WILLIAM VOEGELI: “A TALE OF TWO PROPOSITIONS.“

IT REVIEWS MY BOOK:  “Who Created the ‘Diversity’ Monster:  How Republican Supreme Court Justices Gave Us Affirmative Action.”

MAYBE IT WASN’T WORTH IT FOR A FREE TRIP TO NYC:  I was the official naysayer for a pre-recorded television show that will be aired on CNN+ next month.  The subject was race-preferential admissions.  I barely got a word edgewise.

I’m not sure how many college students were in the audience, but, if memory serves, it was 50 to 100.  If it was 100, I was outnumbered 103 to 1, since all of them purported to favor race-preferential admissions policies.  Don Lemon was the host, and Ibram Kendi, a woman from Tufts, and I were the so-called experts.  Most of the talking seemed to come from the audience.

One student’s statement was  particularly silly.  He said that as an Asian American he didn’t mind being turned down by Harvard on account of his race and that most Asian Americans support this kind of affirmative action.  I countered with the story of the defeat of Proposition 16 in which Californians overwhelmingly rejected an effort to amend the state constitution to allow California state universities to go back to race-preferential admissions.  I noted that Asian Americans in California were overwhelmingly on my side in that campaign.  Most of our most dedicated volunteers were Asian American.

The student responded by saying that it was RICH Asian immigrants who opposed Proposition 16.  Alas, I never got a chance to respond.

For the record, that is [expletive deleted] absurd.  We were outspent 16 to 1, and we still killed ’em.  If there were any rich Asians backing our campaign, they sure didn’t make themselves known.

In this article, Alex Heideman and I catalog the electoral and polling data on race-preferential admissions.  Bottom line:  Americans oppose them.  And the more clearly the question is presented, the more clearly they register their opposition.

I did get some awesome Indian food while in NYC.

COLLEGE FIX:  “Move Over Think Tanks. This Alumni-Donor ‘Action Tank’ Takes on Wokeness One Campus at a Time.”  I hope it’s effective.

IN A SANE WORLD THIS LETTER WOULD HAVE BEEN UNNECESSARY:  Four members of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights urge Attorney General Merrick Garland to take rising violent crime seriously.  (The Commission as a whole won’t do so.)

INDEPENDENT INTERLOPERS TOO:  “Democratic Interlopers Could Diminish Trump’s Clout in GOP Primaries.”

DOULAS AND MATERNAL MORTALITY: In the modern era, it has been rare for American women of any race to die in childbirth. But at least on paper the American death rates look worse than those of many other developed countries. And there are racial disparities—with black women faring the worst, followed by whites, then Hispanics, then Asians. This has been getting a lot of attention on the Left (except the part about Hispanic women doing better than white women). Biden gave a hat tip in his SOTU address toward more spending on maternal health.

How will the money be spent? Much of the public discussion focuses on “doulas.” A doula is an individual who assists in the course of a pregnancy and birth by giving the expectant mother emotional support and advice on how to have a safe, successful pregnancy. She may also assist a midwife in delivering the baby, but generally does not have the training to be a midwife.

The NYT ran a puff piece on Wednesday advocating the use of “doulas” as a partial solution to the maternal health problem. Similarly, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) lobbied furiously and successfully for a California law “creating a workgroup on Medi-Cal coverage for doulas.”

I’m not convinced that’s really the ticket. I know of no evidence that doulas can help prevent maternal deaths. I think my dissent from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights’ report on this subject from a few months ago can shed more light on the subject.

THIS CONCEPT HAS GOTTEN WAY OUT OF HAND: Micro-aggressions. Micro-aggressions. Micro-aggressions. Micro-aggressions. I pity the young people who are being trained to be traumatized by so-called micro-aggressions. It’s not so easy for them to understand that the folks peddling this stuff are doing them a massive disservice.

Why has the concept become so fashionable? I think The Roots of Wokeness tells the story pretty accurately. Hint: Always follow the money.

SEEMS UNLIKELY: “Gun Deaths Increased 11% as a Result of “Stand Your Ground” Laws, Study Finds.”

There’s a lot of misunderstanding out there concerning these laws. Try reading this for what I believe to be more accurate information.

FROM DEEP IN THE HEART OF TEXAS:  On this day in 1921, hotfootin’ hoofer Cyd Charisse was born.  At a very young age, she had a bout of polio, but … uh … she seems to have gotten over it in this video from Singin’ in the Rain.

(Here’s a medley of her greatest dancing hits that starts with Singin’ in the Rain and quickly goes on to several other numbers.  Go Cyd!)

JOHN FUND:  Remembering Stalin’s “Winter War” Against Finland.  Lessons for Putin?

OH JOY, A MORE POLITICALLY ACTIVE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA … THAT’S JUST WHAT AMERICA NEEDS: At the University of California, there is a movement afoot to allow academic departments on campus to issue or endorse statements on political issues in the name of the department. Currently, this would be a violation of university policy. Individual faculty members can freely comment on whatever they want, but the university itself and its various offices and departments are supposed to be politically neutral.

Some faculty members are (rightly) pushing back. And they are seeking UC faculty members to join in their letter of protest. Definitely check it out if you’re a UC faculty member (but take a look even in the far more likely event that you’re not). It’s nice to know that not everybody at the UC is relishes the idea of academic departments joining the Twitter mobs.

SCHOOL DISCIPLINE FARCE: A Georgia school superintendent recently stated that his “goal is to have zero [racial] disproportionality” in school discipline. But as long as students from different racial groups misbehave at different rates, we’re going to have (or at least we should have) disproportionalities in school discipline.

There is reason to believe that the Biden Administration will explicitly re-institute the Obama Administration’s deeply wrongheaded school discipline policy soon.

PURR:  “Goodyear Awards Illinois Truck Driver Its Highway Hero Honor.”

MORE ON THIS WEEK’S TENURED LOON–ZEUS LEONARDO: I get the fact that both progressives and conservatives have their nut cases. I get that the Age of the Internet makes it possible for nut cases to be more visible than they were in the Age of Broadcasting. That’s the price we pay for the open discourse the internet allows for. What annoys me is that so many of their nut cases get tenured professorships at prestigious universities, and I have to pay taxes to support them.

WELL KIDDIES, IF YOU’RE LOOKING FOR FASCISTS, YOU MIGHT WANT TO LOOK IN THE MIRROR:  University of North Texas students drown out speaker with chants of “F*** these fascists.”

BUGS, BUGS, BUGS:  In the Chinese calendar, today is the first day of “the Awakening of Insects.”  Here in San Diego, insects know no season.  But just in case San Diego arthropods decide to celebrate, I’ve positioned a can of Raid near at hand.

THE EGGSHELL STUDENT PROBLEM:  The Jason Kilborn case explained.

I’M TIRED OF HEARING THIS: A recent WaPo opinion piece refers to disparate impact as “another form of discrimination.” No, no, no. Discrimination is about unequal treatment. Disparate impact is about insisting on equal outcomes. If you’re interested in how the Supreme Court got us in this ridiculous position where the law is said to require both equal treatment and equal outcomes, read “Title VII Disparate Impact Liability Makes Everything Presumptively Illegal.”

PURR. I LOVE A HERO: Here’s a father who laid his own body over his rodeo rider son, to protect him from a rampaging bull.

(If your father ever told you that he’d lay down his life for you, maybe you should believe him.)

JOHN FUND:  “The Focus on ‘Green’ Energy Has Left the West Increasingly Dependent on Russian Energy.”

AT THE VOLOKH CONSPIRACY:  The Roots of Wokeness.

STILL A BIT OF A MYSTERY:  On this day in 1978, the Yuba County Five disappeared.

HOT!  HOT! HOT!:  My latest opus:  “The Roots of Wokeness:  Title VII Damage Remedies as Potential Drivers of Attitudes Toward Identity Politics and Free Expression.”

I LOVE A HERO:  Including this state trooper.