Latest news with #affirmativeAction
CNN
28-06-2025
- Politics
- CNN
Don Jr.: ‘Affirmative Action' is why Obama won Nobel, not Trump
President Trump's desire for a Nobel Prize is no secret and he often blames politics as the reason he hasn't yet won. Donald Trump Jr claimed in an X post that President Obama won his because of "affirmative action"
Fox News
25-06-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
University of Michigan, law journal sued for allegedly discriminating against straight White males
The University of Michigan is being sued over allegations it illegally shuts out White, straight male applicants to its student law journal because of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) priorities. A nonprofit group that opposes affirmative action filed a complaint in federal court on June 18 accusing the University of Michigan Law School's student-run law journal, The Michigan Law Review, of "using race and sex preferences to select its members and articles." The complaint alleges that, until recently, new members were selected based on their first-year grades and performance on a writing competition. But it claims "far-left students" who were dissatisfied with the demographics that resulted from this selection process pushed to incorporate race and sex preferences to select new members instead. "The Michigan Law Review implements these illegal race and sex preferences by inviting students to submit a 750-word 'personal statement' when applying for membership on the Law Review. Applicants are not only permitted but encouraged to identify their race, sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity in the personal statement, even though it is illegal for the Law Review to discriminate on these grounds when selecting student members," the lawsuit states. According to the complaint, 60% of new student members are chosen through a "holistic review" process which considers the applicant's personal statement among the academic factors. The lawsuit accuses the journal's "Holistic Review Committee" of selecting new student members by giving preference "to women, racial minorities, homosexuals, and transgender people" over heterosexual White men "with better grades and better scores on the components of the Law Review's writing competition." "The members of the Holistic Review Committee rig the holistic-review process to ensure that the eventual makeup of the incoming Law Review members contains what the committee members regard as a sufficiently 'diverse' number of women, nonAsian racial minorities, and homosexual or transgender students," it says. The lawsuit also claims that the Michigan Law Review engages in discrimination when selecting articles for publication by prioritizing diverse voices and instructing editors to cite "marginalized identities" in its sourcing. The complaint was filed by the nonprofit Faculty, Alumni, and Students Opposed to Racial Preferences (FASORP), and named the Michigan Law Review Association, the University of Michigan, several individuals who oversee the law journal, members of the journal's Holistic Review Committee, the Board of Regents and the university's vice president, who also serves as its general counsel. The University of Michigan and Michigan Law Review did not return Fox News Digital's requests for comment. The university denied the suit's allegations in a statement to The Detroit Free Press. "The University remains steadfast in its commitment to following the law," spokeswoman Kay Jarvis said. "We will vigorously defend against these allegations." The complaint follows heightened scrutiny over DEI efforts at public universities due to the Trump administration's actions to eliminate these racial and gender identity priorities. In March, the University of Michigan became the latest public institution to shutter its DEI offices. In a message to the university, the president and other top leaders said Trump's executive orders threatening funding cuts brought "urgency to the issue" that had been debated since 2023. In February, the Department of Education Office for Civil Rights sent a letter to departments of education in every state telling them to remove DEI policies or risk losing federal funding.
Reuters
24-06-2025
- Politics
- Reuters
Penn law prof Amy Wax loses bid to stop sanctions over comments deemed discriminatory
June 24 (Reuters) - A federal judge on Monday denied University of Pennsylvania law professor Amy Wax's bid for a preliminary injunction to block the university from imposing sanctions following its investigation that deemed her comments "discriminatory and derogatory." Wax in March asked the court to prevent Penn from suspending her for one year with half pay starting on August 1, stripping her of her named chair, ending her summer pay and publicly reprimanding her. She argued that the sanctions would harm her reputation and negatively impact her ability to talk publicly about diversity and affirmative action. Her request for a preliminary injunction is part of a discrimination suit she filed against the university in January. In his order, opens new tab denying the temporary injunction, Senior Judge Timothy Savage of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania wrote that Wax had not demonstrated that she would suffer irreparable harm, a damaged reputation, or a negative impact on her speaking opportunities from the university's sanctions. 'The publicity already generated in this case may contribute to the public's perception of Wax,' Savage wrote. 'However, she has not proven that Penn's sanctions are responsible for that perception or that pausing the suspension would have any impact on it.' Neither Wax nor her attorneys responded to requests for comment on the ruling, though Wax has previously defended her right to hold unpopular opinions and referred to herself as a "casualty in the culture wars.' A Penn spokesperson declined to comment. The ruling is the latest in a long-running conflict between Wax and Penn, where she has taught since 2001. Students and faculty first called for her firing in 2017, after she co-authored a newspaper opinion piece that said Anglo-Protestant cultural norms are superior. The law school in 2018 banned Wax from teaching required first-year courses after she said on a podcast that she had never seen a Black law student graduate in the top quarter of the class, and rarely in the top half. In 2022, Wax wrote a blog post saying the United States is "better off with fewer Asians and less Asian immigration" as long as most Asians vote for Democrats, after which former Penn law dean Ted Ruger asked the university's faculty senate to impose a "major sanction" against her. Her pending lawsuit alleges that Penn is quicker to discipline white people under its free speech policy while overlooking similar conduct by racial minorities and that the university has violated her tenure rights. Read more: Lightning-rod law professor Amy Wax sues UPenn for discrimination Facing sanctions, Penn law prof Amy Wax files grievance against dean
Free Malaysia Today
05-06-2025
- Politics
- Free Malaysia Today
Peka backs positive discrimination for Orang Asli
Peka said the government should return all land belonging to the Orang Asli. (Bernama pic) PETALING JAYA : An environmental group is pushing for positive discrimination for the Orang Asli following calls for the community to be constitutionally recognised and granted safeguards and affirmative action measures similar to those of other indigenous groups. Peka president Rajesh Nagarajan said Article 8(5)(c) of the Federal Constitution stipulates the reservation of land and positions in public service for natives. However, he said the Orang Asli were treated like foreigners in their own land. He also said that their land had been seized and the community left with nothing, 'completely unable to fend for themselves'. 'We demand that the government return all land belonging to the Orang Asli and for state governments to declare that the Orang Asli permanently own all land that they are occupying,' Rajesh, a vocal advocate for Orang Asli rights, said in a statement. Rajesh's statement comes a day after the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) called for Article 153 of the Federal Constitution to be amended to explicitly recognise the Orang Asli as entitled to the same constitutional safeguards and affirmative action measures as other indigenous groups. Suhakam said such recognition was essential to ensuring that the rights, identity, and entitlements of the Orang Asli were no longer subject to administrative ambiguity or exclusion. It also said the amendment was in line with its call to develop and implement a comprehensive national action plan to safeguard the rights of indigenous peoples.
National Post
02-06-2025
- Business
- National Post
Christopher Dummitt: Systemic discrimination is legal in Canada
Article content One wonders whether it even comes up when employers or universities set about establishing discriminatory affirmative action programs. Or, more likely, are they working from a consensus within the institution that there really are disadvantaged groups — and that this is obviously caused by discrimination? Article content We should be clear: it's entirely possible that disadvantages are caused by subtle forms of discrimination that continue despite Canada's now very equal legal system. It's certainly possible — and the idea ought to get a fair hearing. Article content But in many progressive circles today, it's now considered rude to even ask the question — to wonder whether social and economic differences between groups might be caused by something other than prejudice. Article content This is why the topic of viewpoint diversity — in our universities, our law schools, in the world of expertise — isn't the esoteric topic it might seem. Article content Even as the wider Canadian society seems to be retreating from the excesses of cancel culture and woke shibboleths (good news on that front), the staffing of our knowledge institutions, our universities and our law schools still overwhelmingly comes from those on the left — from the same groups who assume that socioeconomic variation is, de facto, linked to discrimination. Article content Article content These are the people who get to decide when — if ever — the only legal form of systemic discrimination allowed in Canada (affirmative action) will ever end. Article content There's plenty of evidence coming out of think-tanks and even Statistics Canada that the Canada of 2025 has moved a long way from the Canada of 1981, where affirmative action was justified. The most economically well-to-do Canadians are not those of European ancestry — despite the popular perception to the contrary. The groups of Canadians with the highest income — and highest levels of educational attainment — are those of South Asian and Chinese ancestry. Whites tend to come in the middle of the pack, while Black Canadians and Indigenous people are lower down the economic scale. If affirmative action is going to continue, the public needs to be reassured that those justifying its existence, at the very least, keep up to date with which groups are up and which are down — though even this framing shows how divisive such policies would be. Article content Article content There's also plenty of evidence that the 'race conscious' programs allowed by the Charter — and pushed by DEI advocates — actually exacerbate ethnic conflict in Canada. Article content Article content Article content
