There is an interesting debate unfolding around the country in the aftermath of the Supreme Court barring the use of race in college admissions. For decades, colleges and universities have sought to downplay the weight given to race in court while insisting that it was one of a number of factors used in maintaining diversity. Now, however, schools are insisting that, without considering race, minority admissions will plummet.
During the Supreme Court oral arguments over affirmative action, Harvard’s counsel Seth Waxman struggled with an argument that race consideration was needed to maintain current admissions for minorities. Yet, he also maintained that it was not a major factor and that the consideration of race with regard to Asian students produced only a “slight disparity” and “had no effect with respect to outcomes.”
It was no easy argument. As in past cases, the Court was assured that it was just one of a number of “tips” that was not substantial in the decisions. Yet, after the Court barred the use of race criteria, schools are now arguing that it will make a massive difference and substantially reduce minority admissions.
Since the 1970s, the Supreme Court has ruled that race could not be a determinative or major factor in admissions. In Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, the Court ruled against affirmative action. In his plurality decision, then-Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. stopped short of barring the use of race in admissions entirely. Instead, he cited Harvard University’s admissions policy as an example of how race can be one of a number of diversity elements.
In the 2003 decision in Grutter v. Bollinger, the Court upheld Michigan’s use of race but then-Justice Sandra Day O’Connor cautioned that the court “expects that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today.” That was 20 years ago.
Since that time, universities have insisted that they only use race as one of many factors and that it does not carry the determinative weight rejected in Bakke. For decades, universities and colleges maintained this difficult line of downplaying the importance of race in admissions.
However, even the limited use of racial classifications continued to divide the Court for decades. In 2017, Chief Justice John Roberts declared: “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”
In his decision last week, Roberts noted that minority students could still raise their own individual struggle with racial discrimination in essays, but that schools cannot employ threshold classifications to give an advantage or disadvantage because of race.
Many of us support efforts to maintain diverse classes and see the value of such diversity in the education process. I have found economic diversity to be one of the most important elements to my classes. Students who come from lower income families often have a sharply different view on many of the issues that we discuss in our classes.
Yet, it is the frank discussion of the racial criteria that is so interesting in the aftermath of the decision. Many now insist that racial criteria was determinative in a large number of applications. The latest was State University of New York (SUNY) system Chancellor John B. King, Jr. who gave a strikingly conflicted account on NPR that was not challenged in the interview.
On Friday’s broadcast of NPR’s “Morning Edition,” King stated that an admissions process based only on individual merit would result in “fewer black and Latino students on campuses.” Yet, at the same time, he insisted that use of individual merit alone would not impact white or Asian students.
He told host Steve Inskeep:
“Yeah. Again, I think they’re misrepresenting how the admissions process works. There are policies at Harvard, for example, where students are admitted because they are legacies, because they’re one of multiple generations in their family to go to Harvard. There are students who are admitted because they’re a tuba player. There are students who are admitted because they’re great lacrosse players. And so, there [are] a range of factors as universities try to build a diverse class.”
King then emphasized “by removing the tool of race-conscious admissions, the evidence is it results in fewer black and Latino students on campuses.”
Of course, a minority student who plays the tuba can still get that “tip” with other indications of individual merit separate from racial classifications. Minority students clearly have similar “tips” based on individual merit from achievements in tuba to tennis to trigonometry. If the factor was given no more weight than a tuba talent, one would think that the drop in admissions would not be as severe given a myriad of other qualifications or tips in applications.
Soon after the decision, California Gov. Gavin Newsom objected to the ruling in saying that admitting students solely based on their individual merits, without considering race, would result in a massive drop in minority admissions.
Likewise, over at The Nation, Elie Mystal insisted that, without factoring in race, minority admissions always drop: “In California, which ended its affirmative action policies over 25 years ago, the studies show that, without affirmative action, Black enrollment plummets, Latino enrollment plummets.” He insisted that this was a victory for “mediocre white people.”
[Mystal later attacked Justice Thomas on MSNBC, describing Thomas as a “mutilated version of a black justice” who just did whatever his wife, who is white, tells him to do. Rather than accept that Thomas holds opposing constitutional views, Mystal insisted “he doesn’t want to see anything that Ms. Ginni tells him he shouldn’t be able to see.”]
The difference between the arguments and the aftermath of the affirmative action decision is striking. What was presented as a relative modest “tip” based on race to the Court is now being presented as a huge factor in admissions. If left to individual merit, advocates and administrators now insist that that minority admissions will sharply decline and white/Asian admissions will rise.
Nevertheless, King insists that such determinative use of race had no negative impact on white or Asian students while insisting that the number of admissions for white or Asian students will increase substantially when only individual merit is accessed.
That was all to explain why people just do not understand “how the admissions process works.”
I’m going to venture a guess as to why college and university admissions officers could change their tune literally between morning coffee and their evening cocktail: they are Democrats, that’s how?
They are the “dictatorship of the proletariat,” that’s how.
Their problem is that they, the communists (liberals, progressives, socialists, democrats, RINOs, AINOs), are direct and mortal enemies of the American thesis (i.e. freedom and self-reliance), the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, Americans and America.
Enemies must be declared such, repulsed and neutralized forthwith by means of extreme prejudice lest they fester malignantly, bringing lethality to bear on the American republic.
@ProfMJCleveland
The reason that Democrats are most irate about the Harvard decision is that for years they have been instilling the electorate with the false narrative that their racial identity is their most valuable asset. The Court just said it isn’t and now they feel as if they have nothing.
@ScottAdamsSays
I wonder if victims of affirmative action will ask for reparations now that it has been ruled unconstitutional.
There!
He said it.
REPARATIONS FOR THE VICTIMS OF IRREFUTABLY UNCONSTITUTIONAL AFFIRMATIVE ACTION.
For 70 years, millions upon millions of actual Americans have been denied their constitutional rights by the corrupt, illicit, unconstitutional and forcible imposition of affirmative action.
This is going to be big, nay, colossal!
After reading through most of these comments–adding only one but tempted multiple times to add even more–the only thing I want to say right now is that the last thing this country needs is more lawyers, regardless of their color, gender, ethnicity, or religion. What this country does need is about half as many lawyers and about three times as many carpenters, auto techs, electricians, plumbers, roofers, miners, welders, truckers, pilots, air traffic controllers, dock workers, sanitation workers, railroad workers, etc.,etc.
Right on. If there were ever a time to encourage your kids to learn a trade and forgo college, it is NOW.
CK,
That is an excellent comment! When the electricity goes out and the government defaults from its endless and reckless spending of taxpayers dollars, there will be a reckoning. Those whose only skill is searching Google and surfing the net will discover how “important” they really are. We had a (mild) dressed rehearsal during COVID.
Mike Rowe has entered the chat.
“The best proof that affirmative action elevates the unqualified to high office are the recent dissents from Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor.” @benshapiro
_____________________________
It’s hard to believe they are all reading the same Constitution and evaluating the same facts in the same case.
The difference between legal scholars and ideological activists is glaring.
Do these jurists (Sotomayor, Jackson) deserve an intellectual seat at this table but for ________? Methinks not.
Their dissent is glaringly obvious that but for darker skin color and a Spanish surname, they would never had a sniff of passing their Con Law class in a real law school. I don’t include Harvard and Columbia in that group.
After reviewing google stats on college admissions, I’m going to paraphrase the great King on NPR:
“No. Again, outcomes are misrepresented with how the admissions process works. There are partisans at Harvard, for example, where students are admitted because they are legally minority, or because they’re jewish in their family that goes to Harvard and get donated lots and lots of money streams. There are students who are admitted because they’re a foreign asian rich kid here from overseas, 20 percent asians. There are students who are admitted because they’re greatly related to demoncratic political activists. And so, there [are] a range of factors as universities try to build a non white class, white’s being the most under represented group already by far, with asians and jews pulling hundreds to thousands percent more spots than equality demands, and no one ever mentions it, they lie around it.”
Shakdi what is your answer to these ‘barriers’? how can these be over come? what would make it right?
An understanding of how this Case (Harvard) came about, and an ‘inside’ opinion as to a percentage of affected proclivity of Students:
𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐀𝐬𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐀𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐬 𝐂𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐓𝐨 𝐏𝐥𝐚𝐲 𝐀 𝐂𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐑𝐨𝐥𝐞 𝐈𝐧 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐎𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐀𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐀𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧
By Alex Samuels – Mar. 7, 2023
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/supreme-court-affirmative-action/
𝐇𝐚𝐫𝐯𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐀𝐝𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐃𝐞𝐚𝐧 𝐋𝐚𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐥𝐲 𝐈𝐠𝐧𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐑𝐞𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭 𝐨𝐧 𝐅𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐬 𝐀𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐀𝐬𝐢𝐚𝐧-𝐀𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐀𝐩𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐬
“…Were admission to Harvard based solely on academic merit, Asian-Americans would comprise 43% of the freshman class, while African-Americans would make up less than 1%, according to an internal Harvard report discussed at a trial here Wednesday.. …”
By Melissa Korn – 𝐎𝐜𝐭. 𝟏𝟕, 𝟐𝟎𝟏𝟖 (𝟒 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬, 𝟖 𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐡𝐬, 𝟏𝟓 𝐝𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐀𝐠𝐨)
https://www.wsj.com/articles/harvard-admissions-dean-largely-ignored-report-on-factors-affecting-asian-american-applicants-1539806653
My guess is that a percentage greater than 50% of Asians could matriculate into the Harvard Student Body in 2024.
IMHO: I don’t care what proclivity the Students are, 𝐀𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚 𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐝𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 ‘𝐀𝐋𝐋’ 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐥-𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐦-𝐨𝐟-𝐭𝐡𝐞-𝐜𝐫𝐨𝐩 𝐢𝐭 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐠𝐞𝐭,
𝐌𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐀𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚 𝐆𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭 𝐀𝐠𝐚𝐢𝐧.
Do they mention what percentage are from overseas ?
the five thirty eight article never mentions actual percentage of enrolled groups it’s speaks about – it only talks about that percentage of any of the mention racist categories would go up or down in internal percentage given some libturd policy change
So it’s utterly worthless
Wall Street Journal is paywalled
The share of Jewish students at Columbia University is an estimated 22.3 percent. May 8, 2023 GOOGLE
“People also ask GOOGLE:
What percentage of Columbia students are white?
30.6% white
At Columbia University in the City of New York, the undergraduate and graduate student body is made up of a population that is 30.6% white, 13.0% Asian, 8.50% Hispanic or Latino, 5.12% Black or African American, 3.06% Two or More Races, 0.219% American Indian or Alaska Native, and 0.0796% Native Hawaiian or Other ”
Ok, let’s see. CU, ….. 30.6% WHITE
USA Non-Latino whites 57.8% WHITE
——————————————————————– GEE THAT’S FAIR GUYS, AS THE RACISTS WERE RIPPING AWAY WITH THEIR AFFIRMATIVE ACTION DID YOU PROTECT AMERICA’S FOUNDING POPULATION ? no you did not ! YOU DIDN’T EVEN KNOW IT WAS LOW, THE LIBS TOLD YOU IT WAS TOO HIGH AND YOU’RE SO DUMB YOU NEVER CHECKED.
Ok, let’s add…. 31 13 9 5 3 1 (62 PERCENT) OUT OF 100
There you have it – modern collegiate new math racial stats
There was a time when getting good grades was a white thing. All of the race hustlers perpetuated this belief. Now that we see the result of their actions rather than take the blame for their handy work they blame test scores and consequently call for the elimination of test scores as a criteria for college admission. Just think that if in the days gone by they would have called for black students to do the white thing and get good grades. Wait, there was a man who called for exactly that. He is a profit who is not accepted in his own hometown. His name is Thomas Sowell. If you haven’t read his work you should.
Well, after researching googles spew, it seems obvious …
The Universities are a plague of woke screaming CRT BML Antifa white hatred because whites, it appears, are about currently maybe 38% of University Ivy enrollment…. It could be as low as 1/3rd, or 33.333~%
So, forget “America” once you set foot on campus.
I’d like to see government hire (bureaucrat) stats now, since I know under potus clinton racism was pushed heavily into the bureaucracy, so it is probably mostly hate filled minority grifters of every variety, and a majority, maybe a supermajority.
Graf starting: Yet, it is the frank discussion x x x has a common error. x x x racial criteria was determinative x x x should be: were determinative. The source word is Greek. Remember criterion? The “a.” is the plural form, like our “s.” No site allows corrections, unfortunately.
oh my the poor poor asians got replaced by affirmative action …, oh woes is the schmarties !!!! whose family makes sure they do homework !!!
”
Asian American Ivy League enrollment has lagged …
Washington Examiner
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com › policy › asian…
Apr 28, 2022 — The enrollment of Asian American students at Ivy League schools currently hovers around 20% of all students, according to the report.
20 PERCENT ASIAN ….. let’s get US percent population ….
Asian Americans account for 5.7 percent of the nation’s population.Feb 24, 2023
Asian American – The Office of Minority Health – HHS.gov
HHS.gov
https://minorityhealth.hhs.gov › omh › browse
———————————————————————————————-
“oh the poor poor scharmtie asians that got colored AA replaced oh they are sooo schartie !!!! THEY ONLY HAVE 20% OF ALL THE IVY LEAGUES while less than 6% of US population …”
OH THOSE ASIANS HOW LONG CAN THEY TAKE IT !?
hahahhahahhahahhaa my gawd…..
If 100% of the highest academic achievers—measured objectively—applying to a college are Asian, then 100% of the students accepted should be Asian. If 0% of the highest academic performers—measured objectively—applying to a college are Asian, then 0% of the students accepted should be Asian.
You’re living in a dream utopia usually reserved for the democommies.
Since we don’t have borders and we don’t have an American population anymore, you’re asking for a massive disaster.
I’m near top of the top 1% intellect, and I would never proffer your simpleton proposition as the correct path.
One main concern of higher education is having students matched to curriculum offered.
Also we have a worldwide and nationwide instant communication network now, and an endless push by the boomers that everyone gets college educated. So right off the bat where do your `100% asians go ? Well we know what you said you want, so answered.
That results in a twisted system with poor outcomes. For instance, it was impossible only a few decades ago. Now we aren’t anything but a sponge of foreigners, and what is definitely sent from overseas is the top end foreigners to get into institutions , for a reason I probably don’t have to explain to you. Sure hope I don’t.
Sounds like Harvard was very poorly represented.
I think 99% of the general public understands the reality.
The Bakke decision was basically no decision at all, that’s part of the problem, and it’s been part of the problem for 50 years. SCOTUS’s record on all this is quite poor, as Thomas and Roberts both point out. And I think this decision is poor too.
In spite of the fact they can’t even make an argument in court Harvard should be left alone, to mess themselves up just as much as they want.
Those who support anti-Asian bias in college admissions should get the Constitution amended to allow it. Until then, such bias violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th amendment.
The Constitution is freedom from bias or favoritism.
_________________________________________
Merriam-Webster
equity
noun
eq·ui·ty ˈe-kwə-tē
1 a: justice according to natural law or right
specifically : freedom from bias or favoritism
Affirmative action is absolutely unconstitutional in public situations.
Affirmative action is absolutely constitutional for private property situations.
The right to private property is qualified by the 5th Amendment, making no further qualification possible, and making the right to private property absolute.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“[Private property is] that dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in exclusion of every other individual.”
– James Madison
______________
5th Amendment
No person shall be…deprived of…property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
INCONVENIENT TRUTH
James Watson Tells the Inconvenient Truth: Faces the Consequences
Jason Malloy – PMID: 18440722 DOI: 10.1016/j.mehy.2008.03.041
Abstract
Recent comments by the eminent biologist James Watson concerning intelligence test data from sub-Saharan Africa resulted in professional sanctions as well as numerous public condemnations from the media and the scientific community. They justified these sanctions to the public through an abuse of trust, by suggesting that intelligence testing is a meaningless and discredited science, that there is no data to support Dr. Watson’s comments, that genetic causes of group differences in intelligence are falsified logically and empirically, and that such differences are already accounted for by known environment factors. None of these arguments are correct, much less beyond legitimate scientific debate. Dr. Watson was correct on all accounts: (1) Intelligence tests do reveal large differences between European and sub-Saharan African nations, (2) the evidence does link these differences to universally valued outcomes, both within and between nations, and (3) there is data to suggest these differences are influenced by genetic factors. The media and the larger scientific community punished Dr. Watson for violating a social and political taboo, but fashioned their case to the public in terms of scientific ethics. This necessitated lying to the public about numerous scientific issues to make Watson appear negligent in his statements; a gross abuse of valuable and fragile public trust in scientific authority. Lies and a threatening, coercive atmosphere to free inquiry and exchange are damaging to science as an institution and to scientists as individuals, while voicing unfashionable hypotheses is not damaging to science. The ability to openly voice and argue ideas in good faith that are strange and frightening to some is, in fact, integral to science. Those that have participated in undermining this openness and fairness have therefore damaged science, even while claiming to protect it with the same behavior.
– National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health
I’m not against hearing Dr. Watson’s findings, but I view them as largely impractical being inactionable. He is studying immutables as his experimental variable, so therefore, there is nothing actionable to be gleaned from the results…people cannot change their genetic heritage.
And, no doubt the populations he compared for intelligence have overlapping bell curves. That means that it will be logically wrongheaded to project group average characteristics onto individuals (racial stereotyping).
In a meritocracy such as the U.S., it is considered small-minded (uneducated) to entertain such crude inferences, even more so to apply them at the individual level.
We are moving towards a post-racial meritocracy (where the individual is the unit of competition).
What baffles me is how liberals continue to ignore Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s 1965 observations about hpw the welfare system was systematically destroying incentives for black marriage and nuclear family childrearing. You would think Ivy League academics would recognize that the greatest departure from an equal opportunity society is the birth lottery — who are the parent(s), the grandparents, how well educated, how financially secure, and how mature, responsible and well-informed to the task of raising the child? Is there a father? (who plays the major role in nurturing exploration, risk-taking and ambition in the child, wether boy or girl).
Liberals priorities are all messed up. Fixing the black and brown family structure is the pivot point for getting the diversity they want in Harvard (albeit taking a generation to accomplish).
How can conservatives move the ball forward? Like Moynihan suggested, rebuild government assistance programs with best-practices of family structure in mind.
Affirmative action won’t alter the fundamental science.
The Constitution cannot be cited for the provision of bias and favoritism to any parties; it does not exist.
People are free to endeavor and pursue happiness.
Success is neither confirmed nor denied by the Constitution.
People must adapt to the outcomes of freedom.
Freedom does not adapt to people, dictatorship does.
Hear hear Jorge!
This is a trivially correctable problem – if Universities wish to do so.
Quit accepting government funds and they can have whatever admissions policies they want.
It constantly surprises me that so many of the most controversial issues that we face – disappear when you get government out.
Your school wants to teach 3rd graders about sex ? Fine so long as you are not a government school.
Your colleges wants race based admissions quota’s – Fine if you do not accept government funding.
303 Creative did not go far enough. While the court has slowly been moving this from a religious issue to a speech issue,
The FACT is that private actors should be free to make choices that the rest of us do not like.
Bud Light can appeal to the Trans community, and its customers can choose another beer.
Web Designers and cake bakers can refuse or seek out whatever customers they wish – and we can choose what beer, what web designer, what baker to use.
Colleges can choose to admit whoever they please.
Social Media Can censor whoever they wish.
Schools can teach whatever they want.
All so long as we have actual free markets.
So long as Government is not involved.
Public accomidations laws are unconstitutional – All of them.
As is Virtually All government subsidy of the market place.
John Say,
You say the quite part out loud, when it comes to money, the Higher Education Industrial Complex will always go the path of the money.
If it were that simple it would already be the norm. Obviously it’s more complicated than that. Without government higher education would be out of reach for many. Schools would discriminate based on race and religion. State universities were created and supported by state governments precisely because it was not accessible to everyone. Those issues don’t disappear. They become worse.
The 303 creative case seems to have been based on a fictional complaint. Nobody was requesting the business create a website for a gay couple. Even the person named as the complainant is not gay. The case should not have been taken at all.
Without government higher education would be out of reach for many.
“Many” don’t need college. That’s why the free market is needed.
As you yourself stated, Many college graduates don’t have jobs that allow them the salary to service the loan. If the colleges wont take the degree they handed out, as collateral, then the money spent is wasted.
It is years past evident that the Colleges are marking something they cannot deliver. A wage sufficient to service the debt
“If it were that simple it would already be the norm. ”
It is exactly that simple. Private actors are not restricted with respect tot he constitution in the same way as government is.
There are a small number of colleges – both left and right leaning that refuse government money in any form specifically so that they are not subjuect to these constraints.
“Obviously it’s more complicated than that.”
Nope. Not only is this true in this specific area – but it is true in myriads of other areas too.
Private actors that accept govenrment funds subject themselves to provisions and constraints of the constitution that do not apply to purely private actors.
There is centuries of caselaw on this.
It is litterally that simple.
“Without government higher education would be out of reach for many.”
More BS – for every dollar of loans that Government has provided to colleges the cost of college education has increased by $1.
Government loans function as a wealth transfer from college students to colleges.
This information is readily available.
I would further note that college has gotten more expensive over the past 40+ years. But over the same period – quality has declined.
This is also true of K-12 education – we have spent ever more money to get ever less value.
This is also true of Healthcare – Govenrment money has accomplished nothing beyond increasing the cost of US healthcare.
This should not be surprising as Robert Barro – #4 rankin IDEAS RESPEC economist in the world has compiled a database of Government spending throughout the OECD, And has found that the norm is that for each $1 that government spends, $0.25-0.35 in actual value is delivered. That is compared to the private economy where for every $ spent on average about $1.05 in value is produced.
Look arround you. Everything that costs substantially more today than 50 years ago (or 20) is deeply involved with Government.
In 1965 a 2 slice toaster costs $19.95. Today you can get a better toaster for $19.94.
I bought a top of the line amana refridgerator in 1983 for $1200 – and that was the WHOLESALE price. Today I can buy a far better fredge at Home Depot or Lowes for $995.
And that is a comparison using Dollars without accounting for inflation.
If you want to factor out inflation – how many hours would someone have to work at a minimum wage job (or a median wage job if you prefer) to buy a toaster in 1965 or a fridge in 1983 – compared to the same hours at the same MW or media wage today ?
Most things are CHEAPER in real dollars. The FACT is that standard of living has more than doubled in the past 40 years.
That means that each of use has the ability to purchase TWICE the value we did 40 years ago.
In many cases the price of things in Nominal dollars is less than it was 40 years ago – Refridgerators cost less and are far better.
Computers cost less and are far better, TV’s cost less and are far better. Some things like Cell phones and ipads either did not exist or were prohibitively expensive.
Regardless accross the board you can tell what prices have increased without any increase in value and what ones have decreased by the extent to which government is entangled.
Education, Healthcare. are areas we are paying far more – in any terms and getting less than we did 40 years ago.
Though there are exceptions – those aspects of healthcare that government has limited involvement in – things like lasik, or cosmetic surgey – even gener re-assignment surgery have gotten cheaper – in many instance FAR cheaper and much better.
If you want to F#$K something up – drag government into it.
No Government is not making education available to people who could not afford it before.
My wife came from a dirt poor Family. Her father did not graduate from HS. She got no assistance going to college from her parents, and no aide from government
She worked as a waitress – a sub minimum wage job and paid her own way through college, graduating with honors.
Today that would be impossible.
It is not government assistance that makes the price of education affordable. IT is government that makes it unaffordable.
Nor should this surprise anyone with a passing familiarity with economics – when you subsidize anything – you either make it cost more or you create shortages or Both.
But then you left wing nuts seem to think that the fundimental knowledge we have learned in the past 500 years is all racist and wrong, and that you can just make things up as you wish and that it will work.
How is that working out for you ?
“Schools would discriminate based on race and religion.”
Some would. Harvard and most universities are currently discriminating heavily against asians.
Harvard discriminated heavily against jews in the first half of the 20th century.
But the still managed to make up twice the proportion of the Harvard Student body as their demographics would reflect.
But for the most part private discrimination is rare and limited.
Businesses do not leave money on the table. Private actors rarely spite themselves.
You seem to forget that even in the ddep south Jim Crow LAWS were necescary to FORCE people to discriminate – because whether it was railroads or the local grocery – businessmen would not turn down paying black customers.
“State universities were created and supported by state governments precisely because it was not accessible to everyone.”
Nope, left wing nut myths.
Gerogia Institute of Technology as an example was created in 1885 During Reconstruction as part of a State Plan to create an industrial Base in the south – learning from the defeat of the South in the Civil War.
Penn state was created by the Pennsylvania Agricultural society.
If you look into the history of state colleges you will find that all or nearly all were founded to support some special interest or another – usually some form of business.
“Those issues don’t disappear. They become worse.”
Nonsense. You are completely oblivious of history.
Jim Crow was created by Government. Because people would not discriminate enough on their own/
The Minimum wage laws were created to to increase discrimination against blacks.
Unions were created to discriminate – against black and other minorities.
Government union set asides were created to foster discrimination against blacks.
In the US there were about 4400 lynchings accoring to Brian Stevens Equal Justice foundation.
Less than a dozen of these occured after WWII.
Prior to Johnson’s great society and the Civil Rights act, and the Voting rights act, Blacks in the US were doing better than they had before.
A black middle class had developed prior to WWI, but had grown substantially after.
The great Liberal Lion of the Left Daniel Patrick Monihan came out with some of the most scathing attacks on great society programs in the 70’s and 80’s because it was already apparent – they not only did not work – they were actively destroying back families.
Do you still see significant discrimination in this country against poles, Irish. italians ? Myriads of ethinic groups that have experienced centuries of discrimination now face NONE in the US. The British treated the Irish far worse than black slaves for far longer.
Today Ireland has a higher standard of living than the UK.
When I was born there was still serious discrimination against Catholics. JFK was the first Catholic president in US history. Biden is only the 2nd despite the fact that Catholics make up 35% of the country.
Do you see discrimination against catholics today ?
I would further note that until the late 20th and early 21st century Racial diversity was UNIQUE to the anglosphere.
You know those countries that you left wing nuts think are all racist.
Until very recently those nordic social democracies that you constantly misrepresent as actual examples of socialism – they are not. Were not merely 98% white, they were 98% of people who came from the same tribe 1000 years ago. They shared the same genes, the same religion the same culture.
There was pretty much ZERO diversity.
And that is true accross most of the world – even today.
In 1996 the Hutu’s in Rwanada started murdering the Tutsi, and over the course of about 90 days murdered 900,000 Tutsi – mostly with Machette’s
Most of us can not tell a Hutu from a Tutsi
regardless, outside of the anglosphere actual racial diversity is nearly non existant.
Inside the Angloshphere the US is the most diverse of any large country in the world, probably the most diverse of any country in the world.
No country has the extent of american ethnic diversity. Look at where we have come ?
In many cases White americans barely even know if they are polish, or Italian, or Russian, or English, or irish.
But we have more that just Europeans. The US has people from Every race in the world, from every ethnicity in the world.
No things are not getting worse – they have been getting better for a long time.
“The 303 creative case seems to have been based on a fictional complaint.”
So what ?
Should gay Web designers have to create Web Sites for the Westboro Baptist Church ?
Should Jewish Web Designers have to create websites for Nazi’s ?
“Nobody was requesting the business create a website for a gay couple. ”
That is your idea of an argument ? It is OK to pass laws violating peoples constitutional rights – if no one tries to Force the issue ?
John Phillips – the Master Cake case – was repeatedly Sanctioned by the State of Colorado – even AFTER he won in the Supreme Court.
“Even the person named as the complainant is not gay. The case should not have been taken at all.”
If course it should have – it was a facial challenge to an unconstitutional law. You are conflating that with an as applied challenge.
For a law to be unconstitutional AS APPLIED – that requires an actual effort to enforce the law in a way that is unconstitutional.
To challenge a law as FACIALLY unconstitutional – requires that the law as WRITTEN is unconstitutional.
Again – wherever you were educated – Sue. They did you are great disservice.
You have been absymally badly educated.
On issue after issue you make left wing nut claims that are historical garbage.
Government is a necescary evil. We must limit it as much as possible because it is dangerous.
But government exists and we keep a watchful eye over it because anarchy is worse.
When government tries to do good it inevitably does bad.
Government serves 3 legitimate purposes.
To protect us from those who would initiate actual violence against us and punish those who succeed – criminal law.
To enforce our voluntary agreements with each others – most civil law.
To provide the means by which those of us who are actually harmed by others can compel those who harmed us to make us whole – tort law.
It does not exist to engage in positive morality, or to shape our values.
Government is not there to make us better people – what is our own job.
Government is not religion.
So, we should wait until someone is actually injured by an unconstitutional law before it is stricken down? What you are asking is for someone to violate the law to gain standing.
The threat of enforcement, which of course is meant to (unconstitutionally) force a certain behavior, is standing enough. A fundamental constitutional right is denied the day such an unconstitutional law is signed, it needn’t see someone placed in cuffs to have standing. “The case shouldn’t have been heard” is a poor argument for keeping an unconstitutional law in force.
Free markets don’t work. When there’s no restraint on monopolies it will never work. Even free market advocates end up gaming the rules when it doesn’t benefit them. It’s a sham.
Free markets only work with government regulating the self-serving excesses of rapacious individuals and groups. Law-of-the-jungle (laissez-faire) is not civilized living. It is a repudiation of the principles upon which our country was founded. You want to live in a pure “free market”?…move to Somalia. The warlords will teach you how free markets work….”you are worth nothing to me American scum, so F.U”.
“Free markets don’t work.”
And yet they do.
“When there’s no restraint on monopolies it will never work. ”
The FACT is that by the 60’s it was self evident that ALL us antitrust law was a crock.
No where in the US EVER has there been a successful proof of an actual successful predatory competitor.
Can you name a single monopoly ANYWHERE EVER that survived without being propped up by government ?
I n the past several decades economic studies have found that even when a “monoply” exists in the short tun – that absent govenrment restrictions on the market, that the Monopoly must STILL charge very nearly the same prices it would have to if it had competition.
Why ? Because of the laws of supply and demand. Whether you like it or not EVERYTHING is a product.
That includes Return on Investment. Any Company that manages to profit at a rate beyond what is justified by its risk level Will automatically have cpompetition – because investors will see that market as an oportunity and create competitors and flood them with investment.
“Even free market advocates end up gaming the rules when it doesn’t benefit them.”
You can not game the rules in an actual free market.
All efforts to “Game the rules” involve Government.
Do you think the Biden family is receiving Millions from companies to help them develop free market strategies ?
The Biden’s are being paid to help companies use government to “game the market”.
Please tell me exactly how it is that in a free market some one “games the market” ?
“It’s a sham.”
Government interventions in free markets are a sham.
I find it amazing – at the one time in history where in myriads of ways we have Damning evidence that You are wrong – about pretty much everything,
you more strongly that ever believe in total nonsense.
How bad does the failure have to be for you to grasp that you are WRONG ?
The Free market did not cause Covid – bad government did.
The free market did not botch covid – Government did.
The Free market did not cause inflation – Governmnet did.
The free market did not saddle Students with massive Debt that they can not escape even through death or bankruptcy – Government did.
I can go on and on.
Everything good in your life – you owe to free markets.
Government does not feed you. house you, cloth you, provide you medical care – atleast not unless you are in jail for a crime.
If you have one of the most expensive Cell Phones made today, that has more communications capability than existed in any form until a few decades ago.
It has not only more computational power than mainframes but even super computers a few decades ago.
Even a Basic $30 Cell phone has more computational power than the most powerful computers in the 70’s
Go watch Science Fiction from the 60’s and 70s – most of what they had then – We have BETTER today.
Government did not bring you any of this. Free markets did.
“Chancellor John B. King, Jr. who gave a strikingly conflicted account on NPR that was not challenged in the interview.“
He wasn’t challenged because while Innskeep knew he was lying Innskeep’s role is to support the left’s political preference. The only conflict is in the minds of people who mistakenly believe journalists have any role other than propaganda. Those who understand this are never surprise by the media’s choices.
It was a delight to read Justice Clarence Thomas reference black Economist Dr Thomas Sowell 7 times in his opinion. Sowell is a genius at economics when it comes to the lived experience of blacks in America. No one comes close to his expertise, academic analysis of copious data and lived experience as a black man who endured grave hardship. So it follows that Clarence Thomas should cite Thomas Sowell.
No wonder the Left wants Justice Clarence Thomas impeached because they loathe his access to pertinent legal data and analytical, academic scholarship. For anyone who admires Thomas Sowell, here are some of the quotes by Clarence Thomas.
SCOTUS ruling “Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College”, Justice Clarence Thomas, opinion
Yet, JUSTICE JACKSON would replace the second Founders’ vision with an organizing principle based on race. In fact, on her view, almost all of life’s outcomes may be un- hesitatingly ascribed to race. Post, at 24–26. This is so, she writes, because of statistical disparities among different racial groups. See post, at 11–14. Even if some whites have a lower household net worth than some blacks, what matters to JUSTICE JACKSON is that the average white household has more wealth than the average black household. Post, at 11.
This lore is not and has never been true. Even in the segregated South where I grew up, individuals were not the sum of their skin color. Then as now, not all disparities are based on race; not all people are racist; and not all differences between individuals are ascribable to race. Put simply, “the fate of abstract categories of wealth statistics is not the same as the fate of a given set of flesh-and-blood human beings.” T. Sowell, Wealth, Poverty and Politics 333 (2016). Worse still, JUSTICE JACKSON uses her broad observations about statistical relationships between race and select measures of health, wealth, and well-being to label all blacks as victims. Her desire to do so is unfathomable to me.
Nor do JUSTICE JACKSON’s statistics regarding a correlation between levels of health, wealth, and well-being between selected racial groups prove anything. Of course, none of those statistics are capable of drawing a direct causal link between race—rather than socioeconomic status or any other factor—and individual outcomes. So JUSTICE JACKSON supplies the link herself: the legacy of slavery and the nature of inherited wealth. This, she claims, locks blacks into a seemingly perpetual inferior caste. Such a view is irrational; it is an insult to individual achievement and cancerous to young minds seeking to push through barriers, rather than consign themselves to permanent victimhood.
Accordingly, JUSTICE JACKSON’s race-infused world view falls flat at each step. Individuals are the sum of their unique experiences, challenges, and accomplishments. What matters is not the barriers they face, but how they choose to confront them. And their race is not to blame for everything—good or bad—that happens in their lives. A contrary, myopic world view based on individuals’ skin color to the total exclusion of their personal choices is nothing short of racial determinism
JUSTICE JACKSON then builds from her faulty premise to call for action, arguing that courts should defer to “experts” and allow institutions to discriminate on the basis of race. Make no mistake: Her dissent is not a vanguard of the innocent and helpless. It is instead a call to empower privileged elites, who will “tell us [what] is required to level the playing field” among castes and classifications that they alone can divine. Post, at 26; see also post, at 5–7 (GORSUCH, J., concurring) (explaining the arbitrariness of these classifications). Then, after siloing us all into racial castes and pitting those castes against each other, the dissent somehow believes that we will be able—at some undefined point—to “march forward together” into some utopian vision. Post, at 26 (opinion of JACKSON, J.). Social movements that invoke these sorts of rallying cries, historically, have ended disastrously.
“Affirmative action” policies do nothing to increase the overall number of blacks and His-panics able to access a college education. Rather, those racial policies simply redistribute individuals among institutions of higher learning, placing some into more competitive institutions than they otherwise would have attended. See T. Sowell, Affirmative Action Around the World 145–146 (2004)
Take science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, for example. Those stu-dents who receive a large admissions preference are more likely to drop out of STEM fields than similarly situated students who did not receive such a preference. F. Smith & J. McArdle, Ethnic and Gender Differences in Science Graduation at Selective Colleges With Implications for Admission Policy and College Choice, 45 Research in Higher Ed. 353 (2004). “Even if most minority students are able to meet the normal standards at the ‘average’ range of colleges and universities, the systematic mismatching of minority students begun at the top can mean that such students are generally overmatched throughout all levels of higher edu-cation.” T. Sowell, Race and Culture 176–177 (1994).
Even in the segregated South where I grew up, individuals were not the sum of their skin color. Then as now, not all disparities are based on race; not all people are racist; and not all differences between individuals are ascribable to race. Put simply, “the fate of abstract categories of wealth statistics is not the same as the fate of a given set of flesh-and-blood human beings.” T. Sowell, Wealth, Poverty and Politics 333 (2016).
Nor should we accept that John or James represent all members of their respective races. All racial groups are heterogeneous, and blacks are no exception—encompassing northerners and southerners, rich and poor, and recent immigrants and descendants of slaves. See, e.g., T. Sowell, Ethnic America 220 (1981) (noting that the great success of West Indian immigrants to the United States—disproportionate among blacks more broadly—“seriously undermines the proposition that color is a fatal handicap in the American economy”). Eschewing the complexity that comes with individuality may make for an uncomplicated narrative, but lumping people together and judging them based on assumed inherited or ancestral traits is nothing but stereo-typing.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/20-1199_l6gn.pdf
Sowell is an intellectual giant, systematically ignored by our elites and their media spokesmen.
He’s ignored because he’s not the icon he’s portrayed as. He made a lot of stupid claims.
Please name some.
In short, Justice Jackson believes discrimination is acceptable insofar as it privileges blacks, but would object loudly should Harvard decide to reverse that position and discriminate favorably of other race instead which might negatively affect blacks. So to her, discrimination is fine only for blacks. That sort of illogic is mind-numbing.
So basically the Equal Protection Clause actually means what it says. What a revelation!
By contrast, Representative Eric Swalwell said that “kicking every Russian student out of the United States [should] be on the table.” Rep. Ruben Gallego tweeted, “These Russian students are the sons and daughters of the richest Russians. A strong message can be sent by sending them home.” All approximately 5,000 of them have rich daddies? One wonders what Swalwell and Gallego, Democrats, think of the affirmative action decision. To paraphrase George Orwell in Animal Farm, all students are created equal, but some are more equal than others.