Free Republic

Thirty-five years after the Supreme Court set the terms for boosting college admissions of African Americans and other minorities, the court may be about to issue a ruling that could restrict universities' use of race in deciding who is awarded places. The case before the justices was brought by Abigail Fisher, a white suburban Houston student who asserted she was wrongly rejected by the University of Texas at Austin while minority students with similar grades and test scores were admitted.

Gov. Rick Snyder has been in office more than two years, yet the Michigan Department of Civil Rights continues to advocate policy that is consistent with that of former Gov. Jennifer Granholm. The department opposes the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative and wants the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold the 6th Circuit Court decision that declared it unconstitutional. However, that "does not represent the Governor's position,” said Kurt Weiss, a spokesman for Gov. Snyder. The MCRI outlawed preferential treatment of minorities (by race, color, sex, or religion) in getting admission to colleges, jobs, and other publicly funded institutions. It was Proposal...

Revoke Obama's Nobel Peace Prize After receiving the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, President Obama has made perpetual war look more perpetual than ever. Today, there are more U.S. troops in Afghanistan than when Obama took office. His presidency has widened the use of drones and other instruments of remote killing in several countries. Please sign this petition to the Norwegian Nobel Committee: I urge you to rescind the Nobel Peace Prize that was awarded to Barack Obama.

Tiger Woods was three strokes off the lead in the Masters when he completed the second round at Augusta National Golf Club on Friday. But he began his third round five strokes behind the leader Jason Day after being assessed a two-stroke penalty on Saturday for an illegal drop on the 15th hole of the second round.

Pittsburgh high schooler Suzy Weiss has a 4.5 GPA, an SAT score of 2120 (out of a maximum 2400), and a slew of rejections from Ivy League colleges. But unlike most unsuccessful applicants, Weiss didn’t accept her rejection meekly. Instead, she penned a sarcastic open letter to those who spurned her — and got it published in the Wall Street Journal. Weiss’s letter lampoons the in-vogue collegiate-admissions practice euphemistically known as “holistic” review of applications. Holistic review “frees” admissions officers from the old-fashioned practice of relying heavily on objective measures of academic success (such as grades and standardized-test scores) to...

In his “farewell address” before Congress, libertarian Republican Ron Paul asked in so many words, “why is liberty so hard to sell?” Congressman Paul answered that question at length in his speech (which you can read here),but in summary, he said that in the early part of the 20th Century, “The majority of Americans and many government officials agreed that sacrificing some liberty was necessary to carry out what some claimed to be “progressive” ideas. Pure democracy became acceptable… They failed to recognize that what they were doing was exactly opposite of what the colonists were seeking when they broke...

After noticing that most of the lifeguards at the public pools used by Latino and African-American kids were white, the Phoenix aquatics department decided to try to recruit minorities. More than 90 percent of the students at Alhambra High are black, Latino or Asian. On a recruiting effort there over the winter, the city's Melissa Boyle tells students she's not looking for strong swimmers. Like many under-resourced schools, Alhambra doesn't have a swim team. "We will work with you in your swimming abilities," Boyle says. Boyle's colleague Kelly Martinez takes on the delicate task of explaining the scenario the city...

While taking some flak for doing so, City of Phoenix officials are standing by their decision to accept non-swimming minorities as pool lifeguards. “The problem with requiring swimming proficiency as a condition of employment is that minorities would be under-represented among those we hire,” City Parks and Recreation Administrator Alfredo Zote observed. “The Mayor has asked us to strive for a workforce that mirrors the composition of the City’s population. We can’t do that if we impose qualifications that have a disproportionate impact on any racial or ethnic groups.” As to whether the ability to swim might not be a...

You know our political discourse has lost its moorings when it’s the Republicans who play that famous race card in defending one of their own. The person in need of defense is Dr. Ben Carson, a renowned Johns Hopkins surgeon. Carson happens to be black, Yale-educated — and conservative. After his impassioned criticism of President Obama at the National Prayer Breakfast, many in the GOP thought they’d found their 2016 standard-bearer. But however brilliant, Carson has raised eyebrows since coming into the spotlight. Last week, he told Sean Hannity, “Marriage is between a man and a woman. No group, be...

Has the nation lived down its history of racism and should the law become colorblind? Addressing two pivotal legal issues, one on affirmative action and a second on voting rights, a divided Supreme Court is poised to answer those questions. In one case, the issue is whether race preferences in university admissions undermine equal opportunity more than they promote the benefits of racial diversity. Just this past week, justices signaled their interest in scrutinizing affirmative action very intensely, expanding their review as well to a Michigan law passed by voters that bars ‘‘preferential treatment’’ to students based on race. Separately...

A Detroit police officer on the force for more than a decade has been accused of orchestrating a series of robberies in southeast Michigan. 34 year-old Clifton Whatley was arraigned Thursday in a Taylor court on three counts of armed robbery, two counts of bank robbery and other charges. A judge set bond at $1 million and Whatley is in custody.

The Supreme Court announced Monday it would include a Michigan law that would bar public universities from considering race as an admissions factor in its review of affirmative action in higher education.

transcript: Mr. Cruz says his dad made it on his own without government assistance. That's the way this country is supposed to work. But President Obama, himself, has a very compelling story to tell. His father abandoned him. He was raised primarily by his maternal grandparents in Hawaii. How much the system helped Mr. Obama is unknown, as his college records have been kept private. We don't know the extent of affirmative action. We don't know how much the government subsidized his climb to the top. It would be very helpful to have that information simply to be fair to...

Sometime in the new millennium, "global warming" evolved into "climate change." Amid growing controversies over the planet's past temperatures, Al Gore and other activists understood that human-induced "climate change" could better explain almost any weather extremity -- droughts or floods, too much heat or cold, hurricanes and tornadoes. Similar verbal gymnastics have gradually turned "affirmative action" into "diversity" -- a word ambiguous enough to avoid the innate contradictions of a liberal society affirming illiberal racial preferencing. In an increasingly multiracial society, it has grown hard to determine the racial ancestry of millions of minorities. Is someone who is ostensibly one-half...

In a case of apparent plagiarism, Fox News pundit Juan Williams lifted — sometimes word for word — from a Center for American Progress report, without ever attributing the information, for a column he wrote last month for The Hill newspaper. Almost two weeks after publication, the column was quietly revised online, with many of the sections rewritten or put in quotation marks, and this time citing the CAP report. It also included an editor’s note that read: “This column was revised on March 2, 2013, to include previously-omitted attribution to the Center for American Progress.” But that editor’s note...

In 2003, the Supreme Court held that the University of Michigan's law school could substantially relax its admissions standards in order to admit a "critical mass" of African-American and Hispanic students. Many observers interpreted that decision — Grutter v. Bollinger — as an open-ended embrace of affirmative action. The University of Texas was among the many universities emboldened to ramp up its use of race-preferential admissions policies. In 2003, the university already had in place an admissions policy designed to raise the number of under-represented minority students attending its flagship campus in Austin by admitting the "top 10%" of the graduates of each...

An elementary school principal in the Denver suburbs told parents that white children would be excluded from an after-school tutoring initiative. Andre C. Pearson, the principal at Mission Viejo Elementary in Aurora, Colorado sent letters home to parents informing them that only students of color are eligible for the program, KJCT, the local ABC affiliate, reports. Some shocked parents have alleged discrimination and segregation, reports CBS Denver. “I was infuriated,” one parent, Nicole Cox, told CBS Denver. “I didn’t understand why they would include or exclude certain groups.” “We have come so far in all of these years to show...

A school principal said no white children were allowed at an after-school tutoring program, and now some parents call it discrimination. The principal at Mission Viejo Elementary in Aurora sent a letter telling parents the program is only for students of color. Parents CBS4 talked with said they were shocked to see, in this day and age, what they consider to be segregation. “I was infuriated. I didn’t understand why they would include or exclude certain groups,” said parent Nicole Cox, who is white.

Neither the media,nor prominent liberal whites, or African Americans will address the  actual problem with  those people responsible for the vast majority of  gun killings on the streets of our large Democrat cities.Nearly 500 street homicides has given Chicago murder capital status, and most of it is black on black murder, yet Chicago's Mayor Rahm Emanuel, and Chicago's Jesse Jackson turn deaf ears and blind eyes to the killings while traipsing off to Washington D.C. to lobby against easy access to guns and ammunition for the majority of America's  non killing firearm owners - outside of Chicago. We have not heard...

More than six years after voters approved the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, supporters are rallying to convince the U.S. Supreme Court to keep it in place. The latest effort came on Thursday when the XIV Foundation filed an amicus brief in support of the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative. Voters in 2006 passed the constitutional amendment that prohibited the state from discriminating against, or granting preferential treatment to, any group or individual on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin by a 58 percent to 42 percent margin. However, on Nov. 15, eight federal judges on the 6th...

Across the United States, college administrators are poring over student essays, recommendation letters and SAT scores as they select a freshman class for the fall. If this is like most years, administrators at top schools such as Harvard and Stanford will try hard to find talented high school students from poor families in a push to increase the socioeconomic diversity on campus and to counter the growing concern that highly selective colleges cater mainly to students from privileged backgrounds. (snip) (snip) "Imagine a student who is the only student who is a likely candidate for a place like Harvard or...

After the honor guard and the pipe and drum corps finished performing, after the recital of the pledge of allegiance and the national anthem, after the invocation and the official swearing-in had taken place, Broward Sheriff Scott Israel laid out his vision for the agency he was elected to lead. “There will be change,’’ Israel said. “I think that’s important. We will be transparent. We will have a new vision, and we will be a diverse group of men and women.’’

From "The Savage Nation" (Friday, December 28, 2012 edition)

Dear CRM 495 Students: Welcome back! It's hard to believe that Christmas break is over and that it's time to start a new semester. It's almost as hard as believing that one of your professors is actually sending you an email using the word "Christmas." But even the liberals agree that I am no ordinary professor. Please allow me to explain. After I got tenure, I left the political Left and became a conservative Republican. I know you've never had a conservative professor before and you are probably wondering what to expect. In a nutshell, you can expect to hear...

The executive branch isn’t the only arena in which the Obama affirmative action crusade will be felt over the next four years. The legislative branch, too, offers manifold opportunities for mischief. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (P.L. 111-148), or “Obamacare,” for example, offers a generous supply of tripwire. Section 5301, which defines criteria for federal aid to medical schools, contains a subsection, “Priorities in Making Awards.” It states: “The Secretary [of Health and Human Services] shall give priority to qualified applicants that…have a record of training individuals who are from underrepresented minority groups.” Section 5303,...

The accelerated transformation of the American economy and polity into a mandatory racially-based spoils system was a defining trait of President Barack Obama’s first term in office. Though perhaps understated, it is set to become an even more defining trait of his second. Obama, by various accounts, wants to be more aggressive about suing banks, employers, schools and other institutions whose practices, however unintentionally, adversely affect “disadvantaged” (read: nonwhite) populations. This is the doctrine of “disparate impact.” Attorney General Eric Holder already has used it to extract hundreds of millions of dollars in coerced settlements from Wells Fargo and other...

Despite nearing the end of his fourth season, quarterback Josh Freeman is dissolving before our very eyes. He had an incredibly deceiving 372 yards passing yards on Sunday. He also threw four more interceptions, for eight in two weeks, or as many as he had in his first 13 games this season. His head is full of mush. Maybe the Bucs should lock him up with a contract while the price is right. How does five years, $100,000 a year sound? Suddenly, No. 5 is a project again, the priority worry. I'm sure they're hidden somewhere, but there just aren't...

Often we find that what is most revealing in covering the higher education beat is what academics reveal about themselves. What follows are vignettes and observations from the Ivory Tower this year: Agents of Inaccuracy November 27, 2012 “Despite the fact that more than half of faculty members say on surveys that an important goal for undergraduate instruction is to ‘encourage students to become agents of social change,’ colleges don’t have much of an effect on student political participation.” —Canadian sociologist Neil Gross The Road to Self-Esteem… November 14, 2012 “It’s healthy to make God look like you. It’s a...

The Chicago Teachers Union and Action Now (formerly known as ACORN) staged yet another protest Tuesday, this time targeting so-called Chicago “fat cats.” Video from the event reveals that the local Chicago media – particularly Christian Farr of NBC 5 – is disinterested in reporting the radical nature of the union and its allies. Farr said that he’s too “objective” to report such news, even though it occurred right before his eyes. SEE THE VIDEO HERE. Only a single Chicago talk radio program - Wade and Roma on WLS-AM - has demonstrated the nerve to question the CTU leadership about...

When it comes to becoming a physician, the academic rigors, years of schooling, and personal sacrifice common to the effort are well-known. This process is a sort of rite of passage, an intellectual marathon that only the best and brightest can complete. As such, medical schools should select candidates best-suited to excel throughout school and cultivate the skills that will allow them to practice in the best health care system in the world. The process by which these candidates are selected, however, may come as a shock. In examining documents made public by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC),...

When a Neighborhood Watch guard shot Trayvon Martin in February 2012, a chorus of civil rights activists concluded that he had been killed because of his race. Michael Skolnick, the political director for hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons, spoke for the consensus in an article he titled, “White People You Will Never Look Suspicious.” I will never look suspicious to you. Even if I have a black hoodie, a pair of jeans and white sneakers on … I will never watch a taxicab pass me by to pick someone else up. I will never witness someone clutch their purse tightly against...

AP story

...President Obama intends to close "persistent gaps" between whites and minorities in everything from credit scores and homeownership to test scores and graduation rates. His remedy — short of new affirmative-action legislation — is to sue financial companies, schools and employers based on "disparate impact" complaints — a stealthy way to achieve racial preferences, opposed 2 to 1 by Americans. Under this broad interpretation of civil-rights law, virtually any organization can be held liable for race bias if it maintains a policy that negatively impacts one racial group more than another — even if it has no racist motive and...

You don’t have to be black, Muslim, or homosexual to get ahead through government employment. You can also be a dwarf, clinically insane, or just really, really dumb. A piece that came out in PJ Tatler last August sheds some light on the quality of personnel in the Injustice Department.

Colin Powell will endorse Barack Obama for president again today. Just came across the AP Wire. No link just yet hut it is fact... And of course, no surprise.

If Elena Kagan was not a woman, she may not be sitting on the country's highest judicial bench, the Supreme Court justice told an audience at the University of Tennessee on Friday. The candid statement came early in an hourlong conversation-style presentation Kagan held Friday in the Cox Auditorium in the Alumni Memorial Building, where she also discussed the strategy of deciding the country's top cases and her affinity for hunting with fellow Justice Antonin Scalia. While seated in padded armchairs on stage, Kagan told UT Law Dean Doug Blaze that being a woman in the courtroom comes with some...

(CNSNews.com) -- Justice Elena Kagan said she was “not sure” if she would have received the nomination for Supreme Court Justice from President Obama if she was not a woman. During a talk before law students on Friday at the University of Tennessee Law School, Kagan said, “And to tell you the truth, there were also things that I got because I was a woman. I mean I'm not sure I'd be sitting here.” “I'm not sure that I would've been President Obama's nominee if I weren't a woman,” she said. “And if he wasn't as committed as he was...

There was a time in America when a black man was scandalously counted as three-fifths of a man for congressional apportionment. (By the way, it was the Southern slave states that wanted blacks counted 100 percent for apportionment while northeasterners wanted them not to count at all. This was the compromise worked out.) History is repeating itself in Florida and Virginia – and, I’m sure other states to come. It’s not that Democrats don’t want to count black votes any more. In fact, they’d count them all twice if they could. Instead, mostly Democratic school officials in these states have...

Palm Beach, Fla. (CBS TAMPA) – The Florida State Board of Education passed a plan that sets goals for students in math and reading based upon their race. On Tuesday, the board passed a revised strategic plan that says that by 2018, it wants 90 percent of Asian students, 88 percent of white students, 81 percent of Hispanics and 74 percent of black students to be reading at or above grade level. For math, the goals are 92 percent of Asian kids to be proficient, whites at 86 percent, Hispanics at 80 percent and blacks at 74 percent. It also...

... For Jarius Sowells, an African-American student from Dallas, the transition to academic life at UT-Austin was much more difficult than it was for Tedra Jacobs. Sowells, like many black and Hispanic students in the country, attended a high school that was made up mostly of minority and low-income students. "More than half dropped out," Sowells says of his classmates. "Overall, the teachers had apathetic attitudes." Sowells graduated in the top 10 percent of his class and was automatically admitted to UT-Austin, his top choice. He planned to major in business. But Sowells didn't know what to expect on his...

The Supreme Court this week took up a case that just might put an end to race-based college admissions. The justices heard arguments Wednesday involving an affirmative action program, at the University of Texas, whose whole purpose seems to be to give special preference to black and Hispanic applicants who come from middle-income and affluent homes. Long past are the days when affirmative action proponents could argue they were simply trying to help disadvantaged minorities, much less actual victims of discrimination. Now, the rallying cry is simply to bolster the number of black and Hispanic students on campus -- even...

The Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday in the latest battle over racial discrimination in the college admissions process. The case at hand centers on Abigail Fisher, who was denied admission to the University of Texas at Austin but claims her grades and extra-curricular activities were far superior to those of students chosen ahead of her. Why? Fisher said it’s because she is white and was a victim of the university’s preference toward minority students. School leaders do not deny using race as a criterion but will not say how much of a factor that is in their admission decisions. Last...

Poll asks Today, the Supreme Court is questioning the University of Texas' use of race in college admissions. Do you think applying affirmative action to universities' admission policies violates the rights of white applicants? Yes or No

The University of Texas already has been told twice, but apparently needs to be told a third time: Discriminating against would-be students on racial grounds is contrary to the American way. In the 1950 case Sweatt v. Painter, the state of Texas attempted to preserve the university’s no-blacks policy at its law school by setting up an all-black alternative in Houston in accordance with the “separate but equal” rationale established by Plessy v. Ferguson. The Supreme Court said no, laying the groundwork for the subsequent hammer-and-tongs assault on racial discrimination in education. Nearly half a century later, in 1996, the...

With the Supreme Court due to consider Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin this coming week, cases for and against affirmative action have been dominating the education news cycle. The progressive Century Foundation recently issued a report arguing that the Supreme Court will likely greatly restrict racial preferences in college admissions. Instead, argue the liberal authors, it’s time to use class-based admissions policies and other indirect ways to create “diversity” on campus. You can read my recent blog entry, “Racial Preferences Under Review,” for more details on this Supreme Court case and The Century Foundation’s proposals. A recent poll...

The case of Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin will come before the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday, October 10th. The outcome of this case could determine the future of racial preferences both at the University of Texas at Austin and in higher education nationwide. The University of Texas system implemented a “10 percent plan” in which students graduating in the top 10 percent of their class in high school gain automatic admission to state schools. However, in the case of the University of Texas at Austin, school officials used racial preferences to influence their admission of candidates falling...

WASHINGTON (AP) — When last we saw the chief justice of the United States on the bench, John Roberts was joining with the Supreme Court’s liberals in an unlikely lineup that upheld President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul.

In a 1994 interview, then-Harvard Law School dean Robert Clark said his institution was actively applying an affirmative action policy to hiring female faculty, The Daily Caller has learned. The famed law school first offered Massachusetts Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren a professorship in 1992 and granted her tenure in 1995. And charges leveled in a 1990 academic law journal raised serious questions about her qualifications to teach at Harvard at all. In 1991, Rutgers Professor Phillip Schuchman reviewed Warren’s co-authored 1989 book “As We Forgive Our Debtors: Bankruptcy and Consumer Credit in America” in the pages of the Rutgers...

President Barack Obama recently signed an executive order hiring race-sensitive bureaucrats to hold meetings and mandate racial discipline quotas. The order charges his new racial justice team, in part, with "promoting a positive school climate that does not rely on methods that result in disparate use of disciplinary tools." In plain English, that means that if different races have different incidences of disciplinary action, those of a favored race who act worse will be punished less, or those of a disfavored race who act better will be punished more, or both. It's true that a higher percentage of black students...

Vice President Biden presented America with what liberals might call a “teachable moment.” Race has long served as a trump card silencing opposition. Whites wilt when challenged by race. But Biden ups the ante by insinuating Republicans trying to ease financial regulation harbor sinister intentions. Biden warns blacks, “they gonna put y’all back in chains.” More freedom, via less red-tape, translates as slavery. America is apparently so endemically prejudiced, “institutionally racist” some say, that minorities risk grave calamity without Washington’s muscular intervention. President Obama re-confirmed Biden as running-mate and refuses to repudiate him. Team Obama’s divisive message: Racist Republicans would...