There is a curious resolution of a civil right complaint against University of Minnesota Law School over a diversity fellowship sponsored by the law firm of Jones Day. Despite being created by a law firm and administered by a law school, the fellowship violated federal law in excluding white and male applicants. The law school finally threw in the towel, but there remains an uncertainty over whether the school is engaging in a subterfuge by opening up the scholarship while retaining its original purpose.
The Jones Day Diversity Fellowship launched in December 2022 to extend full tuition for three years at the law school. The scholarship also allows the recipient to work as a summer associate at Jones Day, one of the most sought-after firms for summer employment. The firm website maintains that “We aggressively pursue hiring, retaining, and developing lawyers from historically underrepresented groups and backgrounds.”
Various conservative sites have slammed the diversity fellowship, which was the subject of a civil rights complaint by Adam Kissel.
The September 2023 complaint to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) is now closed following a settlement to drop any “preference based on race or sex.”
The question is what difference the settlement will make in actual awards.
Law schools have been accused of “gaming the system” on admissions criteria for years to circumvent federal law and governing cases on the use of race or gender. Those concerns only increased after the Supreme Court categorically rejected the use of race in admissions in Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College and Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. University of North Carolina.
Critics are still unclear on how Jones Day and Minnesota Law School will achieve its diversity goals without applying such a preference, even if the applications are not limited on the basis of race.
The university maintains that it will not impose threshold exclusions of whites and males but will select applicants “based on their commitment to enhancing diversity and inclusion” and “whose life experiences bring unique, extraordinary, or other fresh perspective to campus, including first generation college graduate and students from socioeconomically challenged backgrounds.'”
This is a recurring complaint for Minnesota. It came under fire last May when the Office of Undergraduate Students created a paid internship program application to only non-White applicants.
The question going forward is whether there is a viable basis to challenge the program on an “as applied” theory. If white males continue to be excluded, the challengers could return to allege that nothing changed beyond the language.
Anti-White Racism and anti-male sexism in Minnesota
Curious to know if there is a salary gap between entry level POC attorneys when compared to entry level POP (persons of pallor) attorneys?
Can’t speak to the attorneys or their salaries, but I worked at Jones Day for a short while, legal assistant. They’re a pretty stuck up las firm. They spend a lot of money on impressive office space!
Why aren’t there people being fired?
I worked as a legal assistant for 35 years, biggest law firms in America. The ONLY time I saw an attorney fired was when he turned in a half finished document and snuck out the back door to play golf.
Being a UMN alum (PhD 2005, Health Services Research, Policy, and Administration), it would not surprise me to see the school resort to subterfuge to continue the program. Despite being in one of the few departmental islands of non-leftist nonsense at the U, one still saw a plethora of identity-segregated graduation ceremonies, mandatory student fees that paid for the MPIRG and a host of identity-politics infused student organizations, etc.
Congress investigated law schools in 1959, after they found out professors were teaching how to subvert the courts. This is their report.
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP91-00965R000400320036-3.pdf
Self policing doesn’t work
Again, worked in corporate litigation for 35 years, major law firms, just a legal assistant but honestly many Harvard lawyers admitted the work was way too difficult, that’s why they hire litigation assistants, because we sometimes draft and compile documents, serve them, collect judgments, handle clients, We do the leg work. We sometimes train new hire lawyers who are mystified and overwhelmed with the gravity of the work. In all my experience, it takes years for new hires to grasp a handle on the cases. They usually do a lot of reading and research and start to wonder why on earth they went to law school. A lot quit. So diversity or no, they are all in the same boat. If they can hack it. It’s a tough profession. Maybe in law school they get the idea that it’s an easy job. They are dead wrong.
“It’s the [merit], stupid!”
– James Carville
__________________
Minnesota is incoherent and hysterical, which must be excised with extreme prejudice and replaced by logic, rationality, and serenity.
End federal aid to colleges
End Middle East and Chinese aid to universities.
Congress has no power to tax for education.
The judicial branch and Supreme Court must strike down federal aid to colleges.
I think they will still cheat.
The headline is misleading. Should say:
Minnesota Law School Drops [Overt] Exclusion of Whites and Males from Diversity Scholarship
I Have tried to communicate with JONATHAN TURLEY . How can I do that. I have a strong case, civil rights case against the VA and OIG investigation. Please contact me at julyelashjul@comcast.net to send full case information. Please I need help on that and will will see the despair of this Veteran.
Thank you
Disparate Impact! lets see the stats before and after and see if they have complied. If the white, or Jewish etc percentage is not as in the population as a whole sure them for disparate impact. Use their won tactic against them!
(will select applicants “based on their commitment to enhancing diversity and inclusion” and “whose life experiences bring unique, extraordinary, or other fresh perspective to campus, including first generation college graduate and students from socioeconomically challenged backgrounds.’”) This is exactly what their official doctrine was but now it is just worded in a way to obfuscate their true objective. We see it for what it is and they know that we see it as such and they are taunting us with “and just what are you going to do to stop us?” That question and how the right responds, will determine our nation’s future as this sort of action is happening everywhere that a prog has his foot in the door. They will intimidate with the power of all their legion of legal and media power until we either knuckle under or finally present a virile resistance that removes that power. What will it be America?
There are many institutions that ask an applicant how his selection or hiring will enhance “diversity and inclusion.” This is an odious question, and it presumes a required answer that anyone with more than a room-temperature IQ can see. So the white male applicant must lie, grovel, and regurgitate the required intersectional orthodoxy, or the favored minority can emphasize his oppressive “life experiences” with his sense of entitlement. The status of the “oppressed” will trump the groveling male caucasian every time. The white male applicants will continue to be excluded while the university pretends to be unbiased or color blind. Different rhetoric, different public relations, the same discriminatory/racist result. What’s a trivial little thing like a contrary Supreme Court decision among our priestly academic class.
Hey Joe Biden,
“How’s that lowering the temperature thing going?” @redsteeze
In line with the overt racism of the U of M, there is this!
The “Black Mayors’ Coalition on Crime” gathered this week in Memphis, Tennessee to discuss the dangers of crime across the US, as well as apparent solutions to the growing threat. The question is, was the meeting really about stopping crime, or, was it all about maintaining optics and making the public believe crime is going down when it’s not?
It’s difficult to say because public and media access to the event was strictly limited.
“There are the obvious ironies to mention here, including the fact that many of these mayors supported far-left measures to defund police departments, only to quietly remove those measures a few years later. Then there’s the plethora of statistical tricks used by city politicians to hide real crime data.
This includes greatly reduced prosecution and conviction rates; in many Democrat controlled cities the conviction rate is less than 5 out of every 100 arrests. From 2018 to 2023, conviction rates dropped over 58%, and convictions sharply declined specifically from 2020 onward. From 2011 to 2021 prison populations dropped over 22%, despite the fact that criminal activity increased over the same period.
The less prosecutions, the less convictions, the lower the crime stats. It’s that simple. Democrats have also taken advantage of a change in the FBI criminal reporting policies which was conveniently initiated in 2020. Because of this change, numerous US cities will not be reporting full numbers to the FBI until 2025. This is why the FBI recently reported a “drop” in violent crime nationally – Because they don’t have complete statistics.
Then of course there’s the disproportionate number of crimes committed by minorities in these same cities. Black on black crime rates in places like St. Louis are stunning. Studies from 2022 show that 92% of homicide suspects and 86% of victims in St. Louis and St. Louis County were black. Around 84% of them were repeat offenders. Blacks make up 43% of the population in that region.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/black-mayors-hold-national-meeting-rising-crime-discussion-closed-public
I think it was Reagan who said, “Trust but Verify”. A more complete reading of stories of this “throwing in the towel”, strongly suggest it is just a misdirection play. They’ve changed the words but the whole stinking edifice remains.
You (applicant) also would have to commit to a political objective “based on your commitment to enhancing diversity and inclusion”. So they have made a commitment to enhancing and prolonging their political manifesto rather than seeking to enhance the growth and success of individuals who would likely never have had the chance, otherwise.
Brings new meaning to the “Go forth and be fruitful and multiply” with the caveat “but only if you preach our message and no other”. Not exactly a Clarian call to a pluralistic society.
Trust, but verify (Russian: доверяй, но проверяй, tr. doveryay, no proveryay, IPA: [dəvʲɪˈrʲæj no prəvʲɪˈrʲæj]) is a Russian proverb, which is rhyming in Russian. The phrase became internationally known in English after Suzanne Massie, a scholar of Russian history, taught it to Ronald Reagan, then president of the United States, the latter of whom used it on several occasions in the context of nuclear disarmament discussions with the Soviet Union.
Personally, I think it is great advice to parents.
Lots of good firms out there besides Jones Day. Perhaps it’s time for some of those deep pockets to move on
Mighty white of them. Maybe white males from poor backgrounds or suffering disabilities will get a shot but I doubt it. Not politically expedient in our mad world.
How about law schools admit based on (1) applicant’s transcript leading to a B.A. in any field of study that has existed more than 25 years, (2) the LSAT and (3) a 5,000 word writing sample.
Woke racists through and through. Instead of building bridges through diversity, enforced mediocrity instead of merit is bringing them down.
Mediocracy is all that most of the prog/left is capable of. They are scared sh*tless that their DEI crowd couldn’t pass even the most watered down SAT test much less not need such trite as Grammarly to compose a mere application essay. They know the truth about the majority of the class raised on “the Great Society” legislation and it has finally come to roost and will destroy this nation.