Legal Commentary

Where Will This End?

Posted on May 19, 2009
We?ve seen (most recently here, citing six earlier discussions) that the New Haven Fire Department refused to promote anyone to lieutenant or captain because no blacks passed the required exam. Now, thanks to Roger Clegg?s note on NRO?s Bench Memos, I see from an article in the Washington Post that the College Board has dropped an Advanced Placement exam in Latin, explaining that its decision ?was related to the number of minority students taking the exam...

?Diversity? As Racial Balancing

Posted on May 18, 2009
Can anyone explain to me the difference between ?diversity,? as actually practiced (which distinguishes it from promoting actual diversity), and ?racial balancing?? It?s an important, even crucial, distinction, since the Supreme Court has repeatedly made it clear that racial balancing ?for its own sake? is impermissible...

What To Make Of Obama?s Warning That Our Debt Is ?Unsustainable??

Posted on May 15, 2009
Some behavior is so vile that it is described as beneath contempt (?It's so contemptible that it doesn?t even rise to the level of contemptibility. Contemptible is too flattering a designation for anything so contemptible?.) How then do you describe comments that provide such a bizarrely, breathtakingly audacious indictment of the speaker's own policies as to leave critics tongue-tied, incapable of coherent criticism? I am thinking, of course, of President Obama?s warning yesterday that our long-term debt is ?unsustainable?: May 14 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama, calling current deficit spending ?unsustainable,? warned of skyrocketing interest rates for consumers if the U...

NJ Med Student Expelled For Calling Himself ?White African American?

Posted on May 14, 2009
ABC News reported yesterday that University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey medical student Paolo Serodio was called into the dean?s office several times, forced to undergo a psychiatric exam, and finally expelled for responding to a question by ?identifying himself during a class cultural exercise as a ?white African-American...

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Should Supreme Court Justices Be Selected On The Basis Of Looks?

Posted on May 13, 2009
Apparently so, at least in part, according to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the only woman currently on the Court. Before O?Connor?s retirement three years ago, Ginsburg said in a speech last month at Ohio State, ?people could see that women came in all sizes and shapes, we didn?t look alike, and we didn?t talk alike...

Diversity Pointers, Poynter?s Diversity

Posted on May 12, 2009
The Poynter Institute is a combination post-graduate school, standard setter, and ethics and diversity watchdog for American journalism, perhaps the most influential such center in the country. Although its hope to instill a ?recognition of the value of diversity in the newsroom and in life? is only one of nine items listed on its Mission Statement, it doesn?t take much time exploring the content and links of its various web pages to determine that preaching ?diversity? is pervasive at Poynter...

Elites Out Of Touch? Who Knew!

Posted on May 11, 2009
The estimable Michael Barone writes today that ?On Guns and Climate, The Elites Are Out of Touch,? and he cites compelling polling data to support that conclusion. Many years ago, political scientists came up with a theory that elites lead public opinion...

A Good Argument For Diversity

Posted on May 11, 2009
Donald A. Downs, a professor of many things at the University of Wisconsin (politics, law, journalism), makes a good argument for diversity in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Some of you will have noticed that here I?m not putting ?diversity? in quotes (though I just did, to mark the word)...

The Moonbeamish Argument Of Calif. AG Jerry Brown

Posted on May 10, 2009
Governor Moonbeam is back, reincarnated as California?s Attorney General. ?During two terms as Governor of California and two failed bids for the presidency,? Time Magazine wrote back in 1989, at the beginning of his political rebirth, Jerry Brown, to some, symbolized visionary political leadership...

Is Judge Sotomayor ?A Wise Latina Woman??

Posted on May 10, 2009
I?m a little late to the party of looking at Judge Sonia Sotomayer, who seems to be on everyone?s short list as a possible replacement for Justice Souter. But, better late than never. Actually after the reporting of Verum Serum, who unearthed the original article in the Berkeley La Raza Law Journal (S...

Testing ... Testing ....

Posted on May 08, 2009
[NOTE: An ADDENDUM was added to this post at 7:55AM Today] Another controversy over testing has broken out in New England. (For the mother of all testing controversies, recently argued in the Supreme Court, see here, here, here, here, and here.) Governor Deval Patrick, who once headed the Civil Rights Division of the US Justice Department, plans to appeal a federal court ruling that allows minority police officers to pursue a civil rights lawsuit challenging the state's promotional exam...

Racialism At The FCC: Un-Diverse ?Diversity? Committee, Unbalanced Support For Balance?

Posted on May 07, 2009
Two days ago Fox News reported a growing controversy over an un-diverse ?diversity? committee at the Federal Communications Commission (HatTip to InstaPundit). A diversity committee at the Federal Communications Commission is raising the hackles of conservative watchdogs who say its ideological makeup is hardly diverse...

Empathy And Colorblindness

Posted on May 06, 2009
In July 2007 candidate Obama clearly announced what his standard would be for nominating judges: We need somebody who's got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom. The empathy to understand what it's like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old...

Another Obama Promise Bites The Dust...

Posted on May 06, 2009
The lede from an article today in USA Today: WASHINGTON ? Although President Obama has vowed that citizens will be able to track ?every dime? of the $787 billion stimulus bill, a government website dedicated to the spending won?t have details on contracts and grants until October and may not be complete until next spring ? halfway through the program, administration officials said...

The Specter Specter

Posted on May 04, 2009
spec·ter n. 1. A ghostly apparition; a phantom. 2. A haunting or disturbing image or prospect: the terrible specter of nuclear war Darlin? Arlen gave a hilarious imitation of himself as Ponderous Senator on Meet The Press yesterday. When David Gregory asked him what kind of justice President Obama should pick to replace retiring Justice David Souter, Specter replied: He should be looking for someone with a strong academic and professional background...

My 15 Minutes (Actually, 45) Of Fame...

Posted on May 04, 2009
I was a guest today on Rob Schilling?s Charlottesville radio talk show today. Podcast can be found here. I?ve written about Rob several times before, such as The Intolerance Of Virginia Bluebloods on March 6, 2006: No, I don?t mean the bluebloods you?re probably thinking of ? aristocrats or descendants of aristocrats or aristocrat wannabes...

SAT Hypocrisy?

Posted on May 02, 2009
I?ve just read a fascinating, impressive article on the SAT by Charles Murray, who argues, perhaps surprisingly, that it should be abolished. Briefly, he argues for getting rid of the SAT because it?s ?a red herring? with a bad (though wholly undeserved) reputation, and that nothing of value would be lost since the SAT II/Achievement tests are equally useful at predicting college grades...

The Continuing ?Diversity? Debate In The Virginia State Bar

Posted on May 01, 2009
The Continuing ?Diversity? Debate In The Virginia State Bar Back in March I had a long post on a raging debate inside the Virginia State Bar over ?diversity,? and I encourage you to read it (or better, re-read it) before reading below about the continuation of this controversy that appears in the April 2009 issue of Virginia Lawyer with a new round of ?diversity? critiques and defenses...

Section 5 As The New ?Bloody Shirt?

Posted on April 30, 2009
I have written before, such as here, that just as Republicans waved the ?bloody shirt? for a generation after the Civil War in an attempt to keep the Democrats branded as the party of slaveholders and rebellion, it is a staple of liberal and Democratic argument today to refer almost continuously to the Nixon/Reagan ?Southern Strategy? in an attempt to reinforce black, liberal, and independent rejection of current Republicans...

Good News: Rick Hasen Is Worried The Supremes May ?Kill The Voting Rights Act?!

Posted on April 29, 2009
Loyala Law School Professor Rick Hasen, who writes the Election Law Blog and is a highly regarded authority on, you guessed it, election law, has an article on SLATE today expressing his concern, even fear, that the Supreme Court may invalidate a key section of the Voting Rights Law...

Hole In The Poll

Posted on April 27, 2009
The New York Times/CBS Poll released today found that Barack Obama?s presidency seems to be altering the public perception of race relations in the United States. Two-thirds of Americans now say race relations are generally good and the percentage of blacks who say so has doubled since last July...

Diversity And Excellence: ?Additives,? Not Alternatives?

Posted on April 26, 2009
Michèle Lamont is a professor of just about everything at Harvard (Robert I. Goldman Professor of European Studies and Professor of Sociology and African and African American Studies, and Senior Adviser on Faculty Development and Diversity, Faculty of Arts and Sciences)...

Rickety Ricci IV: A Dilly From Philly

Posted on April 23, 2009
I thought I was through writing about Ricci (see here, here, and here). After all, the Supremes just heard the argument, and nothing more will happen until the case is decided. But then I just saw Editorial: Racism in the firehouse in the Philadelphia Inquirer, and it deserves comment...

Are We Really Becoming More ?Diverse?? Does It Really Matter?

Posted on April 23, 2009
This morning Inside Higher Ed notes the publication of yet another report calling for more ?diversity? in higher education, this one from the Council of Graduate Schools. ?Our nation is becoming increasingly diverse, yet Hispanic and African American students are highly underrepresented in graduate schools, particularly in fields such as science and engineering, where each group makes up less than 10 percent of graduate enrollment and approximately 5 percent of new Ph...

California Att?y Gen Says Non-Discrimination Is Unconstitutional

Posted on April 23, 2009
Jerry Brown (remember him?) ? once California governor, now California Attorney General, and possible future California governor ? says in a letter to the California Supreme Court that the prohibition against preferential treatment based on race or gender that was added to the California Constitution by Prop...

Grasping At (Non-) Discriminatory Straws At UVa (And Ignoring Real Discrimination)

Posted on April 22, 2009
?Responding to recent incidents of alleged discrimination targeting University students,? the University of Virginia?s Cavalier Daily reports this morning, the Sikh Student Association, in conjunction with 11 other student organizations, organized a ?Unite Against Discrimination? rally, scheduled to kick off this afternoon...

Rickety Ricci III

Posted on April 22, 2009
Today the Supremes heard oral argument in Ricci v. DeStefano, a case brought by 17 white and 1 Hispanic New Haven firefighters whose successful promotion exams were tossed out for racial reasons that I discussed earlier here and here. In their excellent summary and preview of the case in the Wall Street Journal this morning, Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom present the core question clearly: The issue in Ricci was simply stated by Judge José Cabranes, dissenting from a cursory, unenlightening opinion by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals...

Jay Cost On ?Race, Realignment, and the Election of 1948?

Posted on April 22, 2009
Jay Cost gave an impressive talk on (you guessed it) ?Race, Realignment, and the Election of 1948,? and posted it on Real Clear Politics. Like everything Cost does on RCP, this piece is quite good, and I encourage you to read it. I think he nails the significance of 1948 for the modern Democratic Party quite well...

L?État C?est Obama...

Posted on April 21, 2009
Obama received much deserved criticism during and after the campaign for his narcissistic self-regard bordering on (or crossing the border of) messianic. Obamessiah, etc. Alas, evidence of that tendency continues to manifest itself. At the recent ?Summit of the Americas,? for example, another episode may be even more revealing than his warm embrace of dictator Chavez, which has received more attention...

Another Dogeared Page

Posted on April 21, 2009
Here I wrote that ?[i]n the past I have dogeared a number of Pages (columns by Clarence Page, that is) as good examples of the thinking (or lack thereof) of mainstream liberal columnists/talking heads,? and I then provided links to seven examples. A few days ago he committed another one...

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