PROFESSOR JACOBSON FTW: Affirmative Action: My Argument Against Racial Preferences Prevails at Cornell Political Union Debate. Jacobson emphasizes the irrationality of the racial classifications used by admissions officials, with a nice shout out to my book Classified.

AT THE TIME NO ONE WAS REALLY PAYING ATTENTION: Diversity by diktat: An obscure 1977 OMB memo forms the basis for today’s affirmative-action programs. I don’t mention it in this op-ed, but to give you an idea of how ridiculously arbitrary the classifications are, the government literally got three volunteers, a Cuban American, a Mexican American, and a Puerto Rican, and asked them to come up with a name for people of Spanish-speaking ancestry, and to define the scope of the relevant classification. One of the volunteers vociferously advocated for “Hispanic,” which includes everyone with Spanish-speaking ancestry, and she wore the others down until they agreed. But the classification just as easily have been Latino (added in 1997), Spanish surname, Spanish-speaking household, Hispano, Mestizo, or Chicano/other Spanish-heritage, among other classifications floating around at the time. And the main reason Cubans were included with Mexicans and Puerto Ricans, despite having much higher socio-economic success and mostly perceiving themselves and being perceived by others as “white immigrants” rather than members of a minority group is that Richard Nixon had insisted on including them because they vote Republican. He wanted to make sure they were also eligible for affirmative action programs that were ramping up and included Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans. More details can be found in my new book.

DAVID BERNSTEINS, FTW: (A different) David Bernstein’s Woke Antisemitism: How A Progressive Ideology Harms Jews is out! Highly recommended. And while you’re on a David Bernstein kick, you might as well pick up my Classified: The Untold Story of Racial Classification in America.

Fun fact: The editor for both books was another guy named David Bernstein. #CommissionEarned

AMERICA’S FUTURE MAY DEPEND ON IT: Debate/Discusssion–Can We Separate Race and State?

SELF-DELUSION ON THE LEFT, MARK JOSEPH STERN EDITION: The Supreme Court Is Blowing Up Law School, Too. Inside the growing furor among professors who have had enough.Stern writes that constitutional law professors are “giving up on the Supreme Court.” He writes:

The problem, it’s worth emphasizing, is not that the Supreme Court is issuing decisions with which left-leaning professors disagree. It’s that the court seems to be reaching many of these conclusions in defiance of centuries of standards, rejecting precedent and moderation in favor of aggressive, partisan-tinged motivated reasoning. Plenty of progressive professors have long viewed the court with skepticism, and many professors, right- and left-leaning, have criticized the reasoning behind certain opinions for decades. But it’s only in recent years—with the manipulation of the justice selection process combined with clear, results-oriented cynicism in decisions—that the problem has seemed so acute that they feel it affects their ability to teach constitutional law.

Actually, the fact that the Court is solidly conservative, and the constitutional law professoriate overwhelming liberal or further left, is exactly the problem. In the past, the left could count on the Court for sporadic big victories: same-sex marriage, affirmative action, abortion. Now they can’t, so they have turned against the Court. We all know that left-learning lawprofs would be dancing in the streets if SCOTUS were equally aggressive to the left. And indeed, while Stern portrays discontent with the Court as a question of professional standards rather than ideology, he does not manage to find a single right-leaning professor to quote in his article.

[Crossposted at Volokh]

IN CASE YOU THOUGHT THE SECRETARY OF EDUCATION’S PRIORITY MIGHT BE EDUCATION:

AND YOU CAN’T BEAT FREE: A prominent lawyer recently told me that the best possible advertisement for my book Classified: The Untold Story of Racial Classification in America was the introduction, which left him “salivating” to read the rest of it. He suggested I post it online, for free. Here it is.

Given that the Supreme Court is going to consider the constitutionality of affirmative action based on these classifications later this month, the book, and its call for the separation of race and state, is especially timely.

RES IPS LOQUITUR:

UPDATE: It’s been suggested to me that Mossad got wind that Khamenei was ill, and decided that they could preeemptively “take credit” for it to freak out their enemies. If so, still good show.

NOTHING TO SEE HERE: Just Amnesty International’s Middle East Director retweeting an obviously play-acting photo purporting to be Israel chaining up a 13 year old Palestinian girl. You don’t have to be an expert to note that those aren’t IDF uniforms, the guns are fake, she is not chained in a way that would prevent her from escaping, and if she were being detained she’d be in zip ties, not chains, in any event. But then again, Amnesty itself is in the business of crude anti-Israel propaganda, so this is entirely consistent.

LIVE WEBCAST TODAY AT NOON EASTERN TIME: I will be talking about my book Classified: The Untold Story of Racial Classification in America at the Cato Institute, with comments from Joan Coaston of the New York Times and Robert Cottrol of George Washington University. You can register here.

THIS MIGHT MAKE YOU CURIOUS ABOUT THE UNTOLD STORY OF RACIAL CLASSIFICATION IN AMERICA: Credit is also due Cory Liu, who actually authored the brief on my behalf.

IT WOULD BE A GREAT LEAP FORWARD:

WHAT IT TAKES TO GET OUR POLITICAL ELITES RILED UP: Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas’ suggestion that Israel has committed “fifty Holocausts” against the Palestinians is grossly inaccurate and offensive. But he was answering a question in Germany about whether he would apologize for his involvement in the Munich massacre of Israel fifty years ago. The lack of apology is more important than overheated, offensive rhetoric, because it shows that either deep-down he’s still the same terrorist as always, or at least that he thinks it would be very harmful in Palestinian politics to acknowledge that murdering innocent athletes was wrong. Similarly, his government continues to pay generous pensions to terrorists who murder Israeli Jews, not just rewarding those terrorists but encouraging others to follow in their footsteps. Abbas is also a dictator who has not held elections in almost two decades, and as corrupt as the day is long. None of that gets the elites nearly as agitated as making an offensive Holocaust-related remark. It’s almost as though if you pay lip service to the memory of the Holocaust, you will get a free pass for current crimes committed against Jews and others… In fact, it’s exactly that.

CLASSIFIED UPDATE: I have posted the Introduction to Classified: The Untold Story of Racial Classification in America, here.

Meanwhile, here’s a roundup of recent podcasts and reviews for Classified.

Podcasts

Podcast with Coleman Hughes, conversations with Coleman

James Wilson Institute

Jewish Institute for Liberal Values

Reviews

Robert VerBruggen, Washington Examiner

Bacon at Bacon’s Rebellion

Yassine Meskhout on Jesse Singal’s substack (paywall)

Kristin Shapiro at Independent Women’s Forum

THE ODDS THAT EVEN ONE PERSON ACTUALLY SAID THIS TO LIZ WARREN ARE NO BETTER THAN 1/1024:

IN SHORT, NOTHING GOOD: What a ‘MENA’ racial classification would mean for American Jews. Though it would be fun to be a fly on the wall when Linda Sarsour discovers that the new Middle Eastern and North African classification she is pushing for, meant to turn Muslim Arabs and Iranians into a victim class eligible for affirmative action, winds up being claimed by millions of American Jews.

TRY BEFORE YOU BUY: A helpful reader reports that the Introduction and the first few pages of the first chapter of Classified are available for free as a “preview” at Scribd.

WELL, IF THEY DIDN’T INVENT IT THEY SURE CONTINUE TO FIND IT USEFUL TO PROMOTE DIVISION BASED ON IT: How the Government Invented Race.

“CLASSIFIED” REVIEW AND PODCAST UPDATE: My book on racial classification’s official publication date was Tuesday, and it’s already garnered several reviews and I have appeared on a bunch of podcasts. So if you want to listen in on what all the cool kids are talking about…

Reviews

Review by Goldwater Institute President Tim Sandefur for the Objective Standard 

Review by Prof. Bill Jacobson, Legal Insurrection

Review by Ed Whelan, National Review

Podcasts

The Remnant, with Jonah Goldberg

American Institute for Economic Research

CSPI Podcast with Richard Hanania

Essential Liberty with Bob Zadek

First Things Podcast with Mark Bauerlein

Institutionalized with Charles Lehman and Aaron Sibarium

Washington Outsider Report with Irina Tsukerman

I wish I could tell you I had a favorite, the *one* podcast to listen to, but I have really  been blessed with excellent hosts, who each took the interviews in different directions depending on their interests and the natural flow of conversation.

BOOK RELEASE DAY!: Today is the official release day for my book, Classified: The Untold Story of Racial Classification in America.

To celebrate, if you buy the book today and email me the receipt (dbernste at gmu dot edu) and your address, I will send you a signed copy of one of my previous books, either Rehabilitating Lochner or You Can’t Say That! I have many more copies of the latter than the former, so if you want a copy of the Lochner book, act fast. (Please note that I have a busy travel schedule coming up, so you may not receive your book until mid-August.)

And just so those of you who preordered the book don’t feel left out, if you preordered send me your receipt, your address, and which book you want, and I will send you a signed copy.

THE GOVERNMENT CLASSIFIED ALL IMMIGRANTS FROM EUROPE AND THE MIDDLE EAST AS WHITE AND STILL DOES: How American Jews Stayed White. However:

That said, a change may be in the offing. The Biden administration is considering amending America’s racial classification scheme to include a classification for “Middle East and North African.” This classification would include Jews who immigrated from that region, Israelis, and some fraction of Ashkenazi Jews who consider themselves more “Middle Eastern” by religion, culture, and genetics than European.

ELON MUSK’S KIDS DON’T GET AFFIRMATIVE ACTION: Whites from Africa Claiming African-American Status.

RELATED: If you’re looking for some beach reading, Classified’s official publication date is July 19.

OF COURSE, ONE CAN WONDER WHY WE HAVE A RACIAL CLASSIFICATION SCHEME TO BEGIN WITH: How Well Do You Know America’s Racial Classification System? First and Second of a Series.

My book on modern racial classification in America is due out July 19. And the Kindle is only $10.

WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE, WHO NEEDS FRIENDS?:

INTERESTING WHAT GETS YOU A SPEAKING GIG AT CUNY LAW GRADUATION: Anti-hate watchdog criticizes CUNY Law School’s selection of commencement speaker. Canary Mission: Nerdeen Mohsen Kiswani, the force behind a violent and aggressive anti-Israel group in New York City, has been chosen to give a commencement address.

Related: In response to viral video, CUNY Law denounces antisemitism then retracts In the video, a man wearing an IDF sweatshirt is being confronted by a woman [Kiswani] holding a lit lighter and in the background is a female voice saying “I hate your shirt. I’m gonna set it on fire.”