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Laura Powell

@LauraPowellEsq

Aug 1

University President J. Luke Wood, who identifies as African American, launched a “Black Honors College” at Sacramento State University last year. His stated goal is to transform it into the “HBCU of the West.” As he explained in an interview: “So we can’t be an HBCU—we weren’t founded in time, right? But we can be everything but the historical part.”

But that “historical part” is not incidental. “Historically Black Colleges and Universities” are called that because they were historically black, founded during a time of legal segregation. The designation came about in 1965 after the Civil Rights Act made it illegal for HBCUs to refuse to admit non-black students. When Wood laments that the program wasn’t “founded in time,” he is expressing a yearning for the time of segregation, which the Civil Rights Movement fought to dismantle.

The Black Honors College website claims it does not discriminate based on race, yet Wood has described the program as “specifically designed to serve Black students.” He and other university officials have emphasized that its primary purpose is to address the problem of lower graduation rates among black students. Notably, the program does not require applicants to show that they have personally faced any disadvantage or hardship.

Given President Wood’s own descriptions, it is difficult to see how this program complies with federal anti-discrimination laws, as interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court.

https://x.com/LauraPowellEsq/status/1950962499177881611

This thread contains a number of clips that give you an idea of Luke Wood’s views on race.

https://x.com/LauraPowellEsq/status/1950962499177881611

Sacramento State President J. Luke Wood was interviewed by Nigerian media during an official visit to the country last year. Wood said that the trip’s purpose was to recruit Nigerian students to attend the university, who he says are “the best students on the planet.” He advertised that studying at Sac State is affordable because the costs are partially subsidized by Californian taxpayers. He announced the university intends to sign a memoranda of understanding with Nigeria, South Africa, and Rwanda to facilitate the enrollment of African students.

In an article a Sacramento newspaper from around the same time, Wood is quoted as saying, “I believe in Pan Africanism.” He said the Black Honors College is “purposely and intentionally trying to be reflective of the diaspora” by staffing the program with black people from around the world. The goal is to “have a Black-centric experience in California.”

I also suspect that the goal is to improve his university’s statistics for black students by recruiting from the elite classes in foreign countries. It would obviously be easier to pack their numbers with black people from wealthy, educated families, who are likely to perform well, than it would be to figure out how to support disadvantaged African-American students.

The central, unanswered question is: How does a global effort to recruit students based on the color of their skin conceivably benefit California taxpayers?

Read 6 tweets

Laura Powell

@LauraPowellEsq

May 31

Yesterday, a trans activist attacked a man protesting against boys in girls’ sports at the California track and field championships. He was in his car with his wife and 4-year-old child at the time. He fought the attacker off with pepper spray before police intervened.
1/3

The attacker had been interviewed by local media earlier. The person appears to be a female who identifies as male. She rambled about oppression, Palestine, etc. “If you’re a Nazi, or complicit, I mean, f*ck off,” she said.
2/3

https://x.com/CBS47/status/1928696075210080623

The victim is a conservative activist, and the attacker identifies him by name as she approaches. It’s a sad commentary on the state of free speech culture that comments on this post indicate people believe his political views justify the attack.
3/3

https://x.com/CBS47/status/1928696075210080623

Read 4 tweets

Laura Powell

@LauraPowellEsq

Apr 3

Matt Taibbi is suing Congresswomen Kamlager-Dove for libel.

Members of Congress are shielded from liability for defamation for statements made during legislative activities, but Kamlager-Dove apparently didn’t realize this doesn’t extend to her social media communications, unless they were within the scope of her official duties as a member of Congress.

FYI, I was going to follow up my initial post with more detail about the law, but I realized what I wrote might be misleading without a qualification, so I edited the post.

I initially thought this looked like a strong case for Taibbi, but there’s a 6th Circuit case that held tweets from congresspeople falsely accusing the Covington Catholic student of hateful conduct were protected. I don’t find the reasoning persuasive, but another court might.

Read 4 tweets

Laura Powell

@LauraPowellEsq

Feb 24

🧵 UPDATE on the lawsuit against the executive affecting trans people in the military.

Judge Reyes called a hearing this afternoon, because the plaintiffs filed their amended complaint today, five days after it was due. The attorneys were adding new plaintiffs and said they had issues communicating with them.

Judge Reyes decided the solution is to give plaintiffs a do-over so that they file a new motion for a preliminary injunction next week. (She used the analogy of shaking an Etch-a-Sketch to start over.) 1/x

After addressing the issues around the briefing schedule, Judge Reyes questioned attorneys for both sides on what arguments they intended to make around the definition of “sex.”

At the hearing last Wednesday, Reyes raised this topic and lectured the defense attorneys on her belief that there are more than two sexes. She then ordered the parties to submit supplemental briefing on the topic. Plaintiffs filed their brief last Friday, and defendants (Trump et al) were supposed to file their response this coming Friday.

It seems unusual to me that the judge expected defendants to respond orally in court to these arguments, when they haven’t had a chance to draft their brief, especially given the fact that she was announcing they would start anew with with a new preliminary injunction motion. 2/x

Judge Reyes noted that the government definition revolved around the type of reproductive cells a person makes, which she believed to be incorrect: “My understanding is that according to scientists, determining what sex someone is, is not dependent on their reproductive cell.” She said that she believed that reproductive cells were just one factor, and that anatomy and chromosomes are also taken into account when determining a person’s sex.

She said that she would not make any determinations on the topic of the definition of sex without hearing expert testimony. 3/x

Read 6 tweets

Laura Powell

@LauraPowellEsq

Nov 6, 2024

A squirrel ran across the stage while everyone was waiting for Kamala's concession speech. 👀

For those questioning whether this is a real video, multiple videos of the squirrel of been shared.

I do appreciate the skepticism! This link will take you to the moment the squirrel enters the frame. Check the live chat, where people start commenting on it. 🙂
youtube.com/live/WckEFzGku…

Read 4 tweets

Laura Powell

@LauraPowellEsq

Oct 21, 2024

Kamala Harris was admitted to law school under a program for students “who have experienced major life hurdles, such as educational disadvantage, economic hardship, or disability.”

Kamala Harris’s mother came from the highest caste in India, but by moving to the U.S. and Canada, obtaining a prestigious degree, marrying a future Stanford professor, having a successful career as a cancer researcher, and sending her daughter to private schools, her daughter became unusually disadvantaged?

Strange how that works.

In 1992, three years after Kamala graduated from Hastings Law School (a public university), there was a controversy after the dean of the law school realized the extent of student group involvement in admissions to the program for disadvantaged students (called LEOP).

Students who claimed to be eligible for the LEOP because of some special hardship they suffered would have their claims of being disadvantaged verified via a phone call by members of the student organization associated with the applicant’s race. The phone interviews were used by some students to screen out conservative candidates—to avoid future “Clarence Thomases,” as one student explained.

This would have been the process in place when Kamala Harris applied to law school in 1986. According to her resume, she also served as President of the “Black Law Student’s [sic] Association,” so she likely participated in the process of selecting admittees to the LEOP program while she was a law student as well.

While the program was advertised as a class-based affirmative action program—which Kamala Harris wouldn’t have qualified for—in practice it was based on race and politics, during her time.

In 2004, Kamala's mother recounted to an LA Times reporter how she was taken aback when an educator didn't realize Kamala came from a privileged background.

h/t @CardioNP

Read 5 tweets

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