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Die By The Polls, Live By The Polls?

Howard Bashman today reports too many news articles for me to cite that are a variation on the theme that Bush’s “falling poll numbers” weaken his position in the upcoming struggle to replace O’Connor. One problem with these articles is that, er, Bush’s poll numbers are now rising; “his approve-disapprove rating [is] about where it […]

More On “A Woman Or A Minority…”

Mickey Kaus writes: Here is Harriett Miers‘ bio … and here’s Michael McConnell‘s. Assume they’re both fine people. If you had to make a snap decision, which one should be on the United States Supreme Court? Miers’ biography, as you might guess, is rather thin compared to McConnell’s. Meanwhile, no better example (even if completely […]

U of Oregon Relents, Opens Classes To All Students

Several months I mentioned (here), in the course of a discussion about confusion over “cultural competency” and “diversity” in Oregon, a policy at the University of Oregon that reserved 10 spaces in certain small (18 students max) math and English classes for minority students. A student complained to the Dept. of Education, and, in what […]

More On “When Affirmative Action Was White”

David Bernstein has an interesting post on Volokh today about Ira Katznelson’s argument that discrimination against blacks during the New Deal and Truman administration amounted to “affirmative action for whites,” and he generously links to my previous discussion of that issue, based on Jonathan Yardley’s critical review of Katznelson in the Washington Post. Here’s an […]

Requiring The Teaching Of Victimology

Reader Fred Ray sends another one I missed in the WaPo. (Actually, this one may not have yet appeared in the print edition, but I don’t have to wait till the last minute to miss something.) New York state has created an Amistad Commission (named after the commandeered slave ship) to ensure that the “‘physical […]

White Legislator, Quoting MLK, Attempts To Join Black Caucus. Is Called Racist

Reader Fred Ray reminds me that I missed a good one this morning. NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A white Tennessee lawmaker lamenting his exclusion from the state’s Black Legislative Caucus claimed Tuesday the group was less accommodating that even the Ku Klux Klan. “My understanding is that the KKK doesn’t even ban members by race,” said […]

Michigan Multiculturalism

Erin O’Connor has a fascinating post on an alleged hate crime at the University of Michigan that can almost be described literally as a pissing contest. “Whatever really happened,” O’Connor writes, what’s certain is that UM administrators, led by their president, jumped on a bandwagon without verifying the facts. A readiness to score easy points […]

Accuracy In Media … Or Not

Over a year ago I wrote (here, and on the same point here): According to a fascinating front page article in today’s New York Times, it has begun to dawn on Lani Guinier, Henry Louis Gates Jr., and other preferentialists at Harvard and elsewhere that you’d better be very careful what you subsidize, for you’ll […]

Help For Reader Re Swift’s Modest Proposal?

A reader sent me the following inquiry. If anyone knows where to find what she’s looking for, please post in comments. I am looking for a copy of an essay I read possibly 20 years ago. It was written as a satire ala Swift’s Modest Proposal, and made statements referencing ethnic, religious, etc. groups in […]

Photo ID = Jim Crow

The National Law Journal reports [subscription required] that “[v]oting rights activists” are challenging proposals in several states that would require voters to present a photo ID. The controversy over photo IDs heated up still more last week, when a bipartisan Commission on Federal Election Reform issued a report recommending that all voters nationwide present photo […]