Thread by @RichardHanania

Last month I was invited to give a talk on civil rights law to the Yale Federalist Society. There was a huge turnout, and the crowd embraced the message. This will be the next gen of conservative clerks, judges, and gov officials. Here's what I told them. richardhanania.com/p/speech-to-th…

I started with a bit of bragging. I saw the problem with civil rights law and how it deformed institutions over a decade ago. But I could never get anyone to pay attention. So I had to go out and start writing about the topic myself.

What's frustrating about this is that you don't need legislation to change most things. This is a question of executive orders, court decisions, etc. There is tons of low hanging fruit

It took the Great Awokening for people to eventually come around and start looking for answers

Conservatives have made a mistake in seeing each wokeness controversy as an isolated event. It's like trying to understand payroll taxes and how they work through understanding individual firms and their motivations. In reality, there's a superstructure to the entire system.

So what of specifics? They'll all be laid out in my forthcoming book. But for now, we can start with affirmative action in government contracting.

@VivekGRamaswamy is already promising to repeal or amend EO 11246. Others should follow him.

Second, overturn Griggs! This decision is behind everything. Standardized tests? Racist. Fitness standards? Sexist. Enforcing the law? racist. It's the skeleton key of the left. And it's been ignored by the conservative legal movement. But no longer, I hope.

Finally, people act as if the war on free speech is a new thing. In reality, the workplace was sanitized decades ago by harassment law. Gov gives detailed instructions about what jokes you can tell, etc. Firms are required to affirm the identities of employees. That must end.

I closed by explaining what I hope doesn't happen in SFFA v. Harvard. See my previous article about the potential of a halfway decision to make things worse. richardhanania.com/p/scotus-must-…

I was glad to see how receptive everyone was to these ideas. They aren't controversial within the conservative movement. No conservative thinks, for example, that Griggs was a good decision. It's simply a matter of setting priorities and focusing people on civil rights law.

Anyway, it's really funny how conservatives are turning against civil rights law and liberals who cover every corner of right-wing "extremism" can't bother to be interested in it.

Because this stuff is boring! It's why it flew under the radar, and why it can be changed.