EXCELLENT, EXCELLENT, EXCELLENT: Affirmatively Affirming Fair Housing (AFFH) is being ditched:  “Trump Kills an Intrusive Housing Rule, Again.”

DEAR TRUMP ADMINISTRATION:  It’s time to turn your attention to the problem of disparate impact liability.  There is no such thing as the rule of law when everything is presumptively illegal.

HOT! HOT! HOT!:  My Commission on Civil Rights colleague Pete Kirsanow and I wrote this letter to Senator Bill Cassidy urging him to spearhead legislation that would ban accreditors from using “diversity standards” to bully schools into violating the Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. President & Fellows of Harvard College (2023).

Supreme Court decisions don’t enforce themselves.  One by one, the various incentives for schools to discriminate have to be removed.  This is a good one to start with.  I have more.

(If you have a WSJ subscription, Jason Riley’s column covers the issue nicely.)

THE FREE PRESS:  “Adults With Disabilities Deserve to Work:  For Many People with Intellectual Disabilities, a Subminimum-Wage Job Offers Pride, Responsibility, and Some Extra Cash.  So Why Are Activists Fighting to Eliminate Their Programs?”

I wrote on this subject for the Commission on Civil Rights a few years ago (during the late, great lockdown). It struck me then as jaw-droppingly stupid that so-called disability rights groups would advocate abolishing the special minimum wage laws for severely disabled employees.  For them, it’s that or unemployment.  I wondered at the time whether unions like the SEIU were funding the effort, since dues-paying unskilled workers, probably immigrants with low English skills but no other problems, would likely replace the severely disabled workers.  I admit I have no particular evidence of this.  But the massive effort (and it is massive) behind the “Abolish the Subminimum” campaign is just plain weird.  The public comment we got from the parents and guardians of severely disabled employees was OVERWHELMINGLY against doing away with the program.  And yet the campaign marches on.

GOLDEN STATE FOLLIES:  Voters here in California would like their elected leaders to do something to prevent wildfires.  Behold Senate Bill 653 (introduced by Senator Dave Cortese):  While the bill’s title is “Wildfire prevention:  Environmentally sensitive vegetation management,” the entire text reads. “Section 1:  It is the intent of the Legislature to enact subsequent legislation to define ‘environmentally sensitive vegetation management’ and to encourage the use of environmentally sensitive vegetation management practices.”

That’s it.  Maybe they’ll get around to it later; right now they just wanted us to know that they’re thinking about us.  Cortese sent around an email bragging about having introduced this very important … bill about wildfire prevention statement of vague intent.  Not surprisingly, the email doesn’t quote the bill’s text, it only quotes the title.

Meanwhile, the California legislature is swimming in slavery reparations bills.  For example, one bill would establish a “Bureau for Descendants of American Slavery.”  Another would give the descendants of slaves “priority” for certain professional licenses.  A third would give admissions preferences at California universitiesto descendants of slaves.  There are more.

The folks in the Cal Legislature never learn.  They have their priorities.  But they don’t look much like the voters’ priorities.

ANOTHER PIG WAR IN THE MAKING?:  Beginning in 1859, the United States and Great Britain fought a war (of sorts) over the boundary between Canada and the United States.  At issue was which country owns the San Juan Islands situated between Vancouver Island (Canada) and the Washington State mainland.

In one of the more comical episodes in military history, “the Pig War”  (as it was called) was triggered by an actual pig who was trespassing onto a farm and helping himself to the tasty tubers he had found there.  The farmer, American Lyman Cutlar, shot and killed the wayward pig, which turned out to be owned by Charles Griffin, a Brit, who worked for the Hudson Bay Company.  “It was eating my potatoes,” Cutlar is rumored to have said.  “It was up to you to keep your potatoes out of my pig,” was Griffin’s (supposed) reply.

When British authorities, claiming jurisdiction over the islands, threatened to arrest Cutlar, a cold war broke out between the two sovereigns.  The 9^th Infantry came out to protect America’s territorial claim.  The British dispatched no fewer than five warships.  Though no shots were fired (other than the one that killed poor Porky), it took years to resolve the issue.  Eventually, Kaiser Wilhelm I was called in to decide things.  He declared the islands to be American, and the British, with their usual stiff upper lip, departed the premises.

Why am I bringing this up now? History repeats itself.  According to CBS News, marauding  Canadian “super pigs” are viewed as a threat to American ranchers today.  These very large and not very well-behaved wild hogs are evidently a cross between domestic hogs and wild ones, and they have become quite numerous.  The oinkers are already wreaking havoc on Canadian farms and ranches and will do so here as soon as they hit upon the border.  Another Pig War in the making …

Bottom line?  If President Trump is looking for an excuse to … uh … invade Canada, I think we’ve found it for him ….

DEFUND THE LEFT, DEFUND THE LEFT:  “It’s Corruption, All the Way Down.”

AMERICAN CIVIL RIGHTS PROJECT UPDATE:  Yes, we’re keeping busy.  We’ve filed a Title VII administrative complaint against the ABA with the EEOC a few days ago.  And we filed a complaint with the Ohio Attorney General against two public universities that operate race-specific scholarship programs.  But most of our efforts are aimed at what I believe will be litigation with a major impact.  With luck, I’ll be able to say more in a month or two about that.  Stay tuned.

HOLY TOLEDO:  Michigan legislator undergoes sterilization to avoid getting pregnant during Trump’s presidency.

GROSSMAN & SHAPIRO:  “Disparate Impact:  The Next Step in Restoring Meritocracy Is to Reject the Theory That Proportionate Outcomes Equal Fairness.”  Yes!

If you want to understand disparate impact read Title VII Disparate Impact Liability Makes Almost Everything Presumptively Illegal.  It’s really shocking just how insane the original Supreme Court decision–Griggs v. Duke Power Co. (1971)–was.  Chief Justice Warren Burger (appointed by Nixon) was as thick as two short planks.

A BIPARTISAN GROUP OF MEMBERS OF CONGRESS ASKED US TO DO THIS, SO WE’RE DOING IT:  “U.S. Civil Rights Commission to Launch Investigation of Campus Antisemitism.”  Usually when Members of Congress ask for a particular study, the Commission dutifully complies.  (Our working rule has been:  They’re Members of Congress, and our job is to advise Members of Congress and the President about civil rights issues.) For some reason, our Chair didn’t seem to want to do this one.  It took longer than it should have to get her to agree.

ET TU, USAA?:  Why did USAA de-bank John Eastman? (Click on link to see document. I couldn’t get it to show.)

	Gail Heriot ⁦‪@GailHeriot‬⁩ Dear ⁦‪@USAA‬⁩ —This really looks bad. What possibly could justify de-banking John Eastman? This is the kind of stuff you’d expect from banks in totalitarian countries. The men & women who form your core clientele fought to keep this the Land of the Free. Don’t let them down. pic.x.com/SJ2M1wsymJ 1/25/25, 5:34 PM

NOW THAT BIDEN IS SAFELY OUT OF THE WHITE HOUSE:  As Alison Somin writes here, any and all regulations promulgated by the federal government pursuant to Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or to Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 are required to have the President’s signature.  If they don’t, they are, in my view, null and void.  Congress was (uncharacteristically) wise in insisting on a Presidential signature back when those statutes were passed.   For some reason, in recent decades this requirement has been ignored.  Incoming Administration officials should take note.

DAN MORENOFF:  “Donald Trump Faces Boromir’s Test.“

IT’S INAUGURATION DAY:  Dear Trump Administration folks:  Don’t forget my Agenda for Congress.  If you want to make sure SFFA v. President & Fellows of Harvard gets enforced, you’re going to need to reduce the incentives for colleges and universities to discriminate on the basis of race.  (Oh … and before I forget:  When you’re ready, I await your call regarding what should be done at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.  You’re going to want to talk to each of the conservative members.)

ZOMBIE EQUAL RIGHTS AMENDMENT: Now that Biden thinks he has made the ERA part of the Constitution, here’s another zombie for you.  I wrote this essay in 2007 (published in 2008) after Ted Kennedy and Barbara Boxer announced a renewed effort to adopt the ERA, so it’s a little dated.  But its main point still comes through:  The last thing progressives should want is the ERA.  It will make preferential treatment for women and woman-owned businesses illegal.  “Feminist” organizations knocked themselves out to oppose Proposition 209 in 1996 and support the effort to repeal it (Proposition 16) in 2020.  If they wanted ban discrimination by sex, they should have supported 209.

By the way, the insane tv ad they did against Proposition 209 (described in the essay) still annoys me.

DANIEL PENNY IS MY HERO, HE SHOULD BE YOURS TOO:  Sometimes I just have to sound off:  I was hoping that once closing statements were over every single juror would laugh in the prosecutor’s face and insist on taking Daniel Penny out for a beer.  But I’ll take the deadlock over the manslaughter charge as a partial win.  Next comes the criminally negligent homicide charge.  I’m saying a prayer that the jurors will be deadlocked on that one too.

I feel like this is America on trial.  We’re the country that is supposed to honor individuals like Penny who take action in an emergency.  Please God, give us a million more like him.

AND THE SUN RISES IN THE EAST:  “California Fast Food Restaurants Shed Thousands of Jobs after $20 Minimum Wage Hike.”

BATHROOM WARS:  Single-sex Congressional bathrooms will remain single-sex, not single-gender.  Note that members of Congress have their very own private bathrooms, so the newly-elected transgender Representative from Delaware–Sarah McBride–will not be forced to use the men’s room.

The notion that federal laws banning sex discrimination require that transgender individuals be assigned to the bathroom that correspond to their gender (rather than their sex) has always been a non sequitur.  The logic of the arguments that are made for it would lead to unisex bathrooms, not bathrooms based on gender.

MILLIONS FOR A STUDY WITH “A SPECIFIC FOCUS ON BLACK DIASPORIC EPISTEMOLOGIES“:  The National Science Foundation is willing to throw $4 million at critical race theory in action.  This study comes from my alma mater–Northwestern University.

THIS IS WHAT YOUR TAXES FUND:  Get a load of the website of URGE.  It’s all about “unlearning racism” in science.  Yes it is funded by the National Science Foundation (as the web site proudly declares).

SENATOR TED CRUZ’S REPORT:  DEI:   Division, Extremism, Ideology:  How the Biden-Harris National Science Foundation Politicized Science.  (This report came out weeks ago, but I haven’t been able to turn to it till now). I understand that Sen. Cruz will be chairing the committee that authorizes the NSF’s budget.  Go get ’em, Senator.  Defund the Left.

The Anti-Crime Election:  This is an issue that most voters have caught on to.  (Here’s my take on crime victimization from couple of months ago.)

GOOD MORNING:  It’s Thursday, November 7, 2024, two days after the 2024 Elections.  It’s time to DEFUND THE LEFT. That should be the main task of the incoming 119th Congress.  Don’t let your Member of Congress forget it for a second:  Defund the Left, Defund the Left, Defund the Left. Root through the federal budget till you find every nickel that is being spent to fund leftist projects.  There’s a lot of it. Get rid of it.  It’s our only chance.

Oh … and if Trump Administration would like the Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College to be something more than a dead letter, start by defunding and abolishing the Minority Serving Institutions programs.  They are unconstitutional.  If you have to replace them with something do that.  But stop paying colleges and universities to discriminate.

That’s my advice for the day.  I held off till Thursday, because it really did seem like there should be a day of celebration.  But not two days … my grandmother would never countenance two days of celebration for anything.

KEMI BADENOCH IS THE NEW CONSERVATIVE PARTY LEADER IN THE U.K.:  She is a fan of Thomas Sowell.  What more could I ask for?  Kicker:  She really did work at McDonald’s in her younger days.