Cause of Firing

For John, BLUF:  Not exactly fired.  They just didn't pick up his contract renewal for next year.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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San Fran's election director fired because he’s white

From Tilting At Windmills, by Tom Knighton 23 November 2022.

Here is the lede plus eight:

Some of us like to just think the best about our nation, but the honest among us have to admit that we haven’t always gotten it right.

One of the sins of our past is institutionalized discrimination based on the color of one’s skin.  As a born and raised Southerner, it’s something I couldn’t hide from if I wanted to.

Luckily, those days are over.

Right?

Right?

It seems that San Francisco elections director John Arntz appeared to do a satisfactory job running elections for the city. Despite that, though, his contract was not renewed.

Now, contracts don’t get renewed for a number of reasons.  Maybe the person wants more money or, conversely, maybe the funding for the job dropped due to budget cuts.

Yet that doesn’t seem to be the issue with Arntz.

In fact, according to one elections commissioner, the problem is that Arntz is white.

I am hoping the reolacement for Mr Arntz is competent to run the Election Office.  What if the Election Commissioners had to bring Mr Arntz back at the last minute for the next election?

The deeper question is what does this mean for Caucasians in the US?  Are they now all at risk of being replaced in order to give a minority another employment option?  What is a fair employment promise to employees?  While I don't see this mushrooming up into a major issue everywhere, it is something we should discuss now, rather than wait for the A4 Protests.

Regards  —  Cliff

Understanding Discrimination

For John, BLUF:  Discrimination comes in a number ofdifferent forms, leading to a choice of legal remedies available.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Are Jews a Race Under U.S. Law?

Here is the sub-headline:

How the United States has attempted to settle the question of whether antisemitism is racism or mere animus

From The Tablet, by Law Professor Eugene Volokh, 15 May 2022.

Here is the lede plus one:

Is being Jewish a race?  A national origin?  An ethnicity?  A religion?  All four?

The answer is:  It’s complicated.

Discrimination comes in all forms.  When I was young in the Air Force the F-105 Pilots discriminated against the F-4 Aircrews♠ and we all looked down on the trash haulers♥.

I had come to believe we had been making progress in the area of discrimination, but we seem to have been slipping backward over the last decade.  This article helps us understand, in a relatively few words, some of the law around the issue.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  I was in a Fighter Wing that transitioned from F-105s to F-4s, and the F-105 Pilots were resentful and, by and large, the F-4 Crew Dogs were glad when the last of the Thud Plots rotated out of theater.
♥   It is complicated.  Transport Pilots are graduates of the same Undergraduate Pilot Training program, or were, but were seen by fighter pilots as people who flew in straight lines from A to B.

MIT to Test Applicants

For John, BLUF:  It turnss out that for schools with especially challenging academic programs application tests help the school prepare to help students in the classroom.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Why MIT Is Reinstating Its SAT/ACT Requirement

Here is the sub-headline:

MIT is once again requiring student to take standardized tests as part of the admissions process, saying their research shows standardized tests help administrators identify which students are MIT ready.

From the Foundation for Economic Education, Managing Editor Jon Miltimore, 30 March 2022.

Here is the lede plus four:

In case you missed it, on Monday MIT announced that they would be reinstating their SAT/ACT requirement for future admissions cycles.  Like many universities, MIT had ditched the tests during the pandemic.

Even prior to the pandemic, however, there had been a widespread push to abandon these tests to enhance diversity.

“Data shows tests like the SAT are biased against students from low-income households. Poorer students tend to perform worse on the test,” CNN reported in 2015.  “Blacks and Hispanics also consistently score lower on the SAT than whites.” (CNN conveniently left out that Asian Americans score much higher than whites, presumably because it didn’t fit the narrative.)

So will MIT’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) efforts be set back because it reinstated its test requirements? Nope—at least not according to MIT.

“Our research shows standardized tests help us better assess the academic preparedness of all applicants, and also help us identify socioeconomically disadvantaged students who lack access to advanced coursework or other enrichment opportunities that would otherwise demonstrate their readiness for MIT,” wrote Stu Schmill, Dean of Admissions and Student Financial Services.  “We believe a requirement is more equitable and transparent than a test-optional policy.”

My own experience was that after the first semester of two years of math, I was moved back from the accellerated path to the more pedestrian path.  It was a good movre on the part of the Academic Faculty.  On the other hand, if I had gone to Cal State Long Beach I might have been among the 50% who washed out after the first semester.  No test to get it, but many tests to stay in.  The CSLB approach was cheaper for the school, but was brutal in separating the wheat from the chaff.

Bonus Tweet from the article:

Sarah Isgur
@whignewtons
Beware easy solutions under the guise of equity:  Turned out getting rid of SAT/ACT advantaged wealthy and well connected kids who could ensure their applications stood out in other ways.  Duh.

Congrats to MIT for looking for the real problems, below the surface problems.

Regards  —  Cliff

Fixing Discrimination

For John, BLUF:  How do we rebalance long term discrimination, and do it without creating reverse discrimination.  This Summer the English Touring Opera demonstrated that it didn't have the solution to hand.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Ripping Off the Veil

Here is the sub-headline:

A British classical music organization exposes the sordid business behind all racial-preference regimes.

From City Journal,by Journalist Heather MacDonald, 19 September 2021.

Here is the lede plus three:

Racial preferences have been almost impossible to dislodge because their human costs are usually hidden.  College admissions officers don’t inform rejected student applicants that they were turned down to make room for diversity admits.  An HR office does not tell job seekers or the company’s own employees that they were not hired or promoted because they would add nothing to the company’s diversity metrics.  The rejected applicants may suspect that they didn’t get a desired position because of a racial preference, but they can rarely be 100 percent sure.

The offstage nature of these tradeoffs allows preference proponents to deny that diversity decisions entail a zero-sum calculus.  In 2019, a U.S. district court judge upheld Harvard’s racial-admissions preferences after a lengthy trial.  In her opinion, Judge Allison Burroughs insisted that race is only a positive factor, and never a negative factor, in Harvard’s admissions process. Such a claim is specious.  The only reason that institutions implement racial preferences in the first place is that there are not enough qualified applicants among non-Asian minorities to achieve a racially proportionate student body or workforce under a meritocratic selection system.  Hiring a diversity candidate under a preference regime almost always means not hiring a more qualified non-diverse candidate.  The former’s gain is inevitably the latter’s loss.

Now a British classical music organization has inadvertently ripped the veil off the diversity arithmetic, and the consequences may be far-reaching.  Earlier this month, the English Touring Opera told nearly half its orchestral musicians that it would not be renewing their contracts for the 2022 season because it has “prioritised increased diversity in the orchestra.”  In other words, as a bunch of white guys you must be cleared out so that we can boost the collective melanin levels among our musicians.   Your talent does not matter; your skin color does.

Here, at last, were concrete, publicly identified victims of a preference regime.  The reaction was swift.  Since the Sunday Times broke the story, the English Touring Opera has been thrown on the defensive.  Arts Council England, a government arts funder and the opera company’s main patron, is backpedaling on its aggressive promotion of diversity after the company claimed that it was only following the Council’s mandates in terminating the white musicians.  It turns out that the public has little stomach for watching the diversity sausage be made.

This is relevant to Lowell in that our School System needs to have a more racially and ethnically diverse student facing organization.  However, firing Caucasians to make room for others just creates a new problem.  One solution would be to hire more teachers and para-professionals, which would allow for smaller classs sizes and perhaps a better learning environment.  It would seem the money is not there.  Thus, we need to ponder and be creative.

Send your suggestions to me.

In the mean time, perhaps this current economic upheavel will provide an opportunity for organizations big and small, private and public, to hire various people to fill their employee shortages and the more obvious examples of long term hiring practices will be wiped away.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Georgetown Law Embarrasses Itself

For John, BLUF:  My experience is people learn by asking questions and finding answers.  When people may not ask questions, they will not learn.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Yet Another Update On “Introducing The ‘Technologically Inept Adjunct Professor With Politically Incorrect Opinions Principle’”…&nbhsp; Ethics Dunce:  Professor David Batson

From Ethics Alarms, by Mr Jack Marshall, 15 March 2021.

Here is the lede:

When we last left furiously virtue-signaling Georgetown University Law Center it had fired veteran adjunct professor Sandra Sellers last week for discussing frankly but inadvertently over Zoom a situation that everyone connected with the Law Center knows to be real.  GULC had also suspended her co-instructor David Batson for barely nodding his head during Sellers’ statement of frustration that black students too often end up at the bottom of her grading curve.  Dean Treanor, in his statement declaring the intended private discussion as “reprehensible,” darkly insinuated that Batson had failed a “bystander responsibility.”

Now Professor Batson has resigned, sharing his stated views with The Washington Post.

The author of the Blog Post, having read what Professor Batson shared with The Wash Post, declares:

Batson is a groveling coward, another of many we are seeing enable the suffocation of open discourse in the U.S. as censorious bullies take charge.

It is an unkind statement, but it appears to be true.  That Professors at Georgetown University Law School can not discuss the performance of students, at least in collective terms with regard to common characteristics is an indictment of the school.  If there is a chance that Black students, as a group, suffer a disadvantage in some way it is dereliction for Professsors not to ponder the situation, and then try to improve that situation.

Doesn't Georgetown care?

Regards  —  Cliff

China Butters NBA's Bread

For John, BLUF:  We here in the US have a ways to go to ensure equality and equal opportunity.  China, which controls a big slide of entertainment world wide, due to its big audience share, is much worse.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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The NBA as Protesters

From InstaPundit, by Professor Glenn Reynolds, 26 August 2020.

Here is the first link:

DON’T ASK THEM ABOUT THE UIGHURS:

Razor
@hale_razor

NBA players funded by oppressive foreign police state protest American police.

The NBA is disgraceful.  Worse, the players probably don't realize it .

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

SCOTUS Rules for More Genders

For John, BLUF:  This is, to me, about balancing rights.  I am not sure the US Supreme Court got this right.  I am sure this will come up again, asking for clarification.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Alito:  Court's 'Preposterous' Trans Ruling Threatens Religion, Speech, Privacy, and Safety

From PJ Media, by Columnist Tyler O'Neil, 15 June 2020.

Here is the lede plus two:

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that discrimination on the basis of sex includes discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in the case of Bostock v. Clayton County (2020).  In a powerful dissent joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, Justice Samuel Alito condemned the ruling as “preposterous” and betraying “breathtaking” arrogance.  He noted that Congress has tried and repeatedly failed to amend Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in just this fashion and that no one interpreted the law this way until 2017.  In this decision, as in Roe v. Wade (1973) and Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), the Supreme Court usurped the power of Congress by making “legislation.”

Perhaps most importantly, however, Alito warns that the decision will have wide-ranging destructive impacts on key freedoms Americans hold dear, and he predicts that “the entire Federal Judiciary will be mired for years in disputes about the reach of the Court’s reasoning.”

“As the briefing in these cases has warned, the position that the Court now adopts will threaten freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and personal privacy and safety.  No one should think that the Court’s decision represents an unalloyed victory for individual liberty,” Alito warns.  His dissent lays out seven different realms of American life that will be affected by this ruling.

The seven areas enumerated include:

1. Bathrooms and changing rooms
2. Women’s sports
3. Housing
4. Religious employment
5. Health care
6. Freedom of speech
7. Constitutional claims

Justice Sam Alito says:

The updating desire to which the Court succumbs no doubt arises from humane and generous impulses.  Today, many Americans know individuals who are gay, lesbian, or transgender and want them to be treated with the dignity, consideration, and fairness that everyone deserves.

So, when we fail to act, as individual Americans, with grace and dignity, and to afford our fellow citizens courtesy and rights, we get lawyers trying to craft rules to fix the problem,  That doesn't always turn out well.

But, congratuatoins to those who sued.  You won fair and square in the highest court in the land.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

"No good deed goes unpunished"

For John, BLUF:  Sometimes, in our compassion, we make matters worse, by giving too much help and taking away a person's dignity.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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When Government Programs Do More Harm Than Good

Here is the sub-headline:

Shame on the U.S. government for making unemployment pay better than work.

JOHN STOSSEL | 5.13.2020 12:30 AM.

Here is the meat of it:

I’m a stutterer. Stuttering is now among disabilities covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act.

I wonder, had the ADA been law when I started in TV news, would I have struggled as hard to overcome my stutter?  Would I have had the career I’ve had? Probably not.

The TV station wouldn’t have hired me.  Once the ADA passed, my stutter makes me a member of a “protected class.”  The station, reasonably, would have viewed me as potential poison.

That’s because if they fired me because I didn’t work out, I might sue.  I could have accused them of failing to “accommodate the disabled,” as the law requires.  Even if I didn’t win, the lawsuit would be expensive.  It’s safer for employers to avoid members of “protected classes.”

Far-fetched? Look at the stats:

Before the ADA passed, 59 percent of disabled men had jobs.  After it passed, the number fell to 48 percent.  Today, fewer than 30 percent have jobs.

Once again, a law that was supposed to help people did the opposite of what politicians intended.

We, as a people, need to be compassionate.  But compassionate does not mean we don't expect people to work, and work hard.  It means giving them a hand up to do better.  We don't know, the next Jonas Salk may be the person next to you, with a disability.

And, we have to be careful to not create perverse incentives in the way we provide money to the unemployed.  They need help, a hand up, but we should not be encouraging them to stay home.

Thanks to my wife for forwarding this.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Discrimination in High Ed

For John, BLUF:  Back in the early 1970s, when the Air Force was sending all of us to "Social Actions" classes, some viewed them as teaching Air Force members how to discriminate.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Prof:  University diversity trainings not helpful to minorities, reinforce ‘white privilege’

From The College Fix, by the College Fix Staff, 12 JANUARY 2020.

Here is the lede plus three (Note that this is the UK, but I expect it transfers to the US):

A professor of education and social justice at the University of Birmingham says college trainings designed to help minorities advance are ineffective, and may even bolster “white privilege.”

Kalwant Bhopal examined 30 interviews of those who attended programs designed to support BMEs (Black Ethnic Minorities), and found that many believed “structural inequalities” were not sufficiently addressed.

According to Times Higher Education, at present only 80 of the United Kingdom’s 14,000-plus professors are black.

Bhopal, who published her findings in the British Educational Research Journal, said diversity/inclusion programs “benefit higher education institutions rather than contributing to a commitment to inclusion, equity and creating a diverse workforce.”  They also “perpetuate and reinforce white privilege.”

Frankly on this day after the Martin Luther King, Jr, Holiday, it might be time to reflect on if it is time to make generous assumptions about how most of us have a more mature view of race relations.  And to accept that some people just never grow up and thus are abusive of all the people they meet.  At the same time, too much banging of the kettle can become irritating.

Perhaps yesterday's Second Amendment demonstration in Virginia's Capitol, Richmond, can serve of an example of everyone pulling together for the same goal.  Notwithstanding some in the Press billing the demonstration as a "White Supremacist" meeting, it was people of all races and orientations advocating against what they see as proposed new laws that are not only self-defeating, but unconstitutional.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Harvard Leads the Way

For John, BLUF:  This Opinion Piece is a bit snarky, but it catches the idea that Harvard University discriminates against Asian-Americans.  The good News is that you don't have to be a Harvard Grad to be a success in life.  And being a graduate of some Harvard school is not a guarantee of being widely respected—look at Congressman Adam Schiff.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Harvard’s Asian student quota a lesson in liberal bias

From The Boston Herald, by Commentator Michael Graham, 2 October 2019.

Here is the lede plus five:

How can you tell if you’re a good Boston-Globe liberal?

If you think keeping over-achieving Asian kids out of Harvard because they’re the wrong color isn’t problematic, but a photo of Chinese food is — you get an A+!

Unlike the Asian-Americans applying to attend Harvard, who get a “‘Woke’ Gentleman’s C.”

New England’s Partisan Paper of Record is celebrating the soon-to-be-overturned ruling of a liberal District Court judge who upheld Harvard’s anti-Asian quota system in defense of the premise that racism, when practiced by progressives, is a good thing.

“Affirmative action must live on,” says Boston Globe-Democrat columnist Shirley Leung, who concedes that Harvard limits the number of Asian students specifically because they’re Asian, and she acknowledges that the court didn’t rule that Harvard doesn’t discriminate but rather that Harvard does discrimination the right way.

“A very fine admissions program” as Judge Allison Burroughs calls it.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Woke to Woke

For John, BLUF:  In the area of "wokeness" we may be in a graveyard spiral.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Woke’s on you

Here is the sub-headline:

On the “radical intersectionalist poet” Titania McGrath.

From the April 2019 issue of The New Criterion.

Here is the lede plus three:

hose who doubt the operation of a beneficent, or at least an amusing, providence should consider the case of the British writer Titania McGrath.  Margaret Ann Bulkley may have decided to move to South Africa and live her life as a man.  But Titania McGrath, a Twitter sensation and the author of the forthcoming Woke:  A Guide to Social Justice, is “a radical intersectionalist poet committed to feminism, social justice, and armed peaceful protest.  A regular on the live-slam poetry scene, Titania regularly performs at arts festivals, deconsecrated churches, and genderqueer spiritual retreats.”  Nice!  Ms. McGrath was guyed by Private Eye forthe way she commended her book to the public:  “I have written the most important book of 2019.  Do not buy it for my sake, but for the sake of humanity.”

Shameless? Or in-your-face intersectional wokeness?

We incline to the latter view.  Ms. McGrath burrows deep into the contradictions of late capitalism, patriarchal privilege, toxic masculinity, white supremacism, and heteronormative binary exclusivity.  She is so woke she makes Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez look like Sleeping Beauty.  Consider:  “If you don’t think exactly the same way as me,” she points out, “then you’ve clearly got a lot to learn about diversity.”  Could any triggered academic put it better?  “I despise whiteness.  Literally nothing about me is white except for my skin colour.”

Although she is British, Ms. McGrath outdoes Bill Kristol at his own game:  “It’s a broken kind of democracy that allows a majority of voters to impose their wishes on the rest of us.”  Yes!  Ms. McGrath cracks open the hard nut of oppression lurking inside all of us, all men anyway.  “Men who are attracted to women clearly have feminine tastes and are therefore probably gay.”  Again:  “I have posed nude for Penthouse in an effort to dismantle the patriarchy from within.”  And how’s this?  “If you only have sex with people you find attractive, you might want to ask yourself why you’re such a superficial bigot.”

Titania McGrath as described in Wikipedia.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Protesting the Patriots?

For John, BLUF:  The New England Patriots, the team America loves to hate.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Tom Brady’s New England Patriots Are Team MAGA, Whether They Like It or Not

Here is the sub-headline:

Their star quarterback, coach, and owner all supported Trump.  But that’s not the only thing that makes the Super Bowl LIII-bound Patriots the preferred team of white nationalists.

From The Daily Beast, by Mr Corbin Smith, 1 February 2019.

Moving beyond the racism of Boston Sports, the writer then drags in Nick Sandman":

Remember that scumbag teen, bused into DC by his racist-ass private school to protest a woman’s right to choose, smirking at a Native American military veteran while wearing that dumb little red hat as his schoolmates stood around and did tomahawk chops?  Remember how, at first, everyone saw what was happening for what it was, entitled little shits being racist and disrespectful, until this kid’s wealthy parents hired a PR firm to run interference and coach him up to do an interview where, even if he was saying the right things on paper, he still seemed like a low-boil sociopath?

Hat tip to Memeorandum.

Hat tip to Ann Althouse.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

The Flip Side of the Coin

For John, BLUF:  Artificial differences are not helpful.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Finally, Men Fight Back

Here I deplored this law suit, but Dr Smith sees it as the solution.

From PJ Media, by Dr Helen Smith, 22 October 2018.

Here is the paragraph that sums up Dr Smith's view:

Good, men have been getting law suits served against them for years by women and others who say they have no right to have male-only spaces or activities.  And what about men like Mark Judge who was accused in the court of public opinion in the Kavanaugh case?  He is apparently having to deal with legal issues and was fired from his job.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

I Hope Someone In Their Right Mind Fixes This

For John, BLUF:  This is dumb.  Dumb in the sense that we now have a system where folks can farm for money with dumb lawsuits.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Women-Only Craft Beer Forum Shut Down By Men’s Rights Activist

Here is the sub-headline:

Ting Su, co-founder of Eagle Rock Brewery and host of the event, now finds herself needing to raise money for a legal defense fund.

From Vice Munchies, by Ms Beth Demmon, 19 October 2018.

When someone poisons the well, then no one can drink from it.  And I don't mean Ms Su.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Identity Politics Shifts the Circle

For John, BLUF:  The term "white" with regard to race shows an inability to see shades of color.  It shows a willingness to ignore nuance.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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‘White Women’ Becomes a Disparaging Term

Here is the sub-headline:

The Left is lumping white women together into a giant bloc subject to absurdly broad stereotyping and vitriolic condemnation.

From National Review, by Mr Kyle Smith, 14 October 2018.

Here is the lede plus two:

Using “white men” as a putdown is no longer extreme enough for the Left.  Now it is moving on to doing the same for “white women.”

How rapidly this transpired.  It was less than two years ago that the approximately 98.7 percent of white women working in media who were openly rooting for Hillary Clinton saw their hopes dashed on Election Day.  The first murmurs of betrayal began.  Exit polls showed 52 percent of white women backed Donald Trump, and much sorrowful tsk-tsking ensued.  Sorrow turned to disbelief.  Disbelief turned to rage.

Today, white women are being lumped together into a giant bloc subject to absurdly broad stereotyping and vitriolic condemnation.  They’re being told to step back and know their place by writers in the New York Times (“white women benefit from patriarchy by trading on their whiteness to monopolize resources for mutual gain”), The New Yorker (“despite the enduring legacy of testimony by black women, white women have often played the protagonists in the history of sexual violence, and black women have been relegated to the supporting cast”) and NBC News (“white women who voted for Trump . . . clearly have no issue with the president’s openly misogynistic behavior, his demeaning of female reporters and his mocking of [Christine Blasey] Ford”).

If the Democrats find themselves on a losing streak it may be because the Democrats, with their identity politics, are shrinking the circle of who is acceptable.

If Ms Linda Sarsour isn't a "white woman", what is she?

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

When Business Trumps Culture

For John, BLUF:  Cultural change often comes slowly, but there are many available levers.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Sears’ ‘radical’ past: How mail-order catalogs subverted the racial hierarchy of Jim Crow

Here is the sub-headline:

The Sears catalog revolutionized rural black southerners' shopping patterns in the late 19th century, allowing them to avoid the blatant racism that they faced at small country stores.

From The Seattle Times, by Reporter Antonia Noori Farzan, 18 October 2018.

A fascinating story about how Sears and Roebuck helped penetrate the wall of Segregation in the Deep South in the Kate Ninteenth Century.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Perverse Incentives

For John, BLUF:  "incentive", a noun, "a thing that motivates or encourages one to do something."  From the Latin incentivum "something that sets the tune or incites, from incantare "to chant or charm."  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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One Year After #MeToo and 'Weinstein Effect':  What's Changed?

Here is the sub-headline:

The October 2017 news article detailing accusations of sexual assault and harassment against movie mogul Harvey Weinstein boosted the #MeToo movement into the nation's awareness.  What's different in the workplace today?

From Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).

Here is a key paragraph:

"One troubling trend," [Johnny C] Taylor said, "is executives going as far as to not invite female colleagues on trips, to evening networking events or into their inner circles to avoid any situation that could be perceived incorrectly, thus reducing the opportunity for women."

One might think of it as the Pence Rule, named after Vice President Mike Pence, who does not meet with women alone.

Then, in the area of hiring, there is this:

Research continues to show that laws prohibiting employers from asking about a job applicant’s criminal record encourage employers to discriminate against young African-American males.

There is a term for this.  Heuristic.  If you can't get the information you want, you look for ways to approximate the information.  In this case it results in increased discrimination.

Then there is the question of California's requirement for Gender Quotas for Corporate Boards.

Lawyer Ilya Somin, writing 4 October 2018:

California's new law requiring corporate boards to have a minimum number of women is both unconstitutional and likely to do more harm than good.

The point about the three items is that trying to artificially change human action without the proper incentives is going to produce distortions in the system.  You may like distortions, because you see some social value, but not everyone does.  Some of us may actually find it kind of creepy, or may find it just plain inefficient and a little fascist.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Losing Science

For John, BLUF:  There are truly weird ideas out there, foisted on us in the name of "social justice".  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Racist Science

The linked item is a comment on a 6 June 2018 editorial in Nature, headlined "Science benefits from diversity".  Here is the sub-headline:

Improving the participation of under-represented groups is not just fairer — it could produce better research.

The discussion is from L'Ombre de l'Olivier, by Francis Turner, 14 June 2018.

The blog discussion ends with this quote from Quora:

I got into an argument with my friend because I reject evolution because it’s heteronormative.  Are science going to make evolution more inclusive or will they replace it with something else?

Yes, we should absolutely have diversity in science.  Everyone should have a crack at playing in that sandbox, since, after aviation, it is the most fun sandbox around.

As for the idea that there is caucasian male heteronormative science and then there are alternative scientific answers and caucasian male heteronormative science is oppressive, I would like to see the peer reviewed studies.  Back in the day there was the expression "light in the loafers" for those whose sexual orientation was gay, but that did not literally mean that there was a separate law of gravity for non-straight men.  That approach to science is like a self-licking ice cream cone and does nothing to unlock the secrets nature still holds.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

The Death of Fiction

For John, BLUF:  And maybe the death of other writings as well.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Writers blocked: how the new call-out culture is killing fiction

Nice play on words there.

Here is the sub-headline:

I write to be mischievous, subversive and perverse. The #MeToo and "cultural appropriation" mob leaves no room for any of that

From Prospect Magazine (UK), by author Lionel Shriver, 21 February 2018 (Published in March 2018 issue).

Longish, but worth the trouble to think about.  It is just the future of the Western World at stake

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Jimmy Who?

For John, BLUF:  Bakersfield, over three times the size of Lowell, seems a long way from LA.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Jimmy Kimmel:  A Moron Or Just A Bigot?

I don't watch Mr Jimmy Kimmel on TV, so I don't know.  But, if the author, Lawyer Trissell, is to be believed, Mr Kimmel is both. And an absolutist.

From The Daily Caller, by Attorney Jeffrey M Trissell, of the Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund, 19 February 2018.

Here is the lede plus one:

On Thursday, February 8, 2018, Jimmy Kimmel performed a four minute sketch on his television show regarding my law firm’s defense of the religious and free speech rights of Cathy Miller, the owner and operator of Tastries Bakery in Bakersfield, California.  Cathy Miller is a devout Christian.  She believes that God created marriage as a covenant between one man and one woman, and so she believes it is immoral for her to participate in a same-sex wedding.

In August of last year, a same-sex couple came to Tastries.  According to their sworn court statements, they were welcomed by a Tastries employee who “treated us kindly and was very warm.”  However, when it was discovered that they sought a wedding cake for a same-sex wedding, Cathy told them that they could purchase anything in her store, since Tastries welcomes and serves everyone who enters the store, but that she could not make their wedding cake.  Instead, Cathy told them that she would accommodate them by referring their order to a rival bakery with which she had a good relationship.  The same-sex couple then reported Cathy to the California government which brought a lawsuit against her.  The state then also immediately filed for a preliminary order forcing Cathy to either stop make wedding cakes or essentially stop being a Christian.

If Ms Joy Behar is the voice of the Progressives, they dislike Ms Cathy Miller just because she is a Christian.  Maybe it would have been OK if she was Muslim.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff