CEO Fellowship Begins

Center for Equal OpportunityRacial Preferences

This week, CEO is hosting its third-annual Civil Rights Fellowship for aspiring lawyers with a series of activities and training in caselaw, enforcement practices, and public policy. The 2024 fellowship class includes ten law students fromsome of the best schools in the country: Ave Maria, Campbell University, George Washington University, Michigan State, University of Colorado, University of Florida, and University of Miami. The first of its kind program, spearheaded by CEO President and General Counsel Devon Westhill, is taking place here in Washington, D.C. We kicked things off with a discussion on post-Civil War constitutional amendments and major civil rights legislation, …

Life After Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard | Old Parkland Conference

Center for Equal OpportunityEducation

Now that the Supreme Court has found racial preferences in college admissions to be unconstitutional, how will elite higher education respond? Will they abandon racial preferences or work harder to conceal them? Legal experts will discuss the implications of the Students for Fair Admissions decision for admissions offices and what’s to come in the battle over affirmative action. Speakers: Rick Banks, Devon Westhill, Renu Mukherjee, and Mene Ukueberuwa Highlights from the Event | OLD PARKLAND CONFERENCE 2024 Inspired by the 1980 Fairmont Conference and building on the success of the 2022 Old Parkland Conference, the 2024 Old Parkland Conference brought together leaders …

Affirmative Action One Year Later: A Conversation with Devon Westhill 

Center for Equal OpportunityRacial Preferences, Uncategorized

This article originally appeared on Philanthropy Round Table This month marks the first anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decisions in the Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and the Students Against Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina cases. These seminal decisions ended racial preferences in college admissions processes, also known as affirmative action, after the court ruled in 2023 that the schools were violating the civil rights of certain students based on race.   Philanthropy Roundtable Adjunct Senior Fellow Patrice Onwuka spoke with Devon Westhill, president and general counsel of the Center for Equal Opportunity (CEO), about the ripple effect …

NEW PAPER: Individual Dignity as the Foundation of an Inclusive Society

Devon WesthillRacial Preferences

Dear friends, I am elated to share with you a new paper written by two CEO contributors, Cory Liu and Anthony Pericolo. Cory was an instructor in our Second Annual Civil Rights Fellowship where he taught a session on affirmative action in the immediate aftermath of the Students for Fair Admissions decisions. Anthony is CEO’s first Visiting Legal Fellow and was also a law student fellow in CEO’s inaugural 2022 Civil Rights Fellowship. Both gentlemen continue to graciously donate their time to CEO while working fulltime in private law practice. The paper, which will be published in Volume 77 of …

ACR Project and CEO File Brief Challenging SEC Approval of Discriminatory NASDAQ Requirement

Center for Equal OpportunityEmployment

The ACR Project and the Center for Equal Opportunity together filed an amicus brief on behalf of Cory R. Liu with the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, supporting a challenge to the SEC’s 2021 approval of NASDAQ’s alteration of its listing requirements.  Those requirements force listed companies to: (a) disclose how many directors they have; and (b) (i) produce stats showing a sufficiently “diverse” set of directors across various identitarian classifications to satisfy NASDAQ; or (ii) explain in writing why they don’t.*, ** Our full brief is below. Building on Mr. Liu’s work in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard/UNC, where …

Supreme Court opens door even wider for racial discrimination in schools

Devon WesthillEducation

Apparently, eliminating racial discrimination doesn’t mean eliminating all of it. That seems to be the takeaway from the Supreme Court’s refusal last month to grant a review of Coalition for TJ v. Fairfax County School Board. It has been no secret to anyone that the Fairfax County, Virginia, board and administrators at Thomas Jefferson High School — who were sued — had colluded in changing the admissions process at the school intentionally to discriminate against high-achieving 13- and 14-year-old Asian applicants. The Wall Street Journal reported two years ago on the text messages and emails between the powers that be …

Newton’s Third Law of DEI?

Devon WesthillRacial Preferences

Over 300 years ago, English physicist Sir Issac Newton explained in his third law of motion that for every action in nature there is an equal and opposite reaction. That law also describes well the present-day interaction between diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) advocates and its opponents. That was the gist of a recent interview conducted by The Daily Signal of Adam Guillette, president of the investigative reporting organization Accuracy in Media (AIM). AIM sent reporters undercover into a half dozen state colleges in Texas and filmed school officials who, Guillette said, “brag[ged] to us about how they ignored the …

10th Annual Federalist Society Florida Chapters Conference Panel on Students for Fair Admissions

Center for Equal OpportunityEducation

The panel discussed how these decisions are transforming the admissions process in higher education and the impact on the legal profession. Included in the discussion will be the response from academia, the permissible limits of the use of race in admissions after these decisions, and what impact this is expected to have on corporate America and the legal profession. Featuring: Prof. Tracey Maclin, Raymond & Miriam Ehrlich Chair in US Constitutional Law , University of Florida Levin College of LawCameron Norris, Partner, Consovoy McCarthy PLLCDevon Westhill, President and General Counsel, Center for Equal OpportunityModerator: Hon. Meredith Sasso, Justice, Florida Supreme …

Lawyers…Do Better

Devon WesthillEmployment

This article originally appeared on RealClearPolicy.com on February 6, 2024 “It is a sordid business, this divvying us up by race.” Those were Chief Justice John Roberts’ thoughts in a 2006 voting rights case alleging Texas legislators had redrawn voting districts illegally diluting the votes of racial minorities. That sentiment applies with even greater force when lawyers and judges are the ones doing the divvying up. On January 31, the nonprofits American Civil Rights Project and Center for Equal Opportunity sent a letter to the American Bar Association Business Law Section (ABA BLS) demanding it stop selecting law students for its Diversity Clerkship Program based …

CEO Writes to California Senators in Opposition to ACA-7

Center for Equal OpportunityRacial Preferences

For nearly 30 years, California residents have been in a pitched battle with their state government to oppose efforts to divvy them up by their race. In 1996, Californians voted to amend their constitution to prohibit the state from discriminating in employment, education, and contracting on the basis of race and other immutable characteristics. The 55% to 45% vote on Ballot Proposition 209 (Prop 209) was a major victory for colorblind equal opportunity for all Californians. The Center for Equal Opportunity (CEO) was involved in advocating for that successful nearly three-decade-old campaign and in opposing every attempt since to overturn …