SCOTUS’s skittishness on race-based admissions suggests the left’s intimidation is working

The left’s drive to intimidate the Supreme Court is working: Just witness the justices’ decision to blink on an open-and-shut racial-discrimination case.

On Tuesday, the court declined to take on the question of race-based admissions at specialized high schools, effectively OK’ing policies that discriminate against Asian-American students.

Parents brought the case, Coalition for TJ v. Fairfax County School Board, after Fairfax County, Va., rewrote the rules for entry to elite Thomas Jefferson HS for Science and Technology — ditching a process that relied mainly on race-blind standardized testing for one that auto-admitted students from each of the local middle schools and also considered factors like socioeconomic status.

The school claimed the new policies were “race neutral,” but communication between school officials and board members made it clear that increasing racial diversity (by decreasing the number of Asian-American students) was a primary goal of the change.

And, in fact, the change dropped Asian-American admissions from 70% to about 54% of the freshman class.

This cuts straight against the high court’s ruling in two college-admission cases (centered on Harvard and the University of North Carolina) last year, which ordered a complete end to race-based quotas, with strong language about not making up excuses for continued discrimination.

Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, issued a scathing dissent to the court’s decision to not to take up the Virginia case, saying that the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling in the school’s favor “effectively licenses official actors to discriminate against any racial group with impunity as long as that group continues to perform at a higher rate than other groups.”

Correct. So why did Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett take a dive?

Maybe they didn’t want to risk another controversial decision in a federal election year, after the Supremes’ strikedown of Roe v. Wade became a huge Democratic rallying cry in the 2022 midterms.

And never mind that while elites fumed over the college-admissions rulings, the majority of Americans, 68%, said the decision was “mostly a good thing.”

But perhaps the left’s long-term drive to delegitimize the court has the justices worried.

That includes physical intimidations like the protests outside justices’ homes in the runup to the Roe reversal, as well hysterical smears — of Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh during their confirmations, and bogus ethics complaints against Justice Thomas.

Not to mention the 2021 drive to pack the court with new liberal members.

The left’s message: If SCOTUS won’t give us what we want, there will be hell to pay.

Alito and Thomas deserve kudos for standing up to the bullies; too bad they seem to be standing alone.

https://nypost.com/2024/02/21/opinion/scotus-skittishness-on-race-based-admissions-shows-the-lefts-intimidation-is-working/

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Chairwoman Foxx on Biden Transferring Billions in Student Loan Debt to Taxpayers

Education and the Workforce Committee:

WASHINGTON – Today, Education and the Workforce Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) issued the following statement in response to the Biden administration transferring $1.2 billion in student loan debt to taxpayers as President Biden continues to implement his radical income-driven repayment (IDR) rule—known as “Savings on a Valuable Education (SAVE)” plan:

“If President Biden spent half as much time working to address the root causes of our broken student loan system as he does peddling his illegal free college agenda, college costs would be lower, the student loan repayment process would be simpler, and students and families would be able to fill out the FAFSA.

“Unfortunately, Biden believes that more government dependence means more votes come election day—and as a result—has focused his time and energy on harmful initiatives to bolster his ratings.

“Don’t be fooled by this administration’s so-called free college agenda. It means less money in the pockets of hardworking taxpayers, more debt, and a continuing decline of an already failing student loan system.”

Biden’s SAVE scheme:

Is estimated to cost as much as $559 billion – making it the most expensive regulation in history and more than doubling the cost of the current IDR program.

Exacerbates the problems of rising college costs and excessive borrowing.

Subsidizes some graduate students’ loans more than what low-income households receive in federal housing assistance.
Guarantees that up to 80 percent of undergraduate student loan borrowers will never repay their loans fully.

More on Republican solutions to lower college costs:

Last month the Committee passed H.R. 6951, the College Cost Reduction Act. The bill includes bipartisan proposals to tackle widespread concern that the cost of postsecondary education has become insurmountable for too many Americans. This legislation addresses the issues of low completion rates, unaffordable student debt, and the inflated cost of obtaining a college degree. Specifically, H.R. 6951:
Ensures information about costs and return on investment is clear, accessible, and personalized for prospective students and families.

Holds institutions financially responsible for overpriced degrees that leave students with unaffordable debt.
Provides targeted relief to struggling borrowers rather than blanket bailouts for those who don’t need them.
Funds colleges based on student outcomes and lifts excessive regulations that further increase costs to families.

Press release

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Harvard condemns anti-Semitic image circulated by student and faculty groups

Harvard University issued a campuswide message Tuesday evening from its interim president condemning an antisemitic cartoon that was circulated – and then disavowed – by two student groups and a faculty organisation.

“Perpetuating vile and hateful antisemitic tropes, or otherwise engaging in inflammatory rhetoric or sharing images that demean people on the basis of their identity, is precisely the opposite of what this moment demands of us,” wrote Alan Garber, the university’s interim president.

“The University will review the situation to better understand who was responsible for the posting and to determine what further steps are warranted.”

The latest controversy at the prestigious university comes after a congressional hearing on campus antisemitism that played a role in the last president’s ouster, as well as recently launched federal investigations into antisemitism and anti-Muslim harassment on a number of campuses, including Harvard.

The cartoon was featured in a recent post on Instagram attempting to link the Black and Palestinian “liberation movements.” The cartoon depicted a hand etched with a Star of David and a dollar sign holding a noose around the necks of what appear to be the Black boxer and activist Muhammad Ali and Gamal Abdel Nasser, who was a longtime president of Egypt. The three groups that posted the image issued apologies after it sparked criticism on social media.

“The inclusion of the offensive caricature was an unprompted, painful error – a combination of ignorance and inadequate oversight,” wrote the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee and Harvard’s African and African-American Resistance Organization in a joint statement. The groups said the cartoon had come from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, an activist organisation from the 1960s.

“We apologise for the hurt that these images have caused and do not condone them in any way,” wrote the Harvard Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine, which had reposted the image. “Harvard FSJP stands against all forms of hate and bigotry including antisemitism.” Walter Johnson, professor of History and of African and African-American Studies, resigned as a faculty adviser to the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee and from Harvard Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine.

“Like many others, I was shocked and dismayed by the image,” he wrote in an email to The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday. “I have stepped down from both my role as faculty adviser to the PSC and FSJP. I remain supportive of the work of those organisations in calling attention to the ongoing catastrophe in Gaza. My conversations with my students and colleagues, however, are private, and I won’t comment on them.”

The university said in a statement Monday that it is reviewing the matter and referring it to the Harvard College Administrative Board, suggesting that disciplinary action could follow.

Not everyone was satisfied with the apologies. Harvard’s Jewish Law Students Association issued a statement saying that the post of the cartoon was shared by several other Harvard student groups.

“At a time when antisemitic incidents are at an all-time high and Holocaust denial is spreading both in the U.S. and abroad, Harvard faculty and students must understand and be held to account for the tremendous consequences of proliferating insidious tropes,” the group wrote. “Merely acknowledging that their content was ‘antiquated’ or removing their post does not remedy the harm they caused by lending credibility to antisemitic falsehoods.” Harvard has endured widespread scrutiny since some critics and donors accused the former president of not swiftly condemning the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel and not adequately addressing antisemitism on campus. In a December congressional hearing, its then-president, Claudine Gay, was asked whether calling for the genocide of Jews violated Harvard’s code of conduct. She responded that it could, depending on the context. Gay resigned in January after she was later accused of plagiarism.

https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/harvard-condemns-antisemitic-image-circulated-by-student-and-faculty-groups-8ada8aae

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