That was an extraordinary five hours at the Supreme Court yesterday—twice as long as the oral arguments were originally scheduled to last—and the longer the argument went on, the worse it seemed to get for the defenders of raced-based admissions for higher education. Maybe that was by design on the part of Chief Justice Roberts, who was sarcastic in his open scorn for what he has previously called the “sordid business” of sorting by race?

This is only one of the many aspects of the scene that Steve, Lucretia, and John Yoo break down in this special mid-week (and sadly whisky-less!) edition of the Three Whisky Happy Hour. Treating the oral arguments the way a drama critic might approach a five act stage play, we look at how the arguments from the various Justices landed, and why Chief Justice Roberts’s smackdown on the “oboe players” analogy Harvard’s lawyer offered revealed how incoherent or contradictory was the case for keeping race-based admissions forever.

It is always a mistake to make predictions of the outcome of a case from the oral arguments alone—Steve suggests waiting until the draft opinion is leaked sometime next spring before making predictions!—but we all note that it is hard to resist concluding that the Court’s deference to race-consciousness has reached an endgame.

We end on the happy note that John’s beloved hometown (Philadelphia) sports teams are have a moment right now, so we have two exit tunes to reflect on both his love for McRibb and the Eagles + Phillies.

Meanwhile, we’ll be back for our regular episode this weekend with a final look at and predictions for next week’s midterm elections.

 

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There are 3 comments.

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  1. Richard Easton Coolidge
    Richard Easton
    @RichardEaston

    This play must have made John happy. I returned from a trip and this was the play I saw when I turned on the TV.

    • #1
  2. LibertyDefender Member
    LibertyDefender
    @LibertyDefender

    The problem with Philadelphia sports fans is that they are horrible fans – from the perspective of their own home teams. Philadelphia sports fans are harsher critics of their hometown favorites than are the fans of the opposing teams.

    Try it for yourself: go to a game in Philadelphia, and try to mock a Phillie, a Flyer, or an Eagle when he screws up. Guaranteed you’ll be beaten to the punch by a home team fan, and likely more viciously than you would have been.

    • #2
  3. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    The Megyn Kelly podcast 426 interview of Andrew Klavan about this is outstanding. It makes you wonder why it took so long for society to see this more clearly. One of the reasons talked about was there is so much Democrat money and power writing on it.

    • #3
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