Category Archive

I hate to make light of a situation involving death, riots, and torched police cars, but one really has to laugh at the Left with regard to Ferguson.  Bit by bit it became clearer and clearer that it was the conservative narrative that was more plausible:  a thuggish convenience-store robber who was assaulting a policeman, not a gentle giant cold-bloodedly gunned down by a racist cop.  But of course an embarrassed apology was not forthcoming, and the Left plunged ahead with its insistence that Michael Brown’s death proved something or other and presented a great vehicle for the always-needed national …

“Let the Sunshine In” is not only the title of a song my fellow baby boomers will recall; it’s also the title of a short piece I did recently for Minding the Campus.  In it, I urge the new Congress to pass a bill that requires federally-funded universities (a) to report whether they use racial preferences in admissions, and (b) if so, how those preferences comport with the Supreme Court’s constraints on them.  Let those who support racial preferences explain why they should be kept secret from taxpayers and why the federal government needn’t know if their use is consistent …

This week’s email is brief — I know that this is a short work-week and a hectic time.  It contains two little lists.  The first is drawn up, in part, with an eye on the Ferguson, Missouri, and looks ahead to the next part of the saga there.  The second is prompted by President Obama’s executive order on immigration last week. The first list might be titled, “It’s Not That Complicated:  Race Relations in 400 Words and Five Easy Steps.” Keep things in perspective:  Race relations in our incredibly diverse nation in 2014 are good, and certainly never better.  Think …

There have been two major developments in the past week in the fight against racial and ethnic preferences in university admissions, a fight in which the Center for Equal Opportunity has long played a leading role. First, in Fisher v. University of Texas, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit denied further review of a panel decision that had rejected the challenge to that school’s use of racial and ethnic admission preferences. So we are probably headed back to the Supreme Court —  which is not a bad thing, not a bad thing at all.  CEO has written numerous …

I won’t say a lot in this email about the election results, except that the new Congress will provide the Center for Equal Opportunity with some interesting and welcome chances to advance the cause of colorblind equal opportunity.  More on that in the weeks ahead. *          *          * Meanwhile, I thought I would share with you my thoughts on “Intellectual Diversity – and the Practice of Law.”  The proponents of racial preferences think that skin color diversity is very important, but they are generally either indifferent to, or actually hostile toward, efforts to improve intellectual diversity — which is the …

In addition to our speaking (on campuses, coordinating other conservative groups, and with a wide variety of media) and writing (in National Review Online and other magazines, newspapers, and publications), here are just a few highlights of CEO’s work this past year.  We continue to get unmatched bang for the buck — and, therefore, so do our donors! Schuette v. BAMN – The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit had held that Michigan’s Proposal 2 violates the U.S. Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause. Proposal 2 was a ballot initiative that amended the state constitution to provide that state and …

Last week National Review Online published this column by me, titled “Lawsuits Wanted.”  It’s a review of some good lawsuits that have been filed in opposition to race-based decision-making — and some lawsuits that still need to be filed. The fight for equal opportunity has seen some useful victories in recent years, but the opposition is tenacious and the struggle continues. Several important legal challenges to race-based decision-making are currently pending in federal courts — and a number of other good cases are still waiting to be brought. Let’s start with what’s pending. One case, brought by Rothe Development, Inc., …

In this excellent letter to the trustees of Scripps College, National Association of Scholars president Peter Wood explains why the school was wrong to disinvite columnist George Will as the commencement speaker for its most recent graduation ceremony.  Antics like this college’s are, alas, more and more common — making Wood’s letter all the more welcome. And speaking of Peter Wood and NAS:  I’ve written frequently in the past about their efforts to expose and critique the noxious political correctness at, especially, Bowdoin College.  In this work, they have a valuable ally in Center for Equal Opportunity board member Tom …

This month the Congressional Quarterly Researcher published this short piece I wrote for them on the (purported) “resegregation” of public schools in the United States: No child today attends a segregated public school.  Not one.  “Segregation” means telling children they cannot attend the same school as children of a different color.  It does not mean a failure to have socially engineered racial balance. It is true that there are educational disparities across racial lines, but racial imbalances in classrooms have little if anything to do with this.   Black children do not need a certain number of white children in a …

In 1998, Californians passed by a 61-to-39 percent margin Proposition 227, Ron Unz’s “English for the Children” ballot initiative. This effectively replaced “bilingual education” with structured English-immersion programs, since the former — while popular with the multicultural Left — does not succeed nearly as well as the latter in accomplishing the single most important job of public schools in immigrant-rich schools, namely teaching non-English-speakers how to speak English. Unfortunately, and despite the great success of Proposition 227 in California, Governor Jerry Brown now has before him a bill that would put a repeal measure back on the ballot. In this op-ed last week …