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Wokedom Doomed? Liberation, Ho!
Judge James Ho of the Fifth Circuit has announced he will no longer accept any clerks from Yale Law School because the cancel culture there is (a) out of control and (b) that mindset is entirely contradictory to the spirit and substance of American law. Unstated (but I will bravely infer) is the additional fact that such people are likely to be unpleasant to have around.
Reportedly, other federal judges are joining the Yale law boycott. Is the resistance awakening? Can wokedom survive without full command of high-influence positions in society? More importantly, will SCOTUS start the dominoes falling later this year?
Graduates of prestige universities dominate the faculties of all colleges in almost every field. Graduates of elite law schools are even more dominant as law professors and especially in coveted positions of federal court clerkships I don’t know if it is still true but a Yale Law alumnus told me that in the 1980s and 1990s, over 80% of Yale Law graduates were offered clerkships at federal courts and state appellate courts upon graduation. There is no more prestigious credential on a young lawyer’s resume than that.
The entire American middle and upper middle class continue to put up with woke asininity at prestige universities solely because of the perception that these schools are the gatekeepers for professional success and advancement. Keep your head down, do whatever the DEI people say, and get that sheepskin. Woke universities already require loyalty oaths and indoctrination in ideologies expressly inimical to the patriotism, religion, and moral culture of virtually all American families and do so without losing applicants.
I sometimes wonder if Princeton, Stanford, et al.. suddenly favored only those applicants who were members of Hitler Youth, how many American suburban parents would enroll their kids in Hitler-Jugend without hesitation? But if the high-priced schools no longer control entry to higher-paying professions, won’t their customers balk at the offensive nonsense they impose?
Can colleges continue to crush out quality?
Jonathan Haidt, prominent NYU social scientist and co-author of the outstanding book The Coddling of the American Mind, has resigned from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology because they now require a quasi-loyalty oath—speakers and paper presenters must provide a statement in advance as to how that content advances diversity, equity, and inclusion. Haidt is a classic (pre-woke) political liberal who makes his arguments with facts, reason, and data. I did not agree with every take in Coddling, but I respected the substance and fair-minded tone of the book. I am so old I can remember when there were once a lot of guys like that in academia and political debates could be informative and civil.
Now that the radicals are squeezing out people like Haidt and the kind of academic excellence he represents, can universities still pretend to offer value? Will we really see another generation of baristas with six-figure tuition debt for [race/sex/whatever] “studies” degrees? How much longer will Americans continue to tolerate the ongoing fraud perpetrated on the middle class? My guess is not long.
Will HR departments become sane?
What if we were to start seeing something like this on a company careers tab on their website where the usual boilerplate about diversity takes a turn:
[Company name] is proud of our service to all of our customers whose demographic diversity mirrors that of our community here in [Main/HQ location] and the USA as a whole. Similarly, our own team is drawn from every segment and includes committed people who respectfully differ in religion and politics but are united in their respect for one another, in our shared commitment to excellence in service to our customers and in our willingness to be energetic participants in bettering our communities.
Because we insist on an atmosphere of mutual respect, we are not interested in candidates who evince bias or hostility toward others based on group identity, creed or political beliefs. If you are inclined to call for the exclusion, silencing or firing of others based on political or ideological beliefs you don’t like, you are not a good fit for [Company name]. We want smart, honest, creative, energetic people whose first instinct in dealing with others is to find common ground and build on it. If instead, your first impulse is to judge, accuse or divide, we would prefer you apply to one of our competitors.
Instead of sniffing out Trumpian tendencies, HR departments would be more productive if they were to start filtering out cancel-culture zealots. (Corporate training should include the mandatory reading of Darkness at Noon to remind CEOs that the revolution always devours its own — appeasement is a fool’s errand.)
Is a big push in the works at SCOTUS?
This year, in the UNC and Harvard cases, SCOTUS will likely eliminate the “diversity” dodge that allows racial quotas and discrimination to be brazenly inserted into college admissions and by implication, hiring. This will have enormous repercussions.
First, as the rearguard actions by college wokerati administrators fail in the face of sustained litigation assaults, a small flood of merit-valuing, heavily Asian students will come to elite campuses with zero white guilt or victim mindsets. The second that deference to DEI stops being mandatory, the regime collapses.
Second, if students are admitted on merit, the need for DEI commissars drops because they were initially established to deal with the problem of underqualified minority students admitted via ”diversity” criteria who then often get hammered in highly competitive academic programs. Funneling those kids into less competitive (and far less valuable) “studies” majors to their career detriment, as documented by Sanders and Taylor, also cynically provides cover for college administrators who would rather not confront the broad injury of those admission policies. The entire corrupt system is ripe for a fall.
If congressional Republicans were smarter than I think they actually are, instead of passively allowing the end of affirmative action to be seen by African-Americans as a tragedy and assault on their well-being, there would already be a loud, detailed, sustained push to support an Opportunity Culture including charter schools, and skill-building. Democrats have provided quotas, crime, anger, dependency, cronyism, squalor, and crowded jails. Isn’t it time for programs and incentives designed for entry into the real economy and a better life? Shouldn’t that argument be in place before SCOTUS drops the hammer on the race-hustle industry rather than a belated reaction?
The revolution against the wokerati will happen sooner than many expect. Why not advance the end of woke racial politics with the replacement of the old Great Society catastrophe that was its original foundation? Conservatives should begin to project more confidence in the coming victory against wokeness and start building and sharing a vision of what a post-woke society can be. There is nothing more American than optimism in the face of challenges created by totalitarian ideas.
Published in General
This is extremely surprising and thus very encouraging. However, where else but law might logic and reason be so important as to override the banalities of Wokeism and the cancel culture? Unfortunately, I don’t have much hope that this true awakening will gain much traction beyond the environment of law. I wish, but don’t see, that this were a doom for Wokedom more broadly.
Damn.
If this keeps up, I may begin to think my optimism is justified.
Can Colleges continue to crush out quality? – Of course they will (assume crush = destroy)
Will HR Departments Become Sane? Not for a long time yet. There needs to be a significant event to change this.
Is a Big Push in the Works at SCOTUS? Depends. If they are really worried about a culture of leaks then i guess so. Otherwise each side will have their own “push”.
Huh, my cousin was head of admissions at UNC until about 4 years ago. He was all about keeping student tuition and fees as low as possible. I guess they’ve changed focus.
I’m thinking one part of that may have to be replacing a lot of women in HR with men.
I suspect that the government and law will get involved and stop this type of thing. Can’t see it being allowed to continue.
Yes. Republicans should be ready with their short, sweet argument amounting to “affirmative action is unnecessary: I believe in the potential and capacity of black Americans.” The longer version can cite the incredible achievements of black Americans made prior to affirmative action and, indeed, in the teeth of genuine systemic racism. One can also refer to the ability of black Americans to excel in the two industries in which affirmative action is not operating, and talent and plain, persistent hard work are required, namely sports and entertainment.
Well, professional sports, at least. Maybe. For the time being. But not entertainment.
The other side fully understands that there is a tipping point looming and that this tipping point has to be nipped in the bud.
Sure, they already know they have enough votes to keep the US Senate a Democrat-run body, if not legally but then by the same illegal methods that were used in 2020.
But the fact remains that right now, news releases on video tape, which once allowed for public comment on youtube and other media platforms, now exclude commentary. Why? Because those in charge of woke-ism simply are no longer popular.
To bolster the idea of a tipping point, let’s look at the results of a recently released Rasmussen poll regarding our elections. The question pollsters asked people involved if they thought cheating had occurred in Nov ’20. The results showed that some 75% of Republicans believed that it had. But there were a full 35% of all Democrats who believed that also.
Because of the fear of this tipping point overturning life as we know it, measures that smack of an on coming holocaust are looming. When people like Dr Simone Gold are arrested, offered a show trial and then convicted – for the crime of simply walking through the US Capital – it is time for all Republicans, all 3rd party voters, & all libertarians to wake the hell up.
The Jan 6th crowd is currently rotting in jail. Several in that group are now facing unimaginably long prison terms. A former US President has had an illegal search and seizure occur at his home. One of his associates, a businessman who sells pillows but has also put vast monetary resources into examining our electoral deficiencies, is now under the gun as well.
The PTB even are making noises about Roger Stone once again.
I sleep okay at night but only because I already faced these pressures back in the 1990’s. My household had a phone that was being tapped without a warrant. I told my father, when he called with the news a friend of his in the FBI had confirmed that the phone was tapped, that since there was nothing I could do about it, I simply put the matter out of mind.
But what I am not prepared for is a coming onslaught of arrests of any and everyone who is a thorn in the side of the CCP-run Dem party.
Sure only the more prominent people will be taken away first. For instance, high on the list would be Tucker Carlson, White Supremacist. Joe Rogan, Sharyl Attkisson, Kid Rock and others who are noisy about the truth could go as well.
Meanwhile our former friends & friendly neighbors on the Left bleat out their self-reassuring nonsense that only “the trouble makers” and “extremists” would be made to suffer. This parallels the 1930’s situation in Germany, where many poor Jews were led to believe only the rich Jews would suffer, while many of the rich Jews believed the reverse.
The consensus at National Review seems to be that Judge Ho’s gesture is useless at best and counterproductive at worst. So I’m all in.
No government funds for universities or university students. Simple. Clear. Transformational.
Amy Coney Barrett:
Just spit balling here…but we still don’t know the identity of the SCOTUS leaker, even though the suspect pool should be pretty small. Maybe someone (or more) from Yale is too high on the suspect list to make taking any Yale grads as clerks safe to a judge who cares about confidentiality over politics
Newt Gingrich was on Charlie Kirk yesterday. He was recommending replacing the word “woke” with the word “weird”.
It’s about halfway in.
Clearly we don’t know whether they can steal enough votes to hold both houses. If not we have one set of strategies to follow, but if they can hold both houses, then what? And how do we deal with the Chinese who run Biden and with our military that is led by Biden appointed political generals. Do we know what’s in store for us?
First, I’m pretty sure you got the acronym for Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity wrong: DIE!
Second, that’s some pretty optimistic extrapolation you’ve got going there from the actions of a handful of judges. Have you seen what’s happening in public schools??
I’m visiting my large extended family this week and catching up with the families of my siblings (none of whom attended Yale). I was just commenting to Mr. C that we know precisely one young person in this age group who is pro-life and it’s our daughter (one of two), and who doesn’t consider (pro-)abortion to be the top voting issue. This extends to most of our kids’ friends as well.
I’ve been meaning to write a post with the title: Excellence is Not White Supremacy, referring to moral, academic, and artistic excellence. But, we live in a society where objectivity about what excellence is has been overcome by the tyranny of (moral) relativism (PBXVI). It’s way deeper than lousy admissions policies of the Ivies.
The admissions policies are less problematic than the exit policies, at least according to some judges.
Both my kids went to and were graduated from UNC-CH. Both white, heterosexual, with very good grades and test scores. I guess my question to you is whether your cousin had his staff also focused on tuition/fees, or he if left the screening to them (however each admissions officer did so) and he handled the fight for low tuition? If he left the screening to them, what guidelines/criteria did he set for them? Seems like that would be an important part of his job, even if he were focused on keeping costs low.
If there were awards for White Supremacist of the Year (excellence, math skills, grounded in (real) American history and western culture) I think Asian-American kids would likely win most of the time.
Exactly.
I’ve known HR organization that were very useful–helpful to line management (me, for instance) and also a good influence on fairness to employees. It seems that this kind of HR group is now pretty rare, as the function has become more of a police force.
And yes, these good HR organization did include a reasonable representation of women, though there were also men.
I haven’t worked any place with a separate HR department since maybe the 1970s, but aren’t they almost all exclusively women now?
I really doubt wokism is going to end. But this is a good gesture.
Hey if they want to self-select/segregate into a failure quorum, I don’t mind.