THE IMPORTANCE OF VOTING RIGHTS … as illustrated by the behavior of two politicians in history.

THE NEW YORK TIMES GETS IT JUST PLAIN WRONG: I posted on Wednesday about the claim that the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights’ new voting rights report was adopted “unanimously.” The claim was made in the Commission’s press release and in the Chair’s transmission letter to President Trump. But as I wrote in the post:

This is technically true, but highly misleading. My mother died about an hour before the telephonic meeting at which the vote was taken, so I was unable to call in. As I wrote in my Commissioner Statement, if I had been present, “I would have voted no.” I believe the same is true of my colleague Peter Kirsanow, who was stuck in a deposition at the time. Only Commissioners appointed by Democrats voted to approve the report.

The New York Times story parrots the claim of unanimity. But it does so in a way that is not even technically true. Under the headline, Protection of Voting Rights for Minorities Has Fallen Sharply, a New Report Finds, it states that the report’s “key recommendations were unanimously supported by the commission’s eight members—six Democrats and two Republicans.” That is just plain false.

For the reasons stated above, I didn’t have sufficient time to take on the report point by point (and, to be fair, not everything in the long report is bad). But I managed to discuss some of the issues raised in the report (and make a few historical points) in my Statement, which I have now posted as a separate document on SSRN.

UPDATE: EVEN THE NEW YORK TIMES CORRECTION NEEDS CORRECTING: The NYT’s story now states: “In a foreword to the commission’s latest report, Ms. Lhamon wrote that the panel unanimously supported the report’s key recommendations, a claim that some conservative advocacy groups said was untrue. A publicist for the commission, Vincent Eng, later said that the panel’s six Democratic members all approved the recommendations, but that its two Republican members either did not attend the session at which the vote was taken or left the room during the vote.”

This is deliberately misleading. The New York Times reporter for this article was informed via Twitter by my special assistant of the truth. She is not an advocacy group. I have no idea who Vincent Eng is, but he doesn’t work at the Commission, and when Eng’s statement was drawn to the Staff Director’s attention by my assistant, he denied that we even have a publicist. In any event, nobody “left the room” when the vote came up. Indeed, there was no room. The vote was taken on the telephone.  And by the way, I’m not a Republican. I was appointed by a Republican.

UPDATE TO UPDATE:  The Staff Director now admits that he hired Eng as a “media consultant,” which in his view is not a publicist.

VOTING RIGHTS REPORT: The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights released a report today entitled “An Assessment of Minority Voting Rights Access in the United States.” The press release repeatedly emphasizes that the report was “unanimous.” This is technically true, but highly misleading. My mother died about an hour before the telephonic meeting at which the vote was taken, so I was unable to call in. As I wrote in my Commissioner Statement, if I had been present, I would have voted no. I believe the same is true of my colleague Peter Kirsanow, who was stuck in a deposition at the time. Only Commissioners appointed by Democrats voted to approve the report.

The most remarkable part of the report can be found in the Statement of Commissioner Michael Yaki (the Pelosi appointee) on page 301:

[The Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County v. Holder] has turned the concept of voting rights on its head, where officials now work to restrict, and not expand, the franchise. Worse, there is little attempt to conceal the racial animus underlying these actions or the transparency of their actions to block the franchise and empowerment of minorities. In this way, there is a direct line from Shelby to Charlottesville, where alt-right, neo-Nazi, and hate groups, in their putsch-filled delusions, believe they can turn back the clock and preserve the supremacy of their self-defined racial purity. When government is acting under the color of law to enact the legal equivalent, it becomes a distinction without a difference.

Got that? State legislatures enacting voter ID laws and other anti-fraud measures are the same as “alt-right, neo-Nazi, and hate groups” who “in their putsch-filled delusions, believe they can turn back the clock and preserve the supremacy of their self-defined racial purity.”  And it was all made possible by a Supreme Court that “turned the concept of voting rights on its head.”

Yaki has a history of intemperate statements. But the Chair Catherine Lhamon (an Obama appointee) concurred in his Statement. If it were a 40-page Statement with the crazy parts buried in the footnotes, I might be inclined to believe she just didn’t see it. But it isn’t even two pages long, and the crazy parts dominate the text. I have to assume she agrees with him.

I’ll post a link to my Statement in the report when I get a chance.

MAYBE MY SCHOOLTEACHER GRANDMOTHER WASN’T SO STUPID AFTER ALL: A Georgia charter school is seeking parental permission to using paddling as a punishment for schoolchildren. And many parents are granting it.

School discipline has changed since the 1970s, when, as a result of a number of public interest lawsuits, it became legally risky to keep students after school without explicit parental permission. This pleased teachers, who weren’t keen on working late with unruly students anyway.

Instead, in-school or more commonly out-of-schools suspensions became the norm. Two problems: First, suspended students lose instructional time. Second, many of them like to be suspended.

What’s really needed is a punishment that is quick and unpleasant, thus allowing misbehaving students to get right back to their studies—like an old-fashioned paddling.

In the meantime, whether it works out or not, I’m happy to see a school attempt to set it own discipline policy. The federal government has managed to impose its preferred discipline policy on most of the rest of them.

BATTLE OF VIENNA: Good morning, Instapundit readers. It’s September 12^th, the 335th anniversary of the Battle of Vienna.   That day in 1683 was a turning point in history with the forces of the Habsburg imperial monarchy, the Holy Roman Empire’s principalities, and the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth, combining to stop the Ottoman Empire’s expansion into Europe. John III Sobieski, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, was their military leader.

Vienna, which had been under siege since July, was near collapse. The Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I had fled and was now begging for help from the rest of the Empire, from Poland-Lithuania and from France. Poland as well as Saxony, Bavaria, Swabia, and some other HRE principalities answered the call. (France’s Louis XIV said no, and the Lithuanians, though willing, arrived too late for the battle.)

Sobieski personally led the 18,000-man cavalry charge that scattered the Ottomans. This was the beginning of a long end for the Ottoman Empire. After the battle, Sobieski gave credit to both the High and the low, “Venimus, Vidimus, Deus vicit” (“We came, We saw, God conquered”).

Here’s my question: Why isn’t John III Sobieski more famous in the USA? The last person to mention his name to me was Mr. Newlove, my 12^th grade European history teacher.

NO GUNS AT SAN DIEGO COUNTY’S MOST POPULAR GUN SHOWS?: According the San Diego Union Tribune, the Del Mar Fairgrounds Board of Directors voted 8 to1 to suspend the popular gun shows until a “policy is developed that could include a complete ban on the possession of any firearms or ammunition.…”

“We’re not doing our kids any service if we continue this,” said Director Lisa Barkett, before voting for the suspension….

“Essentially, it’s a ban of the gun show,” said Wendy Hauffen, executive administrator of the San Diego County Gun Owners, after the decision. “You can’t have gun show with no guns.”

Next for Del Mar Fairgrounds:  No horses at the horse races.

SWEDEN IS LIKE EVERY COUNTRY, ONLY MORE SWEDISH:  In Sweden, the Elite Lost Touch with the People.

ANNIVERSARY OF THE U.S. COMMISSION ON CIVIL RIGHTS: It was this week in history that Dwight Eisenhower signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1957.  Among other things, it created the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

In 2007, I was asked to testify at a Senate hearing celebrating the Act’s 50^th anniversary. (The Chairman couldn’t make it, so I was the rookie substitute.) I had just recently been appointed to Commission and was more optimistic about the Commission’s ability to produce quality reports than I am now. It reads pretty cheerily.

Since then I suffered disappointments.   Here are just two examples:

(1) The 2015 report on immigration detention centers: The Commission members who sponsored it set out to prove that these detention centers were hellholes.   But when we visited two such centers they were nicer than expected … so the report barely mentioned our visit and instead did things like repeat a very old (and pretty much discredited) rumor that once a detention center served maggots with a meal. I dissented from the report.

(2) The 2016 report on environmental justice: The Commission members who sponsored this one set out to prove empirically that coal ash dumps are more likely be located near African Americans. But the data ended up pretty much proving the opposite … so the results got buried.   I dissented again.

I haven’t entirely given up on the Commission’s ability to do bipartisan research that (as LBJ put it) will “sift out the truth from the fancies” and “be of assistance to reasonable men.” But it’s not an easy task.

Feel free to excoriate me for my remaining optimism in the comments. But don’t spend too much energy on it, because I’m pretty sure I won’t have the heart to read them. Sad!

“WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY AND THEY ARE OURS”: On this day in 1813, American naval commander Oliver Hazard Perry defeated British commander Robert Heriot Barclay (no relation) in the Battle of Lake Erie. His dispatch to Major Gen. William Henry Harrison ranks up there with “Veni, vidi, vici” for succinctly, yet dramatically, reporting a military victory.

(And, yes, there was also Pogo’s variation on Perry’s theme.)

THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION IS HERE: Another frightening story of how an academic paper that even hints at a politically incorrect conclusion can be derailed by a howling mob.

THE CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE TRIES TO STOP “PATIENT DUMPING”: Will the new law have the unintended consequence of accelerating the alarming trend toward hospitals’ closing down their emergency rooms?

ON THIS DAY AT THE 1960 OLYMPICS IN ROME: Wilma Rudolph won her third Olympic gold medal for track and field. Not bad for a woman who contracted polio at the age of four and who had to wear a leg brace for much of her early life.

A NEW PROJECT FOR TRUMP ADMINISTRATION ATTORNEYS AFTER THEY GET DONE WITH THE KAVANAUGH HEARINGS:  Roger Clegg discusses the need for a Disparate Impact Inventory.

YESTERDAY IN HISTORY: I forgot to post this yesterday. And maybe it’s fitting that I forgot. On September 4, 476 A.D., came the Fall of the Roman Empire (or rather the Western Roman Empire, the only Roman Empire to be headquartered in … wait for it … Rome). Here’s the crucial point: The September 4^th date is just a convention. It is the date Odoacer overthrew Romulus Augustulus. But one could make an argument for dating the fall earlier or later. It is very doubtful that average Romans understood on that exact date that they were witnessing the close of an epoch. Alas, history is like that. Civilizations fall inch by inch, not all at once.  It’s easy to miss.

IT WAS AROUND THIS TIME 21 YEARS AGO THAT PROPOSITION 209 WAS FINALLY IMPLEMENTED: Proposition 209, which prohibited (among other things) state universities from engaging in discrimination or preferential treatment on the basis of race, color, sex, or ethnicity, had been tied up in litigation for nearly a year. But by September the Ninth Circuit had spoken and en banc review had been denied. The University of California has no choice but to conduct its admissions season as if Proposition 209 was the law … because it was the law.

At the end of the admissions season, UC Berkeley leaked the results to the L.A. Times, which screamed in its headline, “Acceptance of Blacks, Latinos to UC Plunges.” This was highly misleading. While the numbers of Blacks and Latinos had decreased at UC Berkeley, they had increased dramatically at Riverside and at Santa Cruz.

More important—indeed more important than anything—the grades of black students had dramatically increased (and the internal documents at UC-San Diego made it clear that their experts understood exactly why this happened).  You can read about it in The Politics of Admissions in California.

THE LEFT HAS GONE BARKING MAD: A former Kavanaugh clerk sitting behind Kavanaugh at the hearing is accused of being a White Supremacist by a bizarre Twitter mob  that imagines she is sending some sort of “White Supremacist” hand signal.

The woman—Zina Bash—is also a former Alito clerk. Just in case it matters to you, her mother is Mexican and on her father’s side she is the descendant of Holocaust survivors.

Stop the world. It’s time for me to get off.

MISMATCH STRIKES AGAIN: If you are a subscriber to the Chronicle of Higher Education, you may have seen an article entitled How a Liberal Arts College Is Rethinking Its “Soul Crushing” Core Curriculum. Reading between the lines, you’ll be able to see that it’s a good illustration of how affirmative-action mismatch doesn’t just harm the individual students it is intended to benefit; it ends up feeding identity politics and creating student pressure to water down the curriculum and grading scale. The article (behind a paywall) begins this way:

When Art Reyes received a generous scholarship to attend Harvey Mudd College, an elite engineering, science, and math-oriented institution in Claremont, Calif., he and his parents, both immigrants from Mexico, were thrilled. An alum warned him that tackling the intense coursework would be “like trying to drink water from a fire hose,” but the high-school salutatorian felt up to the challenge.

Reality soon caught up with him. With six classes and a lab in his first semester, his days and nights often stretched to 2 or 3 a.m. Sleep-deprived and stressed, he found himself slipping behind his classmates with whom he was wading lockstep through a notoriously challenging core curriculum. By his sophomore year, he had to take a semester off to catch up at a community college. His self-confidence was shattered.

Reyes later learned that he had plenty of company in feeling overwhelmed by the college’s academic requirements. In complaints first to mental-health counselors and then to outside evaluators, students described feeling like they had little time for showers or sleep, much less extracurricular activities or time to reflect.

The problem was particularly acute among the growing number of first-generation and minority students whose frustrations exploded to the surface last year after a leaked report quoted professors complaining that the college’s focus on diversity had caused standards to slip.

Students protested, classes were canceled for two days, and a period of soul-searching began. This year, Harvey Mudd, which is part of the Claremont Colleges consortium, is taking a hard look at its core curriculum and the mental-health and counseling services it offers students.

A curriculum committee is considering how to ease pressure on students without sacrificing rigor. But divisions remain among the faculty about whether this is a good idea, or just pandering to students who lack the work ethic or preparation needed to succeed.

“Ease pressure” “without sacrificing rigor”?  That’s not an easy task.

Once again I offer the following articles in order to understand why our campuses behave as they do: 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. This is serious. Harvey Mudd College is one of the last places to abandon a rigorous curriculum. Their graduates build our bridges and aircraft and things you really don’t want to go wrong.

And one student’s “soul crushing” core curriculum is another student’s educational adventure of a lifetime.

THE ATTACK ON THE FEDERALIST SOCIETY IS SILLY: Today’s Kavanaugh hearing appears to have descended into chaos. Amid the hooting and hollering is the accusation by Senator Durbin that Kavanaugh is the nominee of the Federalist Society. Untrue. But if it were true, I’d be happy about that (and Trump’s detractors should be happy too). You’d be hard-pressed to come up with an organization that that tries harder to engage in free and fair debate. Don’t take my word for it. Listen to the positive views of these left-of-center lawyers about the 65,000-member organization:

“For over a decade, I have been privileged to be involved in Federalist Society events, and it’s a really interesting thing that they have seen fit to invite me even though I generally don’t think like them on a lot of things, and the quality of the speakers and the free-for-all discussion is unparalleled, so it’s really been a privilege.”—Neal Katyal, Acting Solicitor General (Obama Administration).

“I think one thing your organization has definitely done is to contribute to free speech, free debate, and most importantly, public understanding of, awareness of, and appreciation of the Constitution. So that’s a marvelous contribution, and … in a way I must say I’m jealous at how the Federalist has thrived a law schools.”—Nadine Strossen, Professor of Law, New York Law School & Former President, American Civil Liberties Union.

“[T]he Federalist Society has brought to campus the commitment to real, honest, vigorous, and open discussion. It is a result of the works of the Federalist Society to create a wonderful environment for discussing social, political, legal and constitutional issues.”—Paul Brest, Professor of Law & Former Dean, Stanford Law School.

The Federalist Society’s programs are not held in secret; even Sen. Durbin is welcome. It is one of the most open organizations I have ever known. And it strives to include speakers from across the ideological spectrum in its panel discussions. I can recall only one occasion, in 2003, when I panel I was involved in was not balanced (only because the liberal speaker failed to show up). Although, as a speaker, I had already given my own view on the topic (which was a more conservative view), I spontaneously got up and gave the liberal point of view too, just to make sure that the Federalist Society maintained its tradition of presenting the many sides of each issue.

By contrast, the supposedly mainstream Association of American Law Schools is famous for having brought in over 20 speakers to discuss the then-recent passage of California’s Proposition 209 (which prohibited discrimination or preferential treatment on the basis of race, sex, or ethnicity in public employment, public contracting and public education). Every last one of the speakers opposed the initiative; not a single supporter was invited to speak, despite the fact that several law professors who had worked on the campaign, including me, were present at the meeting.  And that’s not the most outrageous story I know about the AALS’s leftist leanings.

WE HOLD ARNE DUNCAN’S UNTRUTHS TO BE SELF-EVIDENT:  No, it isn’t true that his Department of Education cared deeply about the due process rights of male students accused of sexual assault.  Or even that it cared shallowly ….

BOTH SIDES NOW:  John Fund on John McCain.

ONE HYDROGEN BOMB CAN RUIN YOUR WHOLE DAY:  This time last year, North Korea was exploding a hydrogen bomb.  Or least that’s what its maximum leader said (and most of the experts think it’s true).  Don’t forget about that, okay?

SPEAK FOR ENGLAND, ARTHUR!: Today is the 79^th anniversary of one of the most electrifying moments in Parliamentary history.

It was the day after Hitler’s armies had swept into Poland. But Neville Chamberlain was still vacillating. German aircraft were screaming over Poland, but the Prime Minister hadn’t yet entirely given up on the power of diplomacy. His speech before Parliament was careful … much too careful. He declared, “the government is in a somewhat difficult position.”

Ordinarily, Clement Attlee as Labor leader would have had the responsibility for responding to such a speech. But Attlee was elsewhere that day, so the job fell to Yorkshire M.P. Arthur Greenwood as deputy. “Speak for the workers! Speak for the workers!” shouted the Labor back benchers. Greenwood began his speech by announcing that he was speaking for Labor.

Out of the chaos, rang the voice of Leo Amery, a Conservative M.P. from Birmingham South. “Speak for England, Arthur!”

Party loyalties no longer mattered. Nor did class. Greenwood was the son of a house painter. Amery was the son of a colonial officer. The two M.P.s couldn’t have been more different.

Prior to September 2, 1939, Greenwood had never been regarded as a gifted speaker (and indeed never was again). But that day was different. Uncharacteristically, he spoke off the cuff. “We must march with the French,” he declared to enthusiastic applause. “The moment we look like weakening, at that moment dictatorship knows we are beaten. We are not beaten. We shall not be beaten.”

A state of war was declared the next day.

CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE PASSES SEX QUOTAS FOR CORPORATE BOARDS: CNN cheers. Hans Bader explains why it’s unconstitutional. Now it’s up to the governor to decide whether to sign an unconstitutional bill.

NAMES THAT HAVE BEEN TOSSED AROUND FOR McCAIN’S SEAT: Kirk Adams, Barbara Barrett, Mark Brnovich, Eileen Klein, Jon Kyl, John Lopez, Cindy McCain, Karrin Taylor Robson, Matt Salmon, John Shadegg, Kelli Ward, Grant Woods and many others, great and small.

The first thing Gov. Ducey has to do is decide if he wants a caretaker for the job or someone who might run in the next election for that seat (2020). Since he is running for re-election himself now, he needs to consider how his choice will go over with his supporters and potential supporters.

Instapundit readers: Feel free to leave advice for Gov. Ducey here.

MAYBE NOT ALL TRANSGENDERS ARE BORN THAT WAY?—Yesterday I posted about Lisa Littman, the Brown University researcher who wrote about “rapid-onset gender dysphoria.”  In her study, she asked questions of the parents of teens and young adults who suddenly, after no previous history, identified as transgender.  About 21% of those parents reported that their children had one or more friends who came out as transgender at around the same time; 20% reported an increase in their child’s social media use around the same time; and 45% reported both. In addition, 62% reported their child had been diagnosed with one or more psychiatric disorders or neurodevelopmental disabilities before the transgender issue suddenly arose.

Transgender activists were apparently irate at the suggestion that maybe not all transgenders are “just born that way.”   (Note that Littman was writing about rapid-onset gender dysphoria only.)  Brown University, which had published a news note highlighting the study, caved in to pressure to withdraw the note and issued what was essentially an apology.

All this reminded me of when I drew the ire of transgender activists two years ago. You can read about that ridiculous moment here. I got all sorts of nasty emails and other messages for about a day and a half. One charmer, who claimed to be in San Diego, wrote, “Your days are numbered and we’re coming after you! UCSD will soon be free of your ignorant bigot ass!” (Of course, I don’t work for UCSD; I teach at USD, but whatever.) Another wrote, “Can’t wait for the shaming to begin, Gail. You will never be off the hook, you will always be shamed for being a racist ignorant bigot. Kill yourself now because these next years will be brutal. You will be fired professor [c-word].” And there were plenty more. (And this fuss was about some testimony I’d give that was generally supportive of the idea that one’s willingness to conform to conventional notions of masculinity or femininity is not the government’s business.  Mobs tend not to have read the things they claim set them off.)

One difference between my case and Littman’s is that, despite numerous calls for my firing, USD never did anything other than quietly support my academic freedom.  Here’s something that probably won’t be different for Littman:  By the second day, supportive messages from around the country started rolling in for me. The law school even got a lovely contribution from an alumnus. Pretty quickly those supportive messages vastly outnumbered the critical ones.   I suspect they will for Littman too.  Brown, on the other hand, will likely learn that not everyone thinks it covered itself in glory.

If you’ve a mind to, you can register your support for free inquiry (or your lack of support for a university that caves to howling mobs) by signing this petition.