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Legal Commentary

Discriminations

who? Discriminations is the joint production of John and Jessie Rosenberg. John is one of the world's older grad students, now completing a 30-year overdue dissertation at Stanford on discrimination. Jessie is a 16 year old junior at Bryn Mawr College majoring in physics.
\r\nwhat? John's focus, not surprisingly, will be on the theory and practice of discrimination, and how it is reported and analyzed.
\r\nJessie's will be discriminating thoughts on ... whatever catches her fancy or attracts her attention. (Email: jrosenbe@brynmawr.edu)

Post Frequency: 13.8/day

Last Entry: April 01, 2011 at 09:31:52

What Did Obama Know, And When Did He Know It?

Posted on March 16, 2008
Obama has said that he only learned of the ?controversial? nature of some of Rev. Jeremiah Wright?s sermons on the eve of his presidential campaign, an assertion that has led many to wonder how he could have been oblivious to Wright?s extreme views during the first 19 years of his membership in Wright?s Trinity United Church of Christ...

The ?Affirmative Action Candidate?

Posted on March 15, 2008
Someone should tell Susan Estrich, former Dukakis campaign manager and continuing Democratic talking head, that when in a hole one should stop digging. Offering her 1¢ worth on the Ferraro firestorm (originally it was 2¢ worth, but I devalued it based on content), Estrich writes: I don't think she in any way meant to put Obama down by pointing to his race as an essential element of his appeal...

Judgment?

Posted on March 15, 2008
Most of the comment I?ve seen about Obama?s relationship with his ranting, raving minister misses the point, as do his various replies yesterday. The point isn?t whether he agrees with Rev. Jeremiah Wright?s anti-American, Farrakhanian fulminations; it?s his judgment in choosing him as a pastor and mentor and remaining in close association with him for 20 years, until he realized the association might cause him political problems...

?How Mismatches Devastate Minority Students?

Posted on March 15, 2008
Gail Heriot, a law professor at the University of San Diego, is a new member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Her Statement accompanying the Commission?s report on affirmative action in law schools is a very good summary of UCLA law professor Richard Sander?s ?mismatch? research, and its implications, on which the report is largely based.

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Why Is Obama Unique?

Posted on March 14, 2008
With so many black members of Congress, why have there been so few black senators and why is Obama the first black candidate with a real chance to be president? According to a fascinating article in today?s Wall Street Journal, Abigail Thernstrom argues with great force that a great deal of the blame must be laid at the feet of the Voting Rights Act...

The Blinding, Self-Defeating Arrogance Of Preferentialists

Posted on March 14, 2008
ColorLines has a long article about the campaign to eliminate racial preferences that, even with its undisguised pro-preference biases, is better than one might expect. One of the things that makes it interesting is that the preferentialists it approvingly quotes, recognizing a friendly forum, are a bit less guarded and circumspect than when they are talking to the mainstream press...

UPATE!

Posted on March 14, 2008
I have now [14 March 9:45 p.m.] UPDATED Ferocious Response To Ferraro?s Remarks for the fourth time. Please read that UPDATE (and the previous three) if you haven?t.

?The Malaise Of Enforced Inequality?

Posted on March 11, 2008
?We live side by side but not together.? That?s how one person recently described ?the fallout from decades of race-based affirmative action policies.? People, she said, ?were fed up.? Those people are in Malaysia, which just handed the governing party a surprise rebuke that was based heavily on a long-simmering rejection of Malaysia?s ?affirmative action? policies...

Ferocious Response To Ferraro?s Remarks

Posted on March 11, 2008
By now everyone knows that Geraldine Ferraro, former Vice Presidential candidate, recently said that if Obama was a white man he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is...

?Diversity? Means Being ?Uncomfortable? And Saying You?re Sorry

Posted on March 11, 2008
?In diversity,? says Terryl J. Ross, director of Oregon State University?s office of community and diversity, ?maybe the two most important words are ?I?m sorry.?? And LaVonda Wagner, who became Oregon State?s women?s basketball coach despite her concerns about OSU?s lack of ?diversity,? said at a recent Martin Luther King breakfast meeting that ?in dealing with issues of race, Oregon State needed to ?get comfortable being uncomfortable...

What?s Black And White And Red All Over?

Posted on March 11, 2008
According to eminent Harvard sociologist Orlando Patterson in a New York Times OpEd today, it?s the red phone in Hillary?s 3 a.m. ad. After ?[r]epeated watching of the ad on YouTube,? Patterson writes, I realized that I had only too often in my study of America?s racial history seen images much like these, and the sentiments to which they allude...

Democrats : Rules :: Oil : Water

Posted on March 10, 2008
Neither Hillary Clinton nor Barack Obama nor any elected, appointed, or self-appointed Democrat that I recall raised any objection when the Democratic National Committee voted to deprive Michigan and Florida of their convention delegates if they violated the DNC ?rule? against moving up their primaries...

What Is It With Brits And Horror Films?

Posted on March 09, 2008
Mark Steyn: Well, we will have Hillary Clinton to kick around some more, at least for another few weeks. The Mummy (as my radio pal Hugh Hewitt calls her) kicked open the sarcophagus door and, despite the rotting bandages dating back to Iowa, began staggering around terrorizing folks all over again...

Is This Any Way To ?Transcend? Race?

Posted on March 08, 2008
Writing in the Weekly Standard this week, Stephen Hayes gets it exactly right. In the speech that launched his meteoric rise in national politics, the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, Barack Obama called for a politics of hope, denounced ?those who are preparing to divide us,? and offered a direct challenge...

Harvard: ?Affirmative Action?s Damning Downsides?

Posted on March 07, 2008
This interesting Harvard Crimson article argues that ?one undeniable downside? of affirmative action at Harvard is ?the element of disrespect it introduces onto our campus.?

Krauthammer?s Near Miss

Posted on March 07, 2008
Charles Krauthammer almost always gets almost everything right. His column today, however, contained an uncharacteristic near miss. His basic point ? that Obama?s promise to transcend race, rise above the old politics, and unite us once again as one nation is contradicted by his own performance in the Senate ? is certainly true, but Krauthammer misses what I think is the most fundamental and telling evidence of that contradiction: Obama?s utterly conventional, utterly partisan, utter old Democratic orthodoxy on racial preferences...

UPDATE

Posted on March 07, 2008
Reading As Racial Harassment (March 6) has been UPDATED.

Reading As Racial Harassment

Posted on March 06, 2008
Keith John Sampson, in his early 50s, does janitorial work at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), where he has been accumulating credits toward a degree in communications studies. IUPUI, however, apparently has a rather narrow view of the sort of communication that is provided by books...

Nebraska: ?Opportunity Hires? And Non-Denial Denials

Posted on March 06, 2008
Given an unexpectedly honest faculty report at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, it appears that ?affirmative action? hiring violates not only the principle of colorblind, non-discriminatory equality but also well-established administrative hiring rules and procedures...

UPDATE

Posted on March 06, 2008
Colorado: The Good Guys Win A Round, posted yesterday, has been updated.

Arizona: Confused And Concerned Over Civil Rights

Posted on March 05, 2008
Watching universities confront the possibility of having civil rights imposed on them is almost humorous. Almost. As case in point is the University of Arizona, as revealed in this article in the Daily Wildcat. ?We?re trying to educate our campus,? said Ezekiel Gebrekidane, a chemistry senior and member of the African American Student Advisory Board...

Colorado: The Good Guys Win A Round

Posted on March 05, 2008
About two weeks ago I wrote about Deviousness And Duplicity From Colorado Preferentialists, which discussed the effort of opponents of colorblind equality to defeat the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative by ?dissembling and confusion.? Those opponents proposed a fraudulent initiative of their own whose first clause purported, in language identical to the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative, to prohibit all state preferential treatment of individuals or groups based on race, ethnicity, etc...

Missouri: Who?s ?Deceptive,? Who?s Uninformed?

Posted on March 03, 2008
Missouri opponents of colorblind equality are hauling out the same arguments that have been tried, and that failed, in California, Washington, and Michigan. The latest example is the charge by a group opposing the Missouri Civil Rights Initiative that supporters of the initiative are ?deceptive? for describing a proposal that would ban preferential treatment based on race, etc...

Just Words II

Posted on February 27, 2008
I?ve discussed the plagiarism charge against Obama before, but, unlike nearly all commentators major and minor, I?d like to return to it. I?m surprised, I confess, that the charge didn?t have more bite. Not that his offense was so horrible ? indeed, in the aftermath of the charge numerous examples of Hillary and others doing something similar surfaced ? but both Obama and his media acolytes had made such a big deal out of his speechifying, etc...

The HBCU Presidents Who Almost Got Away...

Posted on February 25, 2008
I have frequently noted the irony, or worse (hypocrisy?), of ?civil rights? advocates loudly proclaiming that pigmentary ?diversity? is indispensable to a decent education even as they also loudly sing the praises of, and seek more funding for, historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), perhaps the least ?diverse? institutions in the country...

Deviousness And Duplicity From Colorado Preferentialists

Posted on February 23, 2008
Given all the evidence that piled up in California, Washington, and Michigan (regarding the latter, most has been referenced here), my noting once again that opponents of colorblind equality habitually stoop to deviousness and duplicity is about as surprising (and about as vulnerable to successful contradiction) as noting that the sun rises in the east...

Michelle Obama?s Thesis

Posted on February 23, 2008
As several others have noted recently, Princeton University, demonstrating the openness and dedication to the free and unfettered exchange of ideas, no matter how controversial, for which American higher education is noted, decided to make Michelle Obama?s 1985 senior thesis unavailable until Nov...

Denial Styles

Posted on February 22, 2008
Today, linking Josh Marshall, Mickey Kaus discusses John McCain?s ?distinctly un-Clintonesque style of blanket denial.? Emboldened by that reference, and taking license from the fact that today is the birthday of the president, George Washington, who ?could not tell a lie? by denying that he chopped down the cherry tree, I hereby revive an old post (really old: August 22, 2002) paying homage to the impressive and quite distinctive denial style of Clinton Inc...

Did The Obamas Benefit From Affirmative Action?

Posted on February 20, 2008
Washington Post opinion columnist Ruth Marcus went online today to answer questions. Here?s one, and her answer: Herndon, Va.: Is an Obama Presidency the end of Affirmative Action? After all, won't it be incredibly unfair for a kid mailing in her college application from the White House to receive preferential treatment while a kid with better grades from the wrong side of the tracks doesn't -- just because of his race? Ruth Marcus: Sen...

Just Words?

Posted on February 19, 2008
How ironic that Obama should scold Clinton Inc. ? ?Don?t tell me that words don?t matter!? ? in a rousing speech using, nearly verbatim, a whole litany of words there were not his, and that his defense ? ?Obama said he does not think using Patrick?s words was ?too big a deal?? ? was so rhetorically lame...

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