YES, BUT MAKING EVERYONE ELSE PAY FOR STUDENTS’ BAD DECISIONS ISN’T THE ANSWER:  George Leef reviews “The Debt Trap.”

PEOPLE ARE STARTING TO NOTICE WHAT IS HAPPENING AT MY CUTE LITTLE UNIVERSITY:  “The Woke Blob Swallows the University of San Diego.”  (Alas, if anything, this article understates the problem.)  If you’re a USD parent, student, donor, or alum, it’s time to speak up.  We’re a small enough institution to where you might actually have an effect.

IF YOU’RE IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, DON’T MISS THIS: On November 3 at 5:30 p.m., Greg Lukianoff, author of Unlearning Liberty:  Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate,  co-author of The Coddling of the American Mind, and president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), will be delivering a public lecture at the University of San Diego.  You’re invited!

(Yes, thanks to a generous donation from Mrs. Joan E. Bowes, the University of San Diego hosts a talk each year from a prominent conservative/libertarian/classical liberal each year.  That’s better than some universities.)

JOHN FUND:  When will someone hold human-rights hearings on Australia?

A HORSE! A HORSE!! MY KINGDOM FOR A HORSE!!!:  On this day in 1452, Richard III of England was born.

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY, 1910:  A bomb ripped through the Los Angeles Times Building, killing 21 and injuring more.  Two brothers connected to the Iron Workers Union were later arrested for the crime.

ONE MORE UNIVERSITY IN DISARRAY: In August, I posted something about the University of San Diego’s Black Lives Matter course currently being taught in the college. Here is the course description students were given:

“Heeding the call of the #BlackLivesMatter movement and global network, this course joins the nationwide effort to deconstruct anti-Blackness, dismantle white supremacy, center Black resistance and build solidarity movements that support the wellness and self-determination of Black communities. This collaborative, team-taught course will contextualize the complex histories of Black people in the US and center Black wisdom, joy and antiracist praxis. Students will be exposed to a range of interdisciplinary analyses of the movement for Black lives and engaged in critical, transformative reflection.”

As you can see, the course is not about education; it’s about “the nationwide effort to … dismantle white supremacy.” Put differently, it’s about fear mongering and indoctrination.

At the time of my August post, USD was seeking 25 faculty members to fill all the slots on the panels needed to teach the course. Given that I am the only person on the USD faculty with almost 15 years experience as a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights as well as many years’ experience teaching and writing about civil rights, I figured that I was more than qualified to be on a panel. I applied, because it was obvious to me that the course needed a large dose of ideological diversity.

Faculty members were requested to propose a topic or two in a few sentences. Here’s one of mine: “Labor and U.S. Racial Capitalism: I would discuss Nobel prize-winning economist Gary Becker’s work on race discrimination. Becker showed that competitive markets have tended to eliminate race discrimination, while protected markets (government jobs and jobs with heavily regulated or unionized industries) have tended to foster racial preferences. The empirical evidence tends to bear him out. For example, during the Jim Crow Era, jobs with government and public utilities went disproportionately to whites. Labor unions were often openly anti-black.   Competitive industries were usually more inclined to hire African Americans.”

As the pessimists among you might have expected, they thanked me and declined. Instead, they chose 26 other faculty members.

A comparison to the Federalist Society is worth making here: The Fed Soc’s Civil Rights Practice (more…)

A PLACE FOR US … ÀPRES LE DÉLUGE: For years, I’ve been teasing my conservative and libertarian friends that we should colonize Baffin Island before things get worse here in the USA. They point out that Baffin Island is cold and that it’s already inhabited by fierce Canadians who might take a dim view of our invasion. And polar bears … we mustn’t forget the polar bears.

I’ve therefore been scouting out—via the miracle of the internet—uninhabited islands with better weather (and smaller predators).

Scratch Clipperton Island off the list.

Named for an 18^th century English pirate, Clipperton Island is about 700 miles southwest of Mexico. The two square-mile atoll is not close to anything but the Pacific Ocean. With the exception of a few coconut palms and some grasses, it is pretty barren. Technically its lagoon is full of “fresh” (i.e. non-saline) water, but it’s filthy, very acidic, and undrinkable except on those occasions when your next-best option is death from dehydration. Oh … and the island is home to lots of nasty little land crabs.

None of that’s a deal killer for me. I’m that desperate.

Alas, the island’s history gives me the creeps, so I’m reluctantly going to have to give Clipperton a pass.

Here’s the story as I understand it: In 1906 a British company in cooperation with the Mexican government started a settlement on the island to mine guano. Guano mining had been a huge industry worldwide in the 19^th century—often involving slave labor. The guano (yes, I’m talking about bird poop) was used for fertilizer before the rise of more modern agricultural methods.

The Clipperton mine came well after the industry’s heyday and was not particularly lucrative. The British soon lost interest. Mexico chose to keep the operation and stationed a number of military men there with their families. By 1914, there were about 100 men, women, and children on the island, all or almost all of them Mexican nationals. Every two months a ship would arrive from Acapulco with provisions—food, water, medicine, and whatever else was needed.

Then things went to hell. As the Mexican Revolution raged, the supply ship stopped coming. There was no food.  The 100 inhabitants were faced with the possibility of starvation. One by one, they began to die from scurvy. The military leader of the settlement, Ramón Arnaud, and three soldiers attempted to get help by pursuing a passing ship in a canoe. The canoe sank, drowning all four of them.

By 1917, all the men had died.

Except one—the lighthouse keeper. His name was Victoriano Álvarez and previously he’d been a bit of a recluse. He could have been the hero of the story. Instead he chose to be the villain. He confiscated the women’s guns and declared himself “king” of the island.

By that time there were only 15 women and children left. The self-anointed “king” raped and murdered a mother and daughter when they refused to cooperate with him. He brutally beat and raped most of the others.

If there is a hero to the story, it was 20-year-old Tirza Randon, one of his favorite victims. She bashed his royal head in with a hammer. Sic semper tyrannis.

Very shortly thereafter, the USS Yorktown came by looking for German U-boats.   Eleven half-starved women and children (the youngest one suffering severely from rickets) were rescued and returned to Mexico.

Álvarez’s unburied body was left to the crabs.

At least that’s the way the story is told.

Please find me a different island.

FBI STATISTICS SHOW UNPRECEDENTED SPIKE IN MURDERS NATIONWIDE IN 2020: And African Americans are disproportionately victimized. But you’ll still be accused of racism if you point out that defunding the police is a bad idea.

I wrote about this issue a couple of years ago. It goes back decades. Gunnar Myrdal—hardly a conservative—understood it in the 1940s. Alas, today’s intellectual elites (of all races) don’t seem to.

MARTIN CENTER:  Critical Race Theory is even taught in the music schools:  Arizona State hires its first CRT music professor.

I’M HOPING FOR PERSONAL LIABILITY ON THE PART OF THE UCLA ADMINISTRATORS IN THIS ONE:  UCLA Professor Sues After Being Suspended for Refusing Preferential Exam Treatment for Black Students.  This was one of the worst (if not the worse) of the cancel culture episodes on campuses in 2020.  Such idiocy.

VACCINE PASSPORT REQUIREMENTS HAVE A DISPARATE IMPACT: Yes, of course, they do. Everything has a disparate impact on some group. That’s why I wrote Title VII Disparate Impact Liability Makes Everything Presumptively Illegal. Our laws are utterly incoherent.  Sometimes I wish we could just start from scratch.

SOME PEOPLE REALLY HATE “STAND YOUR GROUND” LAWS:  In Ohio, a lawsuit has been filed.  It claims procedural irregularities in the passage of Ohio’s “Stand Your Ground” law.  Evidently, legislators didn’t “debate and consider” the bill three times before passing it.  At issue is whether that was actually required. Also at issue is whether the law flunks Ohio’s single-subject rule.

(Some historical background on “Stand Your Ground” laws can be found here.)

AND SO IT BEGINS: The Commission on Civil Rights released a report last week that asserts women are 50% more likely to die as a result of childbirth today than they were a generation ago. In my dissent, I explained why that assertion is false. Nevertheless it is being repeated in the press (as this item from the Tampa Bay Times shows). I guess it’s now officially a meme.

Here’s the weird part: At the bottom of the Tampa Bay Times piece, it says, “The Foundation for a Healthy St. Petersburg provides partial funding for Times stories on equity. It does not select story topics and is not involved in the reporting or editing.” What the heck is that? Are progressive 501(c)(3)s really funding “stories on equity” in supposedly independent newspapers? What would happen if a newspaper announced that a conservative foundation was funding “stories on the plight of working whites”?

THE MARTIN CENTER INTERVIEWS WENYUAN WU: Wenyuan is the Executive Director of the Californians for Equal Rights Foundation (I am Executive VP.) CFER Foundation is the organization that grew out of the 2020 campaign to defeat Proposition 16.

USCCR’s REPORT ON MATERNAL MORTALITY:  In its report released this week, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights tries to make the case that racial disparities in maternal mortality are caused by racism.  As one of my colleagues put it, “Black women are treated differently in the maternity ward than others in terms of being listened to, and recognized as custodians of their own care, and advocates of their own care.”  In my dissenting statement, I point out that Hispanic and Asian mothers have lower rates of maternal mortality than white mothers.  Make of that what you will.

HOT, HOT, HOT!:  The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has released its report on racial disparities in maternal mortality.  The report claims, among other things, that (1) mothers today are 50% more likely to die in childbirth than their mothers were a generation ago; (2) racism is a root cause.  My dissent shows why neither claim is makes sense. 

Maternal mortality is a fashionable topic on the Left.  Here in San Diego County, there was recently a billboard/poster campaign to alert African-American mothers that they were more likely than white mothers to die in child birth “because of racism.”  Go figure.

RECALL & INITIATIVE BALLOTS WERE A PROGRESSIVE ERA REFORM:  But now that California is a One Party Empire, you can expect Democrats to curtail the system.

EVEN IDAHO:  No state is red enough for its state universities to escape the critical social justice movement.  It’s everywhere.

AS A LONG-TIME RESIDENT OF BOTH STATES, NO ONE IS BETTER QUALIFIED TO DO SO:  Mark Pulliam reviews Kenneth P. Miller’s Texas vs. California: A History of Their Struggle for the Future of America. 

YES, I KNOW.  IT WAS A RIDICULOUS CLAIM.  EVEN THE WASHINGTON POST KNEW IT:  “Education Department Claim about Student Misconduct Rates Was Wrong.”

BILL McGURN:  The Real Structural Racism:  Is it OK that black eighth graders aren’t proficient in math and reading?

PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT FOR MEN IN COLLEGE ADMISSIONS?:  It won’t solve the problem any more than it did for black students.  (Here’s my take on the issue from a few years back.)

MINDING THE CAMPUS:  Wenyuan Wu gives the L.A. Times an appropriate dressing down:  “The Culture War Against the Little Man.”

WILFRED REILLY:  “Testing the Tests for Racism.”