10th Blogiversary!

As my wife has often had occasion to remind me, I’m not so good at remembering anniversaries — despite the fact, as I’m fond of saying, that in general my memory is still so good I can’t recall the last time I forgot anything. I didn’t exactly forget that DISCRIMINATIONS was launched in the summer of 2002, but I did neglect to mention it until now.

When daughter Jessie lured me into this venture with the promise of helping with it (a promise that prove to be as durable as Obama’s promise of post-racial post-partisanship), I worried that there wouldn’t be enough interesting on the racial discrimination front to write about. That shows how much I knew. I’m not sure I know any more now, but at least I’ve written a lot since then. (Don’t be churlish and ask why I keep writing if I haven’t learned anything.)

Well, enough reminiscing about old times; let’s celebrate … with another reminiscence. Since former president Clinton has been in the news lately, I’ll mention that one of my first posts on the new blog discussed blind grading in law school. “I suspect most law schools follow the same policy,” I noted, “which I find odd given how much sympathy there is among the law professoriat for taking notice of race at every opportunity. Blind grading thus seems like something of an anomaly, a little island of (color+)-blindness surrounded by a virtual sea of color-consciousness.”

That post was not about Clinton, but referring back to it two years later I asked, Did Professor Clinton Cheat?, quoting from his autobiography — “I’ll never forget reading one black student’s exam paper with a mixture of disbelief and anger …” — and asking, “How did Professor Clinton know whose exam he was reading?”

One thing I have learned in the last ten years of comparing our racial practices with the our still often professed dedication to the principle that Americans should be treated “without regard” to race, creed, or color: hypocrisy is not in short supply.