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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

Speech Codes Worked

Posted on January 29, 2008
Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, former George Washington University president with impeccable Ivy League credentials (Columbia College, Harvard MPA, Yale Law), writes on the Chronicle of Higher Education blog that campus political correctness and speech codes worked...

Breaking The Rules By Playing The Race And Gender Cards (What Rules?)

Posted on January 29, 2008
Stuart Taylor Jr. had an excellent column yesterday in the National Journal on the perils of playing the race and gender cards. He joins David Brooks of the New York Times in lamenting that the Democrats have turned the ?verbal thuggery? they?ve long used ?against critics of affirmative action [and of] radical feminism? against each other...

Double Standard(s) At New York NOW?

Posted on January 28, 2008
The New York chapter of NOW has just accused Ted Kennedy of ?the ultimate betrayal? because of his ?endorsement of Hillary Clinton?s opponent? for the Democratic presidential nomination. (HatTip to Politico via InstaPundit). Hell hath no fury, etc. No real surprise that a women?s group would get angry at anyone not supporting the woman, but this I find interesting: He?s picked the new guy over us...

Obama Gains Support By Omitting Race

Posted on January 28, 2008
According to a Duke University professor, Obama has gained the support of a new generation of young blacks precisely because of his ?color-blind? approach to politics. A large majority of the young Democrats who cast ballots in the South Carolina primary voted for Barack Obama...

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?Diversity For Thee But Not For Me?

Posted on January 27, 2008
Fred Schwarz has a wonderful column on ?diversity,? or the lack thereof. He notes, among other nice tidbits, that both Hillary and Obama went to un-diverse colleges, and Hillary, pointing to herself, lauds the benefits of her choice. And Obama? Obama is unlikely to praise Columbia?s all-male policy, which few at the time saw as anything but an anachronism, but he has been a strong supporter of HBCUs (historically black colleges and universities), recently introducing legislation to increase their federal funding...

George Will!

Posted on January 27, 2008
George Will has a terrific column today on the initiatives to ban racial preference that are attempting to be placed on the ballots of five states next November. He excoriates (almost as much as they deserve) the Missouri Democrats who have tried ? so far unsuccessfully ? to defeat the initiative there by rewriting it, and he notes the contradiction of ?[a]dvocates of affirmative action? everywhere who ?have long denied that it involves racial preferences? but who now insist ?that a ban on such preferences would eliminate all affirmative action...

Would President Obama Listen To Candidate Obama?

Posted on January 27, 2008
Barack Obama gave a stirring victory speech in South Carolina last night. If he is elected, I hope President Obama remembers, and acts on, what Candidate Obama said. Candidate Obama rejected the same old tactics that divide and distract us from solving the problems people face...

Do Hillary And Barack Undercut The Argument For ?Diversity??

Posted on January 25, 2008
When Democratic politicians, pundits, and the press are not battling over race and gender, over whether blacks have been ?disrespected? more than women, or vice versa, they all tend to congratulate themselves for being on the verge of ?making history,? of nominating a black or a woman to be president...

Are Racial Preferences Really Necessary?

Posted on January 24, 2008
In a move that will surprise no one, the Missouri NAACP ?opposes petition to end discrimination-based affirmative action.? Of course it does, because it actually supports ?discrimination-based affirmative action.? And here is something else that, after similar misrepresentations in the recent campaign for an identical initiative in Michigan, is not a surprise: opponents make assertions that simply are not true...

?The Louis Farrakhan Of The Midwest?

Posted on January 24, 2008
The Nebraska legislature has only chamber, and, fortunately for all concerned, that one chamber has only one Chambers ? Sen. Ernie Chambers, described by someone as ?the angriest black man in Nebraska? and by someone else as ?the Louis Farrakhan of the midwest...

Playing The Race Deck

Posted on January 24, 2008
Clinton Inc. has gone so far beyond playing the race card in South Carolina that what it is doing can only be called playing the race deck. The plan, as Dick Morris and others have noted, is to ?ghettoize? Obama as a black candidate, driving up Hillary?s numbers among whites and Hispanics...

Equality: It?s Good Politics

Posted on January 23, 2008
A few days ago, as I noted here, Mickey Kaus argued that McCain ?could get right with GOP conservatives and virtually guarantee his nomination? if he would do one thing: ?Promise that he won't press for his ?comprehensive immigration reform? legislation during his first term...

Political Parties And Identity

Posted on January 23, 2008
Do political parties have an essence, character, identity? Insofar as they do, this unfolding campaign season suggests that our two parties are remarkably different ? not simply in their politics and policies, which is a truism, but in who they actually are...

?Affirmative Discrimination?

Posted on January 23, 2008
The U.S. in 1975, via Nathan Glazer, Affirmative Discrimination (Basic Books, 1975) [quoted here]: [Racial and ethnic preferences will lead to] a real Balkanization, in which group after group struggles for the benefits of special treatment.... The demand for special treatment will lead to animus against other groups that already have it, by those who think they should have it and don't...

Does Colorblind Non-Discrimination Violate Human Rights?

Posted on January 22, 2008
Hans Bader of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a frequent commenter here, points to a decision by the Prince William County, Virginia, Human Rights Commission to investigate a decision by the county school board to substitute a policy of colorblind non-discrimination for its old policy of race- and gender-based hiring...

The Democratic Racial Pot Continues To Boil

Posted on January 22, 2008
In a post discussing, among other things, the endorsement of Hillary by Rev. Calvin Butts of Harlem?s Abyssinian Baptist Church (here), I wrote that ?if either Obama or Hillary is elected the ?change? will be adding charges of ?disrespect,? but why wait till the last minute? Today the Los Angeles Times reports that ?Charles Perry, a trustee of Abyssinian Baptist Church, which Hillary Clinton visited Sunday, said he found the ?fairy tale? reference disrespectful...

King?s Birthday

Posted on January 21, 2008
Rather than attempting to say something original on Martin Luther King?s birthday, let me instead point to three posts I originally wrote ? here, here, and here. If I attempted to write something new today, it would wind up doing no more than repeating what?s in these three.

Guilt Trip Fit For A King?

Posted on January 21, 2008
The Rev. Peter Johnson of Dallas, described here as an ?M.L. King ally,? says the King Holiday is ?an insult.? (HatTip to Drudge) ?We have ignored the essence of his life and the horror of his death,? said Johnson. ?We?ve allowed white America to escape the guilt of his assassination and we?ve allowed black America to drift back into a coma...

A Question For Democrats

Posted on January 21, 2008
Do Democrats support or oppose ?race-based decisions?? I think that?s a good question (or I wouldn?t have asked). I assume that Hillary Clinton, at least at the moment, opposes voting for candidates based on their race. She probably believes that qualifications, experience, etc...

Diversity Training Doesn?t Work

Posted on January 20, 2008
Today?s Washington Post reports on a new study confirming what many people already suspected, conventional wisdom, or at least practice, to the contrary notwithstanding. Most diversity training efforts at American companies are ineffective and even counterproductive in increasing the number of women and minorities in managerial positions, according to an analysis that turns decades of conventional wisdom, government policy and court rulings on their head...

Are Obama & Clinton Above Criticism II?

Posted on January 20, 2008
In this recent post I discussed what some regard as the very real possibility that it is impossible to criticize Obama without being called a racist or Hillary (or is that Billary?) without being called a sexist. The evidence mounts: Women turn on ?traitor? Oprah Winfrey for backing Barack Obama...

McCain & Conservatives

Posted on January 20, 2008
Mickey Kaus suggests, wisely, that McCain ?could get right with GOP conservatives and virtually guarantee his nomination? if he would do one thing: Promise that he won't press for his ?comprehensive immigration reform? legislation during his first term...

Los Angeles Times News Article Opposes Civil Rights Initiatives

Posted on January 19, 2008
Today the Los Angeles Times has a huge, three-column wide article by staff writer Stephanie Simon beginning in the center of the first page, above the fold, on the campaign to pass civil rights initiatives banning racial preferences in five states next November...

Would President Clinton Or President Obama Be Beyond Criticism?

Posted on January 19, 2008
Robin Givhan, Washington Post style/fashion writer, has a column today about the difficulty, perhaps impossibility, of crossing the linguistic minefield of race and gender without getting blown up. We simply lack an adequate vocabulary to discuss race, and are not in much better shape regarding gender...

More On Ms. Hillary And Civil Rights

Posted on January 18, 2008
In his excellent column this morning Charles Krauthammer reminds us that the initial cause of the Democrats? recent race riot was Hillary?s Jan. 7 comment, ?Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964...

Distilled Democratic Nonsense

Posted on January 18, 2008
According to a CBS News article, the sponsors of the recent Democratic ?debate? in Las Vegas ? the Nevada Democratic Party, the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, and 100 Black Men of America, Inc., partnered with several local groups: the African-American Democratic Leadership Council, Impacto and the College of Southern Nevada ? were ?disappointed? by the ?lack of minority talk at the debate...

Wops, Blacks, And Girls

Posted on January 18, 2008
Christopher Hitchens has a wonderful column today in the Wall Street Journal on ?The Perils of Identity Politics.? He criticizes both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for purposefully keeping us mired in the politics of race and gender, arguing with great force that people who think with their epidermis or their genitalia or their clan are the problem to begin with...

Michigan Doublespeak Moves To Nebraska

Posted on January 18, 2008
In opposing the proposed initiative that would bar the state and its agencies from discriminating against or granting preferential treatment to individuals based on their race or ethnicity the University of Nebraska has said that ?admissions and hiring decisions are not based solely on race and that they instead try to recruit more minority candidates...

Do Clintons Lie? Do Skunks Smell?

Posted on January 17, 2008
I have argued on more than one occasion (here?s one; here?s another) that it makes no more sense to be angry at Clintons for lying and skulduggery than it does to be angry at skunks for smelling bad. Now George Will has taken up that point and run with it, making it much better than I did: America has passed another milestone on its march to equal opportunity thanks to Robert Johnson, founder of Black Entertainment Television, who this week proved that a black billionaire can be just as witless as are certain white billionaires who think their wisdom is commensurate with their net worth...

Berkeley Humor II

Posted on January 16, 2008
A little over a week ago I posted a discussion of Berkeley Humor, based on a report by some Berkeley professors that race-baiting would emerge as a serious issue during the 2008 presidential campaign. My post took off from a posting on a Chronicle of Higher Education blog by Peter Schmidt, and now Schmidt is back with a follow-up that also deserves additional comment here, since it adds yet more fuel to the burning fire of Berkeley humor...

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