across the state, are literally putting their lives one the line every single day so you and I can have food on our tables, and they deserve every possible protection," she told The Post.

Christine Neumann-Ortiz, director of Voces de la Frontera and workers' advocate, told WISN that she considers the remark racist.

"That it was a racist comment and an elitist comment," Neumann-Ortiz told WISN. "She was saying the lives of black and brown workers in these meatpacking facilities were less worthy than the lives of others."

Some came to defense of Roggensack, noting that her comment was simply referring to the way the coronavirus spread.

"She used the term 'regular folks.' I don't think that's exactly what she meant," Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty President Rick Esenberg told WISN. "She wasn't making any type of racist, or elitist or classist comments about the people who worked at the meatpacking plant."

Claire Paprocki, a spokeswoman for the county health department, said during a daily briefing, "It's extremely important to note that COVID-19 is not an industry-specific issue, nor is one facility in Brown County to blame for the outbreak, "according to The Post report.

"We can't point fingers or point to one source that caused the type of numbers that we're seeing in Brown County," she continued, adding that it is "just as likely" for the virus to spread if "you go over to your neighbor's house and have an adult beverage in their driveway as if you were working at a meat plant."