Authentic DEI Gibberish

Shades of the Sokal Text, but even better and more poetic.

The Daily Mail: Straight white author's career finally takes off after he tells woke publishers he's gender queer Nigerian

The hero of the story, Canadian poet Aaron Barry of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada decided to do an experiment.

He decided to write absolute nonsensical poetry while using not just a pen name, but a poetic identity as a Nigerian gender-fluid auteur. 

The change to a favored minority identity that checked multiple DEI-boxes worked. 

It didn't just work well, it worked over and over again with over  50 gibberish poems published with 30 different publishers -- not for the poems merits -- but for the identity and "diversity" of the alleged author.

Yet another example of DEI seeking "diversity and identity" over merit - all in the name of equity, of course. 

Harvard Sues For The Right To Discriminate And Still Get Paid

So what is Harvard objecting to exactly>

The letter to Harvard that is conditioning federal funding on the University complying with the demands in the letter can be read here - Letter to Harvard.

Take a moment to read it.

There's really nothing in the demands in the letter that a reasonable person would find objectionable - Harvard needs to end a pattern of discrimination and hire faculty and administration and intake students based on merit alone; end a tolerance for antisemitism and related threats and vilenceeat the University; build up tolerance and viewpoint diversity in higher education; and actually reform and enforce current student disciplinary rules.

Harvard is apparently fighting in order to be allowed to keep on discriminating, not hiring on merit,  and tolerating antisemitism and student disruptions on campus - and to continue to receive Federal funds while doing so.

Quite a noble hill for Harvard to die on, but they can do themselves.

Harvard of course claims it is its first amendment right to make its own rules.  As a private institution it can - and indeed the Federal Government is not saying it cannot.

Instead, it is stating - correctly - that the Federal Government is allowed to condition funds on adherence to federal policy objectives.

For Harvard to be able to claim that the Federal Government cannot condition spending on adoption of certain policies and conditions in return for the funds is ludicrous and  goes against quite established constitutional law.

If Harvard wishes to continue its actions, all it needs to do is forgo Federal funding and then it can be as discriminatory and non-compliant with Federal guidelines as it may wish. 

But instead, Harvard is suing to have its cake and eat it too.

One should note well that Harvard, the Left, and progressives in general didn't make a peep when the Obama administration sent out his "Dear Colleagues" letter to Colleges to change their procedures on Title IX matters -- to reduce the due process due to the accused in such matters -- and "disparate impact on racial groups" in disciplinary actions -- or else.

Harvard's case should be dismissed and Harvard should be required to make the choice everyone else must make when deciding to accept Federal Government funding - accept the strings that come with the dollars, or forgo the dollars.

When Even The Washington Post Notices This Year's University Admissions Problem

The Washington Post:  To Get Into the Ivy League, ‘Extraordinary’ Isn’t Always Enough These Days.

In short, between affirmative action with proggy admissions offices deciding on diversity over meritocracy, a flood deferred admission students coming in from last year, and legacy students or connected or those who are "of special interest to the Dean",  the result is that Whites (both females and males but the WAPO focuses on females),  Jews, and Asian students are getting pretty badly screwed.  

Basically, if you're one of these groups and want to get into an Ivy League school, you better have discovered a cure for cancer before you get into college.

Add the elimination of standardized test score requirements and you had the  perfect opportunity for proggies to go on a quest for "equity" over student ability.

It's not just the Ivies either.  University of Michigan's normal acceptance rate is 22% of applicants.  This year it is 8%.

It's a pretty insane year for students. 

Most of the top students in those three groups at Abby's school got shut out of the Ivies (notably some Black students with lower grades and test scores from her school did get into the same Ivies, which is an interesting anecdotal data point) whereas in the prior years a goodly portion went there.

Not Only An Abhorent Announcement Of Discrimination, But Also Unconstitutional

The Detroit News:  Lawsuit by white Michigan State Police sergeant claims racial, LGBT discrimination.

A female gay white sergeant was allegedly passed over for promotion as a post commander in a favor of an African-American female who was allegedly less qualified, and allegedly had lied in the course of her employment.

The interesting part of the article however is the report of a pronouncement apparently made publicly by the commander of the Michigan State Police:  

Each of the suits points to comments state police director Col. Joseph Gasper reportedly made at a public meeting on Oct. 8, 2019, in which he said the agency was "way too white and way too male," and added that he planned to set aside 25% of future job openings for minorities, and 20% for females.

That certainly constitutes racial set-asides now doesn't it?

A little problem is that such affirmative action and set asides violate the Michigan Constitution Section 26(2):

The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.

That's going to be a problem and his pronouncement just opened the door to lots of discrimination lawsuits by potential new hires turned down because they may be too white or too male, and from current members of the force that may be passed over for promotion based on their being too white or too male.

The Michigan State Police currently has a well-deserved reputation and is renowned for being composed of capable and highly-skilled law enforcement officers - regardless of their color, sex, or sexual orientation.  

Colonel Gaspar risks this reputation with his misguided and illegal affirmative action plan.

Michigan Democrats Bemoan Lack of Diversity . . . Caused By Michigan Democrats

The latest bit of hand-wringing comes from the realization that with the defeat of Justice Kris Wilder (Republican) and his replacement with a white female Democrat, the Democrats have managed to create a State Supreme Court with no Black people on it for the first time in 33 years.

The Detroit News: Michigan Supreme Court won't have black justice for first time in 33 years

This leads to a call for diversity, meaning more Black people on the court from certain Democrat constituents.

The lack of diversity on the Michigan Supreme Court has the local African-American legal community worried. The issue is of "great concern" to the Rev. Wendell Anthony, head of the Detroit branch of the NAACP.

Given the Democrat slate was very much blindingly White and mostly female this year from the Governor on down, with a single token Black pro-Hamas lieutenant-governor thrown in from Detroit to prevent it from being completely White, this is difficult to achieve.

In short, this lack of Blacks on the court this year is the Democrat's fault and the Democrat's fault alone. Then again, one would have hoped the Democrats would had moved from color of skin to content of character by now, but apparently they have not.

Of course, when Anthony of the NAACP and other Dems want Black folks on the court, they want the Black folk to be the right sort.

But voters should elect and the governor should appoint people of color as judges because they provide "a diversity of value," Anthony said.

But he makes exceptions for some judicial conservatives such as U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who has not sided with minority groups on rulings such as affirmative action in university admissions and other issues affecting women or minorities.

"The black skin does not make you a kin to the real issues impacting minorities and women in this nation," Anthony said. "We need people who are professional but who are also sensitive and who are learned and who look at the totality of the impacts of issues on our community.

In other words Anthony's idea of diversity of value is only skin deep.

The right value added proposition according to him means appointing people who think like him to the court. Diversity of thought or even worse, a Black Justice leaving the Democrat plantation is simply not to be permitted.

The aFAArmative Action Scandal

So, what happens when even with affirmative action, minorities still fail the qualifications required to become air traffic controllers?

The answer: Some cheat.

The more full answer: As alleged in the story, An officer of the National Black Coalition of Federal Aviation Employees may have helped them cheat by slipping them the answers to one of the qualification tests.

Doesn't that just give you a warm feeling while flying the friendly skies?

Fox News: America Faces an Acute Shortage of Air Traffic Controllers Known as 'Guardians of the Sky'

Promoting cheating on the test according to the FOX Business investigation is FAA employee and air traffic controller Shelton Snow, an officer of the National Black Coalition of Federal Aviation Employees. Charging $50.00 per year, it is one of several organizations which offer membership to people of color and minorities who work for the Federal Aviation Administration. 31-year-old Moranda Reilly, an aviation enthusiast, joined the NBCFAE when her friends told her that as a female applicant, it would help improve her chances of getting hired as an air traffic controller.

She was stunned when she started receiving voice text emailed answers to the BQ test from Shelton Snow.

“I was shocked when I first heard it,” said Moranda Reilly, a member of the of the NBCFAE, Moranda Reilly came forward to share with FOX Business evidence of cheating.

Reilly, 31, is a CTI graduate who holds an aviation degree and a “well qualified” status by her test score of 86 in the difficult and cognitive Air Traffic Selection and Training Exam or AT-SA. Reilly insists that she did not use the answers to the personality test which she failed.

This is terrible for many reasons, one of most important is that unqualified controllers may now be working as air traffic controllers a result of this scheme.

Just as badly, qualified minorities like Ms. Reilly now suffer suspicion that they too may have cheated to get their positions as controllers, when instead they did it on merit alone. They will now suffer enhanced suspicion that they were hired as affirmative action hires for politically correct reasons and not for merit or ability to actually do the job.

Detroit's Own Special Snowflake Makes An Affirmative Action Fool of Herself

Some people want 15 minutes of fame, some end up with 15 minutes of abject stupidity.

The farcical show put on by Brooke Kimbrough, the Detroit student whose grades and test scores were inadequate to get her admission into University of Michigan and has become as sort of progressive unworthy cause celebre continues.

In an interview with The Free Press's own Mitch Albom, which is about as softball an interviewer you can get, she comes across as nothing more than a Detroit version of Veruca Salt - spoiled and told she should feel good about herself and that she should be able to go anywhere she wants, test scores and grades be damned...because, you know, racism.

The Detroit Free Press: Mitch Albom: Denied Michigan hopeful learns tough lesson

As we'll see in the interview, she hasn't learned squat. Over at the article there's a pic of her holding a sign demanding her admission and an end to the "racist admission policy"...you know, racism based on ranking by grades without accounting for skin color, 'cause grades be racist.

First, we should remember that Brooke Kimbrough is still in high school. She is, as the Beatles once sang, just 17.

So even if she ruffled feathers this past week claiming she should have been admitted to the University of Michigan — despite lower grades and test scores — because she is African American and the school needs diversity, the best thing is not to insult her or dismiss her.

The best thing is to talk to her.

So I did.

Like I said, real softball.

I began by asking Brooke about her high school — because I’ve been there. University Prep Academy is one of the top charter schools in Detroit. It looks like a college campus, its teachers are first-rate, its classrooms are small — thanks to a $15-million gift from philanthropists Bob and Ellen Thompson.

The Thompsons are white. Most students at U Prep are black. So Brooke is already a beneficiary of cross-racial efforts; she didn’t have to endure an overcrowded, uninterested high school. In fact, the Thompsons demanded that U Prep retain at least 90% of its kids and get 90% of them into college every year.

In other words, they insisted on excellence.

When I asked Brooke why it’s wrong for U-M to set a similar bar (she was denied admission with below the U-M averages of a 3.6 GPA and a 23 on the ACT) she said U-M needed to “represent the state. Blacks are about 14% of the population, so it should be 14% roughly.”

So she's already getting to attend an excellent high school and has opportunities to succeed, but she then immediately discounts things like grades to insist instead on representation by racial composition.

After demanding such a proportional representation policy, she doubles down and refuses to let the facts and logical consequence of such a policy confuse her.

I pointed out that whites were 79% of Michigan’s population, but officially 57% of U-M’s, so should we adjust that up? “That’s ludicrous,” she said, claiming it should only apply to minorities. I then noted U-M was 11% Asian American, but our state was only 2%. Should we adjust down?

“I don’t understand what you’re asking,” she said.

In other words, affirmative action based on proportional representation for Brooke but not for thee.

Really, Brooke can't even answer softball questions from Mitch Albom. Remember, she was touted as a champion debater on her school's debate team, the competition may not have been all that bright or was she just getting affirmative action credit during her debates as well?.

Brooke will now ever be known as a whiner and a failure, and for her ludicrous yelling as if her deinal to be admitted was a civil rights violation on a par with past actual discrimination:

“I believe that I have been rejected because of the morals that I stand for! I am Harriet (Tubman)! I will take back my freedom as a tool to help the others. I have left the plantation. ...

“I am Ida B. (Wells)! I will make it my civic duty to document every noose of a rejection letter that the university produces to our black, brown and red bodies!”

Not rejected based on morals Brooke, you were rejected because your grades and ACT score didn't measure up and that over-the-top, poor me, whinging sure doesn't help.

While she likely lacks a bright future in the real world given that she now has a track record of pulling tantrums and screaming racism when she doesn't get her way, she likely has a bright future in the progressive race-baiter business.

Upholding Ending Affirmative Action Leads To The Tantrums Of The Clowns

The Supreme Court rightly upheld Proposal 2 of 2006 that added to the Michigan Constitution that public institutions cannot use race to discriminate or give preferential treatment to groups or individuals.

Now there's much wailing and gnashing of teeth from the self-proclaimed anti-racist progressive left here in Michigan.

First, we get Laura Berman's puff-piece in the Detroit News warning that Affirmative action ruling jeopardizes Michigan's progress against inequality

Short on you know, facts, the piece gives some fun quotes:

“I am deeply saddened and disappointed by this decision,” says Jocelyn Benson, interim dean at Wayne State University Law School. “Any state has been given the green light to ban affirmative action if the voters so choose.”

Had the Supreme Court struck down Michigan’s ban, “we would have revisited our policies to take a more holistic view of our applicants.”

Holistic of course being a euphemism for focusing on skin color. Which, to the race merchants is very holistic indeed and clearly determinative of the rightness of admitting or barring the admission of a student.

Apparently banning discrimination based on race will in Berman's words:

affirms the right of the people of Michigan to close doors that once swung open. And it points toward the closing of an era of social remedies, including affirmative action in education, despite the persistence of inequality.

So banning racial discrimination will close doors? really? Not to mention the laughable concept of social remedies - that you deserve to be either discriminated against or in favor of based not on what you did but what some group you are a part of based solely on your skin color may or may not have done in the past, and before you were born.

On top of that, the lawyer for BAMN then went off into far-leftist land with this inane statement:

“At the very moment that America is becoming a majority minority nation, this court is declaring its intention to uphold white privilege and to create a new Jim Crow legal system,” she said in a statement.

Can anyone parse that one out? Banning discrimination based on race upholds "white privilege" and prohibiting discrimination will create a "Jim Crow" legal system? Does she even understand that what she said and how it's rather contradictory?

But not to worry fans of social and group racial determination uber alles, the University of Michigan has pledged to work hard to ensure diversity by again, focusing on race where it can still get away with it:

We remain committed to the goal of a diverse, academically excellent student body, and will continue to seek to achieve that goal in ways that comply with the law.”

After talks with the Black Student Union, U-M agreed last week to initiatives aimed at increasing black enrollment and improving the campus climate for minority students. The school will partner with black students at university-sponsored events that encourage African-Americans who have been admitted to U-M to enroll.

U-M also will launch a pilot transportation project for black students living in more affordable housing outside Ann Arbor; improve security at the Trotter Multicultural Center; and create a website for emergency funds available to students.

Just imagine substituting the word white for black in those paragraphs and you'd have outraged protests if not full-scale riots breaking out at UofM.

BAMN now is demanding that the University of Michigan not look at SATs or ACTs, because objective scores can get in the way of subjective touchy-feely and makes it more difficult to use race-based admissions under the radar by having an easily discernible standard.

Expect a lot more, and louder, wailing and yelling from the race merchants as they come to realize the time for discrimination based on race is coming to an end.

Affirmative Action Campaign Descends Into Farce

It would be funny if it wasn't so sad that proponents of affirmative action are choosing to back a whiner, because whining is all they've got left.

The Detroit News: Column: U-M race fight riles Gratz

Brooke Kimbrough, 17, is the Detroit high school senior who rallied against her recent rejection from U-M. She argued the university should admit her because she feels U-M ought to accept more minorities. Kimbrough, however, is now reportedly backing down from her rejection challenge.

. . .

Kimbrough attends a top charter school in Detroit and is a champion debater on the school’s debate team. She gets good grades and is highly involved in her school. But she got a 23 on the ACT, when the average U-M student scores between a 28 and 32 on the college entrance exam.

So she's at minimum 5 points away from being admitted and she wants to get in based on her skin color.

Now she's not being stopped form going to another university mind you, nor are racists are barring the gates or stopping her from competing for a spot to get an education, indeed she competed for a spot at UofM and fell short. But all is not lost:

Kimbrough’s scores were good enough to get her accepted into four other universities, with scholarships, and U-M encouraged her to transfer as a sophomore. She should be proud of that, but going to U-M was her dream.

So she gets into four other universities but really wants to go to UofM but doesn't want to do the work to transfer over but wants them to give her a special preference,

Quick, call a Wahmbulance, 'cause this isn't anything to do about race, just some spoiled brat whining that she didn't get her first pick and is just trying to use her race to get to the head of the line.

And this is the cause celebre that affirmative action proponents like the Trotskyitist/communist By Any Means Necessary organization chose to rally behind?

The radical, pro-affirmative action group By Any Means Necessary (BAMN) took advantage of this girl’s disappointment and took Kimbrough under its wing, organizing a rally Tuesday at which the teen spoke. BAMN is the lead plaintiff challenging Michigan’s affirmative action ban

Disappointment at not being good enough is now apparently the best rationale for affirmative action that BAMN and others can come up with. Expect more whinging as the progressive AA crowd realizes they've lost their little racial preference war.

6th Circuit: Refusal to consider race unduly burdens minorities in collecge admissions

In a decision that makes one stop and wonder, 6th Circuit in Coalition to Defend Affirmative v. Regents of the University of Michigan has come it with quite the opinion.

The 6th Circuit panel has held that Michigan's Proposal 2, that ended affirmative action in Universities by refusing to allow the race of an applicant to be considered is an undue burden on minorities by not allowing their race to be considered in college admissions.

Orwell would be proud.

Proposal 2 targets a program [affirmative action] that
“inures primarily to the benefit of the minority” and reorders the political process in Michigan in such a way as to place “special burdens” on racial minorities....We therefore find that the race-conscious admissions policies now barred by Proposal 2 inure primarily to the benefit of racial minorities and that Proposal 2, insofar as it prohibits consideration of applicants’ race in admissions decisions, has a “racial focus.”

Under this analysis, affirmative action can necessarily never end as its absence will end a program that benefits minorities. Affirmative action is a one-way ratchet according to this panel of the Sixth Circuit.

The court then heads way off into left field and holds that the ending of affirmative action reorders the political process in a manner that unduly burdens minorities because it prevent public university boards from using affirmative action without arranging for a change in the constitution to permit such racial discrimination.

By amending Michigan’s Constitution to prohibit university admissions units from utilizing race-conscious admissions policies, proponents of Proposal 2 thus removed the authority to institute racially-focused policies from Michigan’s universities and lodged it at the most remote level of Michigan’s government, the state constitution.

Constitutionally enshrining a non-discrimination policy on the basis of race is, according to the court, discriminatory.

I know this decisions is heavily outcome-determinative [both judges were Clinton appointees, the one dissent on the panel was a G.W. Bush appointee), but did the judges draft this tautological and fallacious reasoning with a straight face?

Expect this one to go to the 6th Circuit en-banc and most probably to the Supreme Court.