DISPARATE IMPACT LIABILITY’S BEGINNINGS:  On this day in 1970, the parties argued Griggs v. Duke Power Co. before the Supreme Court.  Was there ever a more messed up, incoherent, anti-Congressional intent legal doctrine to come forth from the Supreme Court?  I doubt it.  Notably, the author of the Court’s opinion was the Court’s light-weight Chief, Warren Burger.

RIP SANDRA DAY O’CONNOR:  At the time of her decision in Grutter v. Bollinger (2003), she was convinced that there was a “broad societal consensus” in favor of race-preferential admissions and was unwilling to go against that supposed consensus. In reality, insofar as there was a consensus, it went the other way.

RIP SANDRA DAY O’CONNOR:  I do wish you’d understood just how much damage you were doing to higher education and to the aspirations of minority students when you decided Grutter v. Bollinger in 2003.

IF YOU LIVE IN ARIZONA:  I suspect some of your tax money will soon be going to the University of Arizona’s “Emancipatory Education” graduate minor at the College of Education.  It sounds ghastly.  Maybe you should complain.

DO YOU HAVE A STORY TO TELL?:  The Center for Equal Opportunity is listening.  Two weeks ago CEO launched the “After Affirmative Action Network.”  The AAA Network is intended to serve as a clearinghouse to gather and distribute information on how colleges, universities and other schools are changing their admissions policies to comply (or not comply) with the Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard.

Don’t be shy.  If you have information, send it to my friends Devon Westhill and Linda Chavez.  They will make sure it gets into the hands of journalists and litigators.

IF YOU’RE FROM CHICAGO, YOU’LL UNDERSTAND:  I’ve been down on Macy’s since they took over Marshall Field’s more than a decade ago.  I won’t shop there.  You can’t make me.  No one can.  Macy’s killed my favorite store.

I was therefore pleased to learn that “Stephen Miller’s Legal Group Targets Macy’s [Illegal] Diversity Policies.”  Go get ’em, Stephen.

SIGH:  More unsupported claims that racial disparities in maternal mortality are due to discrimination.  We’ll never solve the problem this way.

HOT! HOT! HOT!:  The Supreme Court will soon have the opportunity to resolve a conflict in the Circuits about whether Title IX requires school to assign transgender students to the showers, locker rooms, and bathrooms reserved for the sex they psychologically identify with (rather than their biological sex).  Here is the amicus curiae brief that Joe Bingham, Pete Kirsanow, Dan Morenoff and I just filed.  This is a very winnable case (even in the face of Bostock).  Here’s hoping the Court takes the case.

YOU CAN’T “PRETEND” AWAY SEVERE DISABILITY:  Amy S.F. Lutz is talking sense over at WaPo:  It is asinine to pretend that a severely autistic adult could waltz into a job that pays minimum wage or better if only the special Section 14c program, which allows them to be hired for less, were eliminated.  They will be unemployable.

This program doesn’t “take advantage” of severely disabled individuals for profit.  Overwhelming the 14c certificates an employer needs to participate in the program are held by non-profit community rehabilitation organizations.  They are just trying to give severely disabled individuals a little dignity (and their parents a little break.) The 14c program is overwhelmingly supported by the parents of the severely disabled.

I dissented from the report of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights that Lutz rightly criticizes.  If you haven’t done so already, please take a look at that dissent.  Send it or the Lutz article to your favorite state legislator.   I don’t think I get frustrated all that easily.  But when red state legislators don’t get this and prohibit the program in their state (as some have done), I start wanting to bang my head against the wall … which could eventually make me unemployable.

IF YOU’RE GOING TO BE IN OR NEAR WHAT J. EDGAR HOOVER CALLED THE “SOG” ON FRIDAY:  I’ll be speaking on a panel at the Federalist Society’s National Lawyers’ Convention.  The title for the panel is “SFFA and Beyond.”  I’ll be trying to predict what will happen next, now that the Supreme Court has held race-preferential admissions unconstitutional.  I’m hoping the future will resemble this.

If you’re wondering, Hoover used the term “SOG” to mean Seat of Government–Washington, DC.  The Federalist Society’s National Lawyers’ Convention is held at the Mayflower Hotel there.  The Mayflower’s restaurant was J. Edgar Hoover’s favorite place for lunch.  He was there on a daily basis.  Alas, that exact restaurant no longer exists.  But in honor of Hoover’s patronage, the new restaurant at the Mayflower (which is in a slightly different spot) is called “Edgar.”  It’s probably not the memorial Hoover was expecting, but it’s more than most of us get.

IF YOU’RE IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA:  Jeff Jacoby, longtime columnist for the Boston Globe, will be coming to the University  of San Diego School of Law to deliver our annual Bowes Lecture.  He’ll be here on Tuesday, November 14, at the School of Law’s Grace Courtroom.  The reception is at 5:30 pm, and the lecture begins at 6:15.  If you’re a Jeff Jacoby fan and you’re in Southern California, then please join me there.  It’s the cool place to be.

RSVPs are not required, but appreciated.

ANOTHER FAKE INDIAN:  Oh, no!  My tender years were all a lie!  I just learned Buffy Sainte-Marie isn’t really an Indian.

(I’m sorry. I can’t help thinking of this non-Buffy Sainte-Marie song.)

RACIAL DISPARITIES IN CRIME VICTIMIZATION:  On November 17th, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights will be holding a briefing on crime victimization.  (You’d be shocked at how difficult it was to get the full Commission to agree to hold this briefing, but that another story.) Witnesses who will be testifying include John Lott, Rafael Mangual, and John Paul Wright.

If you would like to submit a comment on this subject, you can do so at .

ARE DOCTORS AND NURSES RACIST?:  Racial disparities in maternal mortality are a favorite topic for leftist activists these days.  And they continue to believe it is mainly a matter of racist doctors and nurses.  (Of course, this doesn’t explain why white mothers have higher rates of mortality than Hispanic mothers, but whatever …)

In keeping with the narrative, California law requires maternity care staff to complete “racism in medicine” training.  Evidently, most hospitals are out of compliance, and the California Attorney General is upset about it.  But, as I’ve written before, racist healthcare providers are unlikely to be the cause of the racial disparities in maternal mortality.  Differences in rates of obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, and multiple births are the more likely culprits. California would do better with mandatory training on how to recognize and deal with high-risk pregnancies.

Meanwhile, the article says Centinela Hospital in Inglewood (a heavily minority suburb of Los Angeles) plans to close its maternity ward permanently.  The hospital is being accused of malpractice in connection with a maternal death.  I can’t tell whether the lawsuit has merit or not.  But the closure of a hospital maternity ward is a bigger cause for concern than the failure of healthcare workers to get their “racism in medicine” training.

FAKE NEWS:  Before the Commission on Civil Rights releases a report, we try to agree on findings and recommendations.  It’s hard.  But for our report on Anti-Asian Racism, the Commission was able to muster a majority in favor of a limited number of recommendations.  That’s progress–at least for those who like to see a little bipartisanship now and then.  Unfortunately, it hasn’t done us a bit of good.  The Commission’s staff recently issued an “infographic” on the report that lists “Key Recommendations for Action.” But with one exception, they’re not the recommendations the Commission actually agreed to.  We figured in that it was a mistake of some sort.  But no.  When four Commissioner informed the Staff Director of the problem, we expected he’d fix it quickly.  But he has declined to do so.

The bureaucracy is out of control.

ALL GOD’S CREATURE HAVE GOT A PLACE IN THE CHOIR:  Constable gives snake the kiss of life.

EMPLOYERS ARE INCREASINGLY SKEPTICAL OF COLLEGE CREDENTIALS:  A thoughtful correspondent (himself an employer) sent me this.

WE ARE SO DOOMED:  “California Students Can No Longer Be Suspended for ‘Willful Defiance’:  Could Nationwide Change Be Next?”  This evidently is a response to the fact that African American and disabled students are suspended for willful defiance more often than whites, Asians, or non-disabled students.  Otherwise, suspensions would be fine with the California legislature.

This issue came before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights a few years ago.  Somehow our chairwoman at the time got it into her head that all races misbehave at the same rate and that the only reason African American students get punished more is that teachers are racist.  The other aspect of that report that was surreal was the notion that we should be upset that disabled students get disciplined more than nondisabled students.  For Pete’s sake, we DEFINE students who misbehave a lot as “disabled.”  Then we act surprised that students who misbehave a lot continue to misbehave a lot.  Yes, of course, I dissented.

ELON MUSK ON ASIAN TEEN REJECTED BY 16 COLLEGES:  “The left hates Asians.”

Some evidence for Musk’s position:  At a briefing on Anti-Asian racism, the Staff Director of the Commission on Civil Rights interrupted a speaker who mentioned the discrimination Asian Americans face when trying to get into Ivy League universities.  The speaker was admonished that this was off topic.  (It wasn’t, and never since I’ve been on the Commission has a speaker been admonished that way.) Left really doesn’t want to talk about it.

“WE ARE NOT A RACIST COUNTRY“:  Jacinta Nampijinpa Price Speaks Out After Defeat of Australian “Voice” Referendum.

THE AUSSIES HAVE SPOKEN:  Down Under voters reject special rights for indigenous people. 

EXODUS OF THE WRONGTHINKERS FROM AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES:  The author interviewed me and several of my USD colleagues (including the dean) for this article.

ANOTHER JEWISH HOMELAND:  I found I couldn’t read any more about the events in Israel.  It was just too gut wrenching.  I therefore started thinking about a different (though related) topic:

Before there was a modern Israel (and before modern Zionism), there was  … South Carolina.  Two wealthy Sephardic families living in London—the DaCostas and the Salvadors—purchased 200,000 acres in what was then South Carolina’s frontier sometime in the 1730s or so.  Their intent was for the land to become a refuge for poor Sephardic families then living in England.  (The land was located in what is now the town of Ninety Six in Greenwood County.)

It wasn’t a crazy an idea—not too crazy anyway.  Evidently, a small group of Sephardic Jews had settled in Savannah, Georgia in 1733, but had fled to Charleston when it looked like the Spaniards in Florida had designs on Georgia.  The Spanish Inquisition was still in business then, so this was a prudent move.  For most of the 18^th as well as the early 19^th century, South Carolina was the destination of choice for Jewish immigrants to America.

(more…)

SIGH:  Fox News 23 (Tulsa) believes that ending the special subminimum wage for individuals with severe disabilities will “eliminate a hurdle to fair pay for people with disabilities.”  And so apparently do some Oklahoma legislators.  But it’s nonsense.  Eliminating the subminimum wage will eliminate jobs, not hurdles to fair pay.

When the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights did a report on this topic in 2020, we were inundated with public comments from family members of individuals with Down Syndrome.  I’m told it was more comments than we’d ever received for a single report in our history.  Overwhelmingly, the commenters wanted the subminimum wage program kept.  They knew their loved one would not have a job at all without it.  You’d think that would be obvious to more people.  But I guess the world’s gone mad.

“FLORIDA LAWMAKER FILES BILL CURTAILING ‘STAND YOUR GROUND’ LAW”:  Weirdly, this article tries to relate the “stand your ground” law to the death of Trayvon Martin, who is described as “an unarmed teenager,” even though the “stand your ground” law was not at issue.  The author seems to have forgotten the part about Martin beating Zimmerman’s head against the pavement.  By the time Zimmerman realized what was happening, he couldn’t have retreated if he’d tried.

Here’s more on “stand your ground” laws.  There’s a lot of misconception about these laws.