Crime Surge in Big Cities

[INSIDE JW]

The Supreme Court Should Hear Challenge to Harvard’s Race-Based
Admissions Policies

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The latest Leftist uproar
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— this over the alleged treatment of Asian Americans — points up
their utter hypocrisy on race: accuse Americans broadly of racism
while promoting racist policies. For example, it’s a poorly kept
secret that academic bastions of leftist ideology have long been
discriminating against Asians. Harvard leads the pack.

With our friends at the Allied Educational Foundation (AEF), we filed
an _amici curiae_ brief
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in support of Students for Fair Admission’s petition for a _writ of
certiorari
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to the Supreme Court, challenging the decision of the U.S. District
Court for the First Circuit that upholds Harvard College’s
race-based affirmative action admissions program. (_Students for Fair
Admission v. President & Fellows of Harvard College_
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(No.
20-1199)).

Students for Fair Admission argues that Harvard’s admissions program
intentionally discriminates against Asian Americans on the basis of
race and violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which bans
unconstitutional race-based admissions by public universities.
Students for Fair Admission also argues that the Supreme Court should
overrule the decision in _Grutter v. Bollinger_
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which held that
institutions of higher education could use race as a factor in
admissions. The petitioners allege that this discriminatory
admission’s policy violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal
Protection Clause:

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the
privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall
any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without
due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the
equal protection of the laws.
In our brief, we note that the Equal Protection Clause was designed
to stop discrimination:

[O]ne of the core purposes of the Equal Protection Clause is to
guarantee that individuals will be free from discrimination based upon
race. It should come as no surprise to anyone that legalizing the use
of race in deciding who is admitted to schools of higher learning has
caused enormous conflict, including among members of this Court.
Our brief rejects the notion discriminating by race in admissions
can be justified by “diversity” goals:

College and university administrators might promote greater
cross-racial understanding and tolerance in their students, not by
racially discriminating against applicants for admission to their
schools, but by working to make their schools more tolerant of the
expression of different points of view. Admissions programs that
intentionally discriminate on the basis of race may themselves be
negatively affecting the level of racial understanding and tolerance
on today’s college campuses.
We argue that past Supreme Court rulings which failed to enforce
the Equal Protection Clause’s prohibition against racial
classifications have not stood the test of time. Citing _Plessy v.
Ferguson_, _Korematsu v. United States_, and _Hirabayashi v. United
States_ they state:

Rulings by this Court which held that under the Equal Protection
Clause individuals may be treated differently based on race have been
wrongfully decided …

In each of these three cases, the Court ruled that treating
individuals differently based on a racial classification did not
violate the Equal Protection Clause. In each of these cases, the Court
found that the government had justified its disparate treatment under
the strict scrutiny test. These infamous cases demonstrate how
misguided it is for this Court to sanction discriminatory racial
classifications.
Additionally, we argue that this case should be heard because the
Supreme Court, for decades, has failed to set a clear precedent on the
issue of race-based admissions programs for lower courts:

The _Bakke_
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line of cases
has failed to provide guidance to lower courts and university
administrators about what constitutes a permissible race-based
admission program. _Bakke _has led to five rulings over 43 years, in
which there are 26 separate opinions. In each, the Court attempts to
explain the constitutional rationale for allowing race-based
preferences – even though these plainly conflict with the original
meaning and text of the Equal Protection Clause.
Court-sanctioned racial discrimination in college admissions is
contrary to federal law and the U.S. Constitution. The Supreme Court
should stop abusing its powers to protect racial discrimination and
uphold the rights of Asian students and other innocents punished for
being of the wrong race by Harvard and other universities.

The Allied Educational Foundation is a charitable and educational
foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life through
education. In furtherance of that goal, the Foundation has engaged in
a number of projects, which include educational and health conferences
domestically and abroad. AEF has partnered frequently with us to fight
government and judicial corruption and to promote a return to ethics
and morality in the nation’s public life.

MARYLAND OPENS ‘SPECIAL CLINIC’ TO GIVE LATINOS COVID-19 VACCINES

Too many public health officials put race politics first when it comes
to directing the distribution of limited vaccine doses to groups they
favor. Our Corruption Chronicles blog has the latest
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from Maryland.

While many Maryland residents wait patiently to receive their
government-funded COVID-19 vaccine, the state’s two biggest
counties—both illegal immigrant sanctuaries—have launched
a special clinic
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to
inoculate 600 Latinos a week. The exclusive operation will be
stationed at the Adventist HealthCare facility in Takoma Park, which
is situated in Montgomery County, Maryland’s most populous. The
shots will also be offered to Latinos who live in nearby Prince
George’s County. Recipients will be “preselected” by an area
open borders group, Casa de Maryland
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and a
Latino Health Initiative launched by Montgomery County two decades
ago. In a statement
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announcing
the venture public officials claim that it will help overcome
inequities in the vaccine rollout as well as general health
disparities that plague poor minority communities.

Judicial Watch is investigating the special Latino clinic, including
how the vaccine candidates are chosen and the criteria used by public
officials and Casa de Maryland to screen who qualifies. Is it based on
a person’s looks, name, or proof of lineage? Judicial Watch has
repeatedly tried to contact public officials involved in the project
and media representatives for both counties as well as the Adventist
HealthCare public relations person listed in the announcement, but
calls have gone unanswered. In the name of transparency, Judicial
Watch launched Maryland Public Information Act requests for both
counties seeking, among other things, the eligibility criteria for
individuals who want vaccinations in the special clinic and records
identifying the reasons for limiting it to Latinos and excluding other
races, ethnicities, or groups. The public records requests also ask
both counties for any analyses of whether limiting the vaccination
program to Latinos is consistent with state and federal law, including
but not limited to the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment
of the U.S. Constitution.

Taxpaying Americans have the right to know the details surrounding
this exclusionary venture involving a government-funded vaccine
intended for all the nation’s residents. The shots were created as
part of a Trump administration initiative called Operation Warp Speed
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to
accelerate the development, production and distribution of COVID-19
vaccines and deliver 300 million doses. The U.S. reportedly
invested $18 billion
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on the project which involves several key government agencies—such
as the Department of Defense (DOD), Health and Human Services (HHS)
and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)—and private companies.

Elected officials in the two Maryland counties offering Latinos
priority say it is essential to promoting equitable vaccine
distribution. The Vice-Chair of the Prince George’s County Council,
Deni Taveras, claims special clinics like the one catering to Latinos
are “crucial for helping close the disparity gap.” Montgomery
County Council President Tom Hucker asserts that the new inoculation
site will help address and overcome “the inequities in our state’s
vaccine rollout.” Council Vice President Gabe Albornoz said the
Latino project will “help bridge the health inequities imposed by
this lethal virus.” The director of the county’s Latino Health
Initiative, Sonia Mora, says the public-private vaccination
partnership is a bridge for local governments to “overcome
inequities and gaps facing the most vulnerable among us.”

Montgomery County launched the Latino Health Initiative
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which
receives hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars annually
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to develop and implement a culturally and linguistically competent
health wellness system that values and respects Latino families and
communities. The initiative promotes a comprehensive and holistic
approach to health and wellness by working with stakeholders
throughout the county to enhance programs and services targeting
Latinos, develop models and services for Latinos and advocate for
policies and practices that effectively reach the county’s Latino
communities. Among the county health program’s “partners and
collaborators” is Casa de Maryland, a nonprofit that operates day
laborer centers for illegal immigrants which are partially funded with
public money.

This is hardly the first case involving the discriminatory practice of
a local government when it comes to COVID-19 vaccine distribution. In
late February Judicial Watch reported
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that
Virginia shifted its vaccine distribution to prioritize black and
Latino residents as white 85-year-olds struggled to get the shot. At
the time the state was vaccinating the population in phases, with
healthcare personnel and residents of long-term care facilities
receiving utmost priority. With that population completed, according
to the Virginia Department of Health
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the second
group included a peculiar combination of frontline workers, people 65
and over, those with medical conditions, incarcerated criminals and
those living in homeless shelters or migrant labor camps
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Then the
state shifted to give preference to black and Latino residents 65 and
over while much older white seniors, many in their 80s, failed to
secure an appointment.

CRIME SURGES AS PROGRESSIVE POLICIES GAIN GROUND

Radical left prosecutors and allied politicians are contributing to
dangerous surges in crime in many of our nation’s big cities. In his
_Investigative Bulletin_, Micah Morrison, our chief investigative
reporter, exposes
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how politics is triumphing over public safety and the rule of law:

The early 2021 crime statistics are in and the news is not good. In
almost every category, violent crime in urban America is rising.

On Tuesday, New York City’s comprehensive CompStat crime-monitoring
system reported
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a
36 percent jump in March murders from the previous year. Shootings? A
77 percent increase over the previous year.

And it’s not “just” murders and shootings. In late March,
drawing on CompStat data, the New York Post raised alarms about “a
startling crime surge
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The paper noted a shocking weekly surge in crime data from March 22
to March 28. When compared to the same period last year, in addition
to a rise in murders and shootings, rapes were up 125 percent, felony
assault up 23 percent, auto theft up 42 percent, robberies up 9
percent.

That looks like the signal of a crime wave.

It’s not just New York. Drawing on local data, CNN recently reported
that in Chicago, murders are up 33 percent for 2021, compared to the
same period in 2020.

In Los Angeles, according to news reports
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64 people were murdered in the first two months of 2021, an increase
of 39 percent over the same period in 2020. Gun violence was up
sharply, with 570 reports of shots fired, an 88 percent jump from the
previous year.

The troubling news comes as no surprise to Judicial Watch followers.
We have repeatedly warned about rising crime in urban America. We’ve
also pinpointed a major source of the problem: progressive policy
changes
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A “radical criminal-justice reform movement” has succeeded in
elections in cities around the country, notes the Manhattan
Institute’s Rafael Mangual in the new issue of _City Journal
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The changes are
sweeping: “everything from bail and pretrial discovery to pedestrian
stops and ‘restorative’ diversion programs.”

The progressive prosecutor movement—electoral bids “often helped
along by funding from left-wing billionaire George Soros,” Mangual
notes—has been notching significant successes. “Cities with
progressive prosecutors include Chicago (Kim Foxx), San Francisco
(Chesa Boudin), Boston (Rachel Rollins), Philadelphia (Larry Krasner),
and many others—including New York.”

New York often is a bell-weather for change in urban America. That’s
the case these days with issues of crime and punishment. And with the
retirement of Cyrus Vance Jr., the influential post of Manhattan
District Attorney—the second most powerful prosecuting office in the
U.S. after the Justice Department—is up for grabs in June.

Manhattan is a Democratic Party stronghold, and the June party primary
will essentially decide the Manhattan DA election. The eight
Democratic contenders range from center-left moderates to far-left
apparatchiks with no prosecutorial experience. There is no front
runner.

“In an era of unrest and cries for social justice,” noted Daniel
Alonso, a former senior Vance prosecutor writing in the _Daily News_
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the eight candidates all embrace various forms of “progressive
prosecutorial agendas — aiming to reduce the focus on incarceration
in favor of more lenient alternatives, social services, and greater
scrutiny of police officers.”

That’s a big gamble in an era of rising crime. New York—along with
much of the rest of urban America—will soon see if the progressive
prosecutor movement is a winning bet.

Until next week …





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