IT’S HISTORIC: On this day in 1930, the Twinkie was invented by bakery manager James Dewar in Schiller Park, Illinois.  As is so often the case, capacity was the mother of invention.  The machinery for making cream-filled strawberry shortcake was unused when strawberries were out of season.  Twinkies (which were originally banana cream filled) were the off-season solution.

WORLD ENDS TONIGHT, WOMEN AND MINORITIES TO SUFFER MOST: Catherine Lhamon, the former Chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and now Biden’s “Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy Council for Racial Justice and Equity,” was quoted by ABC News a few days ago: “[P]ollution and the climate crisis disproportionately threaten the lives and livelihoods of Americans of color.”

Maybe. But a 2016 report of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights tried to prove exactly that, and ended up with data that showed just the opposite: The pollution it found was disproportionately in white areas. Of course, the Commission proceeded to ignore its own data.

CUTE LITTLE HERO: Four-year-old honored by Texas police officers for helping to save his toddler cousin from drowning.  The more heroes are honored (even the pint-sized ones), the more of them we’ll get.

COMING SOON:  A Dubious Expediency: How Race Preferences Damage Higher Education, edited by Maimon Schwarzschild and Gail Heriot, contains essays by John Ellis, Peter Kirsanow, Heather Mac Donald, Peter Wood and others (including your humble editors). It should be available for your reading pleasure by late May.

THE OTHER BERNSTEIN: On this day in 1922, a great American composer and conductor named Bernstein was born. No, not Leonard.  Elmer.  And no, they’re not related.

Elmer Bernstein wrote the scores for The Ten Commandments (1956), To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), The Great Escape (1963), Animal House (1978), Ghostbusters (1984) and many other movies.

By far the most important to me is the theme for The Magnificent Seven (1960). (If you haven’t seen the movie, you might remember it as the theme music for the Marlboro Man ad campaign of the 1960s).

When I cook, I sometimes play it. I like a little drama with my cooking.

JOHN FUND:  Biden Aims to Outshine Obama as a Progressive Reformer.

SOUTH DAKOTA HAS A NEW STAND YOUR GROUND LAW:  And so do several other states.  Is the hysteria over these laws dying down?  (Here’s my take from last year.)

SOUTH CAROLINA REPUBLICANS ARE JOINING DEMOCRATS IN BACKING STRATEGY THAT WILL THROW SEVERELY DISABLED WORKERS OUT OF THEIR JOBS: Here’s why it’s a bad idea.

HIGHER EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: Many of you have now read about the bizarre mistreatment of conservative law professor Tom Smith by my very own university. If you haven’t, it’s worth reading about.

Here’s the basic story: In response to demands by student activists, Tom is now officially “under investigation” for what the dean has termed “offensive language in reference to people from China.” Some of the students are calling for him to be fired. What Tom actually did is criticize the Chinese government, not the Chinese people.  The dean’s insulting missive to the university community was just a silly misinterpretation.

Weirdly, even the students concede that Tom was referring to the Chinese government. Their argument is that by criticizing the Chinese government, Tom is adding fuel to the supposed Anti-Asian fire and thus putting them at risk.

This morning our local paper—the San Diego Union Tribune—published three op-eds on the Smith Affair. Yes, that’s one, two, three op-eds. If you have the time and the inclination, please feel free to leave a comment after one of the op-eds. I feel certain that woke USD officials do not spend a lot of time reading Instapundit. (That’s their loss.) But I bet they will be reading the comments at the San Diego Union Tribune.

THE HITS JUST KEEP ON COMING: Hot off the press– The Defeat of Proposition 16 in California and Mr. Dooley: Should the Supreme Court Take Notice of “Th’ Iliction Returns” Next Time It Addresses Race-Preferential Admissions Policies?

(This article formed the basis of the argument in the Amicus Curiae Brief submitted yesterday by Californians for Equal Rights in the Harvard case.)

APRIL FOOL:  Washington Post surprised to learn that federal bailouts disproportionately go the politically well connected:  “Some of America’s Wealthiest Hospital Systems Ended Up Even Richer Thanks to Federal Bailouts.”

I’M GETTING USED TO THIS KIND OF STUFF:  COVID, murder hornets, riots, the Suez Canal … and now Johnson & Johnson factory mistake ruins 15 million doses of vaccine.

HOT OFF THE PRESS!:  Amicus Curiae briefs in support of the Petitioner are due today at the Supreme Court in Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College.  Here the brief Peter Kirsanow and I filed.  Cross your fingers for SFFA.

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS LAW SCHOOL’S FIRST AMENDMENT CENTER:  Standing up for the First Amendment … unless it would p*ss off the wrong people.

GOOD TO KNOW:  Apparently, having more women and “people of color” as traffic engineers is the No. 1 way to prevent pedestrian traffic fatalities.  In Bloomberg today, a UConn law professor argues:  “First, we need to diversify the people who codify road design.  [The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials], the code councils and the federal agency writing the [Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices] are dominated by white, male engineers who are trained to prioritize driver speed.  We need women, people of color, transit users and bike-pedestrian advocates to bring new perspectives and cultural competencies into the conversation.”

WHY DOES ANYBODY STILL LISTEN TO THE SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER?:  Each red-blooded American must teach five people the truth about these corruptoids.  Start with your sister-in-law who still reads the New York Times.  If we all work hard we can have this taken care of by August–well ahead of the vaccine project. Here’s some ammunition.

ONE OF AMERICA’S BEST JUDGES:  Judge Ho Tells It Like It Is.

The only downside of “the Honorable James Ho” is that his appointment to the bench makes me feel elderly.  I knew him before he went to law school (but a good 15 years after I had graduated).  I remember I urged him to attend my alma mater–the University of Chicago Law School.  But I don’t think I can even claim partial credit for having influenced his decision; if I am remembering correctly, he was already leaning heavily toward Chicago.  Now he’s a Fifth Circuit judge–one of quite a few great judicial appointments by Donald Trump.

WHY NOT BAN WRITING ALTOGETHER?:  Oxford considers scrapping sheet music for being “too colonial.”

GEORGE LEEF:  On “Panics and Persecutions:  20 Tales of Excommunication in the Digital Age.“

“ACTION CIVICS”—ONE MORE THREAT TO THE BODY POLITIC: And one more reason to home school your children.

HILARIOUS: Bruce Gilley writes at the James Martin Center: “[I]n December of last year, the [Portland State University—American Association of University Professors] ‘voted overwhelmingly’ to officially condemn my research on colonialism. In a bizarre twist of logic, the PSU-AAUP justified its action by declaring that it ‘stands for academic freedom’ but does ‘not stand for hostile work environments created under the guise of academic freedom.’ In other words, by conducting research according to accepted methods and publishing my findings, I have somehow created a hostile work environment for my colleagues who have repeatedly attempted to censure me.”

This kind of problem is everywhere these days, including, most recently, at my own cute little law school.

JOHN FUND:  IDs for a Vaccine Shot, but Not for Voting?

THE POWER OF PRESIDENTS TO ACT UNILATERALLY LEADS TO POLITICAL POLARIZATION:  John O. McGinnis and Michael Rappaport explain.  (repost after technical difficulty fixed).

HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF: Yesterday a Georgetown law professor was fired for getting too close for comfort to the truth about the effects of race-preferential admissions. But it was not the first hullabaloo on that topic to erupt at Georgetown. Here’s the story:

In early 1991, a third-year law student—I’ll just call him “John Doe” here—took a job as a part-time file clerk in the admissions office. He probably figured it would be a good way to earn some extra money without cutting too much into his study time. If he had only known …. In a few weeks, this former Peace Corps volunteer would be vilified by the Georgetown University faculty, his fellow students, and the editorial pages of some of the nation’s major newspapers. Over the course of the next year and a half, he would be fighting for his right to practice law.

(more…)

AMERICA’S CULTURAL REVOLUTION CONTINUES: Yesterday Glenn linked to a story on the firing of a Georgetown University law professor.  Speaking the truth can get you in trouble these days.  That’s why we’re hearing less and less of it.  Powerline has more.

History is repeating itself at Georgetown.  That law school had a similar blowout on the issue of race-preferential admissions more than two decades ago. I’ll blog on that later today. In the meantime, this article explains in detail why the professor was right:  On average, affirmative action beneficiaries tend to struggle academically.  Alas, Georgetown prefers to cover it up rather than fix the problem.