LOOKS PRETTY BAD: More ghastly news about teachers’ unions.. (Note that if you click through you can follow me on Twitter. Now that Musk is there, I’m getting to like it there.)
Jaw-dropping misconduct. Read this DFI report about how teachers’ unions negotiate collective bargaining agreements requiring school districts to infuse their curricula w/ leftist ideology & provide unconstitutional benefits to teachers based on race.https://t.co/PSIdmOljwC
— Gail Heriot (@GailHeriot) January 19, 2023
ED POSTED THIS CRAZY ARTICLE A LITTLE WHILE AGO: Absolutely Insane: Connecticut Law Would Axe Fitness Requirements For Female Firefighters. For background on the disparate impact liability policy he alludes to, which started in the 1970s, try my article here.
Our anti-discrimination laws are soooo messed up, I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to fix them. But at least I’m trying ….
I CAN’T SAY I’M SMILING: Amazon is terminating its Amazon Smile program whereby customers can direct a tiny portion of the money they spend at Amazon to the charity of their choice. Amazon says it wants to concentrate its money on programs with greater impact. That’s its right, of course. But I fear the translation should go something like this: We’re not that keen on the charities that our customers choose.
Amazon’s policy of deferring to the execrable Southern Poverty Law Center on the question of which charities are really hate groups is well known. For example, the company excludes the Alliance Defending Freedom from the Amazon Smile program on that basis. Now it won’t have to try to justify that exclusion. It can direct its contributions to the groups it really likes and not worry about its customers’ preferences.
UGH: Jason Riley reports that according to an annual survey of school leaders “schools saw a 56% increase in ‘classroom disruptions from student misconduct’ compared with a typical school year before the pandemic.”
Instapundit readers know what I think about about all this.
JOHN B. DAUKAS: “It’s time for a bright-line ruling that discrimination is unlawful.”
Yes, indeed it is. The statute has been saying that all along. In 1978, Justice Lewis Powell, out of timidity, set us on the wrong path. It’s time to get back on the right path. Nothing less than that will be effective.
One of my favorite Supreme Court quotes comes from Wilkerson v. McCarthy (1949): “A timid judge, like a biased judge, is intrinsically a lawless judge.”
WILLIAM S. CONSOVOY, RIP: Will Consovoy, a lawyer’s lawyer, has died at the age of 48. This is huge loss for the conservative movement. Will’s death was not unexpected. But I was hoping he would survive long enough to see the fruits of his labors in the Harvard/UNC cases currently pending before the Supreme Court.
REST IN PEACE, MR. JOHNSON: Now and then, an author comes along who really changes your life. Paul Johnson was one of those for me. I carried around Modern Times, A History of the Jews, and A History of Christianity with me in the 1980s. Johnson could be both the erudite historian and the combative polemicist. He was never boring.
The revised version of Johnson’s A History of the American People contains a paragraph on California’s Proposition 209. You wouldn’t believe how thrilled I was when I saw it. (Look, Ma! I made the history book! No, not by name, but by the name of my project ….)
TRANSGENDER WARS: The 11th Circuit and the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Western Virginia have both recently issued decisions on transgender issues that are consistent with the law instead of consistent with what fashionable people would like the law to be. And there are a couple of other cases pending in federal court. If there is a cert petition in the 11th Circuit case or an appeal in the Southern District of West Virginia case, the American Civil Rights Project will likely be filing an amicus curiae brief based on the argument contained in Pete Kirsanow and my comment.
DUMB IDEAS COME IN TWOS: Just as the movement to “defund the police” has backfired, the movement to prevent teachers from enforcing order in the classroom isn’t working out as planned.
SUPREME COURT: These days I wake up every morning wondering when we’ll hear from the Supreme Court in the Harvard/UNC cases. Most likely it won’t be till June, but you never know. In the meantime, here’s a reminder of one of the most powerful policy (non-legal) arguments against race-preferential admissions policies.
MERRY CHRISTMAS, JAY: You da man. Thanks for saving two dozen lives during the Buffalo snowstorm. As a torts professor, I can tell you that you committed no legal wrong by breaking into a school during an emergency (Ploof v. Putnam), but that (technically at least) the school can force you to pay for any damage you caused (Vincent v. Lake Erie Transportation Co.). But don’t worry, they won’t. Today, they love you. (And if they do try to make you pay, I’ll cover it.)
THIS CAN BE FIXED: The ABA is trying to strong arm Hofstra University’s law school into hiring faculty by race and sex. The same thing is happening here at the University of San Diego. The Supreme Court won’t be able to stop this kind of overreach just by issuing a strong opinion in the Harvard and UNC cases. But in the future Congress can stop it.
(By the way, dear readers, if you know of other cases, in the last ten years or so, of accreditors attempting to dictate diversity to the schools they accredit, please let me know. I am trying to collect that information.)
STARRS: The acronym stands for “Stand Together Against Racism and Radicalism in the Services.” It is a group dedicated to fighting wokeness in the military. If you haven’t done so already, check out the group’s new web site.
A BAD IDEA FROM THE SUMMER OF 2020: “California, Never a Slave State, Considers Reparations.”
SOUNDS LIKE THEY DESERVE IT: The Air Force Academy is being sued for failure to comply with a Freedom of Information Act request that asked for its Critical Race Theory/Anti-White Supremacy training materials. (Can we get an army of FOIA-wielding Davids going? There are a lot of public entities that should receive one.)
WILLIE SUTTON WOULD HAVE UNDERSTOOD: Why do colleges and universities march in lockstep when it comes to race-preferential admissions? Because that’s where the money is.
DEFUND THE LEFT: “Texas Lawmaker Proposes Ban on DEI Programs at Public Universities.”
I haven’t had time to look at this bill. But state legislatures need to take a look at how taxpayer money is being used in higher education. We’re way past the point where state legislatures should be “hands off” public universities.
YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS STUFF UP: A self-proclaimed psychic on Tik-Tok claims to have learned from her tarot cards that a certain University of Idaho history professor is behind the recent murders of four students there. Her Tik-Tok videos on the subject have reportedly racked up millions of views. As far as I can tell, the police are not exactly jumping on this daffy unusual new lead. Instead, the history professor (who appears to be the world’s leading academic expert on gay rodeo) is now suing for defamation.
ACTUALLY ALL STATES SHOULD: “Red States Should Embrace the Science of Reading.”
BEST CAT WOMAN SINCE EARTHA KITT: Cat Woman is out there to protect truth. Purr.
IT’S RELENTLESS: “DEI in Scientific Publications Up 4200 Percent Between 2010 and 2021.”
PODCAST: Here’s the podcast I did on my “Agenda for Congress.”
WHAT’S HAPPENING OUTSIDE THE BELTWAY: “Brevard County School Discipline Reportedly Out of Control.” Yup. This is what happens when we allow the federal bureaucrats to control school discipline policy.
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