THEY’RE TALENTED:  Dogs have gotten good at sniffing out COVID.

HOW DYSFUNCTIONAL IS THE U.S. COMMISSION ON CIVIL RIGHTS?: The Commission has a tradition of passing resolutions honoring civil rights figures who have recently died. I have always dutifully voted in favor of these resolutions regardless of whether I agreed with everything (or indeed anything) the particular person had said or done while living. It was enough that one of my colleagues thought the person was worthy of such a tribute.

Then, in December, Walter Williams, a civil rights hero of mine and probably of many Instapundit readers, died. I asked my special assistant at the Commission, Alex Heideman, to write up a tribute to Dr. Williams. I thought this would be routine.

It wasn’t. After much delay, the tribute finally came up for a vote at the end of April. It passed, but just barely. The vote was 5-3. (Thank you, Commissioner Yaki, for breaking ranks with the progressive members of the Commission and voting with the conservatives.)

BORROW FROM A NICE LOAN SHARK INSTEAD:  Paternalistic Liberals Want to End Online Lending.

JASON RILEY:  The Biden Administration is gearing up to bring back the Obama Administration’s policy on school discipline (and take it further).  Here’s an explanation for why that’s probably illegal.

THANK YOU, FEDERALIST SOCIETY:  It published a note on my new anthology.

JOHN FUND:  “Pete du Pont, Conservative Ahead of His Time.”

A REDUNDANT PROSECUTION IN MINNESOTA:  The federal prosecution of Derek Chauvin was likely undertaken as a hedge against the possibility that he would be acquitted in the state prosecution.  That obviously isn’t what happened.  But the prosecution apparently will proceed.

What’s jarring to a lot of Americans is that it’s possible to be acquitted of a crime in state court, but still prosecuted in federal court (and vice versa).  They think the Constitution protects them against double jeopardy.  It doesn’t (or at least that’s how it’s been interpreted for a long time). Back in the day that there weren’t many federal crimes, that may have been tolerable.  But these days there’s almost always a federal crime that can be charged, so double jeopardy is almost always possible.

I’ve argued in the past that in the specific and narrow context of the federal hate crimes act that this is unconstitutional. Some federal appellate judges have appeared to be sympathetic to the argument, but it will take the Supreme Court to do anything about it.

IT’S NOT ALL IN YOUR HEAD, YOU KNOW:  The College of the Ozarks is suing Biden and HUD officials over the Administration’s insistence that transgender students be assigned to the dormitory they identify with, rather than the dormitory of their anatomy.

(The brief linked to here was written for the Title IX context rather than for the Fair Housing Act context, but I think the basic logic still applies.  Like Title IX, the Fair Housing Act forbids SEX discrimination, not GENDER discrimination.  At the same time, there seems to be a general agreement that the FHA allows colleges and universities to have separate dorms by sex. Once you get that far, even under the Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County (in fact especially under Bostock), the College wins for the reasons outlined in the brief.

Here’s the quick version:  In Bostock, Justice Gorsuch was hyper-textual.  He essentially held that if an anatomical women who wears dresses would be hired, but an anatomical man who wears dresses won’t be hired, that’s sex discrimination under Title VII.  But the same logic doesn’t apply here:  If an anatomical woman who wears dresses can live in the women’s  dorm, but a anatomical man who wears dresses can’t live in the women’s dorm, that is indeed sex discrimination, but sex discrimination  is permitted in this context.  If it weren’t permitted, it wouldn’t just be transgender individuals who could “cross over” to the other dorm.  All men (and all women) are being discriminated against when they are not permitted to live in the opposite sex’s dorm.  Note that it doesn’t help HUD’s argument to say, “Well, transgender women (anatomical men who identify as women) really are women.  At that point, they are arguing that the college is treating two kinds of women differently.  But there is no law against discriminating between two different kinds of women; the statute forbids discrimination on the basis of sex.)

GOV. DeSANTIS INTENDS TO REQUIRE UNEMPLOYMENT CLAIMANTS TO SHOW THEY’VE BEEN LOOKING FOR WORK:   That sounds like the right call to me.

I spoke to someone very familiar with the restaurant industry here in San Diego a few days ago.  She told me much the same thing as Power Line’s Paul Mirengoff reports from Florida:  Restaurants here are having a hard time staffing up.  Their former employees are getting unemployment benefits, and many of them don’t want to come back to work until they have to.  My “informant” told me her own roommate doesn’t want to go back to work.  Alas, stories like that seem to be everywhere these days.

WOKENESS HAS COME FOR ADOPTION:  “It’s the children who will suffer.”

There’s a long history to this stuff.  The National Association of Black Social Workers has vehemently opposed inter-racial adoptions for many decades.

ALEXANDER RILEY:  “The Origins of the Cruel Ritual of Diversity Training.”

THE LURCH TOWARD LEFTISM AT K-12: In case you haven’t heard, the Biden Department of Education has proposed a new “rule” that will prioritize federal grants to schools that teach Critical Race Theory (and specifically the 1619 Project curriculum). If that doesn’t make you want to scream in horror, you’re not paying enough attention.

Adam Smith is remembered for (among other things) his quip, “There is a great deal of ruin in a nation.” In context, he meant that it takes a whole lot to bring down a great and prosperous nation. Alas, no nation’s storehouse of “ruin” is infinite.   I can think of no more effective way to bring down the United States of America than to teach a generation of American children that their country is racist to the core.

Right now the best way we have at our disposal to stop this is to deluge the Department of Education with comments before the May 19^th deadline. You can do so at this link provided by Parents Defending Education. The software provides you with a simple message that you can send with a click. Even better, you can substitute your own message.  Either way, it’s easy.

I tend be a pessimist at heart, but there is no need for pessimism here.   The grassroots opposition to wokeism in our schools is already winning in some jurisdictions. Even the dimmest politician should be getting the message that the Biden Administration’s proposal is going to lose the Democratic Party votes in 2022 and 2024.

If you’ve got the time and the inclination, please throw in your two cents.

DO YOU OWN SHARES OF STOCK IN COCA-COLA?:  If so, take a look at this.  Coca-Cola has parted ways with the General Counsel who instituted its illegal policy of hiring only law firms that pass its quota test for diversity.  But it has not parted ways with his policy.  To force Coca-Cola to follow the law, a shareholder derivative lawsuit may be necessary.

IMMIGRATION DETENTION: Not sure why the Left spends so much of its energies opposing privately owned and operated immigration detention facilities, as but NPR notes, they’re still at it. Part of it is apparently inspired by labor unions.  They get a better deal from the feds.

The private facilities I’ve inspected on behalf of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights were nicer than the government-owned facilities. The astonished look on the faces of my Progressive colleagues when we toured a private facility near San Antonio was priceless.

LATEST ON THE EFFORT TO FIRE PROFESSOR TOM SMITH AT THE UNIVERSITY OF SAN DIEGO:  “Law Professor May Be Fired After Personal Blog Post Criticized Chinese Government.”  It does make you wonder if USD has some financial reason to come down hard on criticism of the Chinese government.

LAKE WOBEGON WAS FICTION:  If their grades are an indicator, all students are above average these days.  Maybe that’s not such a great idea.

BUT THEY STILL WANT ASIAN AMERICANS TO VOTE FOR THEM:  “Democrats Vote to Continue to Discriminate Against Asians.”

EVERYONE IS ENTITLED TO HIS OWN OPINION … BUT NOT TO HIS OWN FACTS: My friend Hans Bader pointed me to this: Ohio State University law professor claims that “Black-on-Black crime is a myth, and that Black and white people routinely commit crimes at similar rates.” The record amply demonstrates that neither assertion is true.

Of course, law professors have been making ridiculous assertions for decades. The problem is that this kind of stuff is now driving national policy. The last Chair of the U.S Commission on Civil Rights said essentially the same thing about school discipline. She now works at the White House as Biden’s Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy Council in charge of racial justice and equity.

WE NEEDED A SUPREME COURT TO TELL US THAT?: On this day in 2014, the Supreme Court decided by a margin of only 6-2 that Michigan voters are permitted under the Constitution to insist the State of Michigan NOT discriminate on the basis of race. The name of the case was Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration and Immigration Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary. The respondent’s name—the acronym for which is “BAMN”–should tell you everything you need to know about its modus operandi.

Here’s some background on the Schuette case with a little bit on BAMN and its origins in the Revolutionary Workers League.

YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED TO SAY THAT:  “No sign that George Floyd was killed because of his race.”

FOLLOW THE MONEY:  “Getting Rich in the Diversity Marketplace:  Ethnic Studies Consultants Ride a Wave of Profits Across America’s Schools and Corporate Workplaces.”

THE DAM IS BREAKING:  Coca Cola’s “woke” general counsel is out.  This is the guy who wanted at least 15% of the lawyer time billed  to Coca Cola by law firms to be for African American lawyers.

YESTERDAY NORTH DAKOTA BECAME THE LATEST “STAND YOUR GROUND STATE”: Only 12 states remain “duty to retreat states.” The history of all this is pretty interesting.

THIS IS A FIGHT WE HAVE TO WIN:  “Biden Administration Offers Grants to Teach Children ‘1619 Project,’ Inherent Racism Central to U.S.“

WE COULD USE A THOUSAND SPOTLIGHTS ON THIS STUFF (AND NOT JUST IN NEW YORK):  Shining a Spotlight on Critical Race Theory in New York High Schools.