The ACLU Suddenly Reverses Its Support for Transparency
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The proposed bills are clearly directed at vetoing teaching of race and gender issues by manufacturing discontent. It’s not like republican lawmakers are trying to hide it - it was quite literally part of their 2020 agenda. The ACLU is not asking for _less_ transparency in schools, but _more_ transparency and accountability by lawmakers weaponising public opinion.
The case handled by the ACLU in Alabama is about constitutional rights and the separation of religion and state. It’s not remotely the same.
Again, this excludes both the political climate and the republican agenda.
In a town or city with a republican majority, these laws would enable parents to exclude any textbooks deemed “not appropriate” from children curriculum.
This would be taking control form specifically educated and vetted professionals and giving it to a group who are as a whole opinionated and uneducated as to how to transfer knowledge.
Worse yet, the most opinionated, who are strongly correlated with the worst educated or most intellectually malevolent, are the ones who would wind up in control, regardless of the left/right wing bias.
Especially when it gets politicized, it would not be long before control by the parents with veto power for any parent in the district, would result in it being literally worse to have school than to disband it and abandon schools altogether.
Come on, degrees in Education are a dime a dozen. They do not give you a specific education in the subjects you will be expected to teach, unlike an actual subject-specific major. How that can be called "professional" is beyond me.
Nevertheless, it is VERY far above the uninformed and often willfully ignorant rantings of parents, and there is some serious academic and real-world work done to improve teaching & curriculum.
While parental input should certainly be considered, as a whole, parents haven't got even the first clue of what is needed for a sound education suitable for a highly complex society. Their expressed preferences are to shut down things they don't like, ignoring all consequences. And those shut-it-down impulses come from all sides.
To reduce schooling to the lowest & loudest common denominator of parental preferences would be a disaster on the scale of societal collapse.
We have the most complex society ever in the history of at least the solar system - and it is barely runnable as things are. The only way out of this will be to maximize the intellectual capabilities and scope of every generation.
Increasing qualifications and especially requiring education in your teaching subject? Absolutely. But substituting a push for that with turning it into a "Parent's Choice Greatest Hits"? Nope, it'd likely be better to just shut it down.
Is this something US specific?
I recall that in many countries in Europe, to be certified as a high school teacher, one has to have a degree related to the area of teaching, plus a master's degree in teaching.
"If you knew what we were doing, you'd try to stop us" is not a good counterargument.
All this is, is transparency. What parents do with this knowledge is up to the parents. Should parents not be made aware of what their children are being taught?
That these people hold disagreeable or even wrong opinions doesn't make it not transparency
It's definitely not as bad as the ACLU yet, though.
13 years later, it spoke out about states banning businesses from mandating vaccinations or masks to enter their place of business. It should absolutely be within my rights as a business owner to ban an unvaccinated or unmasked patron, and it is a violation of my civil liberties for the government to ban this.
In other words, the 2008 and 2021 positions are entirely compatible.
Maybe it was the way you worded this but it surprised me. I recall that civil liberties said that businesses can’t ban people for what they look like, or if they have a beard, or a religious symbol, etc. I don’t think that changes for Covid
how is it a violation of your civil liberties? And then how is it not a violation of THEIR civil liberties?
I’m vaxxed and masked, but I think the ACLU has lost their collective heads in many ways
This is wrong. One of these isn't like the other. I expect that whole race and religion are things the aclu would defend, having a beard is not (unless it is for a religious purpose). Freedom of association is a civil liberty, and you're correct that it doesn't change for covid, but it absolutely allows a business owner to kick people out for nearly any reason (race, religion, and gender being some of the few exceptions)
I don't know if the courts have ruled on this before, but pre-covid, would you have considered a business owner kicking someone out for their health status or chicken pox vaccination status an acceptable practice? Or would you argue in the case of the patron?
I thought I did. If I didn't, I apologize, but then I wasn't clear on what exacly you were asking.
> but pre-covid, would you have considered a business owner kicking someone out for their health status or chicken pox vaccination status an acceptable practice?
I'd think its weird, I might even argue that it was morally wrong to do so. But I would still argue that it was the business owners right.
Do you think it's also within your rights as a business owner to allow unmasked and unvaccinated patrons, or to ban masks? If so, then are you upset that these civil liberties have been violated? If not, then why do you think the opposite is?
Yes
> If so, then are you upset that these civil liberties have been violated?
No, because on the balance there is a legitimate government interest in violating them, and there aren't any less-intrusive ways to accomplish the governments legitimate goals.
In other words, I'm about as upset by this as by laws that prevent me from banning black people from my store.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/02/opinion/covid-vaccine-man...
Here is the ACLU statement in opposition the SCOTUS rulings that the new york ban on church gatherings was unconstitutional
https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-comment-scotus-deci...
During the pandemic, there were many mandates that infringed personal liberty. For example, in CA the governor claimed to have the power to bar healthy people leaving their house and visiting the private homes of their lovers, friends, and family. If that's not a civil liberties issue, I don't know what is.
If I'm remembering correctly, the ACLU statement here is correct. Religious gatherings were given more leeway than other large gatherings. While obviously the 1a is important, I generally agree with the ACLU that the courts approach to religion is a bit ridiculous in terms of how much deference particularly Christianity gets. Ones religion shouldn't result in getting special treatment under the law, either bad or good.
> example, in CA the governor claimed to have the power to bar healthy people leaving their house and visiting the private homes of their lovers, friends, and family.
No he didn't. (Or at least not in any way that came with threat of government force. If I'm wrong here you should be able to find someone who faced a fine for having a party on their home).
Regarding the California mandate, this language is this certainly in the mandate (I believe December 2020) . Sheriff and counties were empowered and tasked with executing the mandates, and you are correct that they largely do not enforce this part. This does not change the fact that it was part of the executive action, in both language and intent.
https://www.kake.com/story/41973801/from-a-25000-fine-to-a-w...
This issue in particular is very interesting. I saw an article [1] which seems to indicate voter ID laws have little effect in either direction on fraud or turnout. Does that mean Democrats should "give it away" to the Republicans in exchange for something else? Or would that be dishonest?
Well, I guess this whole contest is about trading political blows, not anything to do with the real world. Even if a policy has no or positive effect, giving a win to your opponents is bad.
1: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/2/21/18230009/v...
> The lack of negative impact on voter turnout cannot be attributed to voters’ reaction against the laws, measured by campaign contributions and self-reported political engagement. However, the likelihood that non-white voters were contacted by a campaign increases by 4.7 percentage points, suggesting that parties’ mobilization might have offset modest effects of the laws on the participation of ethnic minorities.
Or in other words, the authors conclude that voting laws don't ultimately affect turnout, but that's confounded by a nearly 5% increase in GOTV efforts. While it's probably wrong to conclude that a 5% decrease in GOTV would reduce turnout by 5%, there's almost certainly some offsetting impact there.
Always take time to understand why people push strongly for a solution to a problem that isn't occurring. And usually when you do, you'll find there are second order effects that cause that group to benefit.
Looking into that gets to the root of the issue and the reason why people are correctly labeling it as anti-voter rights.
1. https://www.businessinsider.com/timothy-snyder-fears-democra...
There is almost zero voter fraud in this country. And it has been that way for decades. Do you acknowledge this? You can look back at countless research for the elections for 2020, 2016, 2012, 2008, 2004 ... As well as mid-terms.
Before discussing what we should do, we must estabilish the facts in common. This has been estabilished time and time and time again in the US over all 50 states, presidential, senatorial elections. There is absolutely miniscule voter fraud - and the very few instances over the past decades.
There have been on the order of only 50 fraudulent votes over the past two decades of elections. Yet hundreds of thousands of legitimate voters have been blocked from voting due to the new laws.
Then we get to the second question of why is ID being pushed so hard if there is no actual fraud it is preventing?
The reason is that it's being intentionally used make it easier and harder for different groups to vote. For example states have allowed gun licenses for voter id, but not college student ID. These two groups traditionally vote for different parties. Or the number of license stations and their are limited in areas that certain groups live to only being open once per month.
This is the reason for the push for the Voter ID. It provides a party with an advantage by trimming voter roles by raising the barries to get IDs specifically with groups that vote for one party over the other.
There have been less than 50 invalid votes over tens of elections over two decades, while VoterID laws have prevented hundreds of thousands of legitament people from voting. Why are we preventing hundreds of thousands of people with the right to vote from voting, to stop 50 people from voting illegally. It's not to improving election quality, becaues improving election quality would be ensuring those hundreds of thousands with the right to vote can. So blocking that many, to avoid a problem measured in the tens in not about election integrity. It's about favoring one political group over another. And the data strongly backs that up. [And if you have any data showing otherwise, please do share.]
Again, when you see a solution to a problem that isn't happening, dig in to see who benfits from that change. This rule applies to life in general.
https://www.brennancenter.org/issues/ensure-every-american-c...
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/exhaustive-fact-check-find...
https://www.pnas.org/content/118/45/e2103619118
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2021/12/07/wiscons...
How is it different?
> There is almost zero voter fraud in this country.
How can you be sure of this, since successful voter fraud doesn't get detected?
> For example states have allowed gun licenses for voter id, but not college student ID. These two groups traditionally vote for different parties.
Isn't a more reasonable explanation for this that gun licenses are issued by the government, and college student IDs are not?
In almost all European Countries there is a mandatory ID card which is issued to all citizens. So to require this ID card when voting has no effect.
It sounds like to you "voter fraud" is a vote by any "undesirable" citizen. Wouldn't it be cool if black people couldn't vote, amirite guys?
In any case, the resistance isn't against voter ID itself, it's against the policies that are inevitably put in place to make those IDs harder to obtain for supporters of one party in comparison to another. If there weren't so many recent examples of states selectively closing down polling places[0][1] then maybe you could claim with a straight face that the ID requirements won't be abused, but there is no excuse for such naivety now.
[0] https://civilrights.org/democracy-diverted/
[1] https://texasyds.org/texas-republicans-plan-to-reduce-pollin...
In New York, isn't it mandatory to show your vaccine card to go into any building that isn't your house?
> it's against the policies that are inevitably put in place to make those IDs harder to obtain for supporters of one party in comparison to another.
Which policies are these?
That doesn't prevent you leaving your house, and are people really checking the vaccine passes of friends who visit their home? I suspect the rules are much less strict than the original comment suggested.
> Which policies are these?
By making the issuance (and renewal) of IDs require attending a government building, and limiting the locations of those buildings and the times they are open, it can be made disproportionately difficult for poor and working people to obtain those IDs, just like the removal of polling places. A state can also invent entirely new types of excuses, like "paper shortages".[0]
[0] https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/590213-texas-blames...
I think the difference between being allowed to leave your house and being allowed to go into buildings that aren't your house is minor enough that the analogy still works.
> are people really checking the vaccine passes of friends who visit their home?
If bad laws are okay just because some people will ignore them, then even if voter ID is a bad law, then let's just pass it anyway and let the pollworkers ignore it.
> A state can also invent entirely new types of excuses, like "paper shortages".
If you needed that paper form to register to vote, then I'd agree that's a problem. But you don't: https://vrapp.sos.state.tx.us/index.asp
The reason I asked if people are checking vaccine passes when their friends visit them is because I don't actually believe this law exists at all, not because I think people are breaking it. It's possible that New York does require this, but if it doesn't, I think "You're prevented from accessing some non-essential buildings" isn't fairly analogized to "You can't leave your house".
> If you needed that paper form to register to vote, then I'd agree that's a problem.
If people's right to vote is contingent on the availability and non-discrimination of a web service (which can and will change without the need for any further legislation to pass) then we've already lost the battle against disenfranchisement.
To be clear, just showing the vaccine card isn't good enough. You need to show a photo ID too, to prove that you're the person the vaccine card belongs to. And how much of society is it acceptable to lock people without IDs out of if we insist that it's necessary to let people vote without one?
> non-discrimination of a web service
How is a Web version of a form more subject to discrimination than a paper one is?
I'm sure it would be possible to "accidentally" introduce bugs where the fonts don't render on older platforms (owned by poorer people), for example, and there could be some geo-IP "caching" system that ends up slowing down requests for people in certain parts of the state.
In any case, the web version doesn't have to be more subject to discrimination, just as subject to discrimination as the (selectively available) paper form already is. Also, if the party in power found that their voters were more likely to register using the online form than the paper form, you can bet they would make the paper form harder to acquire (and vice versa).
This has to be viewed in context. In these other "more civilized" countries that require voter ID, how easy is it to get a national ID? In the US, getting valid ID is complicated, requires going somewhere in person (and often for people in rural areas a significant distance) and cost. In Switzerland on the other hand, one can order a valid national ID online and receive it in the mail for free.
Perhaps, instead of asking
> How can you order a valid national ID online and receive it in the mail, while making sure that someone who's not you can't do the same pretending to be you?
Ask "If many US states, and many, to quote GP 'more civilized' countries don't use such restrictive voter ID laws, but still have essentially no voter fraud, what is the point of such restrictions?"
Like, jumping back to the US for a moment, if I handed you my driver's license and we changed the photo and description on it so that it matched my own, what could you do with that? You don't have, and can't get my SSID with that, so you can't cause financial harm to me. You could buy alcohol I guess if you were underage, but there's just not a whole lot you can do.
The same applies to the crime of voter impersonation in general. If, like, we decriminalized it entirely, I don't really expect the rate would be that high, because there's just...really no value to voting two or three times. It's not going to change anything unless lots of people do it, in which case you'd need to assume that all the people doing it are voting in the same way which is unlikely. Right like you can barely convince people that their one vote matters. Do you really think going through more than 2x the effort to vote again is going to appeal to many people?
Yes, you can order an ID card online. But part of this "order" process is to make an appointment to visit a government office where your photo, signature and fingerprints will be taken.
The problem with voter ID laws is not that they require an ID to vote. It's that they do nothing at all to address the problem of getting IDs into the hands of voters. If those same laws made IDs free, easily accessible, and gave every eligible voter enough time to get their hands on one, there wouldn't by any problem with voter ID laws. Research shows that voter ID laws in today's conditions would prevent a large number of legal voters from being able to vote. The true goal of voter ID laws being proposed right now is voter suppression.
Hasn't this already been true for years? https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/penndot-offers-fr...
> easily accessible, and gave every eligible voter enough time to get their hands on one
Is there any voter ID requirement, or even a proposal for one, that doesn't accept drivers' licenses? You can get that at 16, and most people get it well before 18, the minimum voting age.
> Research shows that voter ID laws in today's conditions would prevent a large number of legal voters from being able to vote.
Can you link to this research? In particular, is it making the assumption that people who can get an ID would just choose not to for some reason? Because I can't think of anyone who's allowed to vote but not allowed any form of ID that would let them.
No, not every law has provisions for free IDs and even when "free" IDs are offered it still costs people money https://today.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Ful...
> Is there any voter ID requirement, or even a proposal for one, that doesn't accept drivers' licenses?
Millions of Americans don't have a drivers license or any form of government issued ID http://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/legacy/d/do...
This is pretty common in elderly and disabled people who can no longer drive. They often see no reason to keep renewing a state ID. If we had a national ID card that every citizen was required to have from the time they were children until the day that they died it wouldn't as big an issue, but that's not the case. Groups that help support the elderly and disabled have been dealing with the problem for many years.
see also: https://www.aarp.org/politics-society/government-elections/i...
> You can get that at 16, and most people get it well before 18, the minimum voting age.
Most people can get an ID, but doing that might be extremely difficult. It's getting better as local governments increasingly move services online but historically the US hasn't been so great about record keeping or making the needed documents easy to get. The first time I had to get a state ID I first had to travel across the country to the county in which I was born and hand over a stack of other documents I'd spend a bunch of money and effort to get my hands on and then still pay a fee on top of it once I got back to my own state.
> Can you link to this research? In particular, is it making the assumption that people who can get an ID would just choose not to for some reason? Because I can't think of anyone who's allowed to vote but not allowed any form of ID that would let them.
This isn't new news. There are literally years of research into the problems with voter ID laws in the US but I'll link to a few studies if you'd like more information. The fact is you don't have to make it "impossible" to get an ID to make it disproportionately difficult for certain people to get one. The GOP has spent decades working to make it harder for "the wrong people" to vote in order to gain an unfair advantage. Court rulings have often found that their attempts to prevent Americans from voting were discriminatory and placed an undue burden on various groups. Even concluding at times that this discrimination was intentional. see this one for example: http://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/20141009-TXID-...
I feel our democracy depends on us doing our best to ensure that every American citizen has equal access to the polls. The laws in Texas right now are having an impact on legitimate voters there, especially with disabled voters because communications hasn't been clear, voters are confused, and the deadline for requesting mail-in ballots is weeks away. The restrictions they put in place in Texas were not balanced by the burden it would place on the Americans least able to carry those burdens and now American citizens feel their right to vote is in jeopardy and they are correct. It's disgusting that such a fundamental right is being taken from people just because the GOP thinks it will win them more elections.
For what it's worth, I'm not against ID being required to vote. I just think we need to make sure that those laws also keep things fair. Whatever the barriers to voting are, they should be as equal as possible for every American citizen who is eligible to cast a vote no matter what their race, age, area code, or income level. Anything less than that is an attack on our democracy.
Research on the topic:
http://ippsr.msu.edu/research/voter-identification-laws-and-...
https://www.bakerinstitute.org/media/files/files/e0029eb8/Po...
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21565503.2020.1...
Is this a dog whistle?
is a group that seems to fill the void left by the ACLU abandoning their previous stance of being apolitical.
ACLU's very first national chair publicly resigned over disagreement about principles, their meaning and prioritization. This was in 1940 so the notion the ACLU 'changed' now and didn't before is clearly inaccurate. You can't really have an organization like the ACLU without change. It's mostly a matter of whether you like the change or not.
Like Bari Weiss, Kenny Xu, Thomas Chatterton Williams, Andrew Sullivan, Will Reilly, John McWhorter, Abigail Shrier, Megyn Kelly, Zaid Jilani, Peter Boghossian, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Glen Loury are all people who I'd either describe as "generally conservative" or "have known clearly intolerant views against some group", whether it be immigrants, Muslims, or transgender people.
(and those are the only names I recognize, except for Angel Eduardo who I know nothing about except that he's been criticized by people I follow on Twitter for being a part of FAIR).
It's really, really, really hard to believe that an organization claiming to be against "racism and intolerance" is apolitical, when there's no notable left-of center representation on its board, and a good 10-20% of its board members are notable primarily because of their intolerance towards certain groups.
Like you could perhaps make the argument that this group is devoted very, very specifically to free speech and I'd believe you. But "intolerance", no. Those two things are fundamentally at odds.
Take Kenny Xu, how do you justify categorizing him as "racist and intolerant"? Is the idea that college admissions should not discriminate on the basis of race really so abhorrent?
That said, Xu specifically just very much is a conservative. He self-identifies as conservative and positions himself in opposition to the left, he's worked for conservative groups like the YAF and The Federalist, and generally holds conservative positions (like on Abortion: https://thefederalist.com/2019/02/01/new-yorks-barbaric-abor..., as well as immigration and vaccination if you look at his twitter). Like, he's I'd argue more conservative than most of the people I listed (or at least more explicitly so).
But you asked specifically about him being racist and intolerant. And that deserves a slightly deeper dive. Part of the issue is that you're framing him based on one of his most moderate positions. Yes, Xu thinks that affirmative action is problematic. If that were his only thing I think you'd have a reasonable point, but it isn't. He's not just anti-affirmative action, he's strongly anti-CRT (https://twitter.com/kennymxu/status/1481295452804898820, which amusingly misrepresents CRT) and generally against diversity and inclusion period.
[aside: so much of his twitter content is just completely making up positions and then being outraged about them. Like I'm not saying that CRT or progressives approach to race is "right", there's enough debate within those groups that that's clearly silly. But Xu doesn't actually engage with any, he just argues with positions he makes up]
More specifically, he tweets stuff like https://twitter.com/kennymxu/status/1480674815283400708 and https://twitter.com/kennymxu/status/1484930804425838594, the first is some mild transphobia and I have a hard time coming up with a not-racist explanation for the second.
Like his worldview seems to be that "Black culture" is bad while mainstream US culture is good, and that therefore it is black cultures responsibility to better integrate. But further recognition of good things within Black culture, or even help integrating, are anti-meritocratic and therefore harm Asian people (and further, that this harm is racist, which is circular). He even essentially says as much explicitly : https://twitter.com/kennymxu/status/1483282964272365574, equivocating "diversity" with "anti-Asian racism".
At the point where you're arguing that all attempts to improve diversity and inclusion are bad, I think it's fair to say that you're intolerant. I think that when so much of that intolerance is based around race, racism is a reasonable conclusion to draw.
The notion that disapproving of racial discrimination against all races (as opposed to exclusively those categorized as "diverse") is a contorted attempt to try an portray an anti-discriminatory position as intolerant and anti-black.
And lastly, you should read the links you're posting. For instance, the post on abortion is about a proposed law expanding the ability to receive third trimester abortions. To oppose this isn't restricting abortion, it's maintaining the status quo in an already liberal state.
That is the Motte yes. The Bailey is that attempts to improve it are "appalling"[0]. And that Black and Hispanic students don't deserve to attend top schools[1], and that racism in medicine doesn't harm patients[2].
> there are plenty of organization that have a diverse workforce without engaging in racial discrimination. Google, for instance, is majority minority.
But Xu criticizes these organizations for not being diverse enough![1] And further criticizes them for not taking the lack of Asian representation seriously enough (which is one of those made-up positions I mentioned).
> And lastly, you should read the links you're posting. For instance, the post on abortion is about a proposed law expanding the ability to receive third trimester abortions. To oppose this isn't restricting abortion, it's maintaining the status quo in an already liberal state.
I didn't say it was. I said he held a generally conservative position on abortion, which is true.
[0]: https://twitter.com/kennymxu/status/1484263210404532236
[1]: https://twitter.com/kennymxu/status/1478573189861158916
[2]: https://twitter.com/kennymxu/status/1483482063047208973
[3]: https://twitter.com/kennymxu/status/1484218869699026954
This is a false dichotomy. There are ways to improve inequality that aren't racial discrimination in admissions, hiring, etc. His stance is that these institutions should be non-discriminatory. The right way to address unequal SAT scores between Asians and Blacks, for instance, is to help the latter score just as well. Not to respond to systemic racism with to the soft racism of low expectations. His examples for this are Jamie Escalante's efforts in East LA. Help the disadvantaged by actually improving their skills such that they can be equal, not by using inequality to create a false sense of fixing the problem.
Certaintly, conservatives disproportionately have this belief. But plenty of liberals do, too. California, for instance, recently defeated a ballot initiative to make affirmative action legal again by a significant margin (~60% against). And this is a state that saw more than twice as many people vote democratic than republican in 2020. It's not that I disagree that Xu opposes affirmative action, it's that I don't agree that opposition to affirmative action is enough to categorize someone as conservative.
> But Xu criticizes these organizations for not being diverse enough![1] And further criticizes them for not taking the lack of Asian representation seriously enough (which is one of those made-up positions I mentioned).
No, he's saying that they have a significant racial disparity between their executives and their workforce. A non-discriminatory workforce would have are more equal representation between workers and leadership.
> I didn't say it was. I said he held a generally conservative position on Abortion, which is true.
And I'm saying it's not a generally conservative opinion. Generally, conservatives are against abortion across the board, not merely thirs trimester abortions. Again, I think you're earnest in your categorization, but that says more about how exclusive and narrow your category of "liberal" really is.
40% of self-identified conservatives support first-trimester abortions (see the table at the end of https://news.gallup.com/poll/235469/trimesters-key-abortion-...). I think its weird to claim that my categorization is narrow when I'm explicitly broadening the definition of conservative compared to you, and not treating conservatives as a monoculture?
> No, he's saying that they have a significant racial disparity between their executives and their workforce. A non-discriminatory workforce would have are more equal representation between workers and leadership.
Right, he criticizes these organizations for not being diverse enough [at the executive level].
> Help the disadvantaged by actually improving their skills such that they can be equal, not by using inequality to create a false sense of fixing the problem.
Sure, this sounds great, but then he criticizes any way to actually accomplish this. Do you fund worse performing schools better so that they can hire better teachers? No, that's anti-Asian racism because it draws funding and teachers from the better perming schools. Do you allow some lower performing people into good schools on the assumption that they've been underserved and that they'll catch up? No, that's affirmative action. If your solution relies on one-in-a-million teachers fixing the problem, you're totally willing to let the inequality persist.
> His stance is that these institutions should be non-discriminatory.
And this begs the question about what "nondiscrimintary is" in a way that Xu never engages with. Is Harvard accepting lower SAT scores for black people "soft racism of low expectations", or is it the reverse: that lower scoring Black students will be able to perform just as well as their higher scoring peers once they're placed in an environment that gives them the resources to thrive?
And to be clear, I don't really think it's wrong per say to, after thinking about that, decide that yes, that is discriminatory in a bad way. My problem is more that Xu doesn't even begin to engage with these questions. His position begins and ends with "anything that benefits Black people at the expense of Asian people is unjust", which presumes that we have perfectly just systems today (or that they're just enough that it isn't worth harming one group to fix the injustice).
Edit:
> Not to respond to systemic racism with to the soft racism of low expectations.
Also amusingly, by acknowledging that systemic racism exists, you're doing more than Xu does. This is goes along with my broader point that he doesn't actually engage with the other side here, and instead when challenged misrepresents. He characterizes "systemic racism" as something that can't exist because it would require a sort of racist cabal, which is just directly in opposition to how the term is defined.
I'm not sure how this is supposed to help your argument. If anything it proves my point: the majority of conservatives don't even support first trimester abortions. So opposing expansion of third trimester abortion in a state that already has liberal abortion laws is hardly to be seen as an indicator of a particularly conservative stance.
I could keep engaging with this, but ultimately I think we're getting in the rut of a fundamentally different view on what counts as "conservative". I don't doubt that you earnestly view Xu and those other authors as conservative, but by that metric so are the bulk of liberals.
Fundamentally, the point I was making was that Xu was conservative on basically every issue you mentioned (except guns, which I don't think he has a stance on), and this is clearly true. If you read the article in full, it's clear that Xu is pro-life.
You seem to be doing this thing where you take any situation where he presents a moderate position as better than a left one and use those to claim he's moderate. But this is weird, because there are lots of places he suggests we move right a lot, and even in the other cases, he's not arguing that we only move right a little, he's arguing we should move at least a little right. He's always in favor of more conservative options, and there aren't really cases where he argues in favor of less conservative options.
https://www.fairforall.org/about/board-of-advisors/
Quite an overlap with the U of Austin crowd:
https://www.uaustin.org/board-of-advisors https://www.uaustin.org/founding-trustees