Civil rights
March 30, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
The Justice Department has filed a statement of interest in a case challenging a Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference (CIAC) policy that enables biological males to compete against biological females. Attorney General Barr explained: In our pluralistic society we generally try to accommodate how individuals desire to live their lives up to the point where those desires impinge on the other people’s rights. Allowing biological males to compete in all-female sports
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March 10, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
The Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice enforces federal statutes that prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, sex, disability, religion, and national origin. Under Democratic presidents, the Civil Rights Division largely confines itself to enforcing these statutes for the benefit of groups that are among the Democrats’ core constituencies, especially African-Americans. To be fair, these are the groups that, by far, have suffered most from discrimination in
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March 5, 2020 — Scott Johnson
Earlier this week TCM played the classic Robert Drew cinéma vérité documentary “Crisis: Behind a presidential commitment.” The documentary first aired on ABC in October 1963. My only purpose is to bring it to your attention in case you might find it of interest and to recommend it if you haven’t seen it before. The documentary takes us behind the scenes of the Kennedy administration’s efforts the previous June to
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January 22, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
President Trump will attend the March for Life in Washington, D.C. on Friday. He will be the first president to do so. The event is held every year on the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade. The Trump administration is supporting the pro-life movement in substantive ways as well. The most recent example is the Justice Department’s filing of a brief supporting an Ohio law that
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January 20, 2020 — Steven Hayward
This special edition of the Power Line Show uses the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday as the occasion to ponder his legacy in light of the lengthening of history and the dramatic changes in the poisonous racial politics of our moment. And who better to comment than “Lucretia,” Power Line’s international woman of mystery, along with special guest Peter C. Myers, who is professor of political science at the University
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January 20, 2020 — Scott Johnson
When Martin Luther King, Jr., brought his nonviolent campaign against segregation to Bull Connor’s Birmingham, he laid siege to the bastion of Jim Crow. In Birmingham between 1957 and 1962, black homes and churches had been subjected to a series of horrific bombings intended to terrorize the community. In April 1963 King answered the call to bring his campaign to Birmingham. When King landed in jail on Good Friday for
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December 13, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
While the Obama Department of Labor plods through its eleventh year, the Trump Justice Department is steaming through its third. As I discussed here, the Labor Department is prosecuting compensation discrimination cases brought in the dying days of the Obama administration based on spurious theories long peddled by radicals. In addition, the Labor Department persists in demanding that federal contractors “allow employees and applicants to use restrooms consistent with their
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December 4, 2019 — Steven Hayward
This episode is appearing several days late because of the holiday week and because I was felled over the weekend with a nasty early season case of bronchitis, but it features “Lucretia,” Power Line’s international woman of mystery, joining me once again to resume our series critiquing the “1619 Project.” This time we take up the examples of Alexander Stephens, Booker T. Washington, and W.E. B DuBois, among other thinkers,
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May 7, 2019 — Steven Hayward
Ryan Williams at the Claremont Institute reports that Google has changed its mind: See Ryan’s complete update of the story here. One wonders whether Google changed its mind because it discerned a “mistake” or took note of the public heat it was getting over this. But a deeper issue needs to be addressed. A number of conservatives have said that although Google, Facebook, and Twitter are engaging in censorship of
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March 15, 2019 — Scott Johnson
When Morris Dees spoke at the St. Paul Jewish Community Center back in the 1990’s, I walked out on him. He was ragging on George H.W. Bush at the time in an absurdly partisan and otherwise unfair manner. Even though he had drawn a relatively large crowd, he saw me leaving and commented on it. He seemed to take pleasure in it. I thought he was a gratingly obvious fraud.
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January 21, 2019 — Scott Johnson
When Martin Luther King, Jr., brought his nonviolent campaign against segregation to Bull Connor’s Birmingham, he laid siege to the bastion of Jim Crow. In Birmingham between 1957 and 1962, black homes and churches had been subjected to a series of horrific bombings intended to terrorize the community. In April 1963 King answered the call to bring his campaign to Birmingham. When King landed in jail on Good Friday for
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November 20, 2018 — Steven Hayward
Years ago a friend who signed on with a large prestigious law firm recounted how one of his first orientation sessions was “sensitivity training” (the precursor to “diversity” workshops today) with regard to ethnicity and sexual orientation. Back in those innocent days it consisted largely in an inventory of terms and phrases that you might not be aware are pejorative or insulting to minorities. To which my pal said, “I learned
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October 9, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
On Saturday, shortly after the Senate confirmed Brett Kavanaugh, Majority Leader McConnell filed for cloture on the nominations of Eric Dreiband and Jeff Clark. Both have been nominated for Assistant Attorney General positions — Eric to head the Civil Rights Division, Jeff to head the Environmental and Natural Resources Division. For Democrats, McConnell’s move surely added insult to injury. The Dems bitterly oppose Eric and Jeff because both are strong
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July 12, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
On Wednesday, the Senate confirmed Brian Benczkowski as head of the Criminal Division of the Justice Department. Thus, a year and a half into the Trump administration, the Senate has finally confirmed one of Trump’s nominees to a key assistant attorney general position. Three other such key positions remain vacant. They are head of the Civil Rights Division (Eric Dreiband), head of the Environment and Natural Resources Division (Jeff Clark),
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July 4, 2018 — Scott Johnson
The Department of Education has posted the rescission of Obama era federal regulatory guidance documents encouraging educational institutions to discriminate on the basis of race under cover of the “diversity” and “affirmative action” shibboleths. We previewed the rescission yesterday here. The Department of Education has now posted it here. It comes in the form of a “Dear Colleague” letter signed by senior officers of the Department of Education and the
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June 4, 2018 — Steven Hayward
The Supreme Court has issued its ruling in the much anticipated Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, and the religious liberty of the cake baker, Jack Phillips, won out by a 7 – 2 vote. It appears at a first quick skim that it is a narrow ruling, but until I can wade into it more thoroughly it will be difficult to tell whether a new and clear doctrine
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April 4, 2018 — Steven Hayward
The milestones of 1968 are being recalled day-by-day, reminding us of what a roller coaster year it was. The decision of LBJ not to run for re-election (cheered lustily by the left) was followed just five days later by the assassination in Memphis of Martin Luther King, on April 4—fifty years ago today. It is hard to believe that at the beginning of 1968, things looked decent for Johnson. So
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