HAPPY EVACUATION DAY:  On this day in 1783, the British Army left New York City.  Huzzah!!

POWERLINE:  Lie-A-Watha strikes again.

I’M READY FOR MY STRAITJACKET AND PADDED CELL: I just finished another online sexual harassment course. I take two each year—one for my university and one for the Commission on Civil Rights. I’ve been doing this for what seems like many years now. At some point you’d think they’d let me graduate and be done with it.

MICHAEL RAMIREZ’S CHICK-FIL-A CARTOON:  “Be A Chikin:  Abandon the Salvation Army.”

HE’S RIGHT ON THIS: Wilfred Reilly’s Hate Crime Hoax: How the Left is Selling a Fake Race War is worth reading. I speak to plenty of people on the left side of the political spectrum. They are adamant that hoaxes are rare … but they are not right.  The fact that they persist in saying so (and/or believing so) is part of the problem.

(For the “Cliff Notes” version, see my dissenting statement in the recent report of Commission on Civil Rights. I cite Reilly there.)

I CAN HELP YOU FIX THAT: This article is right that, because African-American students as a group are more likely to drop plans to major in STEM or to drop out altogether than other students, student debt can be harder on them. But the solution is not just to wring one’s hands or call for free college, but rather to stop affirmative action admissions policies that place African American students at a disadvantage.

LET ME SAY IT ONE MORE TIME: The apparent assumption that racial differences in school discipline rates (in this case Native American v. All Students) must be the result of discrimination is incorrect. See my dissenting statement here. See also this.  The world is a great deal more complicated than the “everything is racism” paradigm suggests.

SPEECH BY ART LAFFER “SHUT DOWN”:  Rowdy SUNY Binghamton students won’t let the famed economist speak.

CAMPUS SEPARATISM:  Syracuse University students occupy building, demand that they be able to choose same-race roommates in student housing.

THE CHICK-FIL-A SAGA CONTINUES:  Under pressure from LGBT protestors, Chick-Fil-A states that it will no longer donate to the Salvation Army and several other Christian charities.

JOHN FUND:  Bloomberg panders to his audience.

THE TRUTH IS UGLY: The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights’ new hate crimes report cites the Southern Poverty Law Center as a respectable authority. I believe my dissent gets it right: The SPLC is a flimflam machine.

HMMM:  San Diego proposes to deal with the lack of affordable housing by raising real estate taxes, thus making real estate even less affordable.

MORE WASHINGTON POST FOLLIES: The WaPo’s fashion critic doesn’t like Jim Jordan’s fashion sense. Or something like that. She criticizes him for failing to wear a suit jacket at the hearing (and, for good measure, throws in that he was “disingenuous” in explaining why).

Flashback:  This is the same fashion critic who attacked John Robert’s children for being too old-fashioned in their dress.  This lady is hard to please … unless you’re a Kennedy.

ANOTHER SCORCHER, HOT OFF THE PRESS:  This morning the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights released a report entitled “In the Name of Hate: Examining the Federal Government’s Role in Responding to Hate Crimes.” The report … uh … needs work.   My dissenting statement tries to deal with the issues the majority ignored: hate crime hoaxes, overbroad definitions of hate crimes, and double jeopardy.

CHARLES LIPSON:  Bloomberg Will Hit an Iceberg.

WHAT IN THE WORLD IS WRONG WITH NORTHWESTERN’S STUDENT NEWSPAPER?:  If Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism isn’t the most prestigious such program in the country, then it’s darn close.   Yet the editors of its school newspaper recently issued a cloying apology for covering a very newsworthy visit to the the NU campus by Jeff Sessions.   The coverage of the visit and the accompanying protests was evidently triggering for NU’s snowflakes.

Glenn posted something about this last night. But I wanted to re-post it in the morning when more readers would see it.  As a Northwestern grad, this makes me want to burn the place down.   If you have a mind to, please leave comments on the Daily Northwestern web site.  These students need to hear from as many adults as possible.

CONTRARY TO WHAT WE’RE TOLD, NOT EVERYTHING IS RACIST OR SEXIST:  But, alas, it’s pretty much true that everything is illegal employment discrimination.  That makes the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission extraordinarily powerful (as well as extraordinarily unaccountable).  Read about how it got that way and how to rein it in.

I SHOULD BE DOING THIS TOO:  Mark Pulliam is voting with his feet.

REFERENDUM 88 VICTORY:  It is now safe to announce that the effort to re-impose affirmative action preferences on Washington State has been defeated.  It was too close to call with certainty for a while.  Minding the Campus’s John Rosenberg discusses “Lessons from Washington State on Affirmative Action.“

“JOHN, THIS IS MONIKA. I AM OVER THE WALL”:  A journalist’s recollection of the Fall of the Berlin Wall.

HOT, HOT, HOT OFF THE PRESS: My latest (and not yet officially published): “Title VII Disparate Impact Liability Makes Almost Everything Presumptively Illegal.” The Trump Administration needs to be paying a lot more attention to this ghastly area of the law.

GAIL AT STANFORD:  I’ll be at Stanford Law School this evening advancing the argument that the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 is in part unconstitutional.  Yes, of course, you’re invited.

GEORGE LEEF:  “A Racially ‘Woke’ Agenda Is Now Hardwired in Public Schools.”

HE LIKES IT:  John Fund reviews “No Safe Spaces.”