Heather Mac Donald Takes on Race vs. Merit
Author and researcher Heather Mac Donald has made a career of applying objective, statistics-based analyses to tell the most uncomfortable societal truths — truths, for example, about diversity and social engineering and the Left's war on cops. Her latest book, When Race Trumps Merit: How the Pursuit of Equity Sacrifices Excellence, Destroys Beauty, and Threatens Lives, is no exception.
"Over the years," as City Journal Editor Brian Anderson writes, "Heather's scrupulous and groundbreaking work has shed light on important trends in American life. Her new book brings relentless reporting to perhaps the most dangerous one yet, which is the equity craze that is threatening our scientific, cultural, and public institutions. In this new book ... she details the rise of disparate impact ideology and its potential to do enormous harm to our society. Her book also represents a powerful defense of our civilizational inheritance."
And what is disparate impact? It's the idea, Mac Donald says, "that any standard, meritocratic in terms of academic skills, that has a negative impact on certain minority groups, and above all on blacks, is by definition racist, unless, in the legal context, it can be justified at a very high standard of business necessity."
Mac Donald has witnessed the impact that disparate impact has inflicted on the building blocks of American society, and in a podcast with psychologist Jordan Peterson, she describes this assault as the inspiration for her latest volume:
This was a book written out of a combination of sorrow and rage: sorrow at the fact that the institutions that I love — classical music, art, philosophy, literature — were being torn down by a false narrative, saying that if a tradition has a demographic history that is predominantly white, that is, the European tradition, it is per se a racist tradition. So classical music, because the great Western composers ... were all white, therefore we should look upon that tradition with contempt and suspicion; and rage because the arguments that are being made are so completely false.
At the center of the arguments Mac Donald mentions is a single word: equity. It's a word that we began more earnestly paying attention to two years ago, when we noted, first and foremost, that equity and equality are two entirely different things. While the latter has its roots in some of the great and ennobling struggles of Western civilization, the former has its roots in Marxist theory and racial hucksterism.
Why is the equity doctrine so catastrophic? Peterson put that question to Mac Donald, and this was her answer:
Well, here's what the Left is doing today. It looks around, and it chooses institutions almost at random, and if it finds that there is not a proportional representation of blacks in that institution — whether this is Google's computer science force or Harvard's Medical School faculty, or a classical music orchestra, or the Western art collections of a museum, or the partners at an elite law firm — if there is not 13% blacks in that institution, that institution is per se racist. ... The only allowable explanation is racism. And with that rule, it means that any kind of standard that has a disparate impact on blacks — such as an expectation of mathematical skill or an expectation of a grasp of fundamental medical principles — it must be discarded. ... There is not a single institution in our world that is not vulnerable and that will not be torn down.
But if racism isn't the cause of these disparities, then what might it be? Mac Donald suggests the real reason: The academic skills gap:
It is mathematically impossible ... to maintain meritocratic standards and to engineer diversity as the diversity-mongers define it, which is basically racial proportionality. ... Sixty-six percent of black eighth graders do not possess even partial mastery of the most basic 12th-grade math skills. ... The number of black 12th-graders who are merely competent in those simple 12th-grade math skills is 6%, and the number who are advanced is too small in the United States to even show up statistically. The reading picture is not much better. The American College Testing organization, the ACT, says that only 6% of black 12th-graders are college ready when you look at their combine math, reading and science scores. ... So, given that, there is simply not enough competitively qualified blacks in the hiring pipeline.
Mac Donald noted that these meritocratic standards were originally developed to overcome racism and classism. They were objective, color-blind, and class-blind, and they allowed, for example, Jews and Asians to achieve entry into the elite Ivy League institutions based on objective standards, when they had traditionally been denied entry due to rank prejudice.
Mac Donald also stresses that the "Bourgeois values" that have defined the American experiment — "habits of self-control, of conscientiousness, of respect for authority that used to be middle-class values" — are disappearing from our country.
The disappearance of these values seems to us more like an eradication. Why? Because it removes our focus from some uncomfortable truths that are plaguing the black community. For example, Peterson made this observation about cognitive ability: "At the age of 5 or so, the difference between Caucasians and Blacks, for example, is something more approximating five points than the, say, 10 to 12 points that seems more standard by adulthood. And no one really knows why that is — why that gap expands across time. ... I suspect phenomena like fatherlessness play a role."
He suspects? Mac Donald thinks he's underplaying how bad it is for blacks, and we think she's right. She notes: "When Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote his astoundingly prescient report in the 1960s ['The Negro Family: The Case for National Action'] warning that the country was about to screech to a dead halt with regards to civil rights progress, his reason was not a resurgence of white racism or changing ... opportunities in the country, his reason was what he saw at the time as a catastrophic breakdown in the black family. ... When Moynihan wrote this report, the out-of-wedlock birthrate for blacks was 23%. And Moynihan said that with that number of young black males growing up in single-family homes without fathers to socialize them, to civilize them ... this population is doomed. ... Well, what are we at today? We're at 71%." (Of course, the effects of fatherlessness aren't limited to a disparity in cognitive ability. As our Mark Alexander points out, fatherless homes also tend to seed violence and other criminal behavior.)
Two years ago, we quoted neurosurgeon and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson on the topic of equity and the effect it's had on American society: "In fact, race relationships have deteriorated," he said. "Why have they deteriorated? Because of the great emphasis, trying to create white guilt and black victimhood. Those are two very bad things and when you put them together, it results in some policies that absolutely make no sense. So the real conflict here is between common sense and idiocy."
Common sense versus idiocy? That sounds like a pretty good summing up of Mac Donald's latest book — and of the civilizational contest between racial proportionality and merit.
https://patriotpost.us/articles/96892-heather-mac-donald-takes-on-race-vs-merit-2023-05-01
************************************************************Conservatives Wrongly Demonized As “Hate Groups” May Get Justice at Last
Most of the time, courts do not grant conservatives the time of day to defend their good names after the SPLC defames them.
Documents revealing the SPLC's process for determining what is and is not a “hate group” may finally see the light of day.
The SPLC engages in routine defamation of character through its “hate group” accusation, and it is high time this leftist smear factory faces the music.
The Left has a long and ignoble history of grasping at straws to demonize conservatives, but one organization arguably encapsulates this strategy more than any other. That group may finally have to face accountability for its defamation.
The Southern Poverty Law Center publishes a “hate map” plotting “hate groups” across the United States. Of course, the map features chapters of the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazi groups like the National Socialist Movement, but it also includes a broad swath of conservative organizations whose major crimes amount to disagreeing with the SPLC's policy positions.
Take the Dustin Inman Society, for example. This small Georgia-based nonprofit essentially consists of one man, D.A. King, who was moved to advocate against illegal immigration by the story of a Georgia boy who lost his life at the hands of an illegal immigrant in a 2000 car crash.
King advocates for enforcing immigration laws, something the SPLC once apparently found unobjectionable. In 2011, Heidi Beirich, then-director of the SPLC's Intelligence Project—which publishes the “hate map”—told the Associated Press that the society was not a hate group, although she did brand it "nativist.”
Yet the SPLC turned on a dime in 2018. Suddenly, the Dustin Inman Society found itself on the “hate map.” King hadn't changed his positions, and the SPLC hadn't altered its definition of a "hate group." What changed? An SPLC staffer registered as a lobbyist opposing legislation the Dustin Inman Society supported.
To make matters worse, most of the evidence the SPLC cited in branding the society a “hate group” traced back to before the 2011 Associated Press interview in which Beirich specifically stated it was not a “hate group.” The SPLC made many basic factual errors in attacking King's organization, as well, such as misstating King's own history and when the society was founded.
King sent a letter to the SPLC, demanding a retraction. When the SPLC did not respond, he filed a defamation lawsuit.
Most of the time, courts do not grant conservatives the time of day to defend their good names after the SPLC defames them. The SPLC repeatedly urges Big Tech, government, and others to take action against conservatives unlucky enough to end up on the “hate group” list, then hides behind the First Amendment in court, minimizing its accusations as “mere opinion” rather than a statement of facts.
That strategy failed in this case, and a judge denied the SPLC's motion to dismiss King's claim.
This represents a monumental victory, not just for King but for conservatives across the country who had their names dragged through the mud because they don't support the SPLC's radical agenda. The judge's move allows the case to proceed to the discovery phase, where the Dustin Inman Society can request SPLC documents to prove its case.
This means documents revealing the SPLC's process for determining what is and is not a “hate group” may finally see the light of day, and that will further expose just how unreliable this organization's smears truly are.
As I wrote in my book, Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center, the SPLC took the project it used to monitor the Ku Klux Klan and expanded it to target conservative and Christian organizations. Organizations dedicated to religious freedom, such as Alliance Defending Freedom, appear on the map as “anti-LGBT hate groups,” while nonprofits dedicated to enforcing immigration law, like the Center for Immigration Studies, appear as “anti-immigrant hate groups.”
In 2019, amid a racial discrimination and sexual harassment scandal that led the SPLC to fire its cofounder, a former employee said the “hate” accusations are a "highly profitable scam.” The SPLC has an endowment of over $730 million. It uses a mix of quotes taken out of context and guilt by association to suggest its ideological opponents are fomenting hate, and then presents reports of “hate on the rise” to urge donors to empty their pockets.
Meanwhile, the SPLC's targets face growing opposition and mistrust. Media outlets that had previously interviewed D.A. King suddenly gave him the cold shoulder, and his small organization suffered financially from the smear campaign. King says he had to take out a second mortgage to keep his organization running.
In one terrifying instance, an SPLC accusation inspired a terrorist attack. A gunman targeted The Family Research Council in Washington, D.C., in 2012, planning to kill everyone in the building. He told the FBI he targeted the council because he found it on the SPLC's “hate map.” He's now serving 25 years in prison after pleading guilty to terrorism. While the SPLC condemned the attack, it has kept the council on its “hate map.”
The SPLC engages in routine defamation of character through its “hate group” accusation, and it is high time this leftist smear factory faces the music. While the Dustin Inman Society has cleared a major legal hurdle, D.A. King is raising money to make sure he can keep the legal effort going. His small organization needs help to combat the multi-million-dollar outfit seemingly intent on destroying his good name. If he wins, it may save many others from having to face a similar fate.
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Kansas Becomes 1st State to Pass Law Defining Gender as a Person’s Sex at Birth
Kansas has become the first state to adopt a definition of gender with the passage of legislation that keeps men, no matter what gender they identify as, out of women’s bathrooms, locker rooms, and other intimate spaces.
It also separates inmates and restricts participation in sports according to one’s sex at birth.
The move came late in the afternoon of April 27, when the state Legislature voted to override Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto of S.B. 180, which became known as the “Women’s Bill of Rights.”
Under it, a female is defined as “an individual whose biological reproductive system is developed to produce ova.” A male is defined as “an individual whose biological reproductive system is developed to fertilize the ova of a female.”
It also defines gender words calling for “woman” and “girl” to be used to refer to human females and “man” and “boy” to refer to human males. It defines “mother” as a parent of the female sex and “father” as a parent of the male sex.
The override comes a little more than a week after Kelly vetoed the bill on April 20, after it was passed by a two-to-one margin between Republicans and Democrats in both the House and Senate.
Kelly said she vetoed the legislation because she was concerned it would open the state up to costly discrimination lawsuits, cause a loss of federal funding, and hurt the Sunflower State’s economy.
The bill garnered support from a range of groups, including one staunchly pro-choice women’s rights group.
“Victory!” wrote the Women’s Liberation Front (WOLF) on Twitter, upon news of the veto override.
The national women’s rights organization, which helped craft the legislation, wrote on its website, “This bill takes procedural steps to write into law common sense definitions that ensure the meaning of words like ‘woman’ and ‘mother’ aren’t corrupted by unelected bureaucrats intent on pushing gender ideology.”
The group stated that members sent more than 600 messages to Kansas lawmakers in support of the bill.
Opposition Forces
The legislation also had plenty of opposition, with critics calling it anti-trans and reminiscent of racial segregation in the 1960s.
“It’s the same sayings,” state Rep. John Alcala (D-Topeka) said at a public hearing on the bill. “I don’t want you in my bathroom. I don’t want you drinking out of my water fountain. I don’t want you over at my house. I don’t want my kid hanging out with you.”
Beth Oller, a physician who testified against the bill, said the title was inappropriate and violated women’s rights. “This is [in] no way a women’s bill of rights. The bill does the opposite of protecting women; it causes harm.”
Oller said that medical doctors “for decades have agreed that there is no sufficient way to define what makes a woman.”
“Gender is not binary but is a spectrum of biological, mental, and emotional traits that exist along a continuum,” she said. “Intersex people exist.”
The bill does include a provision that recognizes intersexual individuals. “Individuals born with a medically verifiable diagnosis of disorder/differences in sex development are to be provided available federal and state legal protections,” the legislation states.
Opposition to SB 180 also came from the Kansas School Superintendents’ Association, the United School Administrators of Kansas, and Kansas Legal Services.
The Kansas Coalition Against Domestic Violence also opposed the Women’s Bill of Rights, which specifically cites women’s shelters, rape crisis centers, domestic violence safe havens, and women’s prisons as protected places where men identifying as female should be restricted.
Female Spaces in Danger
Following public testimony against the bill by Rev. Carolene Dean, an associate pastor with the Plymouth Congregational Church, an attorney for WOLF asked whether Dean, a female, “had ever been unfortunate enough to find herself in a domestic violence shelter, rape crisis counseling, or a women’s prison.”
Attorney Lauren Bone said that with many states now opening such places up to men, women are at “increased risk of further violence and harassment.”
When asked by a Republican lawmaker how many genders there are, Dean replied, “There are as many genders as there are beautiful creations in the world.”
Similar gender-defining bills to the one passed in Kansas are pending in other states, including Oklahoma and Montana.
Nationwide, there have been a number of reports of assaults on women by men identifying as women.
Earlier this month, The Windsor Star reported that a man who identified as a transgender woman was arrested in Ontario on allegations that he climbed into bed with a woman at a women’s shelter and sexually assaulted her.
There are also several pending civil rights lawsuits filed by attorneys on behalf of female inmates who have reported being raped by men they were incarcerated with because the men claimed to be females. One of the alleged assaults happened at the Logan Correctional Center, Illinois’s largest women’s prison.
Last year, as part of a plea deal, transgender prisoner Ramel Blount pled guilty to raping a female prisoner while she was taking a shower. Blount, a male who goes by the first name “Diamond,” was housed with women at New York’s Rikers Island prison.
The then-33-year-old admitted to grabbing the female inmate by the neck and holding her down against her will while raping her, according to released statements from the Bronx County District Attorney’s Office.
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The Supreme Court might finally end the rule of bureaucrats with ‘tragic’ Chevron case
In the 1984 case of Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, it ruled federal judges must defer to a regulatory agency’s interpretations of federal laws, so long as Congress has not addressed the issue in question and the agency’s view can be construed as “reasonable.”
Since then, the power of the unelected administrative state has ballooned so that it now dictates much of our economy and daily lives.
The court announced Monday it will revisit that precedent, raising hopes that this enormous federal power might be reined in.
The Constitution set up a system of separated powers in which Congress would pass the laws, the president would administer them and the courts would interpret them.
Since the New Deal, Congress has shirked its accountability by increasingly giving unelected agencies the power to make decisions of vast economic and political significance.
The Chevron decision turbocharged that process.
Politico says liberal activists love Chevron because in hundreds of court decisions it has been invoked to hand agency experts the power “to respond to problems that Congress might not anticipate or fully understand.”
That may be expedient, but it is a dangerous trampling of our constitutional framework.
The job of Congress is to pass laws that are detailed and limiting to the executive. The executive’s job is to execute laws, not write them.
And there was a time when some liberals worried the Chevron doctrine encouraged unchecked executive authority.
In 1986, Stephen Breyer, a future Supreme Court justice then serving on a federal appeals court, called Chevron an “abdication of judicial responsibility” because the Constitution gives judges, not agency bureaucrats, the power to interpret federal law.
The Supreme Court last year took a first step in backing away from its Chevron decision.
In West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, a 6 to 3 court majority ruled that from now on Congress must explicitly grant regulatory agencies the power they wield.
That infuriated the activist left.
Since the spectacular collapse of President Barack Obama’s cap-and-trade scheme to rein in carbon emissions, which failed to even get a Senate floor vote in 2010, environmentalists have become experts at twisting and distorting old laws to accomplish by the back door what they could never do using legitimate constitutional approaches.
From regulations aimed at climate change to the overriding of local zoning laws in New York, activists have used that approach to lobby federal agencies to implement an agenda Congress would never approve on its own.
One former federal regulator, appalled at left-wing efforts to ban gas stoves, told me: “They go through federal agencies like burglars who try every door in a neighborhood in the belief one of them will be unlocked.”
The court may not overturn the case in full, but the fact that at least four justices have agreed to reexamine the decision indicates Chevron deference is likely to be curbed.
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My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Kristina Pimenova, once said to be the most beautiful girl in the world. Note blue eyes and blonde hair
Bliss: What every woman wants: to feel safe and secure in the arms of her man. Robert Irwin and Rorie Buckey. See 
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