JOHN FUND:  “How Do Democrats Handle a Problem Like Gavin Newsom?” 

FROM THE ALOHA STATE:  STOP COMING HERE:  The Hawaii Tourism Authority wants fewer tourists.  Careful what you wish for.

CHARLES LIPSON:  “When Confidence in Our Institutions Collapses.”

JOHN FUND:  “Is New York City’s Vaccine Passport Scheme Racist?“

GOOD NEWS ABOUT A BAD NEWS NOMINATION:  “Lhamon Fails to Advance Out of Committee; Full Senate Should Not Allow Her Nomination to Proceed Further.”

SCOTT YENOR AT THE MARTIN CENTER:  “Academic Freedom Doesn’t Shield Universities from Oversight.”

PLAINLY ILLEGAL RACE DISCRIMINATION: The City of Portland, Oregon plans to spend millions in federal funds on “struggling artists of color.” Note that Portland isn’t talking about giving money to just any struggling artist. Whites don’t count, no matter how much they are struggling and no matter how artistically gifted.

This kind of blatant race discrimination isn’t going to stop until lawsuits—lots of ‘em—are brought. To do that here, we need a struggling artist of pallor in Portland who might be willing to be the plaintiff.

Instapundit is not exactly the place I expect to find a lot of struggling non-POC artists living in Portland, so this is a long shot. But if you are such a person and might be willing to help us fight this, please contact me via email. I will pass your info on to the lawyers who are hoping to mount a lawsuit. Alternatively, if your best friend from high school or your daughter-in-law’s mom lives in or near Portland and might know a struggling artist or two, please find out if they can help.

EVEN THE L.A. TIMES MUST ACKNOWLEDGE THE MOVEMENT:  Orange County Board of Education gets an earful from parents and panelists about the indoctrination of children through CRT.

ANOTHER NEW “STAND YOUR GROUND” STATE: It’s North Dakota this time.

(Here’s my contribution to the literature on this much-misunderstood doctrine.)

THE GERMANS CALL THE STRATEGY “WANDEL DURCH HANDEL” (“CHANGE THROUGH TRADE”): But doing business with China seems to be changing the wrong countries.

(Why am I reminded of the Rolling Stones’ 19^th Nervous Breakdown? “On our first trip, I tried so hard to rearrange your mind. But after a while I realized you were disarranging mine.”)

LAST NIGHT, THE ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION HELD A FORUM ON THE BARKING MAD, CRT-BASED, ETHNIC STUDIES CURRICULA BEING OFFERED TO THEIR CHILDREN:  Parents concerned about indoctrination flooded the room.  Here’s the written version of the testimony given by my friend and colleague Professor Maimon Schwarzschild at the event.

The level of grassroots activism against CRT is truly impressive–not just in Orange County, but all across the country. There’s still some life in America.

STILL HAVEN’T READ A Dubious Expediency: How Race Preferences Damage Higher Education? :  It’s not too late to add it to your summer reading list.  With essays by John Ellis, me, Peter Kirsanow, Heather Mac Donald, Peter Wood, me & Carissa Mulder, Lance Izumi & Rowena Itchon, and Maimon Schwarzschild, it just might be worth your time.

WHEN YOU’VE LOST NPR … : Even NPR is concerned about rising crime now. Of course, the folks there see it as a public relations issue for the Democratic Party rather than a problem to be solved, but whatever.

Three years ago the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights issued a report on “Police Use of Force.” I used the opportunity to write a bit about the country’s history of treating black-on-black crime as if it doesn’t matter. It provides useful background now that things have gotten worse.

TODAY AT NOON EASTERN TIME & YOU’RE INVITED:  The Federalist Society has scheduled a book talk with my co-editor Maimon Schwarzschild and me for our anthology–A Dubious Expediency:  How Race Preferences Damage Higher Education.

MISTER, WE COULD USE A MAN LIKE ERIC HOFFER AGAIN: On this day in 1898 … or maybe it was 1902 … and maybe it wasn’t even this day … maybe it was July 15, the great longshoreman-philosopher Eric Hoffer was born. Maybe I’m just being nostalgic, but it seems to me that The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements is still worth a read … maybe now more than ever.

PETER WOOD:  Critical Witchcraft Theory.

THE WASHINGTON POST THINKS 55 RACIALLY INTIMIDATING NOOSES HAVE BEEN HUNG AT CONSTRUCTION SITES IN THE LAST FEW YEARS: I guess it’s possible. But I would bet against it. In this Dissent to the Commission on Civil Rights’ report on hate crimes, I have a footnote that lists quite a few false “noose” alarms (e.g. a fishing knot and a shoelace) as well as several purposeful “noose” hoaxes (remember Jussie Smollett?). The piece also gives a little history behind the Southern Poverty Law Center that you might not know about.

OBAMA’S THIRD TERM?:  Comments are due tomorrow at the Department of Education on the Biden’s Administration’s proposal to return to (or maybe even go beyond) the Obama Administration’s ghastly school discipline policy.  A few years ago, Alison Somin and I wrote, “The Department of Education’s Obama-Era Initiative on Racial Disparities in School Discipline:  Wrong for Students and Teachers, Wrong on the Law.”  It’s still worth reading.

Brace yourself.  The Biden Administration is about to make K-12 schools even worse than they are now.

GOOD FOR THE NAS:  The National Association of Scholars Opposes the ABA’s Woke Standards for Law Schools.

MORE ON THE CATHERINE LHAMON NOMINATION:  Teresa Manning doubts Lhamon can be fair.

GIVEN THAT SHE OPPOSES DUE PROCESS, THE BOARD’S OPPOSITION SHOULD COME AS NO SURPRISE:  Wall Street Journal editorial board opposes the nomination of Catherine Lhamon to be Assistant Secretary of Education for Civil Rights.

CRITICAL RACE THEORY IN EVANSTON, ILLINOIS:  Quin Hillyer has a two-part series on the anti-CRT lawsuit against the public schools in Evanston (a town I once called home).  Here’s Part I.  And here’s Part II.   Hillyer correctly describes the school system’s CRT practices as “vile.”

DEAR SUPREME COURT: I know you guys are on vacation now, but here is one (among many) reasons you should agree to review and ultimately reverse Students For Fair Admissions v. Harvard (the case that deals with Harvard’s policy of discriminating against Asian Americans in admissions). Don’t be nervous. Don’t be shy. Buck up.

ABIGAIL SHRIER:  “Want to Save America?  Don’t Act Like a Conservative.”

STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS: Griggs v. Duke Power Co., one of the least defensible opinions in the Supreme Court’s history, is now 50 years old. If you want to understand just how wrong an opinion can be (and how hard Congress tried to write a statute that couldn’t be misinterpreted), read Title VII Disparate Impact Liability Makes Almost Everything Presumptively Illegal.