I’M PROUD TO BE ACCUSED OF BEING OFFENSIVE: A week or so ago, several of us from the “NO on Proposition 16” campaign attended a zoom meeting with members of the editorial board of the San Francisco Chronicle. We knew that the likelihood that they would come out on our side was zero. It’s the San Francisco Chronicle for goodness sake! Our goal was more modest—to show them that we don’t have horns and a forked tail.

We may have failed even in that. Yesterday, the Chronicle endorsed Prop 16, which, if passed, will repeal the following words from the state constitution: “The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education or public contracting.” (See California’s Prop 209, passed in 1996.)

Here’s the part that gets me. In endorsing Prop 16, it pronounced our “mismatch” argument against it “offensive.” That’s so annoying.

Still, I view it as a backhanded endorsement. These days when someone cannot actually respond to an argument, they call it offensive in hopes that that the speaker will shut up.  That’s what they’re hoping we’ll do.  They’re going to be disappointed.

Loyal Instapundit readers has seen these links on mismatch before, but maybe some of you haven’t:

Want to Be a Doctor? A Scientist? An Engineer? An Affirmative Action Leg Up May Hurt Your Chances.

A Dubious Expediency: How Race Preferential Admissions on Campus Hurt Minority Students.

If you haven’t read the articles, you can get the flavor from the titles. But there is a mountain of highly sophisticated research behind the argument.  If you don’t believe me, read the articles.  In the end, it is either true or it’s false that “an affirmative action leg up” can hurt the chances of a student to enter a number high-prestige careers. That’s something the country needs to care about.

By the way, I spent the weekend updating “A Dubious Expediency” for an anthology that I am editing with my USD colleague Maimon Schwarzschild.  The book, which I hope will come out in a few months will also contain essays from Peter Kirsanow and Heather Mac Donald (among others).

WHAT’S IN STORE FOR CALIFORNIA?:  A radical race agenda, that’s what.  The California Senate has now passed a bill establishing a slave reparations task force.  Meanwhile, it has also approved a bill that requires race/sexual orientation quotas for corporate boards of directors. A somewhat different version of the corporate board bill has already passed the Assembly, so it’s unlikely they will balk this time around.  And, of course, the Legislature has already passed a bill asking voters to rip up the state constitution’s prohibition on discrimination and preferential treatment on the basis of race or sex.  It’s all so breathtaking.  Sorry I don’t have time to write more …

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Kurt Schlichter’s The People’s Republic wasn’t supposed to be a how-to manual. But if you want an idea of where California is headed, well, it’s the thing to read first.

JOHN FUND:  “John Muir Is Cancelled.  Who’s Next?“

MORE ON THE INSANITY AT SANDIA NATIONAL LABS:  “Illegal retaliation at Sandia Labs for opposing reverse discrimination?”

“IN DEFENSE OF LOOTING“:  David and Glenn commented on this asinine new book a few minutes ago.  HuffPost has now joins NPR in showcasing it.  Donald Trump just inched a little closer to a second term.

CHRISTOPHER RUFO:  There is a civil war erupting at Sandia National Labs.  One brave guy is pushing back on the systemic racism narrative.

UH OH … NOT SURE EVERYBODY WANTS TO KNOW THE ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION:  Who killed George Floyd?

THE WRONGHEADED DRIVE TO REPEAL PROP 209:  Whither Race-Neutrality in California?

WOMEN ARE UNLIKELY TO GET AN UNDERGRADUATE ADMISSIONS PREFERENCE IF PROPOSITION 209 IS REPEALED:  I’m told that one of the arguments that polls best for the repeal effort in California is that it will help women get into college.  Perhaps I should point out that women aren’t having any difficulty getting into college.  They are “over-repressented” and a repeal of Proposition 209 will not result in general preferences for women at the undergraduate admissions level.  It may even result in a preference for men.

NEVER TAKE INVESTMENT ADVICE FROM ME:  Just for fun, I bought a modest amount of stock in Lowe’s about a year ago for about $100 a share.  When it got to about $130 in July I was astonished and decided it couldn’t possibly last, so I sold.  It is currently at $165.

RE-LITIGATING PROPOSITION 209 IN CALIFORNIA: Twenty-four years ago, California voters adopted Proposition 209 by a margin of 55% to 45%. I am proud to have co-chaired that campaign.

Its operative clause, which is now part of the California Constitution, reads as follows:

“The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.”

Proposition 209 thus outlaws race-preferential admissions policies, race- and sex-preferential hiring, and preferences for minority- or women-owned businesses.

The California Legislature has been gunning for it ever since. Proposition 209 supporters have twice beat back repeal efforts. But this year the lockdown made political organizing more difficult. This time our overwhelmingly Democratic legislators managed to place the repeal on the ballot for November. We are fighting back as best as we can. (And twenty-four years later, I am again co-chair of the campaign.)

Loyal Instapundit readers may recall that we had a dress rehearsal for this last year. Washington State voters successfully defeated an effort to repeal I-200 (Washington State’s 209 clone) at the ballot box. It was truly an Election Day miracle and a great tribute to the determination of Asian American grassroots organizations in Washington State (helped out by donations from generous Instapundit readers!).

This time there’s at least as much at stake, so I am asking for help again.

To California Voters: Please vote NO on the repeal effort (Proposition 16). (There are many reasons to vote no, but here some reasons that are less well known.)

To Everyone: Many of you probably have one or more California friends.   Please make sure they know about Proposition 16. If you have a California friend who is tempted to vote in favor of the repeal, please hog tie them and throw them in the cellar until Election Day try to persuade them otherwise. And if you have some extra money, please consider sending it our way. Right now our opposition is much better funded than we are. That’s okay. We don’t need as much money; we have much better grassroots support than they have. But we need more money than we have now. If we lose this referendum, the MSM will treat it as gospel that public opinion has permanently shifted on this issue. There will be no going back.

ANOTHER POTENTIAL ELECTION FIASCO:  Vanishing volunteers to act as election judges.

IF YOU WATCH SPORTS TO GET AWAY FROM POLITICS, YOU’RE OUT OF LUCK:  California pro sports teams are falling all over themselves to endorse Prop 16, which would repeal Prop 209 from the California Constitution, thus allowing the state to grant preferential treatment on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, and national origin.  Friends of mine with a sense of humor have answered back with a petition demanding that these teams to allocate 15% of their positions to Asian Americans.  (Asian Americans are about 15% of the California population.)  Go ahead, sign it.  You know you want to.

I GUESS IT’S POSSIBLE:  Will the Dam Break After Clinesmith’s Plea?  Of course, it’s not so easy the get news coverage.  (Media:  “Who is Clinesmith? Never heard of him.”)

(Bumped.)

MINDING THE CAMPUS:  This is serious!  You’re not allowed to argue against race-based admissions policies anymore.

A MINORITY NO MORE: I’ve been a terrible blogger lately. Instead, I’ve been co-chairing the campaign to defeat Proposition 16 (I’ll write more on that later). As a result, I’m late on finishing three academic articles and late on an anthology that I am editing for Encounter Books. I’m also trying to get a Commissioner statement done that’s due on Thursday. Things will get better, but not soon. Instead, classes start at USD today. Argh!

Nevertheless, I can’t help but celebrate. One part of my life has just gotten a lot better: For several years, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has been 6-2 in favor of the Commission’s Progressive Caucus. The two conservatives—Pete Kirsanow and I—have been outnumbered.

Fortunately, we now have reinforcements. President Trump has filled both the seats that he is entitled to fill during this term. Consequently, the Commission is now 4-4.  My two new colleagues are Stephen Gilchrist and (most recently) Christian Adams.

Conservatives (if we can manage to stick together) can now block anything that we believe needs to be blocked. Ditto for our four Progressive colleagues. We all will have to start practicing the art of compromise.

I didn’t know Stephen Gilchrist prior to his appointment, but I know he has a lot of fans. Christian Adams I have known since he was a witness before the Commission ten year ago in connection with the Obama Administration’s bizarre handling of the New Black Panther Party case. I couldn’t be happier to be working with them both.

This is going to be a different Commission.

YOU GO GIRL:  Olivia de Havilland wasn’t much like that sappy Melanie character in Gone With The Wind.  Think of her more as an anti-communist action heroine.

KATHERINE KERSTEN:  The Woke Movement is the new Puritanism.

HOT OFF THE PRESS!  On Tuesday, I testified (by phone) before the President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice.  My advice to them was essentially, “don’t do anything crazy during this Summer of Irrationality.”

MORE HANS BADER:  Research race and racism had better toe the line.

HANS BADER:  “Anti-Racism is Racism in Disguise.”

JOHN FUND:  Could Tennessee Soon Have a Physician Senator Who’s the Son of Indian Immigrants?  The GOP primary race looks close.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): This race looked like a runaway for Hagerty, but I’m seeing Sethi signs everywhere all of a sudden and the polls are closing up. I donated to Sethi and went to one of his events back in the fall, mostly at the behest of a former student, but I found him impressive. I believe that Sethi is stronger with the evangelical community than some might have expected. Hagerty makes a big deal about his Trump endorsement — “Endorsed by Trump” is on most of his signs — and if he loses the press will make it a defeat for Trump, but in actuality I don’t think Sethi would be any less supportive of Trump if elected. He’s an immigrant son, but he’s careful to note that his parents were legal immigrants.

{LINK FIXED} PROFESSOR EMERITUS STUART HURLBERT UNDER SIEGE AT SDSU:  It takes real vindictiveness to try to take away a professor’s emeritus status. But that’s just the kind of thing they do these days at San Diego State University.

If you have time and the inclination, you can leave a message of support for Stuart on the NAS website.  He is a great soul who deserves to be treated like the scholar he is. Or you can write SDSU President Adela de la Torre here.

LANCE IZUMI:  The Supreme Courts gives school choice a chance in Montana.

HISTORY DOESN’T REPEAT ITSELF, BUT IT OFTEN RHYMES:  ON Friday, the rioters went after the Columbus statue in Chicago’s Grant Park.  They didn’t succeed.  But I’m a Chicago girl, so I’m livid.

A number of people keep comparing our present situation to the Weimar Republic.  Since I am not exactly the world’s leading expert on the Weimar Republic, I asked my go-to guy for absurdly detailed knowledge of “commies and nazis”–my friend and colleague Maimon Schwarzschild–how apt the analogy is.  Here is his detailed answer:

Germany’s Weimar Republic (1919-1933) was a deeply troubled state throughout much of its 14 year existence. It came into being with defeat in World War I; it was seen by many Germans, especially those on the political Right, as an illegitimate creature of the Versailles Treaty. It endured hyperinflation in the early 1920s, demilitarisation and some loss of territory, persistent unemployment, and an especially harsh experience of the world economic depression after 1929. It was plagued with violence and political street fighting, carried on by what amounted to private armies associated with the political parties in Germany.

There were at least four such private armies: the Communist force (“Rotfront” or Red Front); the Social-Democrats’ Reichsbanner; the “Stahlhelm” or Steel Helmet – a right-wing but originally non-Nazi armed veterans’ troop; and the Nazi SA (“Sturmabteilung” or Storm Troops).

These private armies – and other similar but more ephemeral forces – fought street battles with each other at various times during the 1920s and early ‘30s. There were short-lived take-overs of cities and towns, and attempted coups like the right-wing Kapp Putsch in 1920 and the Nazi Beer-Hall Putsch in 1923. There were local Communist takeovers after the War and in the early 1920s, usually suppressed by right-wing “Freikorps” – unofficial right-wing brigades. (My grandfather Fritz Schwarzschild was a member of the Soviet which ruled Strassburg for about ten days, until chased off by the French Army which recaptured the city after World War I.)

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