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.)

(more…)

SOMEBODY IS FINALLY MAKING SENSE:  Black lives matter.  That’s why protesters in Southeast Washington, D.C. want MORE police protection, not less.

(You’ll find my two cents on policing issues and race here.)

UNEXPECTEDLY: 400% surge in NY police retirement applications this week.

AMERICA:  LOVE IT … OR VOTE DEMOCRATIC: “How dare you question my patriotism!”

Good Question:  If We Jettison Standardized Testing, What’s the Replacement?

DC Statehood:  What Would Frederick Douglass Do?

IN OUR BRAVE NEW WORLD, ENVIRONMENTAL RACISM SEEMS TO BE TOPICAL AGAIN: Or maybe it’s never gone out of fashion.

When the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights tackled this topic, among the witnesses whose “expertise” we drew upon on was a “dancer, storyteller and facilitator” with a “focus on performance and also health and social change communication.” Really.

The only independent empirical research we conducted was a study of the proximity of coal ash deposits to minority neighborhoods. Alas for my progressive colleagues, our staff found that, if anything, coal ash landfills and ponds were more likely to be found near whites. That research was, of course, given no prominence in our report.

LET’S GET RID OF EVERYTHING THAT DISADVANTAGES DEMOCRATS :  Now that we’ve decided to open up the prisons and jails, eliminate fines and fees, and send the police packing, the issue of the excessive number of  “collateral consequences” for felony convictions is becoming a popular topic again.

Last year, the Commission on Civil Rights released a report calling for fewer such consequences.  My Commission colleague Peter Kirsanow and I filed a Statement that was somewhat sympathetic toward that goal.  We did worry that our colleagues were getting a bit carried away.

The most troubling thing about the Commission’s report was its over-emphasis of voting rights.  The report lamented that collateral consequences (e.g. laws that exclude convicted felons from certain jobs or benefits) make it difficult for ex-convicts to re-integrate into the economy.  But the only collateral consequence that it treated at length and indeed waxed poetic on–the denial of the right to vote–is also one that has nothing to do with re-integrating into the economy.  Funny thing that.

JOHN FUND:  AOC has a real primary challenger.

A DIFFERENT CASE:  If you are wondering whether Justice Gorsuch’s decision that Title VII prohibits discrimination on basis of sexual orientation will also control the case concerning bathroom and shower assignment of transgender students, the answer is (I believe) absolutely not.  The argument that Peter Kirsanow and I made in our amicus curiae brief should holds up just fine.

I FEEL LIKE I AM IN SOME SORT OF TIME WARP:  Suddenly every past report of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights–no matter how poorly reasoned or flawed–is hot.  The one on inequity in public education is being talked about now.  Here is my dissent.  The data I saw showed that it’s true that the wealthiest school districts spend more on education than the poorest ones.  But the curve was U-shaped:  It was the ones in the middle that spent the least.  There may be reasons that the poorest districts need more, and I’m willing to engage on that issue.  But we need to be honest about it.

“ELITES APPEASE CANCEL CULTURE BULLIES“:  Read this if you can.  It’s by my friend Jim Allan at the University of Queensland.  It’s a rant.  But if you’re like me you could use a good rant right about now (and this is an excellent one).

If you run into the paywall (I didn’t until my third time through), I will try to come up with an alternative link.

FINES AND FEES:  The issue of what to do about jurisdictions that finance themselves out of fines and fees was popular right after the Ferguson riots.  Not surprisingly, it’s getting some play again now.

This is an issue for which there is a bit of agreement on the left and the right:  When municipalities see fines and fees as their primary method of raising revenue, they can get carried away.  Justice falls through the cracks.

The Commission did a report on the topic in 2017.  My statement agrees with my Progressive colleagues in some respects.  But it also points out that they’ve never seen a penalty that they didn’t hate–from the death penalty to incarceration to fines.  What’s left?  Should we go back to the pillory?

IS CHAZ EVOLVING INTO PARADISE?:  I’ll leave that for you to decide. 

OHIO IS CONSIDERING A “STAND YOUR GROUND” LAW: I am pretty sure this Commissioner Statement will clear up some of the misconceptions that Buckeye State legislators are hearing.

IT WAS EXPECTED, BUT IT STILL HURTS: The defenders of Proposition 209 were defeated in the Assembly late Wednesday. Our opponents had votes to spare (including the votes of one Republican, two post-election defectors from the GOP, and one Democrat who’d told his constituents in 2016 he would oppose any effort to repeal Prop 209).

The issue will now go to the Senate where we have a better chance. If ACA5 passes there, it will go to voters for a November referendum.

My friend Ward Connerly tweeted, “I never thought I would see the day when American citizens would have to vote to preserve their right to be treated equally regardless of skin color. But, I never thought I would see the day when my government would require me to drink my soda from a paper straw either.”

Many great Americans helped in the effort to convince the Assembly.

On to the Senate.