Legal Commentary

Rickety Ricci II

Posted on April 21, 2009
Last week I discussed A Rickety Argument In Ricci, referring to Ricci v. DeStefano, a case the Supreme Court will hear tomorrow involving, as I noted in my post, ?a complaint by 17 white and one Hispanic firemen that the New Haven Fire Department set aside the results of a promotional exam because it didn?t like the racial distribution of those who would have been promoted if the results had been honored (too many whites, not enough blacks)...

More California Claptrap From Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O?Connell

Posted on April 19, 2009
We last encountered California Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O?Connell back in 2007, in The Supe Is Nuts: Just When You Thought California Schools Couldn?t Get Any Worse.... There we saw that he was alarmed at the dramatic racial and ethnic achievement gaps, but his response ? attributing the gaps to ?cultural ignorance? in the schools ? was, at least to me, as alarming as the gaps...

A Perverse ?Diverse? Perspective On Virginia Tech?s ?Diversity? Dilemma

Posted on April 17, 2009
For the past several months you?ve been spared exposure to the Chronicle of Higher Education?s commentator on all things ?diverse,? Penn anthropologist John L. Jackson Jr., at least via my criticisms of his columns (the last one was here, citing five earlier ones)...

A Rickety Argument In Ricci

Posted on April 16, 2009
rick?et?y 1. likely to fall or collapse; shaky... 2. feeble in the joints; tottering; infirm.... Around three months ago I discussed, here, an important case that the Supreme Court will hear next week, Ricci v. DeStefano. That post linked a number of more thorough discussions by others, and because the case is so important you should read (or re-read) those linked analyses...

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Charlottesville Tea Party!

Posted on April 16, 2009
Even though Charlottesville is solid blue, and even though the weather yesterday was cold and rainy, ?[m]ore than 1,500 people flooded the pavilion in downtown Charlottesville Wednesday for the city?s first ever Tax Day Tea Party.? Charlottesville?s may have been the only Tea Party in the country whose keynote address was delivered by a former Secretary of State, Lawrence Eagleburger...

Pot Calling The Kettle Black [White?]?

Posted on April 16, 2009
Earl Ofari Hutchinson, the black political columnist last encountered here who writes almost exclusively about race issues and thus glass-house dweller, throws a rock at Rush Limbaugh because of his alleged ?obsession? with race. He just can't seem to stay away from it...

Another Victory For Title IX

Posted on April 15, 2009
InsideHigherEd reports this morning that the University of Tennessee?Martin, a Division 1 school in the Ohio Valley Conference, is dropping its men?s tennis team. Phil Dane, athletics director, cited the ?high cost of out-of-state scholarships? and the team?s ?relatively small roster? as the reasoning for its suspension...

?Diversity? Test At Virginia Tech Gets F.I.R.E.d

Posted on April 15, 2009
Under pressure, in the form of ridicule and exposure, from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education and the National Association of Scholars, Virginia Tech President Charles Steger has announced that the mandated reporting of contributions to ?diversity? for tenure candidates, discussed here, is no longer being considered...

A Good Use For Sampling?

Posted on April 13, 2009
As you will recall, there was a huge debate over the use of statistical sampling in the 2000 census as a possible way of correcting what is presumed to be a large undercount of minorities. That debate resurfaced with President Obama?s now abandoned intention of moving the Census Bureau out of the Commerce Department and putting it under the control of political operatives in the White House, and now it has resurfaced again with his recent nomination of University of Michigan sociologist Robert Groves to head the Census Bureau...

Mount Holyoke Discriminates Against Hispanics, Asians...

Posted on April 13, 2009
On a number of occasions I have discussed (not favorably, as you can imagine) college recruitment and orientation programs that segregate students by race. (Examples: here, here, here, here, here, and most recently here) Now Mount Holyoke College has bravely taken this segregative approach to practicing and preaching ?diversity? to its next logical step, as reported this morning at Inside Higher Ed: Mount Holyoke College, which has for many years had a voluntary program for minority students in advance of the general orientation, plans this year to start a special section at the same time, also voluntary, for white students from the United States...

Farfetched Step ?n Fetchit Complaint

Posted on April 13, 2009
A couple of months ago denizens of the Democratic Underground had a serious discussion (or what passes for a serious discussion on Democratic Underground) of whether it would always be racist to describe someone as a Step ?n Fetchit, or whether there might be people who deserve that label...

UC Berkeley Admissions Admission: Obvious But Still Shocking

Posted on April 12, 2009
17% of the 13,000 students offered admission to next year?s entering class at Berkeley are black, Latino, or American Indian, the same percentage as last year. As a result, ?[p]rotesters are claiming that the university is discriminating against Latina/o, black and Native American students by imposing a ceiling on the number of underrepresented minority students they admit...

Eagleburger At Charlottesville Tea Party

Posted on April 12, 2009
Former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger is scheduled to speak at the Charlottesville Tea Party on April 15. Check back afterwards; I should have pictures.

Obama And The ?Moderate Pirate Community?

Posted on April 11, 2009
John Hinderaker is probably correct that, although ?it is easy and tempting to ridicule the Obama administration's inability to take decisive action? against the Pirates who have kidnapped an American sea captain, ?there is no good solution to a hostage situation, and patience is probably as good a virtue as any, at least for now...

Ledbetter Lies Redux

Posted on April 10, 2009
I?ve recently posted, twice (here and here), discussions of the sad spectacle of President Obama and the Congressional Democrats mischaracterizing a Supreme Court opinion in order to pass a disturbing new ?equal pay? law whose only saving grace is its wholly unintended consequence of doing away with time limit restrictions on employees (and former employees and retired employees) claiming that they have been victims of what is popularly known as ?reverse discrimination...

Bow. Wow!

Posted on April 10, 2009
What I find most interesting about all the barking and biting about President Obama bowing to the Saudi monarch is that the White House denies what everyone can see on the video: ?a full-blooded and deeply reverential half-body bow,? as described in the London Telegraph...

Obama: ?We Do Not Consider Ourselves A Christian Nation...?

Posted on April 10, 2009
At a news conference in Turkey several days ago President Obama declared: We do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values. I agree with the essential truth of this assertion, although Obama?s oddly awkward phrasing (where?s the teleprompter when it?s really needed?) clouds that truth with a demonstrable untruth: contrary to Obama, most Americans do in fact consider the United States to be ?a Christian nation? (71% according to this recent Pew poll)...

?Diversity,? The Liberal Orthodoxy

Posted on April 08, 2009
The University of Virginia is as good as any place on earth to observe that ?diversity? has become the opiate of the liberal elites and their followers, deadening thought and dumbing down analysis. Accusations today of ?soft on ?diversity?!? echo the ?soft on communism!? accusations and innuendos of McCarthyism, and serve the same silencing, orthodoxy-reinforcing function...

Deeds? Words

Posted on April 06, 2009
Politics is often at its most entertaining when politicians rant indignantly about some allegedly outrageous offense that is not only not offensive but is in fact a statement of the obvious. A humorous case in point is the current hissy being thrown by Virginia state senator Creigh Deeds over a remark made by Mike Huckabee at a fundraiser in Tazewell County, in Southwestern Virginia, for Republican Bob McDonnell...

UPDATE!

Posted on April 06, 2009
At UVa Asians Are Now ?Diverse? (At Least For A Day)... has been UPDATED.

Charlottesville Partners With UVa To Launch ?Diversity?-Induced Discrimination Programs

Posted on April 06, 2009
Charlottesville, like the University of Virginia that it hosts, simply can?t get enough of ?diversity.? (Well, that?s not exactly true. As discussed in Old Dominion Dems Decry Diversity! and Charlottesville, The Capital Of Blue Virginia..., one Republican on a five-member city council provided entirely too much diversity, and had to be replaced several years ago in an election in which the Dems ?retook? the council...

UPDATE!

Posted on April 05, 2009
Narcissist In Chief has been UPDATED.

At UVa Asians Are Now ?Diverse? (At Least For A Day), AND Chief Diversity Officer Puts Foot In Mouth

Posted on April 04, 2009
In higher education ?diverse? almost always means black, Hispanic, or Native American, but yesterday at the University of Virginia meeting of its Board of Visitors it meant Asian. ?Officials discuss Asian faculty diversity concerns,? the headline of the front page article in the Cavalier Daily today announces...

Head In Sand ... Or Sand In Head?

Posted on April 03, 2009
Professor Mark Peterson, associate professor and department chair of political science at Washburn University, recently delivered a lecture at Kansas State University defending affirmative action. His defense was typical, and thus, oddly, both depressing and encouraging...

Cap-And-Trade = Smoke-And-Mirrors

Posted on April 03, 2009
First, the Euphemism of the Day: as quoted in the Washington Post this morning: Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.) called cap-and-trade ?the most significant revenue-generating proposal of our time,? and said it would be difficult to pass without reconciliation because Democrats would be forced to accommodate a handful of Republicans as they did in the debate over the president's stimulus package...

White Devils? Black Devils? Brown Devils? Yellow Devils? Red Devils?

Posted on April 02, 2009
Duke University, of all places, should know better. Given the devotion to ?diversity? that pervades that institution (see Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson, Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case if you have any doubts), you?d think that by now Duke would have recognized that it comprises not one but many communities, that it borders on racial arrogance to insist on categorizing all its students as ?Blue Devils,? as though they were all fundamentally alike...

Narcissist In Chief

Posted on April 02, 2009
So it?s true. The new über CEO of General Motors (which makes the soon to be revived O?smobile) really did give the Queen an iPod containing, along with a bunch of show tunes, some of his speeches, including the one he made to the Democratic convention in 2004 when he was still a state senator in Illinois...

UPDATE!

Posted on April 01, 2009
Not Enough Race Boxes On UCLA Application... has been UPDATED.

Not Enough Race Boxes On UCLA Application (Where It It Is Illegal To Take Race Into Account)

Posted on March 31, 2009
Roger Clegg discusses what he aptly calls ?an odd article? in the Los Angeles Times today ?about the tragic shortage of racial boxes on the UCLA admissions form, and in particular the lack of any ?Middle Eastern? boxes.? This concern is odd, of course, since ?UCLA is not supposed to be considering race or ethnicity at all...

Race And The 2008 Election

Posted on March 31, 2009
The Next Right notes the ?most underreported fact of the 2008 election,? from this CNN exit poll (HatTip to InstaPundit: Those who said race was an important factor voted 55 percent to 44 percent in favor of Obama. Insofar as race is a continuing problem in the United States, whose problem is it?

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