Apple Turnover

Roger CleggUncategorized

Once again we learn that, in Silicon Valley as elsewhere in Corporate America, there is no place for politically incorrect truth-telling. What’s more, what the law says is not even part of the conversation. The latest kerfuffle involves Apple’s vice president of “inclusion and diversity,” who made the following statement during a panel discussion: “There can be twelve white blue-eyed blond men in a room and they are going to be diverse too because they’re going to bring a different life experience and life perspective to the conversation.” Well, talk about your mansplaining, and isn’t that just what you’d expect …

DOJ Investigating Harvard’s Racial Preferences

Roger CleggEducation

Over the summer, it was reported that the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division was taking steps to investigate Harvard University’s use of racial preferences in admissions, especially insofar as they discriminate against Asian-American applicants. You may recall that the Center for Equal Opportunity was mentioned prominently as encouraging the investigation (see the statement we issued here) when the story was first reported in the New York Times.  Well, news stories are now confirming that this investigation is, indeed, under way. Good. As I explain here, such an investigation is entirely appropriate. What’s more, such discrimination should be stopped …

Why Racial Preferences Remain Wrongheaded

Roger CleggRacial Preferences

Last week, Inside Higher Ed published my essay on racial preferences, which you can read here: Why Racial Preferences Remain Wrongheaded Those who defend them should consider whether they’d require them indefinitely and whether such a requirement is consistent with good race relations in the country America is becoming, argues Roger Clegg. Last month, The New York Times reported that the U.S. Justice Department was preparing to begin “investigating and suing universities over affirmative action admissions policies deemed to discriminate against white applicants.” It turned out that what the Justice Department was really up to was investigating admissions discrimination against …

Two Down, One to Go

Roger CleggUncategorized

Last week the Federalist Society’s Regulatory Transparency Project released this paper prepared by its “Race & Sex Working Group” (love that name, and I’m proud to be a member of it). The paper critiques three areas of Obama administration overreach by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights: transgender bathroom and locker room access under Title IX; investigations by universities of sexual-assault and harassment claims, also under Title IX; and requirements that school-discipline policies not have a “disparate impact” on the basis of race, under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. To its credit, the Trump administration has …

Pretty Good End to a Really Bad Case

Roger CleggDisparate Impact

The Ninth Circuit issued a favorable opinion this summer in Hardie v. NCAA, a case raising the important question of whether “disparate impact” liability is cognizable under Title II of the Civil Rights Act. The Ninth Circuit didn’t answer the broad question of whether Title II ever recognizes such claims. It held instead that NCAA’s ban on felon-coaches in its high school tournaments didn’t amount to a disparate impact violation, even if Title II might under other circumstances encompass such claims. In a cogent concurring opinion, Judge Faber noted that although NCAA did not argue the issue on appeal, “amici Pacific …

More on Charlottesville, and a Bad Speech by Tillerson

Roger CleggUncategorized

Following my email from last week, here are some additional thoughts on Charlottesville: First, liberals should condemn lawless and violent behavior by those on the Left, and conservatives should condemn lawless and violent behavior by those on the Right. There is a temptation when this is done on both sides to temper that criticism by adding a “But . . . ” — that is, to say, “Of course, it is wrong to kill the police, but we must recognize that black lives do matter,” etc., or “Of course, it is wrong to ram a car into a protestor, but many protestors on the …

E Pluribus Unum

Roger CleggUncategorized

If recent headlines over the last few weeks can tell us anything, it is that America needs to get serious, and quickly, about E pluribus unum. America has always been a multiracial and multiethnic country, and it is becoming dramatically more so. For a society like ours to work, our laws and institutions cannot treat Americans differently according to skin color and what country people’s ancestors came from. We cannot view ourselves and each other as something other than Americans first and foremost. Of course, America has had a sad history of ignoring this principle, and whenever it has, it …

CEO Praises Justice Department

Roger CleggRacial Preferences

Last week was a busy one here at the Center for Equal Opportunity. After word broke in the New York Times late Tuesday that the Justice Department was planning to take on affirmative action in college admissions (a story I was quoted in), a predictable media frenzy was unleashed to cover the story. Of course, the usual suspects on the Left attacked the Trump administration and played the race card, labeling any effort to stop racial preferences in college admissions as “racist,” but the Center for Equal Opportunity was out in full force to applaud the Justice Department and educate the public on the legal and …

“Why Obama’s Presidency Didn’t Lead To Black Progress”

Roger CleggUncategorized

Last week I wrote briefly about a new book by Jason Riley, False Black Power?  (Mr. Riley, by the way, recently joined the Center for Equal Opportunity’s board of directors.)  This week, as  a summertime treat, I’m sharing the excerpt from this book that was recently published by the New York Post.  Enjoy! *          *          * Why Obama’s Presidency Didn’t Lead To Black Progress Since the 1960s, black leaders have placed a heavy emphasis on gaining political power, and Barack Obama’s presidency represented the apex of those efforts. The assumption — rarely challenged — is that black political clout must come …

Art for Color’s Sake

Roger CleggEmployment

New York City mayor Bill de Blasio wants to coerce museums and arts groups that receive city money into using hiring quotas based on race and ethnicity, according to the New York Times. But it would be illegal for employers to give in to this pressure, because Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act forbids such discrimination. Federal statute aside, it is unconstitutional for the city to engage in such pressuring. Any use of racial and ethnic classifications is “presumptively invalid” and triggers “strict scrutiny,” which can be met only if, for starters, there is a “compelling” government interest. …