Legally dubious law review: Writing the foreward to the Harvard Law Review‘s Supreme Court issue is arguably the most prestigious honor in legal academia. Since 2018, only one white author has penned it—and that’s no coincidence, according to internal documents obtained by our Aaron Sibarium.
They show that race “plays a far larger role in the selection of both editors and articles than the journal has publicly acknowledged.” When soliciting and evaluating articles, for example, editors have asked whether a submission will “promote DEI values,” cite scholars from “underrepresented groups,” and have “any foreseeable impact in enhancing diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
When it comes to the editors themselves, nearly half “are chosen by a ‘holistic review committee’ that has made the inclusion of underrepresented groups’—defined to include race, gender identity, and sexual orientation—its ‘first priority.'”
“The documents from the law review could create a new line of attack for the [Trump] administration as the fight over federal funding escalates and invite litigation from private plaintiffs eager to join the pile-on,” writes Sibarium. “Such plaintiffs would have no shortage of ammunition.”
READ MORE: Exclusive: Internal Documents Reveal Pervasive Pattern of Racial Discrimination at Harvard Law
Things fall apart: Student activists at Columbia were supposed to launch another encampment at 1 p.m. Thursday afternoon. When their plans leaked, administrators threatened arrests. Then 1 p.m. came and went with no encampment. Somebody should have thought of this approach two years ago!
That doesn’t mean there were no fireworks around Columbia’s campus. Anti-Israel student groups at Columbia, including its Jewish Voice for Peace chapter, urged their members to “show up” for a demonstration at nearby City College of New York, where keffiyeh-clad students established a “liberated zone”—and got pepper sprayed by police.
The leaked encampment plans included a plot to pitch a second tent city tomorrow at Columbia’s Manhattanville campus, the site of Columbia Business School. Unlike the main campus, it’s publicly accessible, and organizers indicated they were willing to stay until they’re arrested. Stay tuned.
READ MORE: Columbia Radicals Ditch Reported Encampment Plans After University Threatens Arrests
Taking the mineral fight to ChiComs: China is the world’s largest producer of critical minerals. It has leveraged that status to advance its geopolitical aims, issuing strict export controls on minerals like antimony, germanium, and gallium that the United States relies on for military purposes. In response, the Trump White House “is turning to a little known tool to fast-track federal approvals for a slate of mining projects it says are vital to shoring up domestic energy, technological, and defense supply chains,” according to the Free Beacon’s Thomas Catenacci.
At the center of the plans are 10 mineral exploration and mining projects, including some that would produce antimony, that the White House added to a federal permitting dashboard that comes with a streamlined permitting process. Officials say more will be added soon.
“The action signals a significant departure from how previous administrations have utilized the federal permitting dashboard,” writes Catenacci. “Since the bipartisan Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act created the tool a decade ago, the federal government has used it to fast-track just two mining projects.”
READ MORE: Trump Admin Accelerates Mining Projects as China Curbs Critical Mineral Exports
Away from the Beacon:
- Hero: Harvard president Alan Garber told NBC’s Lester Holt that he knows his university has an anti-Semitism problem but that he had “no choice” but to fight the Trump administration.
- The New York Times is out with a glowing profile of a deported Jamaican man—who was first ordered to leave the United States “after he was convicted of kidnapping in 2006.”
This article was originally published at freebeacon.com
