Section 5 As The New “Bloody Shirt”
I have written before, such as here, that just as Republicans waved the “bloody shirt” for a generation after the Civil War in an attempt to keep the Democrats branded as the party of slaveholders and rebellion, it is a staple of liberal and Democratic argument today to refer almost continuously to the Nixon/Reagan “Southern […]
Good News: Rick Hasen Is Worried The Supremes May “Kill The Voting Rights Act”!
[NOTE: This post has been UPDATED, twice] Loyala Law School Professor Rick Hasen, who writes the Election Law Blog and is a highly regarded authority on, you guessed it, election law, has an article on SLATE today expressing his concern, even fear, that the Supreme Court may invalidate a key section of the Voting Rights […]
Hole In The Poll
[NOTE: This post has been UPDATED] The New York Times/CBS Poll released today found that Barack Obama’s presidency seems to be altering the public perception of race relations in the United States. Two-thirds of Americans now say race relations are generally good and the percentage of blacks who say so has doubled since last July…. […]
Diversity And Excellence: “Additives,” Not Alternatives?
Michèle Lamont is a professor of just about everything at Harvard (Robert I. Goldman Professor of European Studies and Professor of Sociology and African and African American Studies, and Senior Adviser on Faculty Development and Diversity, Faculty of Arts and Sciences). According to her Dept. of Sociology website, Lamont’s scholarly interests center on shared concepts […]
California Att’y Gen Says Non-Discrimination Is Unconstitutional
[NOTE: This post has been UPDATED twice three times.] Jerry Brown (remember him?) — once California governor, now California Attorney General, and possible future California governor — says in a letter to the California Supreme Court that the prohibition against preferential treatment based on race or gender that was added to the California Constitution by […]
Are We Really Becoming More “Diverse”? Does It Really Matter?
This morning Inside Higher Ed notes the publication of yet another report calling for more “diversity” in higher education, this one from the Council of Graduate Schools. “Our nation is becoming increasingly diverse, yet Hispanic and African American students are highly underrepresented in graduate schools, particularly in fields such as science and engineering, where each […]
Rickety Ricci IV: A Dilly From Philly
I thought I was through writing about Ricci (see here, here, and here). After all, the Supremes just heard the argument, and nothing more will happen until the case is decided. But then I just saw Editorial: Racism in the firehouse in the Philadelphia Inquirer, and it deserves comment. First, Ricci has nothing to do […]
Rickety Ricci III
Today the Supremes heard oral argument in Ricci v. DeStefano, a case brought by 17 white and 1 Hispanic New Haven firefighters whose successful promotion exams were tossed out for racial reasons that I discussed earlier here and here. In their excellent summary and preview of the case in the Wall Street Journal this morning, […]
Jay Cost On “Race, Realignment, and the Election of 1948”
Jay Cost gave an impressive talk on (you guessed it) “Race, Realignment, and the Election of 1948,” and posted it on Real Clear Politics. Like everything Cost does on RCP, this piece is quite good, and I encourage you to read it. I think he nails the significance of 1948 for the modern Democratic Party […]
Grasping At (Non-) Discriminatory Straws At UVa (And Ignoring Real Discrimination)
“Responding to recent incidents of alleged discrimination targeting University students,” the University of Virginia’s Cavalier Daily reports this morning, the Sikh Student Association, in conjunction with 11 other student organizations, organized a “Unite Against Discrimination” rally, scheduled to kick off this afternoon. The rally’s aim is to “show a unified force against these actions,” of […]
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