Dear friends,
Happy New Year!
We at the Center for Equal Opportunity hope you had a joyous holiday season to cap off 2021, and that you are now ready—as we are—to jump into the adventures that await in 2022.
Today we celebrate one of our nation’s heroes, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. While a complex public figure, Dr. King persistently advocated for justice, righteousness, and the realization of the American promise of equal treatment under the law. In the face of the fiercest racial bigotry and social and political opposition, Dr. King made possible the foundation for an American racial and civil rights awakening. Your friends here at CEO feel as though we now carry the torch to further the work of Dr. King in bringing to fruition a more harmonious and just post-racial America where everyone is judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin.
I am pleased to report that we are off to a strong start this year.
CEO president and general counsel Devon Westhill recently penned an op-ed in the Washington Examiner urging the Supreme Court to take two cases challenging racial preferences in college admissions. Devon argues:
A vote to hear the cases pending before the court and a vindication for the rule of law will strip feckless leaders in this country of the fig leaf they have long worn to hide their naked failures. No longer will they be able to hide behind their flashy admissions graphs, charts, and tables to tout their social justice bona fides. Real work will have to be accomplished to improve the lives and futures of disadvantaged minorities.
That is to say, without affirmative action as a shield, serious thought and action would be employed to the root causes of why minority college applicants have needed it to gain admission to certain institutions.
Devon followed-up his piece by sharing his thoughts on the cases and affirmative action generally during his weekly radio spot on the Lars Larson show and during an hour-long discussion on the Jim Bohannon show. Devon was supported in these efforts by CEO board member and immediate past president and general counsel Roger Clegg with his piece on the cases in National Review.
Also, similar to our fight last year against state and local health authorities’ rationing of COVID-19 vaccines based on race, Devon has also been spreading the word and pushing back against new efforts to ration COVID-19 therapeutics based on race and ethnicity.
Finally, tune-in to a webinar that Devon will host this week at the Federalist Society with Professor Mark J. Perry on Thursday, January 20, at 1:00 p.m. EST. Devon and Professor Perry will discuss efforts to hold colleges and universities accountable for violations of Titles VI and IX in the new Biden administration.
CEO chairman Linda Chavez has also been hard at work on our issues. She briefed the top executive team at Avik Roy’s Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity on civil rights issues that might impact their work, including CEO’s studies on racial preferences, the current state of Title VI and Title IX law, and the debates over Critical Race Theory.
Linda also engaged in a discussion of voting rights in her regular appearance on the podcast “Beg to Differ,” arguing that proposals currently before Congress to rewrite voting laws to overturn two important Supreme Court decisions, Shelby County v. Holder and Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee were unnecessary because both cases had been rightly decided originally. Democrats in Congress and President Biden, nonetheless, are pushing to enact a sweeping voting bill that would subject certain jurisdictions to preclearance provisions and force an interpretation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act that is inconsistent with the law’s plain wording. CEO’s briefs in both cases can be found here and here.
CEO will always firmly stand for the bedrock American value of colorblind equal opportunity. We proudly carry on the work of Dr. King. The work that he called “a career of humanity.” We believe as Dr. King explained that one ought to “[c]ommit yourself to the noble struggle for equal rights. You will make a better person of yourself, a greater nation of your country, and a finer world to live in.”
Thank you again for all your support and be-on-the-lookout for an announcement later this month of a major new CEO initiative!
Devon Westhill
President and General Counsel
Center for Equal Opportunity
