Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chief Trustes Roberts has said for years that the best
way to stop discrimination is to stop discriminating. This is
the culmination of decades of cases that were very much
muddled and divided.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Jonathan Turley is brilliant and independent, and I always find
his opinion stimulating. But it's really become clear to me
he's really.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Got the uh kind of the father marquete voice from
mash you're old enough to remember that.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Kind of makes you sound thoughtful, though.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
So here's the numbers that I want you to use
as an underpinning and undergirding a floor a something for
this whole discussion about the Supreme Court justice the Supreme
Court ruling yesterday on the whole affirmative action racial preferences
colleges thing. So the Supreme Court said, no, you can't
do that anymore. Most of the mainstream media acted like,
(00:55):
oh my god, another rogue decision by a white supremacist court.
This is a horror from mayor so it's an extremist court.
So keep this in mind. Latest polling on this which
poll is this CBS News poll from just the other day.
Should colleges be allowed to consider race and admissions not allowed?
Seventy percent allowed thirty percent. It's a seventy thirty issue.
(01:21):
So why are you giving me the sad voice Terry
Moran on the ABC Evening News, like something horrible's just
happened and everyone knows it, and everyone in America agrees
with me that this is a sad, sad day. By
the way, if you if you go with the public universities,
it's seventy five percent.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
And then when you break it down, you want to
break it down by party? Should colleges be allowed to
consider racial admission admissions? Not surprising? Republicans are eighty two
to ten not allowed, but independents are seventy four to
twenty six not allowed, and even Democrats are fifty five
forty five not allowed. So well, Hey, Evening News, Washington Post,
(02:02):
New York Times, everybody, why are you acting like the
President of the United States, by the way, who we'll
hear from shortly. Why are you all acting like something
horrifying happened when even a majority of Democrats agree. Well,
I don't understand our media at all anymore.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
I need to learn a second language or something, or
study at the feet of the greatest writers alive. I've
got to find a better, more colorful way to speak
the truth to you good folks, that the media and
academia are a weird little subculture of America that are
(02:38):
full of strange beliefs, some of them sick. But because
they are the great mouthpieces of our society, everybody runs
around thinking that most people think like they do. Nobody
thinks like they do, statistically speaking, and that twenty four
percent that's in favor of it, I'd like to sit
down and have a reasonable conversation in exchange of views.
Oh but I could sway six eight percent one of
(03:00):
them in five minutes.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
Well, right, as we keep saying, what would those numbers
be if all of the media and all everything you
learned in college didn't flow opposite the majority of opinion?
So of the Democrats fifty five to forty five, they
believe you shouldn't allow race to be considered in admissions
fifty five to forty five. Well, how many of the
forty five were swayed by their college professor or the
(03:23):
Washington Post and think that's what's all good decent people think.
So I'm going to think that too if they found
out that no, the majority of Americans don't think that
you might bring over easily ten fifteen to twenty percent.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
So my friend Mike the lawyer, who will surely be
Mike the judge if there's any justice, he wrote me
a note. So I read the opinion in syllabus from
the Supreme Court yesterday. I also did a search for
how many times the word Asian appeared in the opinion. Right,
it's one hundred and four. Now what's interesting is most
of the articles I read yesterday covering this never mentioned
the word Asian at all. It just kept thing about,
(03:59):
kept talking about racism. The uninformed would read this to
just assume it's entirely a black and white thing. Interestingly,
and to their credit, the New York Times actually, among
their many pieces of journalism quote unquote about this, had
a couple of pieces that did get close to the truth,
including pointing out what Jack just did, the vast majority
(04:20):
of Americans don't think race ought to be an admission standard.
And then this piece by some or other let's see,
what's his name, I appreciate, Oh it's David French. Okay, Well,
that's why it swims against the tide of the New
York Times. To understand why Harvard lost, and why race
base affirmative action in public colleges and federally funded private
(04:40):
schools is now unlawful. It's necessary to understand two key
facts about the case. First, the evidence is overwhelming that
Harvard actively discriminated against Asian applicants. As the Chief Justice
notes in his majority opinion, a black student in the
fourth lowest academic dectyle it's the forty eight percent, had
a higher chance of admission to Harvard than an a
in the top percent. That discrimination wasn't a unique to Harvard.
(05:05):
Chief Justice Roberts makes clear the University of North Carolina,
which was a defendant and a separate but tied case,
also imposed far tougher admission standards on Asian students. Compounding
the injustice. Asian Americans were already historically marginalized, as Clarence
Thomas details in his Current Currents quote, Asian Americans can
hardly be described as the beneficiaries of historical racial advantages.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
Right and as we read this yesterday, but George Conway,
Kelly and Conway's husband, who's a political operative also he
tweeted out, Hey, people are criticizing this, keep in mind
race wasn't just a factor in the mix of these decisions.
Asian Americans were systematically denied admission because of the race.
That's why they didn't get in, and everyone should stop
(05:51):
pretending otherwise. If you had been a different race other
than Asian, you would have gotten in to the college
you wanted to get into. You didn't because of so
one thing you have no control over, which is the
definition of racism.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Agreed one hundred percent. French mentions some of the history
of racism against Asians, discrimination, et cetera, et cetera. But
I think that point's been made. But French goes on
to right as if these facts weren't bad enough. Harvard
specifically rejected alternative race blind formulations that could have achieved
comparable student diversity. As Neil Gorsich noted in his concurrence,
(06:24):
the plainness in this case submitted to evidence that quote,
Harvard could nearly replicate the current racial composition of its
student body without resorting to race based practices, if it
gave socioeconomically disadvantaged students just half the advantage it gave
to recruited athletes, and if it eliminated preferences for the
children of donors, alumni, and faculty.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Well, this is just like your opinion. Man, here's the
President of the United States weighing in.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
I know today's court decision is a severe disappointment to
so many people, including me, But we cannot let the
decision be a permanent setback for the country.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
The court. This is not a normal We can't let
this decision be a permanent setback. Even though a majority
of your own party agrees with the decision, and overall
it's seventy to seventy five percent of Americans. What are
you talking about. It's a rogue court. The court is
not supposed to decide based on public opinion anyway. But
(07:21):
the fact that the court decision is in line with
three quarters of Americans, what are you talking about?
Speaker 2 (07:29):
It is a measure, a fine, accurate measure of the
complete incompetence of the Republican Party. Well, and the bias
of the media too in academia. But that they can't
aren't just mopping the floor with the Democratic Party that
is so steeped in opinions.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
No normal people hold that they ought to lose every election.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Anyway, Got another minute. I love this article The Sulser
for the New York Times to my shockinged horror written
by a a plucky youngster. When I was in graduate
school several years ago, I spent my summers getting paid
to help Asian American kids seem less Asian. I was
a freelance tutor, helping high school students prepare for college admissidents,
(08:11):
living only a few miles from a heavily Asian part
of New York. For my first gig, on a sweltering
summer afternoon, I made my way to a cramp department
where my teenage client told me what she needed for
me to read over a college application to make sure
she didn't seem too Asian. And he laughed, thinking it
was a joke. But She's pressed on straight faced. Good
colleges don't want to let in Asians because they already
(08:33):
had too many, and if she seemed too Asian, she
wouldn't get in. She rattled off a list of friends
with stellar extracurricular sterling test scores who had been rejected
from everywhere there applied, even their quote unquote safety school.
Nearly every college admissions tutoring job I took over the
next few years would come up with a version of
the Saane Behest. The Chinese and Korean kids wanted to
(08:54):
know how to make their applications seem less Chinese or Korean.
The rich white kids wanted to know ways to see
less rich and less white, and the black kids wanted
to make sure they came across as black enough. Ditto
for the Latino and Middle Eastern kids. And the people
who are against that, people like us are the.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
Racists, right? What the hell where do you come on
down on this argument that was bubbling up a lot yesterday,
and everybody from AOC on the far left to some
of my favorite people on the right were saying, Hey, colleges,
you're bothered by the makeup of your student body, do
away with legacy admissions. Do away with the idea that
if your mom and dad went there, you get in.
(09:35):
That's why you have forty percent of white kids at
elite universities are just because their parents went there. And
like I said, everyone from AOC to people that I
like on the right, I think that that should be
done away with.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
What's your opinion on that? I have no problem with that.
I haven't spent much time thinking about it. If it's
an entirely private university, I suppose they can do what
they want.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Well, right, yeah, with private universities. But if you're gonna
c and moan about equity and the diversity and all
these different things and lectures about how our liberal lives,
why are you letting somebody in just because their parents
went there. That doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Well, that's the antithesis of fighting against systemic this and that.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
Right, Yeah, if you can't get more systemic, then's the
what's the term people use now, neppo babies?
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Some people use that term. I do not.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
Well, I just did, and I'm gonna use it again.
No sneaking stuff.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Yeah, that's that's a great argument. It's all so phony
and mobbed up in the moaning about racism. These people
who are beating their chests and yelling about it are
staunchly against school choice for black families in crappy government
school districts.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
They fight it like.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Tigers to make sure those kids don't have a choice
in their education. The problem is in kindergarten and K
through twelve. The problem isn't at the gates of freaking Harvard.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
What is more disgusted than the whole legacy emissions thing.
I mean that is like you having a house of lords.
You get to stay in Congress or whatever, you get
to do just because your family was there. And that's
gonna continue for generations, regardless of how smart this kid
is or that kid. Just because our family, our family
goes to Harvard, our family goes to Princeton. That's disgusting
(11:20):
to me.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Why the more I think about it, the more I
agree with you.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
But you're gonna keep that and scream and yell about
how awful it is to do away with the race preferences.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
So phony. One day, Black America is gonna say, as
if Black America is one thing. That was another one
of Clarence Thomas's brilliant arguments. By the way, stop quit
looking at averages and assume and and attributing the character
the qualities of the average to every individual. There's brilliant
(11:50):
people in morons. Come on anyway, ah, I was I
gonna say.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
And sometimes smart people who maybe should have gotten into
Harvard have average kids. Or because of the whole shirt sleeves,
the shirt sleeves in three generations thing, that is pretty true.
It's a really good chance your kid or grandkids they
just don't try hard enough because they come from a
privileged background.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
So why would they automatically get in. That's insane, It
doesn't make any sense at all. But it's also phony
and performative. Oh that's what I was gonna say. Someday,
the vast majority of black voters are going to say,
you know, they've been selling us these policies now for
like five generations and they haven't worked, and things still suck.
Maybe we ought to look in the other direction.