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. 

STUDENTS FOR FAIR ADMISSIONS v. PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE:  All in all, 20 “friend of the court” briefs have been filed urging the Supreme Court to grant review of the case about Harvard’s race-preferential admissions (including one by Peter Kirsanow and me).  Another one of the briefs–filed by Californians for Equal Rights–was based on an article written by Alex Heideman and me, so I’ve got a double stake in this.  I’m crossing my fingers.  I hope you are too.

Here is a list of the briefs.

LOUIS K. BONHAM:  “UT Austin Approves Orwellian ‘Strategic Plan for Faculty Diversity, Equity and Inclusivity.”

“HERE I STAND. I CAN DO NO OTHER”: Yesterday was the 500^th anniversary of Martin Luther’s dramatic refusal to recant his “heresies” at the Diet of Worms. His words—“Here I stand. I can do no other”—are perhaps the Protestant Reformation’s most riveting.

Alas, it’s possible they were never actually uttered. They don’t appear in the contemporary records of the event. But, to me, that seems beside the point.  Luther gets full credit either way:  He lived the words.

The “Diet” was a heresy trial of sorts, called in the free imperial city of Worms by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. Months earlier Pope Leo X had issued the Exsurge Domine (“Arise, O Lord”), a papal bull that condemned the many “errors” of Luther’s 95 Theses. The Diet was called to enforce Leo’s bull.

Luther refused to be intimidated. He did, however, apologize for the harshness of some of his words. Like many 16^th century Germans, Luther had a penchant for the scatological. His writings were sprinkled with references to farts, excrement, and the bodily parts that produce them. That can make his writing seem less than inspiring to modern readers. (And, yes, he had an assortment of other prejudices that wouldn’t go over well today… it was another time and place.) On the other hand, his concern over corruption in the Roman Catholic Church was both sincere and important. No fair-minded person could disagree with him completely.

By standing by his beliefs, Luther was putting his life on the line. In theory, Frederick the Wise, the Elector of Saxony, had secured from the Emperor a guarantee of safe passage for Luther both coming and going from the Diet. Yet Luther knew the same promise had been made to Jan Hus a century earlier under similar circumstances. Hus had been nevertheless burned at the stake as a heretic.

In May, the Emperor issued the Edict of Worms: “[W]e forbid anyone from this time forward to dare, either by words or by deeds, to receive, defend, sustain, or favor the said Martin Luther. On the contrary, we want him to be apprehended and punished as a notorious heretic ….” Luther had to be hidden away for a time.

Twenty-first century America is certainly a different time and place. We have our own issues. Mercifully, being a dissenter doesn’t require the same kind of courage it did in the 16^th century.

On the things that matter, here we stand, fellow Instapundit readers. There’s not much excuse for failing to speak up.

THE RIGHT WAY AND THE WRONG WAY TO FIX A PROBLEM: In this article, I discuss the evidence that race-preferential admissions have made it harder, rather than easier, for African American law students to graduate and pass the bar. One solution to this problem would be to stop discriminating on the basis of race and admit what should have been obvious: students aren’t being done any favors when they are admitted to a school at which they aren’t academically competitive. But several states are experimenting with a different “solution”: dumb down the bar exam.

JOHN FUND:  What do Black Lives Matter and Hunter Biden have in common?  Big Tech won’t let you read criticisms of either of them.

DISPARATE IMPACT: The poisonous doctrine that disparate impact based on race is the legal and moral equivalent of actual race discrimination is everywhere these days.   This article explains how supposedly conservative Chief Justice Warren Burger got us there.

GREAT STORY:  The Forger From Berne:  Between 1940 and 1944 a clandestine network of Polish diplomats and their Jewish partners in Switzerland created illegal Latin American passports that saved thousands of lives.  Half of the documents were forged by one person–Polish Vice consul in Berne Konstanty Rokicki.

THANK YOU, IDAHO LEGISLATURE!!: Idaho House Rejects Higher Ed Budget Due to Concerns Over Wokeism.

ON THIS DAY IN 1994: The Rwandan genocide began.

SCHOOL DISCIPLINE: The Biden Administration’s czarina of racial equity, Catherine Lhamon, continues to express surprise that students diagnosed with behavioral disabilities are disciplined in school more than students without such disabilities … and that African American students are disciplined more often than other students. But data show that there is a good and obvious reason for this.

I’m figuring the Biden Administration will be reinstating the Obama Administration’s (in my view illegal) school discipline policy any minute now.