Affirmative action
May 31, 2017 — Steven Hayward
We noted here a few weeks ago the ruckus over the Rhodes College feminist philosopher Rebecca Tuvel, who foolishly thought that the same logic that applied to gender identity (namely that you pick your own) should apply equally to racial identity. Why not? We’re sometimes told from the identity politics left that race is a social construct, too, except when we’re told it isn’t. Left unexplored was exactly why Tuvel’s
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March 30, 2017 — Scott Johnson
The principle of equal treatment without regard to race is one that is close to my heart. Accordingly, one of my favorite books on a legal subject is Andrew Kull’s The Color-Blind Constitution. (I learned of the book at the time of its publication through Judge Alex Kosinski’s 1993 New Republic review/essay.) It is a book that is by turns inspiring and maddening. I recommend it without reservation to readers
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September 8, 2016 — John Hinderaker
Last Friday, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported on a decision by General Mills, one of the nation’s largest advertisers, to impose race and gender quotas on the advertising agencies it uses: The Golden Valley-based foodmaker wants the creative departments in agencies bidding for its business to be staffed at least half by women and 20 percent by people of color. *** In revealing its standard, General Mills executives said they
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June 23, 2016 — Scott Johnson
In an opinion issued this morning, Justice Kennedy joined the Supreme Court’s four liberals to uphold the University of Texas’s “affirmative action” program in the Fisher case. This is the case’s second trip to the Court. It won’t be coming back. The Court’s opinion today is posted here. The Court’s 2013 opinion in Fisher I (as the Court refers to it) is posted here. I think today’s result is disappointing,
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February 18, 2016 — John Hinderaker
Today Center of the American Experiment, the think tank of which I am president, put on a lunch forum in downtown Minneapolis featuring Jason Riley of the Manhattan Institute and the Wall Street Journal. Jason talked about his blockbuster book, Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed. We interviewed Jason last night on the Power Line Show. If you haven’t listened to that interview,
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December 17, 2015 — Paul Mirengoff
I had missed this story, but catching up with NR’s Bench Memos today I learned from Carrie Severino that Donald Trump joined in the criticism of Justice Scalia’s pertinent questioning during oral argument in the Fisher case. Readers probably recall that Scalia raised the problem of the “mismatch” that arises when blacks students receive preferential admission to college and must then compete with students who have significantly better credentials. Scalia
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December 13, 2015 — Paul Mirengoff
Scott’s six notes on “mismatch” add a much needed clarity to the discussion of race-based preferential admissions to college. I want to add seven notes on the concept of diversity, which Scott discussed. Note 1: The ideology of diversity is, as Scott says, relatively new. The concept of diversity, however, has been around for quite a while. Decades ago, it was common for elite eastern colleges to strive for geographic
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December 13, 2015 — Scott Johnson
I want to add six notes to Paul Mirengoff’s posts on Justice Scalia’s reference to the phenomenon of “mismatch” created by “affirmative action” in higher education. Richard Sander and Stuart Taylor, Jr., document the phenomenon in Mismatch: How Affirmative Action Hurts Students It’s Intended to Help, and Why Universities Won’t Admit It. The mainstream media demonstrate studied ignorance of the phenomenon and the book. Paul explains the operative taboo. The
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December 9, 2015 — Steven Hayward
One of the leading ideas among liberals right now is to forgive students debt, which is crushing a lot of college graduates. It’s one of Bernie Sanders’s favorite ideas. There’s just one problem: it might widen the wealth gap between whites and blacks. Oops. From TakePart: A new report, however, shows that calls to ease the student-loan debt load, including plans unveiled by all three Democratic presidential candidates, could have a significant effect on
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February 22, 2015 — Steven Hayward
If you break into admission statistics to elite colleges and universities you discover a pattern of “disparate impact” (as the civil rights term of art goes) against Asians. It appears Asians are being actively discriminated against just as Jews were for decades. The New York Times reported in November: To get into the top schools, they need SAT scores that are about 140 points higher than those of their white
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July 14, 2014 — Scott Johnson
When I set out writing about Philip Hamburger’s Is Administrative Law Unlawful?, I did so for two reasons. First, it’s the most important book I have read in a long time. Second, it’s a forbidding work of legal history that makes few concessions to the general reader. It isn’t easy reading and I thought it was at risk of being widely ignored. I do think the book was at risk
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April 7, 2014 — Steven Hayward
In addition to saluting Gail Heriot here yesterday, we shouldn’t let today get by without taking note of another civil rights hero of our time, Edward Blum. Edward is profiled today in the New York Times. Edward is chiefly responsible for bringing the two successful Supreme Court challenges to the Voting Rights Act last year, and he also helped bring up the Fisher case that curtailed race-conscious admissions in Texas
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March 22, 2014 — Scott Johnson
Preparing to speak at the Federalist Society National Lawyers Convention this past fall, I read the astounding book Mismatch: How Affirmative Action Hurts Students It’s Intended to Help, and Why Universities Won’t Admit It by Richard H. Sander and Stuart Taylor, Jr. The book came out to wide acclaim in October 2012. Amazon does not indicate that a paperback edition is forthcoming. You might want to pick up a copy
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June 25, 2013 — Scott Johnson
A few months ago I anticipated the somewhat disappointing result produced by the Supreme Court in the Fisher case addressing the issue of “affirmative action.” I thought pessimism was warranted and that the pessimistic view has been vindicated, although that isn’t entirely clear. In his column this morning George Will capably elaborates on the damage the Court has preserved. I’m taking the liberty of reiterating my own observations on the
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April 28, 2013 — Steven Hayward
As we noted here a few weeks ago, The Economist has gone off the reservation on climate change, and in the current issue it has done so again on the issue of affirmation action and race-conscious policy. The issue is featured on the cover, which means it is the subject of the first “leader” (house editorial), “Time to Scrap Affirmative Action,” as well as the focus of a long feature
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February 25, 2013 — Steven Hayward
Politics, it has been said for a while now, is “show business for ugly people.” (The line is said to have originated with either Paul Begala, or Texas political consultant Bill Miller, in a 1991 Dallas Morning News article.) Actually, the ugly part is less and less true; it is slowly becoming a requirement in politics as in Hollywood that you be good looking to succeed. With the appearance at
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December 4, 2012 — Scott Johnson
We continue our Christmas extravaganza previewing the Fall issue of the Claremont Review of Books (subscribe here and get immediate access to the issue online). To assess an extraordinary new book on affirmative action in higher education, the editors have called on the great Thomas Sowell. Sowell introduces the subject with a paragraph that could be chiseled in stone: Anyone who follows public policy issues can easily think of policies
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