Conservative group sues Michigan Law Review, claiming racial discrimination
June 18 (Reuters) - A conservative legal group sued the University of Michigan's flagship law journal on Wednesday, claiming its process for selecting student editors and scholarly articles illegally discriminates against heterosexual white men by giving preference to women, minority, gay and transgender applicants.
In a lawsuit filed in a Michigan federal court, the group called Faculty, Alumni, and Students Opposed to Racial Preference said it represents three unnamed tenured or tenure-track white male heterosexual law professors whose submitted articles were rejected by the Michigan Law Review. The group is also representing an anonymous white male incoming second-year Michigan law student who has applied to be a member of the law review—a competitive position that helps bolster law student resumes.
FASORP has unsuccessfully sued two other top law reviews in recent years. A third case is pending.
The group is represented by prominent conservative Jonathan Mitchell and lawyers from America First Legal—a group headed by Stephen Miller, President Trump's deputy chief of staff.
The Michigan Law Review 'has implemented a corrupt and illegal scheme of race and sex preferences to select its student members,' according to FASORP's complaint.
The law school did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the suit Wednesday, nor did the Michigan Law Review Association, which is the student-run non-profit that runs the law review.
The suit was not unexpected. FASORP emailed Michigan law students in March, threatening to sue if the law review did not end preferences in member and article selection and saying it would subpoena the personal statements of law review applicants. Interim Michigan Law Dean Kyle Logue called FASORP's email 'threatening, harassing, and inappropriate' in a subsequent message to students and said the law review is legally permitted to consider applicants' personal statements.
FASORP's complaint alleges the law review uses students' personal statements to award positions to women, minorities, gay and transgender applicants over more qualified heterosexual white male students. And the law review is 'intentionally discriminating in favor of inferior manuscripts submitted by women, racial minorities, and homosexual or transgender authors, while rejecting better manuscripts submitted by heterosexual and non-transgender white men,' according to the complaint.
FASORP made similar arguments when it sued New York University's top law journal in 2023 on behalf of a white male law student. That case was dismissed the following year. FASORP also unsuccessfully sued the Harvard Law Review in 2018 and has a pending lawsuit against the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, claiming it discriminates against white men in faculty hiring and on its top law journal.
Read more:
NYU law school dodges white man's lawsuit claiming law review discrimination
Northwestern law school sued for discrimination against white men in faculty hiring
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
BBC News
41 minutes ago
- BBC News
Trump says he would 'absolutely' consider bombing Iran again
US President Donald Trump has said he would "absolutely" consider bombing Iran to a question from the BBC's Nomia Iqbal at a White House press briefing, he said he would "without question" attack the country if intelligence concluded Iran could enrich uranium to concerning US became directly involved in the conflict between Israel and Iran last weekend, striking key nuclear sites with "bunker buster" bombs before Trump rapidly sought a ceasefire. In a speech on Thursday, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the strikes had achieved nothing significant, but on Friday Trump repeated his claim that the country's nuclear sites had been "obliterated". Iranian foreign minister admits serious damage to nuclear sitesHow a volatile 24 hours edged Iran and Israel to a ceasefireUS gained nothing from strikes, Iran's supreme leader says Posting on his social media platform Truth Social later on Friday, Trump said he knew "EXACTLY" where the ayatollah had been sheltering and that he had personally stopped Israeli and US armed forces from targeting is understood the Iranian leader was forced into hiding during his country's two-week war with Israel. All parties in the conflict have claimed victory, with the ayatollah telling Iranians that Israel and Iran had failed to disrupt the country's nuclear the country's foreign minister Abbas Araghchi later admitted "excessive and serious" damage was done to the country's nuclear sites by the recent US and Israeli bombings. Reacting to the ayatollah's comments, Trump repeated his assertions that Iran was "decimated"."Why would the so-called 'Supreme Leader' Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, of the war-torn country of Iran, say so blatantly and foolishly that he won the war with Israel, when he knows his statement is a lie," Trump added. Trump claimed he had been "working on the possible removal of sanctions" against Iran, but had decided to "immediately" drop all work on sanction relief after the ayatollah released his statement of "anger, hatred and disgust". Iran has always insisted its nuclear programme is only intended for civilian latest conflict between Israel and Iran started when Israel launched attacks on Iranian nuclear sites and military infrastructure, with a number of nuclear scientists and military commanders killed. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that "if not stopped, Iran could produce a nuclear weapon in a very short time".CBS News, the BBC's US partner, reported the White House had been considering a range of options to entice Iran back to the negotiating table, including facilitating funding for a civilian, non-enrichment, nuclear Iran has denied it is set to resume nuclear talks with the US, after Trump said at a Nato summit in the Hague on Wednesday that negotiations were set to begin again next health ministry said 610 people were killed during the 12 days of air attacks, while Israeli authorities said 28 were killed in Israel.
Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
Bookshop stops selling JK Rowling titles over trans views
JK Rowling 's books have been removed from shelves in a San Francisco shop after the author said she would fund her transgender critical advocacy with the profits from sales. Booksmith, which refers to itself as a 'group of queer book lovers', has stopped selling Rowling's titles in response to her new legal fund, created to support 'women's sex-based rights'. 'With this announcement, we've decided to stop carrying her books,' the San Francisco bookshop wrote on Instagram, encouraging fans of the Harry Potter series to buy second-hand copies instead. 'We don't know exactly what her new 'women's fund' will entail, but we know that we aren't going to be a part of it. As a group of queer book lovers, we also had our adolescences shaped by wizards and elves. Look at us, it's obvious,' the post read. 'If you or someone you love wants to dive into the world of Harry Potter, we suggest doing so by buying used copies of these books.' On Monday, Booksmith, which has operated in the city's Haight-Ashbury neighbourhood since 1976, published a list of fantasy books on its website similar to the Harry Potter series, under the heading: 'Wizards, but not That Wizard'. 'Please find below a list of bookseller-curated suggestions for books we genuinely love that also might fit the HP brief for you and yours,' the website read. The move sparked a censorship row on social media, with one person commenting: 'So you're going to curate your selections to only sell books by authors that you agree with politically. Good to know. I'll be shopping elsewhere.' Another accused Booksmith of 'choosing to silence someone you disagree politically with'. The shop responded by claiming the ban on Rowling's novels is 'not politics at all' and is 'no different' to encouraging readers to buy from independent book stores. 'There are plenty of books we carry that we don't 'agree' with, but in this case, it's not politics at all,' it said. 'When the author of a book states that all sales of those books will contribute to an anti-trans fund, the only way we can choose not to participate is by not selling the books any longer. it's no different than when we encourage you to buy your books in indies rather than purchase them on Amazon. 'It stands in direct opposition to everything we believe in and that we have tried to uphold in our nearly 50 years of selling books. 'If you want to read the HP books, we implore you to buy them used locally, where the money stays in the community you love.' The author in May announced that she would funnel her personal wealth into a JK Rowling Women's Fund, described as a legal endowment to support 'individuals organisations fighting to retain women's sex-based rights in the workplace, in public life, and in protected female spaces'. Although the fund does not mention the transgender community specifically, Rowling has been a vocal defender of women's spaces and sex-based rights. Booksmith is one of several US cultural institutions that have boycotted Rowling over her gender-critical views. In August 2023, the Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle scrubbed its Harry Potter exhibits of all mention of the author, describing her as ' She Who Must Not Be Named '. Despite public backlash against Rowling for her views on transgender issues, there is little evidence of activism impacting on her book sales. The Harry Potter books have sold 230 million copies in the US and 600 million worldwide, making it the bestselling book series of all time, according to US publisher Scholastic. Forbes estimated Rowling has earned more than $80 million (£60 million) a year from book sales and Potterverse brand extensions including films, theme parks and theatre shows since she first began speaking out on women's rights in 2020.
Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
JK Rowling has exposed how desperate the gender extremists have become
Long used to riding roughshod over anyone who dared to challenge them, gender extremists are now beginning to lose the battle. Could that be the reason their arguments seem to be becoming even more ridiculous? Consider the latest example. A bookstore in San Francisco – a city known for its adherence to transgender ideology and extreme wokeism – has declared that it will no longer sell any of JK Rowling's books because of, wait for it, her role in supposedly 'removing transgender rights'. Announcing this brave and stunning move on Instagram, Booksmith explained that the final straw was a legal fund recently established by Rowling for the purpose of defending and protecting women's 'sex-based rights in the workplace, in public life, and in protected female spaces.' Yes, that's right – protecting women's rights apparently now amounts to bigotry and prejudice towards the transgender community. The fact that this fund is necessary only because women on both sides of the Atlantic have been bullied and hounded out of their jobs and off college courses, and prevented from applying for promotions if they are deemed 'anti-trans', seems irrelevant to these people. The bookstore is a commercial enterprise that seems quite happy to forego certain profit by refusing to stock such hugely popular titles as the Harry Potter series and Robert Galbraith Strike novels; virtue-signalling is clearly considered much more important. But when it comes to identity politics and gender nonsense, publishing is one of the worst-affected institutions. During a tour in the US to promote my book on feminism, one bookstore cancelled my event at the last minute because a trans activist customer had complained. This was despite the fact that it had sold out. The revenue from JK Rowling's books probably funds a good chunk of the publishing industry worldwide, yet these for-profit enterprises would rather have huge display tables groaning under the weight of books by trans activists that barely sell at all. A new report on this kamikaze phenomenon was launched just this week in the UK by Sex Matters. Written by Matilda Gosling, it highlights the fact that several female authors have had contracts broken, manuscripts rejected, and even been pushed out of the industry, because of accusations of transphobia. Rowling herself, with her stratospheric success and wealth, need not worry about pointless gestures such as the one by Booksmith – but the careers of other authors have been left in tatters. This is exactly why Rowling's women's legal fund is so necessary. The fund is the first of its kind: many women, and some men, have found themselves in a terrible situation for merely stating scientifically correct facts on sex and gender, and expressing a view with which the vast majority of people agree. It would be interesting to know whether this particular bookstore will be ploughing through its thousands of titles to check that all of its staff agree politically with the premise of each and every author and the contents of each and every book. It looks very much as though this so-called civil rights movement is actually a witch hunt against women – for the crime of daring to assert our rights rather than rolling over and capitulating to misogynistic bullies. As it dawns on the extremists that they are going down with a sinking ship because they overreached on their demands and bullied and cajoled refuseniks, their rising desperation only makes them look more ludicrous. Some time ago, when yet another trans activist announced on X that he was burning Rowling's books, she had the perfect riposte: 'I get the same royalties whether you read them or burn them. Enjoy your marshmallows!'
