FIAT LUX:  If you’re a faculty member, tell FacultyLeaks.com your story.  Or read other people’s stories.  The truth is out there.  Let’s shed some light on it.

UPDATE ON ACA7:  “Will the California Legislature Ever Stop Trying to Overturn Proposition 209?” (I think we will probably win this round, but maybe I’m just an incurable optimist.)

OF COURSE IT WILL:  “California’s Wealth Tax Will Backfire.”  It looks like it already has.

NOW THAT A GRAND JURY HAS INDICTED THE SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER FOR FRAUD:  You may find my Dissenting Statement  to the Commission on Civil Rights’ Hate Crimes Report interesting. The Statement is a few years old, but the discussion of the SPLC (starting on p. 12 of the pdf) is still pretty topical.

THERE IS NO ESCAPING WOKE RACISM:  “In Cities Across America, Homeless Services Are Doled Out Based on Race.“

AARON SIBARIUM:  “Stanford Students Award Drag Group Five Times As Much Funding as Veterans Association.”  Furries get more than the Republicans do.  And the Muslim Student Union gets more than every Christian group combined.

Well, of course, they do.  Welcome to Stanford.

RUPE DEBATE:  On Friday, I’ll be at Harvard Law School arguing that disparate impact liability is unconstitutional.  We’ll see if I persuade anyone.  I understand the event will be live streamed, but I don’t have a link for that yet.

If you’re interested in the subject, here’s a link to the article I wrote about disparate impact liability a few years ago.

If you have time and the inclination, by all means join me (assuming I eventually can get the link for you).

CITY JOURNAL:  “California Provides Sex-Change Procedures to Homeless Illegal Aliens.”  Of course.

CAROLYN GORMAN: “Why Is the Media Promoting Polyamory?”  Anything to push Western Civilization into oblivion, I guess.

VICHA RATANAPAKDEE’S KILLER SHOULD BE IN PRISON:  One of my favorite tech titans–Garry Tan–writes here about one of the reasons Grandpa Vicha’s vicious killer Antoine Watson walked free:  The organizations that led the “Stop AAPI Hate” campaigns a few years back (and purported to represent the Asian American community on crime issues) were left-wingers–like the ridiculous “Chinese for Affirmative Action”– with a deep belief in the progressive “deincarceration” agenda.  They liked to complain about crime (especially “hate crime”), but they didn’t really want to do anything about it other than make money off it and force law-abiding citizens to sit through tedious “anti-hate training.”  I wrote about the same issue here.

I’M STILL CURIOUS: I’m not usually accused on believing in conspiracy theories.  I’m more likely to be the one chastising my friends for believing them.  And yet … for years, I’ve wondered why suddenly the disability rights groups were knocking themselves out to fight special minimum wage laws applicable to severely disabled persons.  Who was bankrolling all this?  My guess at the time was the SEIU.  I’d still like to know … but I suppose there’s a good chance I never will.

Under very limited circumstances, Section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standard Act permits individuals with severe disabilities (think Down Syndrome) to accept employment from certain specially licensed and regulated businesses that are allowed to pay less than the minimum wage.  The program is strictly optional.  If an individual with Down Syndrome can find an employer willing to pay bigger bucks, then more power to him.

The program is very popular with the parents and family members of severely disabled individuals.  When the Commission on Civil Rights did a report on this issue in 2020, we received about 9,700 comments from the parents and other family members.  That was a record number for us.  Almost all of them argued strongly in favor of Section 14(c).  The Commission nevertheless sided with the disability rights folks and called for the program’s elimination.

I dissented, figuring the parents and other family members knew more about what was good for their loved ones than the disability rights folks.  The family members certainly knew that without 14(c) there would be no jobs at all for most Down Syndrome sufferers.  Not too many Down Syndrome sufferers get jobs as engineers at Google, Apple, or Tesla.  The disability rights advocates who testified before the Commission brought along a young man with Down Syndrome who testified that he wanted a more challenging job and would prefer a job where he could carry a briefcase to the office like his father.  We were evidently supposed to nod and pretend that this man’s hope was a realistic option for Down Syndrome sufferers generally.

Nevertheless, the disability rights advocates were pulling out all stops to get rid of the law.  They were lobbying state legislatures around the country to override it with a state provision that requires minimum wage.  And they were succeeding in getting the programs phased out.

As part of the report, we interviewed the Commissioner at the Vermont Department of Disabilities, Aging, and Independent Living, where 14(c) workshops were being done away with.  She admitted that the jobs had disappeared.  Instead, the state (with taxpayer money) was providing “minders” to keep these now-jobless individuals entertained.

I got the feeling that creating state-funded jobs for the “minders”—who might then join a union like the SEIU—was the central feature not a bug in this plan.  Chris Rufo and Kenneth Scrupp have been writing about this kind of cycle:  At the union’s behest, left-wing politicians fund programs that employ large numbers of low-skilled employees, who in turn join the union, which in turn donates big bucks to the left-wing politicians.   Government gets bigger and bigger.  Maybe the controversy over the Section 14(c) is another example of this.

JOHN SAILOR:  “How the Mellon Foundation Funds Trans Ideology.”  Sorry about that Mr. Mellon.  Your children put your money into a foundation and then died, leaving the foundation in the hands of a series of administrators who become weirder and weirder as time went by.

Dear 21st century titans:  Don’t let this happen to you.  If you establish a charitable foundation, make sure it spends itself down in one generation.  Make sure your money is spent by somebody who knew you, respected you, and in whom you have great trust.

JOSH BLACKMAN:  “The Transgender Tide Has Turned at the Supreme Court.”

SERIOUSLY:  Why are conservatives so much happier (and less neurotic) than liberals?

ON BRAND FOR MINNEAPOLIS:  “Minneapolis considers legalizing adult bathhouses and venues that allow sexual activity.”

ONE HUNDRED QUATLOOS ON THE NEWCOMERS:  “Polymart Pulls Iran Rescue Bet after Political Firestorm.”

NOBODY LOVES CHICAGO MORE THAN I DO, BUT ….:  “Bailing Out Chicago Would Send a Dangerous Message.”  Mismanaged cities need to learn the hard way.  (And for those of you who think I shouldn’t love Chicago, I can’t help it.  It’s hard not to love the city where you first became an independent adult.)

THIS IS INTERESTING EVEN IF YOU PROBABLY COULD HAVE ANSWERED THE QUESTION CORRECTLY WITHOUT READING IT:  “Is ‘White Supremacy’ Causing an ‘Epidemic’ of Transgender Murders?“

GAINFUL EMPLOYMENT:  Purr.  I have a new job.

CITY JOURNAL:  “The DSA Is Following the Soros Playbook” by focusing on state and local elections.

CITY JOURNAL: “Gavin Newsom’s Empire of Fraud.”

NOT EXACTLY THE LAND OF THE RISING SUN:  Japanese universities abandon merit.

THE GREAT AMERICAN MELTING POT:   For reasons that make sense once you think about them, the melting pot tended to work best in the Mountain West and the South where there were fewer immigrants.

BILL McGURN IN THE WSJ:  “California’s Never-Ending Race Preferences.”  (Why does this column feel like it’s my life story from circa 1995 (when I started working on Prop 209) to today?)

GOLDEN STATE FOLLIES:  “Inside San Francisco’s Racialist Slush Fund.“