Looks like I'm trying Threads for now. Same handle over there.

Y’all come find me over on Bluesky, same handle

I'm on Thr@@ds & Bl@@@ky these days (same handle), but thinking I should post over here once in a while to make sure my account isn't dormant

I'm over on Threads these days (same handle), but thinking I should post over here once in a while to make sure my account isn't dormant

Join us on 8/30 when a multidisciplinary group of faculty experts will discuss what's at stake in the wake of the supreme court's 2023 #affirmativeaction decision. Register here: https://t.co/BgvMIsvpjs @mariabzhu | @tmksyracuse | @SeanJDrake1 | @Lutz_Amy

I'm sticking w Threads for now. Come check it out people.

@DustinCzarny @SyracuseU @CNYSolidarity Just listened to this excellent analysis. I’m appalled by what can only be described as grooming by Rob Schenck and Leonard Leo of SCOTUS justices. @tmksyracuse

*Thomas's concurring opinion (obvious typo at top of thread)

But my main point isn't that Thomas's 30+ years of these policy arguments against affirmative action haven't persuaded me. My main point is that it's awfully convenient that his account of 19th C history leads to the exact same place

I get that this was his experience at Holy Cross & Yale, but he does know that white folks would/will do this even in the absence of affirmative action, right? And that some students of color have had a different experience (including 2 of his colleagues)?

Another policy argument from Thomas (and this one has long seemed his key motivation in these cases): Affirmative action harms all students of color because it leads white folks to doubt their accomplishments.

Thomas's dissent rests on unpersuasive originalist case for colorblindness, but as usual, he's got a lot of policy arguments in there too. E.g., this one-sided discussion of mismatch theory. Which he finds "self-evident" despite much social science evidence to the contrary

This

And OMG, this

KBJ's dissent is also just filled with subtle (or not so subtle) references to the Court's tortured history on racial equality. The one on the left here is a reference to the 1883 Civil Rights Cases; on the right, to its 1978 decision in U. of California v. Bakke

KBJ's dissent is really good on the history of racial disparities & the details of university admissions policies, but I'm also really loving her rhetorical characterizations of colorblindness as ostrich-like (and self-defeating) willful ignorance

This footnote from KBJ pinpoints a key infuriating feature of legal mobilization against affirmative action over the past 40+ years. Selective universities are obviously considering race, but conservative litigators & judges persistently mischaracterize how they are doing so

KBJ draws extensively on Katznelson & other great scholars to demonstrate how state & federal policy deliberately and for generations "affirmatively acted to dole out preferences" to white folks at the expense of Black folks

Is KBJ's opinion the first in U.S. Reports to refer to Reconstruction as a "Second Founding"?

This