RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.city-journal.org/article/will-scotus-revisit-discriminatory-admissions-policies

n February, the U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari in Coalition for TJ v. Fairfax County School Board, a case that concerned a change in admissions policy at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJ) in Alexandria, Virginia. After the new policy took effect, the share of Asian students admitted to TJ, one of the nation’s top public high schools, dropped by nearly 20 percentage points from the previous year. The share of white, black, and Hispanic students, by contrast, increased. As it turns out, this had been the goal of education officials in Fairfax County all along. At an October 2020 meeting, TJ’s own principal revealed that she wanted a “student body that more closely aligns with the representation in Fairfax County Public Schools.”

Justice Samuel Alito described the majority’s refusal to hear the case as “hard to understand.” In 2007’s Parents Involved v. Seattle School District, the Supreme Court held that a school district’s interest in racial balancing could not justify the district’s use of race in selecting students for admission to public high schools. In 2023’s Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, the court struck down the use of racial preferences in college admissions. Neither decision, however, addressed admissions policies that—like TJ’s—are race-neutral on their face but race-conscious in aim and effect. Thus, “TJ offers a roadmap,” Alito warned, “for other selective schools to skirt the Equal Protection Clause.”

The Supreme Court has a second chance to remind education officials that “eliminating discrimination means eliminating all of it,” as Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in Students for Fair Admissions. Last month, the Boston Parent Coalition for Academic Excellence—a group of parents and students who support merit-based admissions and improving K–6 education—asked the justices to examine the 2021–22 admissions policy for Boston’s three selective public high schools. This policy, while facially race-neutral, diminished the share of white students (from 33 percent to 24 percent) and Asian students (from 21 percent to 16 percent) at Boston Latin School (BLS), Boston Latin Academy (BLA), and John O’Bryant School of Mathematics and Science (O’Bryant). As in Fairfax County, the Boston School Committee adopted the new admissions policy because it believed Asians (and whites) were “overrepresented.”

https://www.jns.org/protesters-at-penn-seek-clash-police-refuse-to-clear-encampment/

As tensions escalate at a Gaza Solidarity Encampment at the University of Pennsylvania, administrators are taking a dialogue and de-escalation approach, possibly because they have no choice.

U. Penn asked the Philadelphia Police Department (PPD) to dismantle the encampment, but the police refused, the student-run Daily Pennsylvanian claimed on May 2.

Police asked that the university first provide proof that the encampment “presents an imminent danger,” reported the paper, citing a source familiar with the matter.

If accurate (and the Philadelphia police refused to confirm or deny the report), it suggests the PPD is creating a new standard for enforcing the law. As the university points out, “The encampment itself violates the university’s facilities policies.”

In response to JNS requests for clarification, the police said, “We do not publicly discuss specific planning or engagement strategies related to ongoing situations. Our response will be based on the specific circumstances of each situation.”

The office of the interim university president was also vague, telling JNS, “We have reached out to the City of Philadelphia to ensure we have the necessary resources to keep our community safe. The Mayor’s Office has asked for more information, and we are providing it.”

The protesters may have sympathy among senior public officials. Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, a George Soros-funded DA sharply criticized for his soft-on-crime policies, visited the protesters three times, saying the purpose of his third visit on May 2 was “to find out what the truth is.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/mit-scraps-diversity-statements-in-faculty-hiring-process-after-discovering-they-dont-work/

MIT will no longer require diversity statements in its faculty-hiring process, making it the first elite university to abandon the practice.

The decision was made by MIT president Sally Kornbluth, with support from the school’s provost and six academic deans, a spokesperson told National Review on Sunday afternoon.

“My goals are to tap into the full scope of human talent, to bring the very best to MIT, and to make sure they thrive once here,” Kornbluth said in a statement provided to NR. “We can build an inclusive environment in many ways, but compelled statements impinge on freedom of expression, and they don’t work.”

Higher-education writer and researcher John Sailer first reported Kornbluth’s statement for UnHerd on Sunday. MIT previously required diversity statements across its academic disciplines, including its nuclear-science and engineering department.

The campus climate at MIT and Korbluth herself came under intense scrutiny when she testified before Congress last year and struggled to say definitively if calls for genocide against Jews violated campus policies. She testified alongside former University of Pennsylvania president Liz Magill and former Harvard University president Claudine Gay about the explosion of campus antisemitism following Hamas’s civilian massacre in Israel.

During her testimony, Kornbluth said she does not believe “speech codes” work to promote an environment of free expression on campus.

Magill resigned shortly after she gave similar testimony to Kornbluth’s regarding campus antisemitism. Similarly, Claudine Gay resigned in disgrace after her congressional testimony on antisemitism and a plagiarism scandal that implicated much of Gay’s academic output.