"I think the focus on the [Stanford DEI dean Tirien] Steinbach is a mistake, for reasons I articulated..."

"... in my post 'Firing Diversity Dean Over Judge Shout-Down May Help Stanford Law School Escape Consequences Of Its Toxic DEI Culture.' My point was that Steinbach was just doing what was expected of her as a DEI officer. She is the symptom, not the underlying problem, which is the DEI culture of intolerance.That toxic culture evidenced itself after the shout-down. The Stanford Law School Chapter of the Federalist Society, which invited Judge Duncan to speak, got almost no faculty support (only two reached out privately), even though not just Judge Duncan but also Federalist students were targeted. Through its silence, the faculty sent a strong message that what happened was acceptable (had it been a liberal judge shouted down, you can be sure there would have been a faculty uproar.)"

 
Writes William A. Jacobson in "The Stanford Law School Culture, Not The Diversity Dean, Is The Problem (but I repeat myself)/Something is wrong with the culture at Stanford Law School, and many (most) law schools. Let’s address that issue" (Legal Insurrection). 

It's so much easier to target one person. It's the old rules-for-radicals idea: "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it." The law school dean, by apologizing for Steinbach, has helped isolate the target, as if the larger DEI Culture is not under attack. How weak is that culture? The students ought to suspect the entire thing is a con. Ironically, Critical Theory teaches us always to suspect that these efforts are a con.

Jacobson says it's a mistake for conservatives to begin with the attack on the isolated target. He recommends skipping that step. Here's how Saul Alinsky explained his "Pick the target" approach in "Rules for Radicals":

"With the slogan 'Silence is Violence' being used at the law school, there will be enormous pressure for student groups to go along. Not to do so would be deemed an act of 'violence.'"

Writes Professor William Jacobson about an effort by some students at Cornell Law School to get student groups to sign a letter that seems — I don't have access to the letter — to be accusing Jacobson of racism and urging students to boycott his classes.

This is an attempt not just to scare students away from my course, but to scare students away from speaking their minds, and to create a faculty and student purity test.

I have received numerous emails from students telling me I have a lot of “quiet” support at the law school, but that students are afraid to speak out for fear of career-ending false accusations of racism....

This toxic atmosphere didn’t need to take place. At a time when the law school desperately needs an adult in the room, so to speak, we have faculty and a Dean who denounce me.

"Jonathan Turley rips Cornell Law faculty letter against me: 'It is the antipathy of the intellectual foundations for higher education.'"

A new post by William Jacobson at Legal Insurrection, linking to "Cornell Professors Declare 'Informed Commentary' Criticizing The Protests As Racism" by Jonathan Turley.

An excerpt from Turley: "What is most striking for me is the inclusion of Professors Mark H. Jackson and Cortelyou Kenney, who teach in the Cornell First Amendment Clinic. They are in fact the Director and Associate Director of the First Amendment Clinic, which is presumably committed to the value of free speech even at private institutions. So these professors teach free speech and just signed a letter that people who question the BLM movement or denounce the looting are per se or at least presumptive racists. It is reflection of how free speech is being redefined to exclude protections with those who hold opposing views."

From Jacobson: "The law school, as an institution, picked sides and declared in a Dean’s Statement that my writings 'do not reflect the values of Cornell Law School ….' I vigorously disagree with that, but was not given a chance to be heard on it, much less some process to contest it.... [T]he Dean’s statement on behalf of the institution... should have been something along the lines of: 'Though I vigorously disagree with Professor Jacobson’s views, those views are protected by academic freedom and no disciplinary action will be taken.' Period."

ADDED: "'It is the antipathy..." — Doesn't he mean "It is the antithesis..."?

In context:

Not a word about academic freedom or free of speech [sic]; not a suggestion that critics of these protests could have anything other than racist motivations. It is the antipathy of the intellectual foundations for higher education. Rather than address the merits of arguments, you attack those with opposing views personally and viciously. That has become a standard approach to critics on our campuses. Unless you agree with the actions of the movement, you are per se racist. It is a mantra that is all too familiar historically: if you are not part of the resistance, you are reactionary.

"Ever since I started Legal Insurrection in October 2008, it’s been an awkward relationship given the overwhelmingly liberal faculty and atmosphere."

"Living as a conservative on a liberal campus is like being the mouse waiting for the cat to pounce. For over 12 years, the Cornell cat did not pounce. Though there were frequent and aggressive attempts by outsiders to get me fired, including threats and harassment, it always came from off campus.... Not until now, to the best of my knowledge, has there been an effort from inside the Cornell community to get me fired. The impetus for the effort was two posts I wrote at Legal Insurrection regarding the history and tactics of the Black Lives Matter Movement: The impetus for the effort was two posts I wrote at Legal Insurrection regarding the history and tactics of the Black Lives Matter Movement: 'Reminder: “Hands up, don’t shoot” is a fabricated narrative from the Michael Brown case ,"  "The Bloodletting and Wilding Is Part of An Agenda To Tear Down The Country."... My clinical faculty colleagues, apparently in consultation with the Black Law Students Association, drafted and then published in the Cornell Sun on June 9 a letter [with] absurd name-calling, distorting and even misquoting my writings, to the extent it purports to be about me.... None of the 21 signatories, some of whom I’d worked closely with for over a decade and who I considered friends, had the common decency to approach me with any concerns.... We are living in extraordinarily dangerous times, reminiscent of the Chinese Communist Cultural Revolution, in which professors guilty of wrongthink were publicy denounced and fired at the behest of students who insisted on absolute ideological orthodoxy. It’s a way of instilling terror in other students, faculty, staff, and society, so that others shut up and don’t voice dissenting views."

From "There’s an effort to get me fired at Cornell for criticizing the Black Lives Matter Movement" by William Jacobson (at Legal Insurrection).

"You can hear a pin drop in the WaPo editorial room this evening, as eight people try hard not to think about '8-digit punitive damages for libel.'"

So says the highest-rated comment on "Market awarded $44M in racism dispute with Oberlin College" an AP story that ran in The Washington Post, and the only WaPo story about the jury's award of punitive damages. The same AP story is also the only coverage of the news in the NYT.

I wanted to post on this news and just wanted something factual and journalistic, and I was disappointed that the 2 main newspapers I read just put up this rather thin AP story:

A jury in Lorain County awarded David Gibson, son Allyn Gibson and Gibson’s Bakery, of Oberlin, $33 million in punitive damages Thursday. That comes on top of an award a day earlier of $11 million in compensatory damages.

Problems between the Gibsons, their once-beloved bakery and the college began in November 2016 after Allyn Gibson, who is white, confronted a black Oberlin student who had shoplifted wine. Two other black students joined in and assaulted Gibson, police said.

The day after the arrests, hundreds of students protested outside the bakery .

The extra space between "bakery" and the period is present at both the WaPo and the NYT. That's how little attention they paid to this story — not even rudimentary copy editing.

Members of Oberlin College’s student senate published a resolution saying Gibson’s had “a history of racial profiling and discriminatory treatment.”

When news of the protests spread online, bikers and counterprotesters soon converged on the town to jeer students and make purchases from Gibson’s. Conservatives derided the students on social media as coddled “snowflakes” with a mob mentality, while students attacked the store as a symbol of systemic racism....

A direct quote — "snowflakes" — for those "conservatives." Which conservatives? Who? Did they all say the word "snowflakes"? Were they all taking a derisive tone? This is a story about the seriousness of damage caused by free-swinging attacks, so you might want to rein it in. Notice the students were concerned about "systemic racism" and their tone isn't characterized nastily, but they were involved in causing harm that the jury soberly examined and found deserving of a $33 million punitive damages award. And conservatives are casually smeared, made to look like they get on social media and jeer and name-call.

The AP article ends with a grab-bag of factoids:

Oberlin has long been a bastion of liberalism. During the 1830s, it became one of the first colleges to admit blacks and women. During the 1850s, it became a stop on the Underground Railroad.

Today, about 15% of Oberlin’s 8,300 residents are black.

More recently, news articles quoted students decrying the school dining hall’s sushi and Vietnamese banh mi sandwiches as cultural appropriation.

The Gibsons’ attorneys said the college, which charges $70,000 a year for tuition and room and board, has an $887 million endowment and can easily afford to pay the family what they are owed.

Oberlin’s tree-lined campus is roughly 35 miles (56 kilometers) southwest of downtown Cleveland.

And there's your NYT and WaPo coverage of this story. Thin, undigested AP material. And you won't find it on the home page. I had to do a search to find it.

IN THE COMMENTS: wendybar said:

The best coverage anywhere was from Professor William A. Jacobson @ Legal Insurrection!! The Main Stream Media is the propaganda arm of the Democrats so of course this doesn't fit the agenda.

Here's the Legal Insurrection post about the punitive damages verdict. Excerpt:

“We never wanted any of this to go to court and have to spend all this time in litigation,” David Gibson said exclusively to the Legal Insurrection. David Gibson is the lead plaintiff in the case and is the principal owner of the business.

“People have no idea on how much stress this has had on our family and business for almost three years. But from the beginning, we just didn’t understand why they were punishing us for something we had nothing to do with.”

“We appreciate that the jury understood what we had gone through, and I think they were saying to the entire country that we can’t allow this to happen to hard-working, small business people whose lives are defined by their business, their family, and their community,” he said.” What the college was doing was trying to take away all those things from us, and we fought hard against that.”

Left Bank of the Charles said:

Here’s some better reporting. The college seems to have thought that claims of poverty would work in its defense against the punitive damages.

He links to "Gibson's Bakery v. Oberlin College: Plaintiffs rest in second day of punitive phase (UPDATED)" (Houston Chronicle):

With its endowment as it is now," [Oberlin President Carmen Twillie Ambar] said the college can survive, but “survival isn’t sustainability”.... Of that $1.4 billion, the college has an $887 million endowment — more than two-thirds of which can’t be spent by the college because of the wishes of the donors who provided it... The largest check the college could write if it had to would be for $49.1 million from its unrestricted endowment funds....

[Lee Plakas, the lead attorney for the Gibsons] told jurors that “defamatory words in our country have become weapons as damaging as guns that shoot bullets”... “More damaging than bullets once you’re defamed... There is no procedure to remove those words.”...

He recalled for jurors how Oberlin College administrators labeled the Gibsons and their supporters “idiots,” discussed in internal texts and emails how they wanted to “unleash the students” or “rain fire and brimstone” on Gibson’s and how Meredith Raimondo, the college’s vice president and dean of students, referred to the college’s business with Gibson’s as the “stupid bakery order.”...

“Let’s teach the institution not to put gas on the fires,” Plakas told the jury, also asking them to consider recommending Miraldi award the Gibsons money to cover attorney fees. “They’re not above the law. They can’t make up their own rules.”...

"The Black student population at Cornell disproportionately represents international or first-generation African or Caribbean students."

"While these students have a right to flourish at Cornell, there is a lack of investment in Black students whose families were affected directly by the African Holocaust in America. Cornell must work to actively support students whose families have been impacted for generations by white supremacy and American fascism."

From "Cornell Black Students group issues 6-page list of demands" (Legal Insurrection).

This demand must strike fear into institutions that are engaging in racial balancing on a superficial, how-does-it-look? level.

Legal Insurrection, your headline is embarrassingly misleading.

The headline is: "Young Americans for Freedom Labeled ‘Hate Group’ at UW Madison."

I thought maybe something new had happened here at my school, but it's just a link to a College Fix story about how a student group, The Student Coalition for Progress, is petitioning the UW to label Young Americans for Freedom a hate group.

I doubt if there's any chance that the UW will respond positively to this petition. It's ridiculously deceptive to make it look as though the UW had "labeled" YAF a hate group.

Yes, you've covered your ass with that "at" (instead of "by"), but few readers will resist jumping to the conclusion that the University took some action against the conservative group. Things happen at universities all the time. It's called freedom of speech. It's utterly dull and hardly worth mentioning that a group called The Student Coalition for Progress wants to stifle Young Americans for Freedom.

The College Fix story is new, but the petition is 3 weeks old. I blogged it here (on December 23rd.) Nothing new has happened. In fact, if you read past the first 5 paragraphs cut and pasted into Legal Insurrection — you'll have to get all the way to paragraph 17 over at College Fix — you'll see that a UW official is quoted saying:

"I do want to clarify that the petition itself does not represent the university position on the group or constitute a formal complaint against YAF."

Come on, Legal Insurrection! How many people are writing over there under a brand I associate with Cornell lawpro William A. Jacobson? The misleading article is by someone identified by first name only: Aleister. What's going on?

ADDED: And here's Roger Kimball, fooled by the headline and switching the preposition to "by":

YAF labelled “hate group” by UW Madison. What they hate is the despicable PC campaign against freedom on campus. https://t.co/8h6xVLXaN4

— Roger Kimball (@rogerkimball) January 7, 2017

Glenn Reynolds also passed along the Legal Insurrection headline, but fortunately a commenter over there caught the problem. The most up-voted comment, by willbilson, is:

Um... somebody started a petition. YAF was never 'labeled as a hate group' by UW Madison. I mean, come on. Don't publish misleading headlines. I get clickbait, I guess, but come on...

Kim Du Toit pushes back forcibly:

Feel free to take remedial reading lessons. The headline states that the YAF was labeled a hate group AT the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Not by.

Would Kim Du Toit like to speak that nastily to the estimable Roger Kimball? The headline invites misreading, and we all need to keep our bullshit detectors tuned up.

And I suspect that Glenn himself read the headline to mean "by" and not just "at," because he introduces it with "TAXPAYER-FUNDED MARGINALIZATION."

AND: There's some debate in the comments here about how much Aleister simply passed on bad text written by College Fix and how much he contributed. In the course of that debate, Meade points out that Aleister begins with his own words: "This would be the same UW Madison which is currently offering a program about the problem of whiteness."

Aleister says that as if the UW were favoring the left over the right. But there is no inconsistency. Allowing a professor to teach a race studies course that examines what he chooses to call the problem of whiteness demonstrates UW's commitment to academic freedom. That commitment is consistent with support for the free speech of YAF and the rejection the Student Coalition for Progress's request that YAF be punished for its speech.

And it should be noted that The Student Coalition for Progress is engaging in free speech when it calls YAF a "hate" group and when it petitions the authorities to do something about YAF. The Student Coalition for Progress has important free speech rights. But we should observe and criticize what is bad about the speech of The Student Coalition for Progress, and that is the idea that government authorities should suppress speech.

Students in the Coalition should think harder about free speech, throw off their repressive enthusiasm for government control, and switch to using substantive arguments about whatever it is they don't like about what YAF is saying.

I am trying to encourage them to do this. The left used to be very enthusiastic about free speech. That's something that was likable about the left. The Student Coalition for Progress may think the way to win support for their ideas is to suppress other ideas.

That's not going to work, and they shouldn't want it to work. I predict that as long as they keep trying to make that work, they will fail to win much serious support from other people, even if they succeed in eliciting some genuflection when they bullshit about "hate."

"Twitter helped destroy the conservative ecosystem of small blogs by replacing it with something easier to use and more effective."

"Twitter helped destroy the conservative ecosystem of small blogs by replacing it with something easier to use and more effective," asserts Professor Jacobson at Legal Insurrection. These days, Twitter is shutting down some conservative accounts. And Jacobson thinks — with the conservative blog ecosystem defunct — "There is no viable alternative to Twitter at this moment."

I got to that post through Instapundit, who invites everyone back into blogging and says he's "happy to promote small blogs." He also says — and I agree with this: "Twitter is overrated. It’s a good way to chatter with the chattering classes, but (1) it doesn’t drive traffic; (2) its impact outside the chattering classes is basically nil; and (3) it encourages people to think they’re being 'activists' when they’re really just tweeting to a few hundred people."

Blogging is better. I do Twitter a little, but it doesn't work to bring readers over to the blog. (Point #1 above.) But blogging works much better for me. I can see what I'm saying better and work things out as I see fit. It makes more sense, it centers your writing energy, and it's more fun.

"Cornell gives deer tubal ligations..."

"... everything goes wrong."

"The image in question was an extension of the cultural, historical and living legacy surrounding people of color — particularly young men—being portrayed as violent in contemporary culture and media."

"By using this particular image of President Obama, I unknowingly perpetuated this living legacy and subsequently allowed a medium of SSMU’s communication to become the site of a microaggression; for this, I am deeply sorry."

Evidence that the term "microaggression" survives in public discourse (at least at McGill University in Canada). Here's my speculation, dated December 13, 2013, that the word had died:

I've been working on the theory that the term "microaggression" briefly spiked to prominence and then utterly crashed with the story of the professor who was accused of "microaggression" for correcting spelling and grammar errors....

I reported a blip of usage there, but then, on January 6, 2014, after checking for signs of life, I proclaimed the term "really most sincerely dead." I've kept monitoring and today's link goes to Professor Jacobson who asserts:

“Microagression” is the latest craze in racial grievance, something we highlighted when a UCLA professor was accused of the transgression for correcting grammar on minority students’ papers.

That is, as evidence of the "latest craze," he cites the very incident that I saw as so dumb it killed any incipient craze.

By the way, the idea of microaggression is a secular version of the scrupulously religious believer's concept of sin. There are all these little wrongs you might be committing, and you should become aware of them and apply conscious effort to eliminating them. The religious person might believe that God watches and cares about these tiny infractions. The purveyors of the concept of microaggression seek to instill a conscience about the smallest things, but unlike those who define sin very broadly and call believers to seek perfection, they are shaming even those who have not yet signed on to the broad definition of what counts as wrong, and they want to enforce their strict demands through the exercise of power in this world.

Today's Phil Robertson is Justine Sacco.

Every day, apparently, somebody's got to get fired for saying something off, and since I've blogged about the Duck Dynasty flap, I've got to offer up the story of Justine Sacco, a lady no one had ever even heard of, who tweeted, got on a trans-Atlantic flight, and landed to find that during the 12 hours when she was incommunicado the internet had caught fire with outrage over a pointless, stupid remark she'd made, and #HasJustineLandedYet was trending. What a nightmare!

She joked about not getting AIDS, and she discovered she'd come down with a raging case of another disease — sudden-onset fame toxicity. There was no hope for the lady, whose specialty was actually PR, at which she was — to be fair to the company that fired her — manifestly incompetent.

Unlike Phil Robertson, Justine Sacco had no fans. She's just stranded out there, with no friends at all. It's pretty sad. One bad joke — on Twitter — and you're doomed. Will anyone dare make a joke again? Not about AIDS. Maybe not anything with a racial element that might be misunderstood. Maybe nothing that casts the speaker in the character of an absurdly insensitive lout. What else? Be careful! You never know when sudden-onset fame toxicity (SOFT) will strike.

ADDED: "Some liberal white person coming to grips with her privilege and wanting the whole world to know about it" — that's how Professor Jacobson saw the tweet. I said something similar in the comments to this post before reading that. It's actually a pretty easy joke to figure out, if you're at all inclined to read charitably. So the real question is, as Jacobson put it: "Why did so much of the Twittersphere quickly proclaim her a racist and go after her with such a blood lust?"

Jacobson's answer is: "Because it could." I'd say: There really is no "it." The whole 'sphere never does anything. But the virus of hate happens, because somebody saw something and retweeted it in a way that caught on. There was no mind at the top to exercise moral judgment about whether inflating a nonentity for the purpose of destroying her was a good idea or even minimally acceptable. It was a heartless force of nature. I call it SOFT. Human beings need to observe and see it and fight it.... while we still have minds... minds that have yet to go fully soft.

"60 Minutes had an absolutely devastating report on the Obama administration’s failure to protect Ambassador Chris Stevens and other Americans in Benghazi."

Writes Professor Jacobson, observing that "the heart of the report is that there were clear and unequivocal warnings which were ignored, and the Obama administration lied about these warnings after the attack."

Here's the video:



From the transcript:

Andy Wood: I made it known in a country team meeting, "You are gonna get attacked. You are gonna get attacked in Benghazi. It's gonna happen. You need to change your security profile.... Shut down operations. Move out temporarily. Ch-- or change locations within the city. Do something to break up the profile because you are being targeted. They are-- they are-- they are watching you. The attack cycle is such that they're in the final planning stages."

Lara Logan: Wait a minute, you said, "They're in the final planning stages of an attack on the American mission in Benghazi"?

Andy Wood: It was apparent to me that that was the case. Reading, reading all these other, ah, attacks that were occurring, I could see what they were staging up to, it was, it was obvious. We have learned the U.S. already knew that this man, senior al Qaeda leader Abu Anas al-Libi was in Libya, tasked by the head of al Qaeda to establish a clandestine terrorist network inside the country. Al-Libi was already wanted for his role in bombing two U.S. embassies in Africa.

"I have a really bad feeling about the Zimmerman verdict."

Says Professor Jacobson:

Logically, it should be a slam dunk of “Not Guilty” on all charges, since the evidence clearly shows Zimmerman was acting in justifiable self-defense as he was being beaten by Trayvon Martin. Or at least there is a reasonable doubt as to self-defense, which the law requires result in a Not Guilty verdict.

I’ve said it before, this was a case which never should have been brought, and it wasn’t. Not until a carefully orchestrated professionally managed publicity campaign based on false racial accusations, resulting in a Special Prosecutor....

I don't have a bad feeling. And I don't feel drawn to this cynicism about jury trials. I think the case has been tried on the evidence — to a sequestered jury. The racial politics and folk sociology that have permeated the media were not part of the trial, and I expect the jury to handle the case properly.

I understand the point of commentary like Jacobson's and the people on the other side as well. They're laying the groundwork for the political use of the case after we see the verdict. All the hot air about the outrage that will meet an acquittal has stirred up a need to puff about the outrage that should accompany a conviction. But are we a nation of hotheads or do we believe that we have a rule of law? If we want the jury to look at the actual relevant evidence, why don't we wait and hear the closing arguments and see what the jury does? Why anticipate lawlessness?

UPDATE: From the CNN email: "Jurors in George Zimmerman murder trial can consider lesser charge of manslaughter, judge rules."

This could take the hot air out of everyone's balloon. A manslaughter conviction. Or will everyone be unhappy... but not all that unhappy? But that's the idea of a "compromise" verdict, and in a properly functioning system, the jurors are not supposed to compromise.

The New Yorker's George Packer takes aim at Andrew Breitbart.

Some of this is interesting, but watch out for distortion:

It was fun! Telling the truth was fun, having the American people behind him was fun, fucking with the heads of nervous journalists and helping the mainstream media commit suicide was fun. Breitbart went on Real Time With Bill Maher and stood up for himself and Rush to the politically correct hometown mob of an audience, and it was an incredibly committed moment in his life. He found himself the leader of a loose band of patriotic malcontents, and right in front of him was the same opportunity that the Founding Fathers had had—to fight a revolution against the complex.

And if he happened to get an Agriculture Department official named Shirley Sherrod fired by releasing a deceptively edited video that seemed to show her making anti-white comments when in fact she was doing just the opposite—fuck it, did the other side play fair? Anyway, Old Media’s rules about truth and objectivity were dead. What mattered was getting maximum bang from a story, changing the narrative. That was why Breitbart was winning, with ample help from his media enemies, and why he must have been at least semi-sober during his college classes on moral relativism.

Just the opposite? Packer answers the question he attributes to Breitbart: did the other side play fair? Obviously not. Packer's side is playing and is playing unfairly.

ADDED: George Packer has been unfair to me (discussed here and here).

AND: Professor Jacobson details what's so wrong about Packer's "deceptively edited video."

Via Instapundit, who says: "Sorry comrade, but what you’re offering is mere bourgeois truth, concerned with tedious facts. The higher truth is 'revolutionary truth,' which is any narrative that advances the revolution."

Why was that prop so important to David Gregory?

"Yeah, asking for permission is pretty damning when you ignore what you are told directly from the law enforcement authority and do it anyway."

But what it tells us is that the prop was really, really important to Gregory. Let's think about why. He knew he was going to have NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre across the table and that he'd push him with one question after another, building the pressure. Here's how that moment looked:



You hear the tension in Gregory's voice as he's about to confront LaPierre with the prop — actually 2 props: the high-capacity magazine and then the smaller one. At the point when Gregory picks up the first prop, you see his eyes dart over to the side. He doesn't have the script memorized, but the precise text is important as he displays one prop and then the other. He need the prompter.

Of course, if this prop display is supposed to be explosive, it doesn't work, because LaPierre is good at not getting agitated. Predictably good, so Gregory's routine looks silly to me. But maybe it inflamed some people in the "Meet the Press" viewership. Maybe there were lots of folks at home going "OMG that thing is huge!!"

I'm trying to think of other examples in political/policy debates when somebody whipped out a prop for dramatic effect. Especially examples where it really worked. I remember President Clinton waggling his pen. Anything else?

ADDED: I was thinking about the value of a fetus replica for a pro-lifers, and, googling, happened upon this 3D-printed replica made from an MRI image.

UPDATE: I figured it out!

Prof. Jacobson is refraining from tokenism.

1. "I would never be so insulting as to accuse the NY Times of tokenism."

2. "I would never be so insulting as to accuse the U. Penn Political Science Department of tokenism."

3. [To be continued?]

Lawprof blogs.

Ranked by traffic.

ADDED: A poll, suggested by the fact that while I'm still #1 — on this list that doesn't include Instapundit — my page views are down 1.5% from last year, and Prof. Jacobson's are up 83.0%.

Should Althouse do things to crank up the traffic here?
	No, just keep doing your thing and whatever happens happens.
	No, it's bad form to try to increase traffic and it diminishes you.
	Yes, but only if you're into the intrinsic pleasure of playing that game.
	Yes, but only if you do it by freaking out the kind of people I don't like.
	Yes, there's a dimension of blogging that's a game, and traffic is the score. It's better to win.
	Yes, you've hit #1 and it would look bad to slip back down.
pollcode.com free polls

"Everytime I think the Democratic race card players could not get more vile..."

"... more deranged, more patronizingly demeaning to blacks, someone manages to defy even my vivid imagination."

This time, it is the Editorial Board of The Washington Post, which issued a truly amazing screed... claiming that critics of U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice are motivated by race and sex, as demonstrated by the facts that most are male and a significant percentage come from former confederate states....

It's an obvious scheme — actually, I am not amazed — to scare conservatives into believing that there are some Democrats who may not be criticized. If you accept the pushback, it will occur again and again. It's bullying, really. The key is to recognize it and confront it soundly, or it will go on and on.

Everyone holding power is open to criticism. Anyone resting on the argument that black/female politicians cannot be criticized is actually arguing that black/female individuals should be excluded from power. That is the racist argument that should be moved to the center. That is my answer to the bullying.

Professor Jacobson drops a "bombshell" on Elizabeth Warren.

And I'm only quoting the word "bombshell" because it's from someone who's been defending Warren from Jacobson's attack: "With this bombshell, I would no longer view the case against her as weak."

Grand gesticulations over things small and large.

At Drudge just now now (click to enlarge):



In the right column, we've got Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day swearing and gesticulating over his show time getting cut down to 1 minute.

In the middle column, it's Senate candidate/lawprof Elizabeth Warren:

DOES ELIZABETH WARREN HAVE A LAW LICENSE PROBLEM?

If you keep scrolling, beyond my screen grab, there's also:

... On defensive again over heritage claim

And a picture of a stink bug...



... "Feds brace for historic stink bug outbreak..."