"The Trump administration will encourage the nation’s school superintendents and college presidents to adopt race-blind admissions standards..."

"... abandoning an Obama administration policy that called on universities to consider race as a factor in diversifying their campuses," the NYT reports.

The Trump administration is moving against any use of race as a measurement of diversity in education. And the retirement of Justice Anthony M. Kennedy at the end of this month will leave the court without its swing vote on affirmative action and allow President Trump to nominate a justice opposed to a policy that for decades has tried to integrate elite educational institutions.

A highly anticipated case is pitting Harvard against Asian-American students who say one of the nation’s most prestigious institutions has systematically excluded some Asian-American applicants to maintain slots for students of other races. That case is clearly aimed at the Supreme Court.

“The whole issue of using race in education is being looked at with a new eye in light of the fact that it’s not just white students being discriminated against, but Asians and others as well,” said Roger Clegg, president and general counsel of the conservative Center for Equal Opportunity. “As the demographics of the country change, it becomes more and more problematic.”...

The NYT article is rather long, and I think it is designed to lure people into confusing the question of the legal permissibility of taking race into account and the policy judgment of whether race should be taken into account. The Supreme Court cases are about whether affirmative action is permissible (and they say that it is but only if you do it the right way, for the right reason). The executive branch decisions are about whether to encourage institutions to choose to do what they are permitted (but not required) to do.

"The next openly gay member of Congress will almost certainly be Wisconsin State Rep. Mark Pocan..."

"... a progressive small business owner who won the Democratic primary tonight in the Congressional District that has been represented by Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin for the past 14 years."

He'll be my Congressman. Here's an old post of mine where Pocan makes a strong appearance: "WI Assemblyman Mark Pocan confronts CEO president Roger Clegg, calling him 'some guy' who 'came all the way from Virginia' to tell us what 'all us flyover country folk don't know.'" (The topic was affirmative action.)

Taking race into account — simply wrong or rather complex?

Louis Molepske, a Democratic member of the Wisconsin Assembly, questions Roger Clegg, president of Center for Equal Opportunity, which has released a study that supposedly shows that the University of Wisconsin has engaged in serious race discrimination in its admission process for the undergrad program and the law school. Clegg responds. This short clip — shot by Meade, edited by me —  shows that the 2 men are not on the same page about affirmative action.



The colloquy took place at a hearing on October 17, 2011,  before the Assembly Committee on Colleges and Universities.

Molepske utters a classic quote: "We got a lot of white people in Wisconsin."

ADDED: Here's the thing. The University's policies align with the Supreme Court's case law, which permits race discrimination narrowly tailored to serve the goal of classroom diversity. Clegg performs moral clarity: He says race discrimination is "wrong" and "bad." That's something he just knows, quite aside from the CEO's study. He asserts it in answer to any question from someone who thinks there's something more complicated here — that is, someone who would leave it to the University to design and implement its own admissions policy.

That's why the 2 men talk past each other.

WI Assemblyman Mark Pocan confronts CEO president Roger Clegg, calling him "some guy" who "came all the way from Virginia" to tell us what "all us flyover country folk don't know."

I've already blogged a few times about the report of the Center for Equal Opportunity — here, here, and here — but what happened today was a hearing at the state Capitol before the Assembly Committee on Colleges and Universities. Clegg was invited to explain the Center's report, which accused the University of Wisconsin undergrad program and law school of violating the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution through our use of race as a factor in the admissions process.

Mark Pocan, a Democratic Assemblyman who represents much of Madison, lit into Clegg, as you can see in this clip, shot by Meade. Pocan is saying the report lacks detail on student transfers and academic performance, then yells at Clegg for being "some guy" who has flown in "to pontificate at the importance you brought from the east coast to us." Clegg is a very mild mannered advocate, so the contrast between the 2 men is pretty rich:



Here's the Wisconsin State Journal report on the hearing:

"There is overwhelming evidence that the University of Wisconsin in engaging in racial and ethnic discrimination, and it should stop," Clegg told the committee during a tense hearing. "In a country like ours, the only system that will work is one that plays no racial favorites. Anything else is a recipe for disaster — for division, strife and balkanization."

Paul DeLuca Jr., UW-Madison provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs, stressed that academic performance remains the key factor in admissions. At the same time, though, the school wants to build a diverse student body.

He pointed out that Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen issued a 2007 opinion that found the school's admissions approach complied with a 2003 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that race can be one of many admission considerations. He also pointed out that only 14 percent of UW-Madison students are minorities....

Whether the University complies with the standard laid down in the Supreme Court case law is, of course, crucial, but the state legislature has the power to impose a stricter standard on the University (if it thinks that's a good idea). In addition, it's possible that the CEO plans to use this case to get affirmative action back into the Supreme Court with the hope of changing the legal doctrine.

"Did UW-Madison's diversity chief incite students?"

Deborah Ziff asks:

Talk show host Bill O'Reilly called him "a loon." The head of a conservative think tank said he fed students propaganda and egged on a student "mob."

The comments were directed at UW-Madison's chief diversity officer, Damon Williams, who has been at the center of an admissions maelstrom ever since the Virginia-based Center for Equal Opportunity alleged in a report this month that the university gives preferential treatment to black and Hispanic students.

Learning a day early that the center planned to release its findings at a Madison news conference, Williams and Dean of Students Lori Berquam convened a meeting of students to discuss "a threat to our diversity efforts." The next day, a group of students disrupted the news conference, forcing the center's president and a former UW-Madison professor to leave the room.

Read the whole thing. Who knows the causal connection between the meeting one day and the disruption the next? My point — and I'm quoted toward the end of this piece — is that the University should not act scared about this. It should not concede that the CEO's activity is a threat. Presumably, the admissions policies are aligned with the case law and within the range permitted under the Equal Protection Clause. Why stir up negative emotion and anxiety?

The appropriate attitude is confidence and pride, demonstrating a belief in the chosen policy. The organization that has attacked us is serious and hardworking. It's not a random swipe at us that deserves no attention. We should respond in a way that suits a public university and have a reasonable, vigorous debate, including a conversation with the people of the state. The people have the power to trump the University's policy choice by legislation, so simple political sense ought to make us want to make a good argument aimed at them. But quite apart from political pragmatism, we should, as a matter of principle, show that we care about the citizens of Wisconsin who were excluded in the admissions process. As a university, we should take advantage of what is an opportunity to teach and to demonstrate a love for debate and weighing diverse viewpoints.

I mean, diversity is supposed to be the central value. And — here's a lesson in what the Supreme Court has said the Equal Protection Clause means — the diversity that justifies the use of racial classification "is defined by reference to the educational benefits that diversity is designed to produce."

The reason the Court has allowed some flexibility to use race in admissions is that it supposedly connects to the University's educational mission. If that connection is real, it ought to show.

Prof. Donald Downs demands answers from the University of Wisconsin about the Doubletree protest against Roger Clegg.

Noting the university's vaunted devotion to "sifting and winnowing," he writes:

There is a key First Amendment distinction between protest and disruption...

Disruption is a problem for at least two reasons. First, it violates the rights of speakers and listeners. Second, it sends a message that the topic under discussion is taboo, and, therefore, not a proper subject for public discussion...

What do University of Wisconsin leaders have to say about what happened at the press conference? Are they prepared to support and espouse the rules that make free speech possible? Did some administrators play a role in encouraging protests? If so, were they acting consistently with their professional responsibilities?

Only by seriously addressing these and related questions can we proceed together as a community bound by a common commitment to legal speech, counter-speech and protest.

Downs ought to get answers to these questions, but I tend to doubt that he will.

I'm creating a new tag, "Doubletree protest," so click there if you want to go back to those old posts to get up to speed. That protest is a sub-issue to 2 major issues — with very specific Wisconsin content — which I am covering, long term, on this blog: 1. protests and 2. affirmative action. I'm trying to control tag proliferation, but I'm glad I made a "Wisconsin protests" tag last winter instead of relying solely on my old "protest" tag. But to make a sub-category out of one Wisconsin protest... that seemed ridiculous... until it didn't.

Sara Goldrick-Rab imposes a racial critique on last week's affirmative-action protest at the Doubletree Hotel.

Remember last Tuesday: Roger Clegg of the Center for Equal Opportunity had a press conference to announce 2 studies that, he said, showed the University of Wisconsin—Madison has engaged in "severe racial discrimination." A protest took place. Peter Wood, at the Chronicle of Higher Education, writes:

The fracas was covered by the local newspapers and television; featured on The O’Reilly Factor as part of an interview with CEO chairman Linda Chavez; written about by several essayists; and subject to considerably blogging, notably by University of Wisconsin law professor Ann Althouse and Brooklyn College history professor KC Johnson. Instapundit Glenn Reynolds linked to the story, which is now widely known though, interestingly, it was not covered by The New York Times, or other major news outlets....

There's been a lot of writing the last few days about what really happened, and Wood puts together this account:

The press conference was held at 11:00. By then, word had already reached the organizers of the event that a group was planning a disruptive protest. They alerted the hotel, which closed its front doors as well as the doors of the conference room and posted staff to guard them. The protestors gathered outside the hotel where they remained for a period chanting slogans. One of their number, however, sneaked into the building through the kitchen and made his way to the hotel entrance, where he opened the front doors from inside. The protesters surged into the lobby.

At that point their chanting became audible in the conference room but wasn’t loud enough to disrupt the closed-door proceedings. At about 11:45, however, someone opened the doors to the conference and the sound of the chants drowned out attendees who were trying to ask questions.

Roger Clegg at that point had finished the formal part of the press conference and was talking with some students who had attended it. But just as the event was adjourning, the students outside pushed past the hotel staff, some of whom were thrown to the ground. The mob poured into the room, and Clegg, accompanied by University of Wisconsin Professor Lee Hansen and two members of the hotel staff, struggled through it to the exit, and, accompanied by protestors, to the hotel elevator. Several of the protestors prevented the elevator doors from closing until the two hotel staff members pushed them back.

Wood relied on various eyewitnesses, but I want to concentrate on this blog post by eyewitness Sara Goldrick-Rab, a UW—Madison professor. Goldrick-Rab seeks to enlighten us about how race affects "how we understand and interpret" the incident, in which — her words — "a large group of mostly brown folks came into contact with a much smaller group of mostly white folks and it freaked out some of those the white folks."

Go to the link to read her full description on the incident. Here's the part where she employs self-critique presumably to teach us all about how race (and gender) influence perception and interpretation:

I admit it: there was a fraction of a second in that lobby, when I saw the people run by and I heard the loud sound, that I experienced fear. At first, I thought it was surprise. Then I realized that I had caught myself anticipating violence and momentarily panicking as I saw men of color move fast and loud. I recognized it, I checked it, and I questioned it. I was angry with myself... And it took me no more than 30 seconds to chastise myself for it, get over it, and then experience the protest as it really was: peaceful, bold, and uplifting.

I had experienced another moment of fear not 30 minutes earlier, when I watched Clegg address a young African-American woman, responding to her question about his report with a smug, paternalistic smile that to me conveyed absolutely no understanding of the powerful hand he had in intimidating her. I reacted to him, in that moment, as a white man with no sense of his own privilege. It was the whiteness of his skin combined with the Southern in his voice and his hyper-masculine demeanor that made my hands shake. I was afraid of his evidently barely-repressed disdain for this woman. The Jewish ancestry in me felt it to my toes.

Somehow, Goldrick-Rab refrains from chastising herself for seeing Clegg through the lens of his Southern white maleness. She doesn't catch herself mid-emotion and rethink her way to a more charitable interpretation. Quite the opposite! Clegg's smile gets a negative interpretation. She has a physical reaction that runs down into her fingers and toes, she says. She attributes the loathing of Clegg to an ethnic memory born into her body, and she does not stop and question that prejudice either within 30 seconds of feeling it or a week later writing about it.

And yet Goldrick-Rab calls us to "come clean" and "admit that we are race conscious every day."

What distinguishes us from the racists is our honesty, candor, and willingness to learn. Race matters. And that's why the Doubletree event was no "disruption" but rather a necessary protest against an antagonistic deliberate transgression of outsiders on a community.

What? It wasn't a disruption because it was necessary? How does the perceived necessity of opposing someone's press conference make what happened not a disruption? Why not just say: I can't stand what the speaker was saying so I'm glad he was disrupted? Perhaps because you think that would sound badly antagonistic to free speech. But if you care about speech — and honesty and candor — don't redefine words. Speak clearly and straightforwardly.

As for the phrase "an antagonistic deliberate transgression of outsiders on a community." Wow. Just take that out of context and look at it with honesty and candor and willingness to learn. It's blatantly xenophobic and closed-minded. You don't want to hear an opposing viewpoint. Someone who criticizes the university's admissions policy is an outsider trangressing on the community?! So... what? The community is right to defend itself, physically, against the evil intruder? Step back and contemplate that, since you are inclined toward self-critique. That attitude is reminiscent of what historical analogues?

Are those toes tingling at all?

Professor at the Doubletree incident says: There was no "mob" that was "physically violent."

Michael Olneck, Professor Emeritus of Educational Policy Studies and Sociology at UW-Madison, has a letter in The Daily Cardinal, about the reaction to the reports from the Center for Equal Opportunity (which found racial discrimination in  UW-Madison's admissions).

Olneck takes issue with the way Linda Chavez — the CEO founder — characterized the incident that took place at the CEO press conference announcing the reports. (We talked about the Chavez op-ed here, yesterday.)

Olneck says:

Ms. Chavez takes at face value, and further publicizes, the Doubletree's manager's description of what occurred at the hotel. The press release issued by the Doubletree described the large group of student protesters as a "mob" that "became increasingly physically violent when forcing themselves into the meeting room where the press conference had already ended." And, it alleged that "staff were then rushed by a mob of protesters, throwing employees to the ground."

I attended the press conference, and was in the main lobby of the hotel afterward. There was no "mob" that was "physically violent." There was an organized group of protesters whose loud chanting forced an end to the press conference, and which attempted to enter the conference room after the doors were open. Two hotel employees attempted to physically prevent the group from entering the room, and the group pushed through them. 

Pushed through them?! So, you're saying you know they did not fall to the ground or simply that you did not see anything more than that they were "pushed through"? And that's not violent because... why? You can go into a private business place, decide you get to go where you want to go, and push through the employees that try to guard a door and that's not violent? And it's not a "mob" because... why? You described a mob!

Members of the group attempted to confront Mr. Clegg, and made his exit difficult. 

Deliberately depriving someone of his ability to leave a place is a crime. You don't think it's physically violent? Go to that link: It's a felony in Wisconsin. Thanks for the description of what you saw, but your account reinforces the press report that Chavez relied on. You may deny the characterizations "mob" and "physically violent," but you, an eyewitness, describe the details, stating facts that would lead me to characterize it as a physically violent mob.

Some followed him as he headed toward what I presume was the elevator bank. While this experience was clearly unfamiliar and unnerving to Doubletree staff, for the manager and Ms. Chavez to depict what occurred as the actions of a "mob" is an egregious slur on the students. While the protest may well have broken decorum, its well-motivated participants do not deserve to be characterized as a "mob."

Incredible! Or perhaps not so incredible here in Madison, Wisconsin where people seem to have acquired the idea that the usual rules don't apply if you're propelled by righteous anger against a demonized a political opponent. You're "well-motivated" so what would otherwise be crimes become mere breaches of "decorum."

Is this the Madison mind-set? Is this what passes for liberalism around here? It seems to me that a true liberal would never say that what is a crime (or a tort) depends on one's political orientation. Picture a press conference by a beloved advocate of civil rights stormed by a group of racist skinheads, Professor Olneck. Make all the actions exactly the same, but change the political viewpoints. Would you then use the words "mob" and "physically violent"?

CEO founder Linda Chavez attacks the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

... in the NY Post:

The campus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison erupted this week after the release of two studies documenting the heavy use of race in deciding which students to admit to the undergraduate and law schools....

[The Center for Equal Opportunity] has published studies of racial double standards in admissions at scores of public colleges and universities across the country with similar findings, but none has caused such a violent reaction.

Instead of addressing the findings of the study, the university’s vice provost for diversity, Damon A. Williams, dishonestly told students that “CEO has one mission and one mission only: dismantle the gains that were achieved by the civil-rights movement.” In fact, CEO’s only mission is to promote color-blind equal opportunity so that, in Martin Luther King’s vision, no one will be judged by the color of his or her skin.

Egged on by inflammatory comments by university officials, student groups organized a flashmob via a Facebook page that was filled with propaganda and outright lies about CEO wanting to dismantle their student groups. More than a hundred angry students stormed the press conference at the Doubletree Hotel in Madison, where CEO President Roger Clegg was releasing the study.

I didn't see the Facebook page. I'd like to see the specific text of what was said.  Chavez also talks about the debate that took place on campus that evening, but that event, as I've blogged — here and here — was pretty sedate, so Chavez limits herself to quoting a professor's tweets that called Clegg a "racist" and said he sounded "like the whitest white boy I’ve ever heard."

Ironically, "whitest white boy" was probably an attempt to convey the very calm and bland recitation of facts and principles that characterized Clegg's presentation. As I've said, the event was sedate. There were no Doubletree antics [at the debate]. Perhaps it was a reverse flashmob, and social media were used effectively to let the students know that they needed to be respectful, allow the speakers to speak, and engage in rational dialogue that makes our university look like the institution of higher learning that it purports to be.

Indeed, Chavez concludes:

You’d think that a responsible university would denounce the intimidation and lack of civility by its students and faculty. Instead, Vice Provost Williams told the student paper, “I’m most excited about how well the students represented themselves, the passion with which they engaged, the respectful tone in how they did it and the thoughtfulness of their questions and interactions.”

It appears that not only are the university’s admissions policies deeply discriminatory, but also that university officials applaud name-calling, distortion and outright physical assault.

But Williams's characterization of the debate was correct! Chavez conflates the shameful incident at the Doubletree hotel with the beautifully run event that took place on campus.

If Chavez intends to call citizens to a rational, serious debate about affirmative action, then she must be clear and fair and accurate about all the facts. To do that, she must scrupulously avoid demagoguery.

ADDED: The tweeting professor is Sara Goldrick-Rab, who writes an education blog called The Education Optimists. Here is her post about the CEO and Roger Clegg. It concludes: "The organization is not only dead wrong, it is unashamedly racist." Here is her Twitter feed, and I can see that she's responded to my post: "Look at my actual tweet - which was misreported- I was commenting on the very odd way he said the word Latino. Nothing more." Okay, so my speculation about what her tweet meant — which I've amplified in the comments — was completely wrong. He just used the whitest possible pronunciation of the word "Latino."

"How do you escape the notion that getting rid of affirmative action is white supremacy?"

2 UW-Madison students challenge Roger Clegg — the president of the Center for Equal Opportunity:



Like the clip in the previous post, this was recorded at a Federalist Society-sponsored debate on September 13th.

[Video shot and edited by me.]

ADDED: I want to say that, for me, the second questioner exemplifies a central problem for Clegg and his agenda. The students at a university are always the students who were admitted. They feel hurt or outraged if they think the message is that they shouldn't be here. They're here, in the room, and the individuals who did not get in are not here to cry out with corresponding outrage.

It reminds me of debates about abortion. Those who were aborted are never present in the room to express their perspective on the issue. The emotions of those who are not present may be expressed, vicariously, by others, but it's another matter entirely to say to human beings as they stand in your presence: Under my proposed policy — the only morally/constitutionally permissible approach — you  lose.

Now, I'm sure Clegg would try to find a way to say these students wouldn't lose. Under a race-blind approach to admissions, some of them would get in, and, if so, they won't be burdened by a stigma that, he would say, attached when race is taken into account. And, in any event, a switch to a color-blind approach would only take place prospectively, so it wouldn't affect any of these students, who got in under the existing policy, and no matter how illegal or immoral the policy is, they didn't design it. They played by the rules in effect at the time, and they won and deserve their prize.

The policy will only affect individuals who are not in the room, who are out there, just as the students who didn't get in this year are out there. The difficult thing — and the true moral challenge — is to visualize those who are affected who are not in the room to express pain when you hurt them.

AND: I don't know that Clegg's primary concern really is for the individuals whose applications were rejected but who would have gotten in under a race-blind approach. I think he expressed more concern for the harm done to the students who did get in, the ones who were in the room resisting his message. He was telling them, to their faces, that they were being stigmatized by affirmative action. In that light, the young woman's statement "You disrespected me" really is not such an inaccurate understanding of what he was saying. He was concerned about her, but it wasn't a kind of concern she appreciated.

"You need to take an Ethnic Studies Requirement class!"

An audience member yells reeducation advice at Roger Clegg of the Center for Equal Opportunity, who asserts that public universities should not sort people according to race and ethnicity:



That's a short clip from the Federalist Society-sponsored debate that took place here on campus on September 13th.

[Video shot and edited by me.]

Will the state legislature look at University of Wisconsin-Madison admissions after the reports on affirmative action?

Apparently yes:

As a result of the findings, Rep. Steve Nass, R-Whitewater, issued a statement calling for an oversight hearing to review the “possibly illegal” process. Nass chairs the Assembly Committee on Colleges and Universities.

“The study raises serious allegations against the UW System that they would use race and ethnicity as a core admissions test,” said Mike Mikalsen, a spokesperson for Nass. “It seems to show numerous students are being bypassed, with hundreds of more qualified students not being admitted.”

Mikalsen said the hearing, which would be scheduled in the upcoming weeks, could lead to the drafting of new legislation concerning the issues at hand or a request being made to the attorney general for formal review.

He added litigation against UW lies “almost certainly” on the horizon.

You know, I've been thinking about last night's debate between Roger Clegg of the Center for Equal Opportunity (which released the reports accusing the UW of "severe racial discrimination") and Wisconsin lawprof Larry Church. Describing it afterwards, I said:

I would have liked more discussion of legal doctrine and the precise issues from the case law, but both men chose to concentrate on policy, with the assumption that racial equality and harmony are the desired ultimate goals. What's the best way to get there? It's an old, old question, and the 2 men mainly assembled the usual pro and con arguments, so I doubt if any minds were changed.

What I need to say this morning is that there are 2 separate matters: whether affirmative action is permissible and whether it is a good idea. If affirmative action violates the Constitution, it doesn't matter whether it's a good idea or not. It's not permissible. It isn't an option in the set of options that the University has when it designs its admissions policy. (Yes, you could try to get the Constitution amended or the University could decide to go ahead and violate the Constitution and try to cover up what it's really doing.)

But is it a good idea? What struck me last night is that both Clegg and Church spoke almost entirely about whether it's a good idea. Each man had his set of reasons for his policy position, and, frankly, I found it a bit dull, because they weren't honestly agonizing over the difficult costs and benefits and ethical trade-offs. They already had their positions and they advocated them. There was no view into a real human mind thinking seriously about a difficult problem, no real-time performance of decisionmaking.

Now, why did both men choose to discuss the matter at the policy level, each endeavoring to sell his policy? Why did neither man have much to say about whether it's constitutional? One answer is that it's a complicated question, and the answer is that it's constitutional if you do it the right way and it takes a long time to explain what the right way is, and it takes a really long time to go into the matter of whether the University is presently doing it the right way. You could also say that the legal question is difficult enough that most people — including judges! — are going to decide it based on what they want the answer to be. So it's best to talk about policy anyway.

But shouldn't Clegg want to emphasize law? Clegg wants to deny the University the full range of options and the way to do that is to put the affirmative action option off limits by designating it as a constitutional rights violation.

Scroll back to the top of this post for your answer. The University is currently the decisionmaker about which policy to adopt among the range of permissible policies, but the state legislature could trump the University. Clegg may seem to be threatening a lawsuit and, if he takes that route, he will need to speak in the language of constitutional rights.

But there is a different route, the legislative route, and it doesn't depend on aligning the facts of this case with the fussy particularities of the Supreme Court's case law. It's a direct appeal to the people of Wisconsin and their representatives in the Capitol. And nobody needs to understand the law for that groundswell of antagonism to affirmative action to take the policymaking power away from the University.

There was a huge crowd for tonight's big affirmative action debate here at the University of Wisconsin.

But the 2 speakers  — Roger Clegg and Larry Church — refrained from cranking up the emotions in the big room. There was some clapping and finger-snapping to approve of just about anything pro-affirmative action and some hooting and booing over anything against affirmative action, but the men were in no way drowned out. Clegg and Church got to say what they had to say. During the question period, the various students who got a turn at the mike sounded passionate but not irrational.

I would have liked more discussion of legal doctrine and the precise issues from the case law, but both men chose to concentrate on policy, with the assumption that racial equality and harmony are the desired ultimate goals. What's the best way to get there? It's an old, old question, and the 2 men mainly assembled the usual pro and con arguments, so I doubt if any minds were changed.

As Meade and I walked home, I called the students "admirable" for not getting out of hand and shouting down the speakers, and Meade made fun of my low standard. I said, "It's Wisconsin. Kudos for not rioting."

ADDED: Pictures:





"Socialism 101/What it is and why we need it":

In Madison: 150 protesters storm hotel to disrupt press conference given by the president of the Center for Equal Opportunity.

Roger Clegg was announcing 2 studies that purport to show the University of Wisconsin racially discriminates in its undergrad and law school admissions.

About 50 minutes into Clegg's press conference -- in which he took questions from media members, students and UW-Madison faculty -- noise erupted outside the banquet room. Protesters, most of whom were UW-Madison students, could easily be heard chanting "Power to the people!"

Power to the people?! You know, when one side is claiming constitutional rights, yelling about the majority's will is not impressive. Seriously, what is the point of a protest like this? What is it coherently saying? If you want to argue that there is no violation of rights... why are you yelling? And why are you breaking into a private place of business?

The article says the hotel secured its entrances, but one student got in "through the food services entrance and then allowed everyone else inside." And hotel "staff were... rushed by a mob of protesters, throwing employees to the ground."

Meanwhile, at Union South, there's a debate at 7 pm between Clegg and our wonderful Wisconsin Law colleague Larry Church. Will the 2 men be allowed to debate or will hostile voices try to drown them out? I'll let you know.

A Federalist Society/Wisconsin Law School event promoted with boxing gloves...

... just got a lot more boxing-y.

Professor Larry Church will debate Roger Clegg of the Center for Equal Opportunity tonight, the evening of the day Clegg dropped the Center's bombshell studies accusing the Law School (and the undergraduate program) of "severe racial discrimination."

The event — a debate titled "Affirmative Action and Higher Education" — was planned — by The Federalist Society — without knowledge that these reports were forthcoming.

It's scheduled to take place tonight at 7. It was originally going to take place in a room that will hold only 95 people. I will update to tell you where it actually will take place when I find out.

UPDATE: The event will take place in South Hall, in our beautiful new Union South.

"Two reports released today allege the University of Wisconsin discriminates against whites and Asian applicants and have electrified both UW administration and some student leaders."

This is the diversity emergency discussed in the previous post:

The reports were released at midnight on Tuesday from the Center for Equal Opportunity in conjunction with a press conference CEO President Roger Clegg will hold at the Double Tree Inn at 11 a.m. today. Clegg will also be at a debate on the future of Affirmative Action at the UW Law School at 7 p.m. this evening....

In an interview with The Badger Herald, Clegg said the reports show how a heavy preference is given to blacks and Latinos over whites and Asians in the admissions process for undergraduate programs and in the law school.

[Damon Williams, UW vice provost for diversity and climate,] and Dean of Students Lori Berquam said CEO had filed an open records request on the UW admissions process for both undergraduates and law school applicants and had already set the wheels in motion to orchestrate a “coordinated attack” against the campus....

Williams stressed the need for students to mobilize, and the students present did not seem to need any convincing.

“Don’t wait for us to show the way,” Williams said to students, who were already assembling poster board to make signs against the CEO president’s report and visit.

That was the report in The Badger Herald. Here's the other student newspaper, The Daily Cardinal:

The "aggressive and right wing" organization's plan, according to Berquam, is to effectively eliminate affirmative action at UW-Madison.

"I was so upset that our students are going to have to wake up in the morning and deal with this," said Williams with tears in his eyes.  "That's not what students came here for."...

But Williams told students not to despair, for every student admitted to UW-Madison is and deserves to be a badger.

"I want students to be able to be in power; to say this is who we are, this is what we value," Williams said.

He said students should lead the university's response against CEO....

One of the first responses will occur tomorrow, when students opposing CEO's stance will hold a rally "to express their solidarity and pride in UW and a sense of togetherness," said [Sarah Mathews, vice president of public relation for the Wisconsin Union Directorate].

ADDED: In the next post, I discuss the law and politics.

The coming fight over race-based student grants.

This looks like the beginning of a major battle:

The University of Wisconsin System's program to provide scholarships for minority students is drawing criticism from a national group opposed to racial preferences in higher education, but System officials are defending the program as legal and still necessary. Created by the state Legislature in 1986, the program is coming under attack after a 2003 Supreme Court decision upheld affirmative action in college admissions but barred the use of race as the sole deciding factor. The ruling opened the door to increased challenges of all race- conscious university policies, critics say, including the System's Lawton Minority Undergraduate Retention Grant. "We're looking into this Lawton program," said Roger Clegg, general counsel for the Virginia-based Center for Equal Opportunity, which has contacted more than 100 universities about race-exclusive programs in the past several months and filed complaints about some with the federal government's Office for Civil Rights and Justice Department. "It seems to me that we should treat everyone equally," Hansen said. "It's simple fairness. You can do all the pirouettes you want to about it, but that's what it comes down to." But university officials say targeted financial aid for minorities in college is legal and proper. Government rules have been more permissive about the use of race in financial aid for minority students already admitted, they said, and such programs are more necessary now than ever, after recent changes to the federal Pell grant program that will make fewer poor families of any race eligible for that assistance. "(The Lawton grants) give some incentive for people to stay in school," said Stephanie Hilton, president of United Council of UW Students. "Everything we can do to increase retention is key. That program is not huge, but we're getting a good bang for the buck."... Last year at UW-Madison, 292 minority students received Lawton grants totaling $736,141, while the tally for the program Systemwide was 2,715 recipients and $3.8 million. Individual grants are available to sophomores, juniors and seniors from Wisconsin and Minnesota who maintain a 2.0 grade point average and demonstrate financial need according to a federal formula....