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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   32426 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022

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If SCOTUS explicitly clarifies the Civil Rights Act as protecting all races equally, then every tool that has been used to police subtle discrimination against black people over the past century (sting operations, disparate impact theories, indications of animus, etc.) could in theory be used to police subtle discrimination against white/asian people ("holistic" applicant reviews, rhetoric about "dismantling whiteness," etc.).

But it won't. If the Supreme Court puts out a ruling that says "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race. And by the way, we aren't fooled by the 'Asians have bad personality' crap, George Wallace could have come up with that one, so cut it out.", the people in charge of all those tools will simply ignore it. Their allegiance is to AA/antiracism/DEI first and to the institutions they serve a distant second. Just like with Heller and Bruen, the people (university administrators, alphabet-agency bureaucrats, and lower court judges) who have to change their behavior to implement the decision simply will not, and the Supreme Court will be powerless to do anything about most of it. A few more cases might make it up to SCOTUS, but all SCOTUS can do is issue strongly-worded opinions. And eventually SCOTUS will turn left and AA will be officially allowed again.

Even President DeSantis can't solve this because he can't just fire the bureaucrats.

President DeSantis can investigate these universities for racial discrimination and take away their federal funding if they're discriminating.

President DeSantis can investigate these universities for racial discrimination and take away their federal funding if they're discriminating.

He could direct the Department of Education to investigate. They would investigate and find the universities had done nothing wrong except maybe not enough blacks and Hispanics were admitted.

Is the Dept of Education under the executive? If so can't he just fire everyone and place his own people there?

No, he can only fire the political appointees, not the civil servants.

I'm pretty sure Trump did this kind of thing when he was in office. Keep firing the secretary of a rebellious department until they get the message. Didn't seem to work.

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