YES, THIS IS THE 40TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE JONESTOWN MASSACRE:  Just ghastly.

Earlier (From Ed): JIM JONES & HARVEY MILK: THE SECRET HISTORY: Daniel Flynn’s new book Cult City reveals how 1970s San Francisco led to Jonestown.

YOU WANT KOSHER?  WE’VE GOT KOSHER:  The market provides what the public wants.

HARVARD’S ANTI-ASIAN ADMISSIONS POLICY: At the Federalist Society’s National Lawyers’ Convention on Friday, the Civil Rights Practice Group (which I chair) presented a panel discussion of Harvard’s discrimination in admissions against Asian Americans. Thank you to the Honorable James C. Ho, Professor Andrew Koppelman, Dr. Althea Nagai, Patrick Strawbridge, and Professor John Yoo for the lively discussion.

As always, I remind everyone that colleges and universities are not doing affirmative action beneficiaries any favors by admitting them to academic programs where their academic credentials are toward the bottom of the class. Students learn more in programs where they are competitive with other students. So if we want more African American, American Indian or Hispanic doctors, engineers, college professors, and lawyers, we should put the brakes on affirmative action preferences and put a stop to discrimination against Asian Americans. See Want to Be a Doctor? A Scientist? An Engineer? An Affirmative Action Leg Up May Hurt Your Chances and A “Dubious Expediency”: How Race-Preferential Admissions Policies on Campus Hurt Minority Students.

ON THIS DAY IN 1872, SUSAN B. ANTHONY WAS ARRESTED FOR ILLEGAL VOTING: She took the position that the recently-ratified Fourteenth Amendment’s Privileges or Immunities Clause gave all women the right to vote. The argument went like this: Women had always been citizens.   The Fourteenth Amendment made it clear that no citizen should be denied the privileges or immunities of citizenship, so that conferred on women the right to vote.

On Election Day, to her surprise, she was permitted to cast a ballot. Her victory was, however, short-lived. Two weeks after the election she was arrested. Her predicament made news around the world.

Despite her argument about the significance of the Fourteenth Amendment, she was convicted and fined $100 (which she never paid). Meanwhile, in Missouri, Virginia Minor had also attempted to register to vote, but had been refused. She launched her own lawsuit also citing the Fourteenth Amendment. In Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162 (1875), the Supreme Court rejected the argument, holding that while women were citizens within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment, citizenship alone did not confer the right to vote.

At that point, the women’s suffrage movement changed its strategy and began to advocate a constitutional amendment specifically focused on a woman’s right to vote. Meanwhile, out on the Western Frontier, where women were scarce, the women’s suffrage movement was succeeding. Among other things, it was thought to be a way to attract more women.  By the turn of the century, women in Wyoming, Utah, Idaho and Colorado had the vote.

HOT OFF THE PRESS:  The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights just released a report entitled “Police Use of Force:  An Examination of Modern Policing Practices.”  My individual Commissioner Statement is here.

My main point:  In the Jim Crow South, the biggest problem was that many in law enforcement didn’t take crime in African American neighborhoods seriously.  We’ve come a long way since then.  But if modern reformers aren’t careful, their actions will end up encouraging police officers to offer less protection to African Americans.

ON THIS DAY IN 1620, the Mayflower first sighted land in the New World (though it was a little while later before they came ashore). Unprepared for Massachusetts’ harsh climate, about half the passengers and crew were dead by Spring.

ATTENTION SOUTHERN CALIFORNIANS:  On Tuesday evening, November 13th, Powerline’s Steven F. Hayward is coming to the University of San Diego to deliver the annual Bowes Lecture.  His topic:  Justice Without Hyphens:  The Eroding Foundations of Law.  Yes, the University of San Diego has an annual lecture by a conservative thinker.  (Thank you, Mrs. Bowes!) Reserve your tickets now.

OF COURSE HE DOES:  Dutch man, 69, who “identifies as 20 years younger” launches legal battle to change his age.

BAMN, BAMN, BAMN–THE ROOTS OF THE ANTIFA: I mentioned earlier today that the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative was approved by voters on this day in 2006, a decade after the almost-identical Proposition 209 in California. In both campaigns, major opposition came from a Trotskyite group (and I don’t use the word “Trotskyite” lightly here) called the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration, and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary. Its members go by the acronym “BAMN,” and they are apparently an offshoot of the Revolutionary Workers Party. Knock me over with a feather if these guys aren’t wearing Antifa masks these days.

During the California campaign, we mostly laughed BAMN off. But in Michigan (and later in Arizona) there started to be real reason to fear for the safety of the initiative’s supporters, including its signature gatherers:

Just one among dozens of examples of [BAMN’s] willingness to use “any means necessary” was its attempt to intimidate the Michigan Board of Canvassers into refusing to certify MCRI for the ballot.  BAMN brought in busloads of protesters who shouted down officials, jumped on chairs, and stomped their feet, flipping over a table in the process.  As the director of elections for the Michigan Secretary of State put it, “Never before have I seen such absolutely incredible and unprofessional behavior from lawyers urging this disruption.”

BAMN’s co-chair and attorney saw things differently:  “We cannot allow our opponents to determine what our tactics should be,” she said.  “Our tactics win.  That’s the bottom line.”  They did not, however, win before the Board of Canvassers.  Board members voted to certify the initiative for the ballot as the law required them to do.  The following November, the voters approved it 58% to 42%.

I wasn’t there at the Board of Canvassers meeting, but I’ve seen the video.  Alas, I couldn’t find it today (though I confess I didn’t look that hard).   But I did find a more recent video of BAMN storming a meeting of the University of Michigan Board of Regents. Finding the second video is even better, since it vividly shows that the Board of Canvassers meeting was part of a pattern.

Oh yeah, and they filed the lawsuit that reached the Supreme Court too.  BAMN is well funded.

MICHIGAN VOTERS ADOPTED THE MICHIGAN CIVIL RIGHTS INITIATIVE BY A WIDE MARGIN ON THIS DAY IN 2006: The Initiative was a clone of California’s Proposition 209. Like Proposition 209, it banned discrimination and preferential treatment based on race, color, sex, ethnicity or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education and public contracting.

Here’s the one of the most interesting aspects of it: In a party-line vote, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, sitting en banc, held that such an initiative was unconstitutional. Michigan voters were not even allowed to require their state universities and agencies to refrain from discrimination intended to help minorities.

For an explanation of the arguments read The Parade of Horribles Lives: Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration, and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality by Any Means Necessary.

Yes, the Supreme Court eventually reversed (over the dissent of two Justices).

Those who wonder why voters who don’t like Trump voted for him anyway should cogitate for while on the Sixth Circuit’s party-line vote in this case. (Note that one judge who was technically appointed by Bush was really a Clinton holdover appointee and voted with the other Democratic appointees.)

IT’S THE MORNING AFTER, SO I CAN’T BE ACCUSED OF VOTER SUPPRESSION: Elites, especially left-of-center elites, seem to care a whale of a lot more about the tiniest “interference” with what they regard as voting rights than they do about … well … any of our other rights. Granted, voting rights are important and vigilance is appropriate. But as I wrote a few weeks ago in my Statement in an Commission on Civil Rights report: “[I]f anything, elected officials may be accused of spending a disproportionate amount of time worrying about voting issues (and hence about their own re-election) to the detriment of issues that affect their constituents’ lives in more direct ways.” Ditto for denizens of governmental bureaucracies. (And it’s not that they hold self-governance in such high regard. If they did, they’d be concerned about the reach the bureaucratic state.  But they like that leviathan. They think it’s a nice little anti-democratic monster.)

It would be nice if they were half as vigilant about economic liberties and free expression (which fewer and fewer seem to care about today).

IT DIDN”T TAKE LONG:  Yesterday was the 22^nd anniversary of Proposition 209’s passage. That means today is the anniversary of the litigation that tied up its implementation for almost a year. Once the initiative was implemented, however, it did exactly what I had been hoping for:  It improved the academic performance of minority students.

For example, prior to the initiative’s implementation, the University of California at San Diego had only one African American honor student out of a class of 3,268. At the same time, 15% of African American students and 17% of American Indian students were in academic jeopardy (defined as a GPA of 2.0 or less).  That should be compared to only 4% of white students.

Proposition 209 made a big difference.   In the very first year of its implementation, a full 20% of African American freshman had GPA of 3.5 or better—higher than the Asian rate (16%) and almost as high as the white rate (22%) for that year. (Part of the reason for the difference between the Asian and the white rates is that more Asians major in STEM, which traditionally results in lower grades).

At the same time, the academic jeopardy rate for African Americans and American Indians collapsed to just 6%.  Not bad for a voter initiative.

DEALING WITH SH*T:  Never forget that decent plumbing is the sine qua non of civilization.  Hug your plumber today.

MASSACHUSETTS’ “QUESTION 3” ON TRANSGENDER BATHROOM LAW: Today Massachusetts voters will decide whether to retain or repeal a law requiring public accommodations to allow transgender individuals to use the bathroom that matches their psychological gender rather than their biological anatomy. (In the absence of such a law, the owner of the facilities would have discretion over the issue.) As the Boston Globe’s Jeff Jacoby writes, at least one poll indicates that the law will probably be retained.

In a related matter, here are the reasons that Attorney General Sessions’ decision to withdraw the Obama Administration’s transgender bathroom guidance was correct on the law.

These issues are related, but they are not the same. Sessions’ position was simply that Title IX does not address the transgender issue. Federally-funded schools should therefore be able to assign bathrooms based on sex (i.e. anatomy), gender (i.e. psychological identification) or the number of letters in your surname. It’s up to the school, not the feds. Massachusetts voters, on the other hand, are facing a policy question. Should they support a law that requires public accommodations to allow transgender individuals to use the bathroom they prefer? Or should that law be repealed in favor of an approach that allows for discretion on the part of the owner of the facilities? I report, Bay Staters decide.

OUR “UNBIASED” MEDIA AT WORK:  Listen to this short, tape-recorded phone message.  Listen till the end.  Really.

CALIFORNIA’S PROPOSITION 209 PASSED ON THIS DAY IN 1996, THUS AMENDING THE CALIFORNIA CONSTITUTION: Its operative clause states: “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.”

The hope of many Proposition 209 supporters was that the measure would reduce the effects of mismatch. And during the years it was adhered to, it appears to have done exactly that: Minority graduation rates rose rapidly, and minority on-time (four-year) graduation rates rose even faster. At the same time, minority science and engineering rose by about 50%, while the number of minority students majoring in ethnic studies or communications fell by 20%. And minority GPAs increased.

You can read about it in A “Dubious Expediency”: How Race-Preferential Admissions Policies on Campus Hurt Minority Students.

SOVIET TANKS ROLLED INTO BUDAPEST ON THIS DAY IN 1956, thoroughly crushing the Hungarian Revolution. About 200 Hungarians were executed for their part in the effort to get out from under Soviet domination (including Prime Minister Imre Nagy, who had announced Hungary’s withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact only days before). About 20,000 were imprisoned and about 200,000 fled the country.

Some had thought that Khrushchev, unlike Stalin, might permit Hungary to leave the Soviet orbit in peace.  They were proven wrong.

SETON HALL:  Another university caves to demands of rowdy students.

DON’T BLAME SCHOOLS FOR THE “ACHIEVEMENT GAP:” Like many other “civil rights” policies, it only ends up hurting its intended beneficiaries.

YIPPEE-KI-YAY!:  On this day in 1912, singing cowgirl Dale Evans was born.  Roy Rogers was her fourth husband.  The fourth time was a charm.

ON THIS DAY  IN 1735: John Adams was born.

THE SUPREME COURT WOULD PREFER NOT TO:  Alas, the Supreme Court declined today to review Metcalf v. United States.  The question of whether Congress can prohibit hate crimes by using its Thirteenth Amendment power to prohibit  slavery will thus go unresolved by the nation’s highest court.

(On the upside for today, I learned to shoot skeet and wasn’t nearly as bad at it as I thought I would be.)

HILLARY IN 2020:  She really does seem to saying yes.

ON THIS DAY IN 1886:  Grover Cleveland dedicated what we now call the Statue of Liberty.

YES, IT DOES:  Voter Fraud Exists.