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A White Nationalist Wrote a Law School Paper Promoting Racist Views. It Won Him an Award.
New York Times ^ | June 22, 2025 | Richard Fausset

Posted on 06/22/2025 6:50:51 PM PDT by Macho MAGA Man

Preston Damsky is a law student at the University of Florida. He is also a white nationalist and antisemite. Last fall, he took a seminar taught by a federal judge on “originalism,” the legal theory favored by many conservatives that seeks to interpret the Constitution based on its meaning when it was adopted.

In his capstone paper for the class, Mr. Damsky argued that the framers had intended for the phrase “We the People,” in the Constitution’s preamble, to refer exclusively to white people. From there, he argued for the removal of voting rights protections for nonwhites, and for the issuance of shoot-to-kill orders against “criminal infiltrators at the border.”

Turning over the country to “a nonwhite majority,” Mr. Damsky wrote, would constitute a “terrible crime.” White people, he warned, “cannot be expected to meekly swallow this demographic assault on their sovereignty.”

At the end of the semester, Mr. Damsky, 29, was given the “book award,” which designated him as the best student in the class. According to the syllabus, the capstone counted the most toward final grades.

The Trump-nominated judge who taught the class, John L. Badalamenti, declined to comment for this article, and does not appear to have publicly discussed why he chose Mr. Damsky for the award.

That left some students and faculty members at the law school, considered Florida’s most prestigious, to wonder, and to worry: What merit could the judge have seen in it?

The granting of the award set off months of turmoil on the law school campus. Its interim dean, Merritt McAlister, defended the decision earlier this year, citing Mr. Damsky’s free speech rights and arguing that professors must not engage in “viewpoint discrimination.”

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Education; Government; History; Society
KEYWORDS: antisemite; constitution; fakenews; jews; johnbadalamenti; machohomoman; muchogirlyman; newyorktimes; prestondamsky; prowhite; richardfausset; whitenationalist; zot
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To: Macho MAGA Man

If he is correct then how is it that there were free black citizens in the north from day one of this Republic?

You’re as much of an idiot as this “white nationalist.”


21 posted on 06/22/2025 7:36:26 PM PDT by TigersEye (The Golden Age of MAGA is upon us!)
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To: TigersEye

One more time:

(The Naturalization Act of 1790 (1 Stat. 103, enacted March 26, 1790) was a law of the United States Congress that set the first uniform rules for the granting of United States citizenship by naturalization. The law limited naturalization to “free white person(s) ... of good character”, thus excluding Native Americans, indentured servants, enslaved people, free Africans, Pacific Islanders, and Asians.)


22 posted on 06/22/2025 7:38:57 PM PDT by Macho MAGA Man (The last two weren't balloons. Onw!as a cylindrical object)
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To: Macho MAGA Man

That is a statute not “the Constitution.”


23 posted on 06/22/2025 7:42:20 PM PDT by TigersEye (The Golden Age of MAGA is upon us!)
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To: Macho MAGA Man

This is a class paper, not a book or journal article. He should have freedom to explore the materials at hand, in this case is the Constitution. Taking the Originalist thinking as his framework, and basic premises that most if not all the authors of the Constitution had only white men in their mind when they wrote it, his conclusion that ‘We the people’ only refers to white men is not far fetching.

If some students somewhere wrote that those who are not able to produce any longer, e.g, old people should be euthanized or babies inside their mother’s womb can be aborted, most of us will be angry too.

In the classroom, free market of ideas should exist. Students should be allowed to make arguments, even if they are offensive. If the ideaa are bad, other students or the professor should be able to make a stronger opposing argument.

This is regardless whether or not the student believes in their own argunent


24 posted on 06/22/2025 7:54:28 PM PDT by paudio (MATH: 45<47)
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To: thefactor
The Constitution includes a mechanism to amend it, and that process was used correctly to make amendments and now the document includes more than just whites.

What is the correct method for amending the constitution?

Is it okay to use an army to invade the state, take over it's government, deny it's citizens the right to vote, put in place a puppet government, and then get those puppet governments to ratify amendments?

I would just like to understand the correct amendment process. I hope you can reassure me that the process outlined above is acceptable.

25 posted on 06/22/2025 7:56:05 PM PDT by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty.")
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To: All

New York Times trying to stir up more racial conflict, as usual. So some guy in some random law school may be a racist, (or maybe he is just trying to stir things up himself as ‘a Devil’s Advocate’ by intimating that the Founders were racist) gets some sort of small generic award basically equivalent to a gold star by a professor for a paper....

Let me know when such gets a “Reisman Award”, or an “ABA Medal”, and I’ll join the NYT in their outrage. (Or Not)


26 posted on 06/22/2025 7:59:20 PM PDT by LegendHasIt
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To: paudio
I agree with your take on academic freedom and you stated it well.

Now let's take a look at the reason the NYTs published this article about a student's paper.

Last fall, he took a seminar taught by a federal judge on “originalism,” the legal theory favored by many conservatives that seeks to interpret the Constitution based on its meaning when it was adopted.

I don't think the NYTs cares anything about this student, his paper or the Fed judge's seminar on originalism. The fact that they put the word originalism in quotes is another clue as to their intended message.

27 posted on 06/22/2025 8:03:17 PM PDT by TigersEye (The Golden Age of MAGA is upon us!)
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To: TigersEye
how is it that there were free black citizens in the north from day one of this Republic?

And in the South.

It's a decade or so later, but in the 1790 census, there were over 6000 free non-whites in the Carolinas, and over 21,000 slaves in New York.

28 posted on 06/22/2025 8:03:38 PM PDT by PAR35
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To: nwrep

I’ve known three people who went to law school later in life. Two were mom’s who went after their kids were in high school, One was a 50 yr old guy looking for a career change.


29 posted on 06/22/2025 8:04:39 PM PDT by Waverunner (Torah! Torah! Torah! my favorite IDF radio code.)
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To: Macho MAGA Man

“We the People” does not refer to an aggregate of individuals, but to the mass of citizens of the various ‘tribes’ of the new nation, former colonies, that is, the States. So, ‘the People’ doesn’t require anyone being white or black or whatever; there were Jews and free blacks in northern and southern states that would have qualified.


30 posted on 06/22/2025 8:06:14 PM PDT by bakeneko
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To: Macho MAGA Man

They found one! The New York Times found a White supremacist.


31 posted on 06/22/2025 8:06:59 PM PDT by Jeff Chandler (The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution.)
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To: PAR35

Thank you, I didn’t know that.

I have heard it stated that the first slave holder in America was a black man. He must have been a free citizen himself.


32 posted on 06/22/2025 8:08:23 PM PDT by TigersEye (The Golden Age of MAGA is upon us!)
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To: DiogenesLamp

I think it is acceptable in some circumstances.


33 posted on 06/22/2025 8:08:49 PM PDT by nwrep
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To: DiogenesLamp

“The US Constitution can be amended through a two-step process: proposal and ratification. Amendments can be proposed by either a two-thirds vote in both houses of Congress or by a national convention called by two-thirds of state legislatures. Ratification requires approval by three-fourths of the states, either through their legislatures or by conventions.”


34 posted on 06/22/2025 8:15:08 PM PDT by thefactor
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To: nwrep

I went to law school at 29.


35 posted on 06/22/2025 8:15:23 PM PDT by TheConservator
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To: nwrep

A bit. Most law students start at 22-24. But about 20% are over 30.


36 posted on 06/22/2025 8:19:33 PM PDT by irishjuggler
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To: TigersEye

You’re as much of an idiot as this “white nationalist.”

_____________________________________

It might interest you to know the OP just came off a 3 day time out for his anti semitic posts Now he is posting more racism?

Hmmm.


37 posted on 06/22/2025 8:22:45 PM PDT by Responsibility2nd (Nobody elected Elon Musk? Well nobody elected the Deep State either.)
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To: Responsibility2nd

Thanks, I didn’t know that. Not surprised.

Although this article is based on a racist slant I think its main purpose is to further the Globalist/Marxist agenda of the NYTs.

I think that may be more pernicious than promoting racism.


38 posted on 06/22/2025 8:31:41 PM PDT by TigersEye (The Golden Age of MAGA is upon us!)
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To: TigersEye

(That is a statute not “the Constitution.”)

In the founders ‘Frame’ of mind back then, they only wanted free White people of good character as the new citizens of the new country.


39 posted on 06/22/2025 8:35:56 PM PDT by Macho MAGA Man (The last two weren't balloons. Onw!as a cylindrical object)
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To: Responsibility2nd

(for his anti semitic posts )

Like what?


40 posted on 06/22/2025 8:37:41 PM PDT by Macho MAGA Man (The last two weren't balloons. Onw!as a cylindrical object)
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