A ROCK ‘N’ ROLL PILGRIMAGE:  My big sister traveled from Houston to Birmingham, England for what the NYT tells us was the event of the season–Ozzy Osborne’s last gig, featuring Black Sabbath as well as Metallica, Guns n’ Roses, and more.  It raised about $200 million for charity.

This was Old Home Week for my sister.  For years, she managed the Ozzfest Tour on behalf of Live Nation and has a genuine affection for the 76-year-old Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne (as they apparently do for her).

When I was a kid, she would sometimes take me along to the concerts she was working on.  But the thrill of rock ‘n’ roll never quite took with me.  I’m the law nerd little sister.  My rock stars are Thomas Sowell, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Richard Epstein, … oh … and Glenn Reynolds.  To each sister her own.

CALIFORNIA’S SLAVERY REPARATIONS PROGRAM:  California was never a slave state.  Nevertheless, numerous “reparations” bills have passed the Assembly to benefit the descendants of American slaves.  For example, AB7 would (if it passes the Senate and is signed into law by the governor)  authorize California universities to discriminate in admissions in favor of  the descendants of slaves.  Similarly, AB57 would earmark 10% of the funds available under California’s first-time homebuyers program for the descendants of slaves.  As passed by the Assembly, AB742 would “prioritize” applicants seeking “licensure” who are descendants of slaves.  The Senate version is currently worded somewhat differently, but it’s still the same idea.

More such bills have passed the Assembly and seem destined to pass the Senate.

Apparently, California Democrats think this gets them around those pesky laws that forbid race discrimination.  They are wrong.  Imagine if, back in the 1950s, segregated school districts had switched from segregating the schools based on race to segregating them based on descent from slavery.  It wouldn’t have made a difference.  They’d have been laughed for their efforts.

Obviously lawsuits will be filed if these bills pass.  More interestingly, the Department of  Justice could go after the State of California for a violation of Title VI.  Thanks in part to the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987, the federal government could potentially cut off the state from billions of dollars in federal funding.

This stuff deserves to get more publicity than it’s getting.  If Gavin Newsom signs any of them, and then runs for President (or even if he doesn’t), you can bet they will be a standard talking point for Republicans.  Personally, I rather stop them now.  But some in the Republican Party have a different opinion.

CHANGE:  “School Discipline Makes a Comeback.”  Unlike the Obama and Biden Administrations, the Trump Administration is allowing schools to remove disruptive students from the classroom.  Thank God (and the Donald).  The rest of the students will finally be able to learn.  To its everlasting shame, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights contributed to the ridiculous educational fad that held punishing students is racist.   It issued an utterly moronic report on the subject in 2019.  I was never so p-ssed off in my life.

NEWS FROM THE END-TIMES OF HIGHER EDUCATION:  I learned today that my university (from which I have now resigned) confers a degree it calls “Doctor of Philosophy in Education for Social Justice.”  A majority (18 out of 35) of the doctorates awarded by USD’s education school this year fell into this category.

This is a random sample (i.e. the first seven on the list) of the dissertation titles:

Black Parents’ Use of Educational Advocates:  Disrupting Structural and Systemic Racism in Education

Culturally Affirming Independent School Board Governance (CAISBG):  Narratives of Board Members of Color in K-12 Independent Schools

Restricted Access:  Structural Gatekeeping and the Black Student Experience in Accounting Education

Ethnic Studies for Secondary Schooling:  Collaborative Curricular Insights from a Working Collective

Challenging Dominant Ideologies:  Transforming Teaching and Learning that Support Classroom Learning Environments of Latinx Students

Liberatory Love:  Exploring Educators’ Perspectives in Alternative Education

Constructing Portraits of Elementary Teachers of Ethnic Studies:  Examining the Narratives of Anti-Racist Educators in an Era of Common Core Curriculum and Instruction.

Most of the rest contain words like “antiracist,” “equity,” “equity-centered,” “racial reckoning,” or “radical.”

This sheds a bit of light on an ugly event that happened a couple of years ago.  One of my organizations—Californians for Equal Rights Foundation—rented an auditorium at USD’s school of education for a Saturday conference held in the summertime.  Long before the conference, we had a signed contract and were paying good money for the room and catering.  This should have been a positive for the school as the building would have been otherwise quite empty. At the last minute—after speakers had been lined up and many tickets sold–the school curtly informed us we couldn’t have the room.  The claim was the school needed it for some unspecified reason.  My phone calls were not returned.  I had to threaten to sue to get the university to find us a room at the business school.  It was obvious at the time this was politically motivated.

Perhaps I was naïve to have expected better from USD.  In any event, the school’s social justice doctorate program provides a bit of extra evidence of where the school of education was coming from.

Needless to say, Californians for Equal Rights Foundation holds its summer conferences elsewhere these days.  USD need not tarnish its left-wing bona fides by allowing a conference sponsored by a non-profit group dedicated to opposing race discrimination to take place on its property.  Fine.

A GREAT MAN:  Happy Birthday to Thomas Sowell.  He’s 95 today.

TIME FLIES:  Two years ago today, the Supreme Court decided, in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College, that race discrimination really is illegal.  There is still work to do in the area of college admissions:  Step 1.  Step 2.  I’ve got a couple of other steps in mind too, but they will need to be kept under wraps for a while.

IMMIGRATION DETENTION CENTERS:  We’re hearing a lot about inhumane conditions at detention centers again.  For the record, when I visited a couple of detention centers a few years back, things looked pretty good.  You should have seen the look on my colleagues’ faces when they saw one of the centers from the inside.  It was nice.

THE COLLEGE FIX:  Lawsuit Seeks to Outlaw Ed. Dept.’s Hispanic-Serving Institution’s Grant Program.

MSNBC IS SO ANNOYING:  “Tennessee’s Lawsuit Against the Education Department Imperils Latino Students.”  Well, no it doesn’t. But the federal program that Tennessee is suing about–one that shovels money to colleges and universities depending on the race of their students–does imperil the Constitution.

I take some pride in the fact that my organization–the American Civil Rights Project–first brought the issue to the attention of the Tennessee attorney general, so I doubt the lawsuit would have been filed without our work.  We hope to file a motion to intervene soon.  Meanwhile, for background on the issue, read this letter to Senator Bill Cassidy.

THE TRANSGENDER FILES:  Maybe soon we’ll start to see all the crazy lies the country has been fed for the last decade.

THIS GUY STILL SCARES ME:  “Obama calls for ‘government regulatory constraints’ on speech.”

“AS ONE APPARENTLY DOES”:  In the case of Woodland v. Hill, the great Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Kenneth Lee was called upon to decide an unusual copyright case.  The parenthetical in the opening sentences of his opinion made me laugh:

Rodney Woodland, a freelance artist and model, posts semi-naked photographs of himself in different poses on Instagram.  Montero Lamar Hill, better known as the recording artist Lil Nas X, also has an Instagram account–and he, too, shares semi-naked photos of himself in varying poses (as one apparently does on Instagram these days).  Woodland sued Hill for copyright infringement ….

We affirm the district court’s order dismissing his copyright infringement claim.

Cute.

INTERESTING VIDEO:  “How Nuclear Flies Protect You From Flesh-Eating Parasites.”

MONEY MATTERS:  If you read my Roots of Wokeness article a few years ago, you might have come away thinking that it would make a bad situation worse for Congress to increase the amount of money a plaintiff can get for a Title VII violation.  Well, I just learned this was actually proposed in 2024.  From what I can tell, the bill was not re-introduced this year.  Maybe that’s the Trump effect.  I prefer to think that the Progressive Caucus Member who sponsored the bill read my article and that it completely changed her outlook on life.  I like to think all my law review articles do that.  On a more realistic note, if it does get filed again and makes it to a vote, please make sure your Congress critter votes no.

MAKING PROGRESS:  A few months ago, Pete Kirsanow and I sent a letter to Members of Congress asking for college accreditation reform.  Now Senator Jim Banks has responded!  We got a bill going!  (Now all we have to do is get it introduced in the House, get it passed in both houses, and signed into law by the President.  Stay tuned …)

WHY AM I NOT SURPRISED?:  “Biden Education Dept. Put Priority in Pronouns.”

THE CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE DOESN’T LOVE STAND-YOUR-GROUND LAWS:  I missed this when it came out:  California is apparently considering an anti-Stand-Your-Ground law.

The Commission on Civil Rights undertook a study of the racial impact of Stand-Your-Ground laws a little while ago.  When the research indicated that Florida’s SYG law didn’t have the anti-black effect that my progressive colleagues thought, they threw out the research.  I had fun writing about it.

HOUSTON, WE’VE HAD A PROBLEM:  Ed Smylie, a hero of the Apollo 13 mission, died three weeks ago at the age of 95.  He headed the team of engineers that came up with a way to save the lives of astronauts Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise.  The news has only made it into the major media in the last day or two.

Here’s what happened (in case you don’t remember the event and didn’t see the 1995 movie):  An oxygen tank exploded, forcing the astronauts to retreat from the command module to the lunar module.  But air in the lunar module was designed to handle only two men, not three.  NASA estimated that, after two days, the build-up of carbon dioxide would render the air poisonous.  Something had to be done fast.

Both the lunar and the command modules were equipped with canisters of lithium hydroxide to cleanse the air of excess carbon dioxide.  If the astronauts could just use the canisters from the command module to supplement the lunar module’s canisters the problem would be solved.  But … not so fast.  The canisters in the two modules were different from each other.   “You can’t put a square peg in a round hole, and that’s what we had,” said Smylie.   Before the canisters could be used, the engineers had to design an adaptor out of the materials available onboard.   They were able to do so, using cardboard, plastic bags, a hose from a space suit, and duct tape.   Duct tape!!!  (As Smylie later put it, “If you’re a Southern boy, if it moves and it’s not supposed to, you use duct tape.”)

Mission accomplished.  The astronauts returned safely to Earth.  God bless Ed Smylie and his engineers.

SUE THEM:  “How Medical Groups Twist the Truth About Gender Medicine.“

CHRIS RUFO & RYAN THORPE:  “Inside Harvard’s Discrimination Machine.”

PRIORITIES AT U. RHODE ISLAND INCLUDE HIRING MORE WHITE MEN:  Just kidding.  “Priorities at U. Rhode Island Include Hiring More “Faculty, Staff, of Color.”  Dog bites man.  But it’s important not to treat it as if it’s okay.

THE UNIVERSITY OF SAN DIEGO IN THE REAR VIEW MIRROR:  Behold the last exam that I will ever have to grade (as well as the last of the insanely meticulous charts I make when grading exams).   I figure I’ve done several thousands of these over the last 35 years.  By the end of today, I should have this one scored, all the exams tallied, and the grades recorded.

All five of the more conservative law professors who signed up for “phased retirement” are now finished at USD.  For the past several years, USD hasn’t exactly been the world’s most hospitable place.  On the other hand, for many years, this was the best job in the world, so I guess it all evens out.

Once I’m done with the book I’ve been working on, I plan to get a job with a think tank.  I also plan to stay on as a Commissioner at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (assuming it continues to exist).  Oh … and since I haven’t had a full day off (Christmas included) since 2019, I think I’ll take Memorial Day off to clean out my closets.  Maybe.

HOT! HOT! HOT!:  My latest in City Journal:  Trump’s Accreditation Executive Order Is a Positive Step for Higher Ed:  But Ultimately We’re Going to Need Legislation.

ARE THE CIVIL RIGHTS DIVISION LAWYERS WHO ARE LEAVING THE CIVIL RIGHTS DIVISION APOLITICAL TECHNOCRATS?:  WaPo implies that the 100 or so lawyers who are leaving the Civil Rights Division en masse are somehow apolitical technocrats who are outraged that the Trump Administration is politicizing their division.  But as Alison Somin writes on X, that’s ridiculous.  The Civil Rights Division has been home to hyper-partisan wokesters for quite some time.  If that’s who’s leaving (and it almost certain to be), there is no good reason to miss them.

More than a decade ago, I got a taste of the Civil Rights Division’s special brand of leftism when the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights investigated of the Civil Rights Division’s handling of the New Black Panther Party case.  The dominant view there was that civil rights laws do not protect white males.   If anything, it’s gotten worse since then.

Changing the culture there will be a labor on par with cleaning the Augean stables.  But Harmeet Dhillon might turn out to be just the right person to do it.  Godspeed to her.

UNCONSTITUTIONAL:  “Prosecutors to Consider Race in Pleas Deals under New Policy Written by Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty.”  The policy was deliberately written in an effort to disguise its unconstitutionality.  It says both to consider the accused’s race and not to consider the accused’s race in offering plea deals.  But, despite the efforts to conceal it, the unconstitutionality of such a policy should be throbbingly obvious.

When someone tries to tell you that a particular instance of considering race is a cool idea, the best thing to do is “flip it.”  If prosecutors considered an accused’s whiteness in his or her favor as “part of the overall analysis,” but not necessarily as “controlling,” we would rightly be outraged.  It should be no different here.

Can’t this Soros-backed prosecutor be recalled?