SCOTUS heard arguments for hugely consequential cases related to race-conscious admissions in higher ed, and we got some good news in Brazil 

Monday, October 31, 2022
BY JULIA CLAIRE & CROOKED MEDIA

- Fox News contributor Lara Trump ([link removed]) on Paul Pelosi’s attacker David DePape, whose copious blogging explicitly ties him to Lara’s political party

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments today in two cases that seek to end affirmative action, or race-conscious admissions in higher education.

* The cases in question are Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina. Cameron Norris, a lawyer for SFFA, argued that racial classifications “increase racial consciousness,” and “cause resentment,” by “treating people differently based on something they can’t change.” The last major affirmative case the Court heard was Fisher v. University of Texas ([link removed]) , where it held that numerical quotas for racial groups were unlawful, but taking into account race as one factor among many to achieve educational diversity was legal. Students for Fair Admissions is an organization led by conservative hard-liner and failed politician Edward Blum, who is White, and argues that one of his chief objections to the practice is that it hurts Asian American students. How brave, how altruistic.

* Blum and other anti-affirmative action activists have strived to use race-conscious admissions to pit Asian students against Black and Latino students (for the implicit benefit of White students). But many Asian American students and graduates of elite institutions showed up outside of the Supreme Court today to oppose overturning race-conscious college admissions ([link removed]) , such as Harvard Kennedy School graduate student Jonathan Loc, who said, “If [Edward Blum] was really with the Asian American community at Harvard, he would be advocating for a multicultural center, advocating for ethnic studies, advocating for more diverse professors.” Many Asian American students who support affirmative action believe that admissions offices do not use racial identity as a central decision-maker but rather a “contextualizing factor.” Echoing this
sentiment, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said ([link removed]) it would be odd if admissions officers could consider factors like whether applicants are parents, veterans or disabled — but not if they are members of racial minorities. That has, she said, “the potential of causing more of an equal protection problem than it’s actually solving.”

* The Court’s right-wing majority made its antipathy to affirmative action clear early and often. What was perhaps less expected was the hand-wringing over basic definitions of widely-used terms. Justice Samuel Alito responded to the usage of the term “underrepresented minority” by asking, “What does that mean?” ([link removed]) and adding that college admissions are “a zero-sum game” in which granting advantages to one group necessarily disadvantages others. Justice Amy Coney Barrett kept asking what the “end point” will be for considering race in college admissions. Justice Clarence Thomas said, “I've heard the word diversity quite a few times, and I don’t have a clue what it means.” Beautiful. Take a bow, Conservative justices! Inspired performances.

Much of SFFA’s arguments hinge on the assertion that Asian Americans are discriminated against in elite higher education admissions, despite the fact that the district judge and the court of appeals found no such evidence ([link removed]) .

* There’s an elephant in the room that none of the conservative Justices nor anyone railing against affirmative action seems to want to discuss: legacy students. A 2019 report from the National Bureau of Economic Research ([link removed]) showed that 43 percent of White students admitted to Harvard from 2009-2014 were either recruited athletes, legacies, applicants on the “dean’s interest list” (aka the children of wealthy donors) and children of faculty and staff. More pointedly, a whopping 75 percent of the White students admitted under those privileged categories, particularly legacies, would have been rejected ([link removed]) had they not been given those bonus points. The acceptance rate for legacy students at Harvard is about 33 percent, compared with the school’s overall acceptance rate of under six percent. But the Edward Blums of the world
deem this kind of affirmative action acceptable.

* Across all elite universities, admissions rates for legacies are about 31 percent higher than official admissions rates for all applicants. Princeton has reported that legacy applicants are admitted at roughly four times the rate of overall applicants. And who does that benefit? Overwhelmingly, wealthy White students, who already have marked advantages ([link removed]) on the road to success. Elite institutions are a powerful force for social mobility for underrepresented racial and socioeconomic minorities, but study after study concludes ([link removed]) that wealthy White students who go to mid-range or state universities still become as successful or more successful than minority graduates of elite institutions. This is what made the 2019 “Operation Varsity Blues” cheating scandal
([link removed]) especially infuriating for so many: the knowledge that those rich White students would have been successful regardless.

In today’s arguments, both sides invoked Brown v. Board of Education ([link removed]) , which deemed school segregation unconstitutional. Should the Court side with SFFA when it hands down its decision in June, on the basis of a profound and intentional misreading of Brown, it may be the beginning of a domino effect that topples other civil-rights gains and desegregation efforts.

If you’ve ever messaged a friend about a manager who won’t stop texting after hours or a co-worker who keeps posting weirdly suggestive Austin Powers GIFs in Slack - you’re not alone. On Crooked Media’s newest podcast, Work Appropriate ([link removed]) , author and host Anne Helen Petersen sets out to find solutions to these oddly specific yet completely universal listener-submitted questions. Whether you work in an office chair or a sixth grade classroom - the problems may be limitless but so are the solutions!

Listen to new episodes of Work Appropriate ([link removed]) every Wednesday, wherever you get your podcasts. Check it out!
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Psychotic billionaire Elon Musk has already made major changes at Twitter since officially taking over the company Friday. After firing most of the company’s senior executives, Musk dissolved its board of directors ([link removed]) , another step towards consolidating his control. Remaining Twitter employees continue to be left in the dark about plans for the company, or potential mass layoffs, which Musk promised investors earlier this year. Seemingly acknowledging skepticism and concern, Musk has told the European Commission that Twitter will abide by the more stringent European rules governing illegal online content ([link removed]) . I wonder if that was before or after he tweeted disinformation about the attack on Paul Pelosi ([link removed]) to
upwards of 100 million followers? Musk deleted the tweet hours later, but amplifying a “publication” that exists only to spread right-wing lies and conspiracy theories is not a great harbinger of what’s to come.

General Motors has suspended its advertising on Twitter following Elon Musk’s takeover of the company ([link removed]) . Republican senators have already threatened retaliation ([link removed]) because freedom is being forced to spend advertising money at Elon Musk’s social-media company.


New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and other high-profile members of the sports world are condemning recent incidents of hate speech towards Jewish people ([link removed]) following Brooklyn Nets point guard/star king of the anti-vaxxer idiots Kyrie Irving’s tweet promoting a an antisemitic film.


A group of House and Senate Republicans have objected to a provision in the National Defense Authorization Act that would allow the United States to transfer the proceeds of seized Russian property to Ukraine ([link removed]) . Did too many of their Russian oligarch friends get their assets seized?


A recent New York Times/Siena College poll found that Senate races have razor-thin margins in battleground states ([link removed]) , where many voters want Republicans to flip the Senate but ultimately prefer the Democrat running in their state.


The U.K. environmentalist group Just Stop Oil sprayed orange paint on London's MI5 building, the Home Office, the Bank of England, and the News Corp offices ([link removed]) near London Bridge. Man these guys *love* their orange paint.


The Biden administration rejected a recommendation from senior Pentagon officials to promote Lt. Gen. Walter E. Piatt ([link removed]) , who was credibly accused by his colleagues of hindering a prompt response and the deployment of the D.C. National Guard during the January 6 insurrection.


Kyiv is experiencing widespread water and power outages across the city after more Russian strikes against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure ([link removed]) .


Canada has imposed new sanctions on Iran for human-rights violations related to Iranian law enforcement’s brutality against protesters ([link removed]) over the past several weeks.

Disgraced former president Trump filed an emergency request today asking the Supreme Court to halt the release of his tax returns by the IRS to a Democratic-led House committee ([link removed]) , after he lost yet another appeal last week. It’s almost like there’s information in his tax returns that might expose him as the fraud we already know he is!

Twenty years after he first won the Brazilian presidency, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has defeated far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro ([link removed]) in the tightest election result in the country’s recent history. Before the vote, Bolsonaro’s campaign made repeated, completely fabricated, Trump-like allegations of fraud, raising fears that he would not accept defeat and would challenge the results if he lost. Sound familiar? Da Silva’s inauguration is scheduled to take place on January 1, but there has been no word from Bolsonaro since the results were announced. Nevertheless, congratulations poured in around the world, including from President Biden, who congratulated Lula on his victory in the country’s “free, fair, and credible elections.” Even Bolsonaro’s allies in his own party are publicly acknowledging that their guy lost. Lula’s victory extended a wave of recent leftist victories in South American
countries ([link removed]) like Argentina, Chile, and Colombia. Da Silva has pledged to boost spending on the poor, reestablish relationships with foreign governments that soured under Bolsonaro, and take bold climate action to eliminate illegal clear-cutting in the Amazon rainforest.
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Trees are pretty great, aren’t they? They provide shade, make oxygen, prevent erosion, suck up all that carbon, provide homes for animals - is there anything they can’t do?

To turn something as awesome as a tree, and more accurately, a forest of trees, into toilet paper just feels wrong. These trees spent decades growing only to get cut down and flushed down the toilet.

At Reel Paper ([link removed]) , we feel the same way. Reel makes a sustainable toilet paper that uses 100% bamboo. Bamboo is a fast-growing grass, and some can grow up to three feet per day! And like grass on a lawn, you can harvest the same stalk over and over without disrupting the plant or soil.

Even better? Reel Paper ships FREE in plastic-free and compostable packaging.

For a limited time, head on over to REELPAPER.com/WORLD ([link removed]) to sign up for a subscription and get 30% off your first order.

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Agrowing number of cities across the United States ([link removed]) are adopting salary-transparency laws in an effort to address pay disparities for women and people of color.


A federal judge has blocked Penguin Random House’s bid to buy one of its main rivals, Simon & Schuster ([link removed]) , in a significant victory for the Biden administration, which aims to revive antitrust enforcement.

Arizona’s Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich went on 60 Minutes with a change of heart and ripped into election deniers ([link removed]) like gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake and called the Big Lie “horseshit.” We couldn't have said it better.

It's Halloween! Have fun out there!
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