WHY, INDEED?:  “Why did it take four years to debunk the black baby study?”  I would add that the notion that black mothers die in childbirth at disproportional rates because doctors are racist is at least as dubious.  But nevertheless my colleagues on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights seem to believe it.  At least they say they do.

HURRICANES:  When then-President Trump visited Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, he got criticized in the press (and by my colleagues at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights) for tossing paper towels to the crowd.  The crowd was cheering, so I was never sure why the point was supposed to be.  Ultimately, the press was unable able to make Maria the equivalent for Trump that Hurricane Katrina had been for Bush.

Biden and Harris are evidently hoping avoid the “Katrina” label too.  We’ll see ….

HERE’S A BOOK THAT SHOULD BE PRETTY EYE OPENING:  “Don’t Give Up the Ship:  Woke Politics Are Endangering Our Military and Our Nation.” Crazy things go on in our military these days.

HURRICANE HELENE IS ALL BIDEN’S FAULT:   Just kidding.  But a few years ago, my colleagues on the Commission on Civil  Rights thought Trump was to blame for Hurricane Maria (and, of course, the notion that Bush was responsible for Katrina is gospel on the Left) .

MAYBE WALZ WILL WANT HIM FOR SECRETARY OF EDUCATION:  “Walz Education Appointee Calls for Overthrow of the U.S.”  It’s stories like this that make me fantasize about writing a “Dear President Washington” letter updating the Father of Our Country about how things are going.

“WRONG ON CRIME:  THE LATEST REPORT FROM THE U.S. COMMISSION ON CIVIL RIGHTS MISLEADS ABOUT THE VICTIMS OF VIOLENCE”:  Rafael Mangual, one of the witnesses at our crime victims briefing, isn’t fond of our final report.  He’s right, of course.

(If you missed my individual Commissioner Statement last week, you can read it here.)

HOT! HOT!! WELL … KIND OF HOT:  The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights issued a report on facial recognition technology a few days ago.  I admit I don’t know diddly squat about facial recognition technology.  The one thing I’m sure of is that the Commission Chair is wrong when she argues that “the tech industry’s mostly white workforce and leadership” is to blame for the racial disparities in error rate in facial recognition. technology.  My very short statement that says so is here.

BRIDGET EVERYONE LOVES BERNIE:  Here is my tribute to the late Professor Bernard Siegan (1924-2006)(written a couple of years ago).  A happy warrior on behalf of property rights, Bernie was a real sweetheart.  He’s been gone a long time now, but all of us at the University of San Diego still miss him. If you remember Bernie, you may get a kick out of of my little tribute. Even you don’t remember him, you may like it.

PETE KIRSANOW:  Pete discusses the Commission on Civil Rights’ report on crime victimization in the National Review Online.  (My Statement is here.)

HOT, HOT, HOT!!:  The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights will be turning out another not-so-great report later today—this one on crime victimization.  Here is my Statement—which I hope you’ll read, including Footnote 9.  We’re at kind of a low point.  The Vice Chair is accusing one of my conservative colleagues of “race baiting” apparently for pointing out that African Americans are disproportionately victimized by crime.  It’s all a bit loony.

OH FOR GOODNESS SAKE:  San Diego street performer who was blowing bubbles in the park gets cited for littering.

MIT SEEMS TO BE COMPLYING (OR AT LEAST MOVING IN THAT DIRECTION):  After the Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College (2023), people wondered whether highly selective schools would comply.  Well, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s numbers are now in.

Last year, 15% of the incoming freshman class was Black/African American and 16% was Hispanic/Latino.  This year, it will be 5% and 11% respectively.  Asian American enrollment, on the other hand, has risen from 40% to 47%.  White/Caucasian enrollment is more or less steady (38% vs. 37%).

The good news is that the minority students who weren’t admitted to MIT this year because MIT couldn’t give them preferential treatment probably stand a better chance of getting a STEM degree at their second-choice school than they would have had at MIT.

*Note that the numbers in the chart aren’t perfectly comparable.  They add to 107% in last year’s class and 101% in this year’s.  I assume that’s either because (1) more students happened to put themselves in multiple categories last year than this; or (2) MIT did not allow students to put themselves in multiple categories this year and the 101% is just a rounding error.  That means the slight change in White/Caucasian enrollment is meaningless.

Hurricane Ernesto Plunges 50% of Puerto Rico into Darkness:  As hurricanes go, Ernesto is pretty weak right now–just a Category 1.  That could change, of course.  But Puerto Rico’s electrical grid goes down easily.

Will Joe Biden be blamed for Puerto Rico’s problem?  I ask because, in 2017, a massively stronger hurricane–Maria–struck Puerto Rico and wreaked much greater havoc.  A report by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights tried to blame it on Donald Trump (just as the mainstream media had blamed George W. Bush for Hurricane Katrina).  (My individual part of the hurricane report opposed that effort to blame Trump and can be found here.)  All in all, I found the hurricane project pretty interesting.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE COAST GUARD:  The Coast was founded on this day, August 4, 1790.  My great, great, great, great grandfather William Cooke was a very early Coast Guard officer.  I’ve never been to Wilmington, NC, but I understand from this video that he died mysteriously and that his house is part of the Wilmington ghost tour.  I guess I ought to go.

SOUNDS A BIT FISHY:  “Mayor Thao Recall Committee Under Investigation for Campaign Law Violations.” The president of the recall committee says she’s very confident that everything has been done properly.  She says the Oakland Public Ethics Commission is asking for things it isn’t entitled to–like the names of donors who gave less than $100.  If that’s so, the Ethics Commission itself needs to be investigated.

HELP CHRIS RUFO WITH HIS INVESTIGATION OF DEI IN THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT:  Are you a federal employee?  Is your spouse, best friend, or cousin a federal employee who complains about out-of-control DEI programs?  Let Chris Rufo know.

It’s you patriotic duty.

WAIT!  TAKE ME WITH YOU, ELON!:  “Musk Says SpaceX, X Moving HQs out of California over Transgender Law.”

RACE DISCRIMINATION IN FINANCIAL AID:  For a long time, many colleges and universities have been assuming they could get away with discriminating on the basis of race in allocating financial aid.  SFFA v. Harvard has drawn that into question.  It’s is hard to imagine the Supreme Court would prohibit race discrimination in admissions, but allow it in financial aid.

You should expect to see a new generation of financial aid driven lawsuits (like this one against the University of Oklahoma) in the near future.  Unlike previous lawsuits, these new class actions will likely involve big money in damages.

The University of Oklahoma case is special.  If the allegations against it are true, it won’t even have the excuse that it believed what it was doing was legal.  Oklahoma has a state constitutional provision modeled after Prop 209.  This could cost the university an extraordinary amount of money.

If other colleges and universities haven’t fallen into line yet, they’d best do so right away.  If they wait to be sued, the damages just keep growing.

THE CALIFORNIA ASSEMBLY WANTS TO REGULATE HOMEWORK:  That means they’ll regulate anything, up to and including the color of your underwear.

Assembly Member Pilar Schiavo says her bill–AB 2999–“definitely” doesn’t ban homework, but to watch her video she sure seems to believe her bill will move schools in that direction.  Evidently, homework is causing students anxiety (and evidently that’s bad).  We are doomed when these kids grow up and are in charge of our once-great civilization.

WE WON! WE WON!! WE WON!!!:  I’m sorry to have been AWOL for the last week, but as of last Thursday, we won the battle against California’s Assembly Constitutional Amendment 7 (ACA7) at least for this year and possibly for much longer.  A few weeks ago, I predicted that ACA7 would fail to pass the Cal Senate before the deadline for the November ballot, but now it’s official. Since last Thursday, I’ve been partly on the road and partly frantically trying to meet an unrelated writing deadline, so I’m only now getting around to announcing the win here.

If you’re a loyal Instapundit reader, you probably know what I’m talking about.  But if not, I can tell you that ACA7 was/is an effort to nullify the following words in the California 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.”

ACA7 was/is a bit tricky.  Instead of a straight repeal of those words (which had been put in the state constitution in 1996 by Proposition 209), it purported to “merely” give the governor the power to grant EXCEPTIONS.  But the exceptions would almost certainly have swallowed the rule.  Indeed, that was the whole idea.  California progressives have been gunning for Proposition 209 since the day after Election Day 1996.  ACA7 was/is just the latest effort.

I had a certain amount of personal interest in defeating ACA7, because (1) I had co-chaired the Proposition 209 campaign in 1996; and (2) I had co-chaired the campaign to defeat the repeal effort–No on Proposition 16 in 2020–which we won overwhelmingly (57.22%) despite being outspent by more than 14 to 1.  I was therefore willing to chair the “No on ACA7” campaign.   That has meant spending what seemed like 95% of my waking hours for the last eight months trying to stop ACA7 (and preparing for a full-scale campaign in case I failed).

But I didn’t fail.  I won.  ACA7 had passed the Cal Assembly back in the autumn, but it needed to pass the Cal Senate.  The deadline for inclusion on the November ballot was June 27, and ACA7’s chief sponsor has now let it be known that the Senate was not going to pass it and that it is dead at least for this year.  Like any legislation, it can always be brought up later, but the next scheduled election isn’t till 2026, so we have a long time.

Thanks to everyone who helped kill this nasty bill—Brita, Cia, Dan, Frank, Eva, Jason, Maimon, Rachelle, Saga, Steve, Tony, Wenyuan, and many others.  Thanks also to the Wall Street Journal, the Orange County Register, the Epoch Times, the City Journal, the Federalist, the California Globe, Power Line, and the National Review.

When we did the “NO on Proposition 16” back in 2020, we had a devil of a time raising money.  All the big-money donors thought we would lose, so they figured giving us money would be a waste. If ACA7 had been on the ballot, we’d have done much better with big donors than we did with Proposition 16.  And a couple of non-profits would have been able to conduct substantial voter education projects.  Thank you, Leonard, Mark, Michael, and Norm for being willing to provide funding.

GOOD:  “Federal Judge Blocks Biden Title IX Rule in 4 States:  “Abuse of Power.”

VICTORY IN THE SIXTH CIRCUIT:  The U.S. Court of Appeals has upheld the District Court’s preliminary injunction against the Department of Education’s June 2021 transgender policy.  This applies only to that policy and not to the more recently promulgated Title IX regulations on transgenderism.  But it’s still a win.  Pete Kirsanow, Dan Morenoff and I filed an amicus brief in this case (which in turn was based on Pete’s and my earlier comment).

THIS IS A VERY ODD PLACE:  California Senate Votes to Approve Bill that Would Prohibit Schools from Requiring Teachers to Inform Parents of Their Child’s “Transgender” Status.  It was a party line vote.  Surprise, surprise.

MORE ABUSE OF POWER:  The Biden Administration’s Assault on Grand Canyon University.  Inexcusable.