Category Archives: Civil Rights

A Tale of Two Governors

Posted on September 12, 2023 by | 98 comments

by Kerry Dougherty

Why is anyone surprised that the governor of New Mexico has decided that a spike in crime constitutes a public health emergency that warrants suspension of 2nd Amendment rights of the people to carry a firearm?

When Americans merrily surrendered their civil rights three years ago during a health emergency, could they not foresee a perpetual state of emergencies, with tyrannical despots infringing on constitutional rights using the flimsiest of excuses?

I hate to say “I told you so,” but some of us tried to sound the alarm in the winter of 2020, but too many Americans were hiding under their beds to listen to us.

Now this:

On Friday, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, declared a public health emergency in Albuquerque and nearby Bernalillo County citing high crime rates and issued a 30-day ban on the carrying of firearms. She said she was likely to extend the order.

“I have emergency powers,” Grisham crowed. “Gun violence is an epidemic. Therefore, it’s an emergency!”

Never mind that of the five shooting incidents Grisham cited when suspending the Second Amendment, only two were in the Albuquerque area and chances are neither would have been thwarted by her unconstitutional ban. Continue reading →

98 Comments

Posted in Civil Rights, Ethics, Gun rights, Individual liberties, Leadership, Politics

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In Loco Parentis, Part II

Posted on September 12, 2023 by | 95 comments


by A.L. Schuhart

My last essay here engendered a bunch of predictable comment, as I hoped it would. The fact is, however, that my argument is sound, and my purpose is to reacquaint the public with the principle of in loco parentis as it informs the grand discussion of Education in Virginia and America.

Those readers who responded that parents do not get to decide curriculum are just wrong. If you look at the examples I gave of things that parents can and should object to, you would see that they are all in what educators term the “affective domain,” as opposed to the “cognitive domain.”

What’s the difference in Education theory and practice?

The cognitive domain describes concrete skills and cognitive development: math, reading, writing, history, etc. The affective domain is essentially the personal “world view” of the student: politics, religion, social attitude, emotions, etc.

Schools have a mandate to teach the cognitive domain, and traditionally the affective domain is not the business of the teacher or school to intrude upon. It belongs to the parent. Continue reading →

95 Comments

Posted in Civil Rights, Culture wars, Education (K-12)

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When Did the RTD Become TMZ?

Posted on September 7, 2023 by | 35 comments

by Shaun Kenney

The Richmond Times-Dispatch was given a clip of David Owen — Republican candidate for House of Delegates — where he tells an audience of like-minded souls that he is, indeed, pro-life.

Charlotte Rene Woods over at the RTD decides to do the work of Democratic campaign operatives in what could only be viewed as an in-kind donation.

… and did we mention that this video was taken five months ago, in March?

So, for the sin of stating that he values life and is willing to protect the basic human right to exist, what does this earn Owen? A blistering TMZ-style article where such an admission is caged as if Owen had gone on a drunken tirade motivated by the Dead Milkmen rather than any sort of gravitas. Continue reading →

35 Comments

Posted in Abortion, Civil Rights, Culture wars, Elections, Ethics, Media

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Virginia Deserves a Parole Board that Puts Public Safety First

Posted on September 5, 2023 by | 26 comments

Patricia West

by Kerry Dougherty

When Terry McAuliffe was governor he found a loyal Democrat lawyer to appoint to head Virginia’s parole board.

That was Adrianne Bennett, a failed candidate for the House of Delegates in 2011 and undoubtedly the most controversial parole board chair in Virginia history. She was a success if you believe, as McAuliffe apparently did, that the job of that board is to spring murderers and make Virginians less safe. Continue reading →

26 Comments

Posted in Civil Rights, Courts and law, Crime , corrections and law enforcement, Governance, Law enforcement, Politics, Public safety & health

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Yes, Virginia Democrats Really Do Want Abortion Up to 40 Weeks (and Beyond)

Posted on August 30, 2023 by | 105 comments

by Shaun Kenney

This November in Ohio, a referendum measure will be on the ballot that will not only enshrine abortion as a state constitutional right — the measure will eliminate parental notification and parental consent on any and all decisions about sexuality and gender in language so broad that it encompasses not just abortion but transgenderism as a question of “reproductive rights” — and it is coming to Virginia.

The Ohio referendum is sponsored not only by Planned Parenthood and the ACLU, but also by an organization called URGE, and is backed by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) — two groups whose interest in pushing transgenderism is upfront and clear.

Already, several Virginia Democrats running for public office have been open about their support for these referenda, many of which will be on the ballot in 2024 in the hopes that they will boost Democratic hopes in the presidential elections.

The good news in Virginia is that our reticence about referenda is a long-standing practice designed to allow cooler heads to prevail. The General Assembly must approve the referenda twice in concurrent sessions in order for such items to be on the ballot. Continue reading →

105 Comments

Posted in Abortion, Civil Rights, Culture wars, Elections, General Assembly, Virginia Law

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The Sorry State of the ACLU of Virginia

Posted on August 9, 2023 by | 45 comments

by Hans Bader

The communist activist Angela Davis advocated abolishing prisons in the U.S., while supporting the incarceration of political prisoners in totalitarian communist regimes overseas. The ACLU of Virginia has touted Angela Davis’s stances in the past, such as in an April 4, 2022 tweet  quoting Davis.

Now, the ACLU of Virginia has returned to promoting these extreme positions, in addition to new ones. In an August 7 post, the ACLU approvingly featured an image with the message “Abolish Prisons,” “Abolish White Supremacy,” and “No One Is Illegal On Stolen Land,” accompanied by a tweet agreeing with this sign, and saying “That’s right, NO ONE.”

We do not all live on stolen land, contrary to the claim made by some left-wingers. A great deal of land was voluntarily sold to settlers by Native Americans. Law professor Stuart Banner’s book How the Indians Lost Their Land explains this. Some land changed hands through “consensual transactions,” and other land through “violent conquest.”

Banner is a mainstream, well-respected academic at UCLA Law School who may have been surprised by what he discovered about the large scope of voluntary transfers of land from Native Americans to whites. But the large number of land sales by Native Americans makes sense because North America was a much emptier place after European diseases wiped out most of the Native American population, leaving many Native Americans with plenty of land even if they ceded some of it to white settlers.

The ACLU’s apparent call to “abolish prisons” is also misguided, because peer-reviewed academic studies show prisons prevent many violent crimes and property crimes. One such study is “The Incapacitation Effect of Incarceration: Evidence from Several Italian Collective Pardons,” which found that reducing incarceration increased the crime rate. This article was published in the American Economic Review, which is a peer-reviewed journal. Continue reading →

45 Comments

Posted in Civil Rights, Courts and law, Crime , corrections and law enforcement, Culture wars, Democracy and Western Civilization, Individual liberties, Marxism

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Where Do Dems Stand on Civil Immunity for Law Enforcement Officers?

Posted on July 8, 2023 by | 16 comments

by James C. Sherlock

Photo credit: Richmond Times-Dispatch

Being a law enforcement officer is tough under the best of circumstances.

Do you think that exposure to losing your house and car in a civil suit for something you did in a split second to protect the public and yourself and did not have reason to know was against the law would deter you from a job in law enforcement?

Truth is, it would deter all of us.

Virginia Democrats in 2021 introduced legislation to eliminate under Virginia law a peace officer’s ability to offer an immunity defense in state courts against civil lawsuits for actions that violate constitutional rights:

A. Any law-enforcement officer, as defined in § 9.1-101, who, under color of law, subjects or causes to be subjected, including failing to intervene, any other person to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities granted to such person under the constitutions and laws of the United States and the Commonwealth, shall be liable to the injured party for compensatory damages, punitive damages, and equitable relief….

B. Sovereign immunity and any limitations on liability or damages shall not apply to claims brought pursuant to this section. Qualified immunity is not a defense to liability imposed by this section.

A 2017 per curiam (unanimous) opinion by the Supreme Court reiterated a long-existing legal standard that qualified immunity is an available defense for law enforcement officers unless there is “clearly established law giving each individual Officer fair notice that his particular conduct was unlawful.”

It is hard to imagine that the Supreme Court, unanimous there, would permit a state law that denied civil immunity without fair notice of the illegality of specific acts.

Regardless, under the 2021 Democratic bill in Virginia, officers were to be in jeopardy in civil suits whether or not they had fair notice that their actions, split-second or otherwise, were unlawful.  They were specifically to be required to judge the constitutionality of specific actions.

With a gun in their face.

It draws a very clear line for political debate. Continue reading →

16 Comments

Posted in Civil Rights, Courts and law, Crime , corrections and law enforcement, Culture wars, Elections, General Assembly, Governance, Law enforcement, Politics

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Equal Protection, Affirmative Action and Effecting Generational Change

Posted on July 6, 2023 by | 40 comments

by James C. Sherlock

America is the most successful nation in the history of the world because of the freedoms and rights guaranteed by our Constitution.

More than a hundred other nations have emulated the American Constitution.

Without constitutionally guaranteed freedoms and rights, we would be chained to the whims of the state. Most immediately to the whims of the executive branch. There would be precious little for the judicial branch to protect.

A recent Supreme Court decision found affirmative action in college admissions to be unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment, Section 1:

No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Justice Roberts for the majority ruling that the Harvard and UNC admissions programs cannot be reconciled with the guarantees of the Equal Protection Clause:

Both programs lack sufficiently focused and measurable objectives warranting the use of race, unavoidably employ race in a negative manner, involve racial stereotyping, and lack meaningful end points. We have never permitted admissions programs to work in that way, and we will not do so today.

Three justices disagreed.

Justice Sotomayor read her opinion from the bench — a sign of strong disagreement. An excerpt:

Today, this Court stands in the way and rolls back decades of precedent and momentous progress. It holds that race can no longer be used in a limited way in college admissions to achieve such critical benefits. In so holding, the Court cements a superficial rule of colorblindness as a constitutional principle in an endemically segregated society where race has always mattered and continues to matter.

Note that Justice Sotomayor, as always careful of the words in her opinions, chose “endemically” to modify “segregated.” Oxford dictionary: “regularly found and very common among a particular group or in a particular area.”

That is different than the word “systemically” — Oxford: “in a basic and important way that involves the whole of an organization or a country and not just particular parts of it.” Continue reading →

40 Comments

Posted in Children and families, Civil Rights, Courts and law, Culture wars, Education (higher ed), Education (K-12), Freedom, Governance, Individual liberties, Politics, Poverty & income gap

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What It Means to Be a Citizen

Posted on July 4, 2023 by | 32 comments

Photo credit: Financial Times

by James A. Bacon

The 4th of July, commemorating our nation’s declaration of independence, is an occasion to think about what we appreciate about America. Amidst our social breakdown, culture wars, and vitriolic politics, that’s not an easy thing to do. Among the most demoralizing aspects of our times is the abysmal level of understanding of the source of the precious rights — freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom to assemble and petition the government — that we take for granted.

As Joni Albrecht, director of the John Marshall Center for Constitutional History & Civics, observes in the Virginia Mercury, less than half of U.S. adults could name all three branches of government; only one in four U.S. adults could name a single right identified in the First Amendment.

Many of our schools fail to teach the basic knowledge required to be a functioning and contributing citizen. According to Virginia Department of Education data, only 70% of Virginia school children passed their Civics & Econ Standards of Learning exam in the 2021-22 school year. Only one in five scored “advanced.” In other words, 30% are politically illiterate, and another 50% are marginally literate. Continue reading →

32 Comments

Posted in Civil Rights, Culture wars, Individual liberties

School Boards, Model Policies and Parental Rights in the Raising of Children

Posted on June 11, 2023 by | 16 comments

by James C. Sherlock

The Virginia Beach School Board will vote tomorrow.

The announced subject will be transgender rights in schools.

It is couched by The Virginian-Pilot as the school board defending transgender students against “unnecessarily cruel policies.“  As opposed, one supposes, to necessarily cruel policies.

The local paper refers, of course, to the Youngkin administration’s “Model Policies” on the subject. Which, like their predecessors from the Northam administration, are not mandatory, so need not be debated at all.

The School Board debate is at its core constitutional.

You will note that the Youngkin Model Policies linked its constitutional interpretations to court decisions. The Northam version did not. Northam’s just asserted what the constitution meant. Must have been an oversight.

My take:

  • Families are responsible for shaping the values, beliefs, and personalities of children;
  • Government is required to protect children from abuse and neglect. But government schools are not allowed to substitute their judgements on values and beliefs for those of the families;
  • They are most certainly not permitted to define parental moral or political disagreements with school personnel as emotional abuse at home. Or as harassment of government schools or teachers;
  • And government schools, absent evidence of abuse or neglect, must never be allowed to substitute their own moral judgments for those of parents.

But that’s just me. Not a lawyer. Continue reading →

16 Comments

Posted in Children and families, Civil Rights, Culture wars, Education (K-12), Freedom, Governance, Individual liberties, Marxism, Parental Rights, Politics, Social services

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UVa’s Undergraduate Female/Male Demographics vs. Diversity, Equity and Federal Law

Posted on June 3, 2023 by | 55 comments

UVa President Jim Ryan

by James C. Sherlock

The University of Virginia measures its diversity efforts by statistics. We’ll hold them to their own standards.

That seems only equitable.

President Ryan has said that the demographic composition of students is easy to measure. The Diversity, Equity and Inclusion office, proving him right, proudly displays a Diversity Dashboard.

All eyes, including their own, go to race.

But we’ll look at sex. And we’ll remember the requirements of Title IX of the 1972 Federal Education Amendments.

no person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.

It is demonstrable statistically that males are woefully underrepresented in the undergraduate population of the University of Virginia at rates inexplicable by chance.

We will examine as potential root causes the skewed demographics of:

  • the undergraduate student population on the one hand; and
  • the Undergraduate Admissions Office and Office of Equal Opportunity and Civil Rights on the other.

And then we will see if we can identify any other potential causes of those discrepancies.

It won’t go well. Continue reading →

55 Comments

Posted in Civil Rights, Culture wars, DEI, Demographics, Education (higher ed), Education (K-12), Federal, Scandals

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UVa President Ryan Has “No Idea.” Golly Gee.

Posted on June 2, 2023 by | 34 comments

by James C. Sherlock

As a follow-up to yesterday’s story on the slide show for the UVa Board of Visitors on DEI at the University, I think it only fair to offer President Ryan’s preamble to that presentation.

To summarize:

  • He cannot imagine what all the fuss is about; but
  • He assures that DEI efforts at UVa are misconstrued by critics, who he divides into two camps:
    1. those who support the goals of DEI “but are concerned about overreach threatening academic freedoms or seem designed to enforce ideological conformity”; and
    2. “one that asserts that the programs are being used to promote a stringently liberal, if not radical agenda – one that stands in opposition to merit and excellence and unfairly privileges certain groups over others.”
  • He asserts that any fair criticisms will be taken seriously; and
  • He is trying to create a level playing field.

He asserts that:

We ought to define the terms that comprise DEI; assess and resolve instances where DEI efforts are in potential conflict with other core values; and continually examine what is working and what is not and adjust accordingly.

He then proceeds to define the terms diversity, equity and inclusion in a clear attempt to push critics of his DEI program, expanded enormously in a progressive attempt to “never let a crisis go to waste” in 2020, to the edges of reasoned debate.

He professes he has “no idea where this notion” (that equity means equal outcomes) came from. This from a man whose own DEI bureaucracy publishes only statistical outcomes.

“No idea.”

I call this the “golly gee” approach. “Golly gee” indicates surprise, excitement or both from an innocent in the ways of the world.

Seriously?  Spare us. Continue reading →

34 Comments

Posted in Civil Rights, Culture wars, DEI, Education (higher ed), First Amendment

Appeals Court Upholds TJHSST Admissions Policy

Posted on May 29, 2023 by | 45 comments

Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology

by Dick Hall-Sizemore

For all the ink that has been used on this blog concerning the “illegal” and “unconstitutional” new admissions policy at the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, here is a story that has strangely escaped comment here:  the federal appeals court has upheld the policy.

In a 2-1 decision, the appeals court panel found that the group challenging the new admissions policy as discriminatory toward Asian Americans “cannot satisfy its burden of proving that the Board’s adoption of the race-neutral challenged admissions policy was motivated by an invidious discriminatory intent, whether by way of “racial balancing,” “proxies,” or otherwise.”  Furthermore, the panel ruled that “expanding the array of student backgrounds in the classroom serves, at minimum, as a legitimate interest.”

It is expected that the decision will be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.  There is speculation in legal circles that the plaintiffs are “laying the groundwork for a much bigger legal transformation” that could ban any public policy effort to close racial gaps.

 

45 Comments

Posted in Civil Rights, Courts and law, Culture wars, Education (K-12)

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Martin Brown Is Absolutely Correct: To Achieve Real Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, “DEI” Must Die

Posted on May 25, 2023 by | 34 comments

by J. Kennerly Davis

Martin Brown, a senior aide to Governor Glenn Youngkin, created quite a stir when he told an audience at the Virginia Military Institute that “DEI is dead.” Democrats in politics and the media jumped on the remark, and the Governor’s support of Brown, to assert that the Youngkin administration is hostile to policies and programs that foster diversity, equity, and inclusion. The partisan criticism is baseless. Martin Brown is correct. For Virginia to effectively foster diversity, equity, and inclusion, DEI must die.  

Every system of government is based upon an idea, a fundamental concept for its organization and operation, a proposition. Most times, the idea has been small, shabby, uninspiring, and authoritarian. Ultimate authority has been held by a ruling class. The rights of individuals have been understood to be nothing more than malleable artifacts, with their scope and substance and tenure entirely dependent upon the changeable determinations and dispensations of the ruling class.

But sometimes, the idea for a system of government is a grand one, exceptional, inspiring, revolutionary. The idea of America is a grand idea: the revolutionary proposition that all persons are created equal, endowed by their Creator with inherent dignity and unalienable rights; the revolutionary proposition that the only rightful purpose of government, the legitimizing purpose, is to recognize, respect, and protect the shared sacred humanity, inherent dignity, and natural rights of the people;  the revolutionary proposition that the people shall rule, and each shall be able to think and speak and worship and associate freely; the revolutionary proposition that a richly diverse people can form a strongly united nation, e pluribus unum. That is a grand idea!

For more than a hundred years, the regressive authoritarians who wrongly style themselves “progressive” have worked to undermine the grand idea of America and replace it with their own very small idea: the counterrevolutionary proposition that an elitist ruling class of credentialed technocrats, infallible “experts,” should exercise unrestrained administrative power to define the rights, allocate the resources, and direct the affairs of the supposedly unenlightened masses under their paternalistic supervision. Continue reading →

34 Comments

Posted in Civil Rights, Culture wars, DEI, Democracy and Western Civilization, Ethics, Individual liberties, Politics, Race and race relations, Scandals

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Which of These Persons at UVa Oversees the Educational Development of the Rest?

Posted on May 20, 2023 by | 11 comments

by James C. Sherlock

In order to illustrate the truly insulting nature of the DEI program at the University of Virginia, I offer the following quiz.

See if you can pick out the person pictured who:

directs a range of educational programming focused on educational development for staff, faculty and students.

Nana Last, Professor of Architecture

Ira C. Harris, Professor, McIntyre School of Commerce

Sankaran Venkataraman, Professor, Darden School of Business

Sandhya Dwarkadas, Professor and Chair Department of Computer Science

Tisha Hayes, Professor of Education

Trinh Thuan, Professor Emeritus, Department of Astronomy

Kelsey Johnson Professor of Astronomy

Haibo Dong Professor Aerospace Engineering

Sly Mata, Director of Diversity Education, Division for DEI

Nicole Thorne Jenkins, Dean, McIntyre School of Commerce

Devin K. Harris, Professor of Engineering

Mool C. Gupta, Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Tomonari Furukawa, Professor of Engineering

Allan Tsung M.D., Professor and Chair Department of Surgery, Medical School

Sallie Keller, Professor of Data Science

Harsha Chelliah, Professor School of Engineering

 

 

 

 

 


Bottom line.  Good guess.

There is every evidence that Mr. Mata is a fine man. His biography is inspiring.

But the people pictured above who are not Mr. Mata excelled and earned their plaudits and appointments before there was a UVa Division for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI).  Even before James Ryan was President. Continue reading →

11 Comments

Posted in Civil Rights, Culture wars, DEI, Education (higher ed), First Amendment, Freedom, Marxism, Race and race relations