Saying the Quiet Part Out Loud – Video of Berkeley Law Dean Admitting To “Unstated Affirmative Action”
Statement by Dean of Berkeley Law School shows how affirmative action continues but has gone underground in states like California where it is banned, a phenomenon we will see nationally after the Supreme Court’s Harvard/UNC decision.
Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean of Berkeley Law School, is seen on a video recently surfaced by Chris Rufo talking about “unstated affirmative action” in the hiring process.
“What I mean by Unstated Affirmative Action is what if the college or university doesn’t tell anybody, doesn’t make any public statements, [inaudible] … I’ll give you an example from our law school, but if ever I’m deposed, I’m going to deny I said this to you [audience laughs], when we do faculty hiring, we’re quite conscious that diversity is important to us, and we say diversity is important, it’s fine to say that, but I’m very careful when we have a faculty appointments committee meeting, any time somebody says you know we should really prefer this candidate over this candidate ’cause this person would add diversity, I say don’t say that, you can think it, you can vote it, but our discussions are not privileged, so don’t ever articulate that that’s what you’re doing. Well that works more easily with regard to faculty hiring, with regard to student admissions it becomes more difficult because there’s a statistical measure ….”
EXCLUSIVE: Berkeley Law School dean Erwin Chemerinsky explains how he has secretly enacted a policy of racial discrimination in faculty hiring—which is illegal in California.
"If I'm ever deposed, I'm going to deny I said this to you." pic.twitter.com/GYgtNZfhtb
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) June 29, 2023
It’s not clear when the presentation in the video took place, and obviously it’s only a snippet. Maybe there’s some context not shown in the snippet. Dean Chemerinsky is not happy that he was videotaped:
When reached for comment, Chemerinsky told Fox News Digital, “I am sad that someone took a video of my class discussion and excerpted it in this way. The Law School strictly complies with Proposition 209 in all of its hiring and admissions decisions.”
But what is shown is important in its own right.
I don’t have the hair-on-fire reaction some have had to the statement about lying in a deposition. From his tone of voice and audience reaction, it is clear he was making a joke.
But there is a more fundamental truth in what he is saying, which is how the absolute obsession with race and skin color diversity (as opposed to viewpoint diversity) has forced unlawful racial preferences in the name of diversity so deep into the fabric of even the hiring process that the conduct continues even when unstated.
No one who works in academia, or in the HR department of a major corporation, would find any of this suprprising. Maybe that’s why my reaction is so muted, I’m numb to it.
There’s a reason particularly in California a nod and a wink is needed, and what’s happening must remain unstated. California voters twice voted against affirmative action. Dean Chemerinsky mentioned that in an op-ed the day the Harvard/UNC affirmative action decision was released:
For decades, conservatives have railed against judicial activism, but Thursday’s decision striking down affirmative action by colleges and universities in admissions was the height of conservative judicial activism. The court rejected almost half a century of precedents, overturned decisions made by public and private universities across the country, and ignored the history of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.
The experience of California — where affirmative action was eliminated by Proposition 209 in 1996 — shows that it still will be possible to have diversity in higher education, but it will take sustained effort and it will be difficult.
After the Harvard/UNC decision was released, I’ve mentioned how hard it will be to obtain compliance. How Harvard and other schools are ready to exploit a perceived loophole in the court’s opinion. allowing consideration not of the race of an applicant but the applicant’s experience with race. Kemberlee and I have an op-ed coming out at a major news website next week on the other tactics colleges and universities will use to evade the Supreme Court ruling.
Dean Chemerinsky’s video statement shows that unlawful affirmative action will go into hiding, but it will not disappear. Racial preferences in the name of diversity are too much a part of the fabric of society to disappear just because the Supreme Court declared them to be a violation of law. These racial preferences will contine to be thought about and voted on, but not articulated, even more so now.
That’s why the Harvard/UNC decision is a good start, but it’s far from the end. The work of our Equal Protection Project will become more challenging because evidence will be harder to come by even though the conduct continues.
A cultural change is needed in which the constitutional principle of treating each individual as an individual not as a proxy for a racial or ethnic group is accepted even behind closed doors. We are a long way from that.
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Comments
if ever I’m deposed, I’m going to deny I said this to you
This POS needs to be deposed, immediately.
That line, by itself (said seriously as it was, here) should cause immediate dismissal of anyone from any law school, at the very least.
Along with immediate disbarment and loss of any license to practice law.
There really needs to be a few terminations and disbarments to makes people pay attention. It would be great for blacks who have merrit to have the cloud of doubt remove .
SCOTUS this week proved that with Justice Thomas’s (merit) epic takedown of Jackson (affirmative action). It was very clear to all including Jackson who was the superior intellect in the room and like all Progressive SJW’s she was not happy to be humiliated in public. That is not supposed to happen. At least Thomas is black so she could not immediately start the Nazi White Supremacist nonsense.
At least Thomas is black so she could not immediately start the Nazi White Supremacist nonsense.
Child, you are so wrong – Justice Thomas is indeed a Nazi White Supremacist… he just happens to be a black one, that’s all. 🤪
Black Face of White Supremacy™ is the approved term, I believe.
It’s not happening in modern America. This country has degenerated into a rino nation AT BEST:
Fewer Than One in Seven House Republicans Have a Good Liberty Score Grade:
https://thelibertydaily.com/fewer-than-one-in-seven-house-republicans-have-a-good-liberty-score-grade/
At worst, it’s degenerated into an Clinton-Obama-Biden cesspool.
I think it’s the latter.
Secession is our only way out of this.
A joke in poor taste but the shocking part is the arrogance and contempt this guy has for the law by saying the racist hiring boards can tacitly agree to discriminate and so everything is ok. He’s really saying let’s all violate the law but just don’t leave any evidence. There better be somebody out there who makes his joke a regality with some lawsuits.
No idea why spell check decided to turn “reality” into “regality” but maybe it’ll catch on?
Regality is not in my spell Czech. Apple here. Is it even a word?
sure is, relating to royalty or kings, or a royally bestowing a sottish territory. Feel free to borrow it, in fact, you can have it I have no use for it.
I commented a day or so back on a super woke city that fired a bunch of their blue collar guys over the vax. I mean these teams were gutted. A year or so later- they can’t find qualified guys to replace them. I don’t think its the vax issue- rather people who actually add value are DONE with this stuff- so these elitist racist twits can run their game, but fewer people of substance are going to sign up to play.
It will implode like Kathleen Kennedy’s no talent career trajectory. (Indiana Jones reference).
I think you make a great point. For many folks still in the rat race the jab mandates and the way the reluctant were treated was the last straw. For others it was even more pronounced; a first and last straw simultaneously that opened their eyes to much they had previously ignored but were unable to avoid with the jab mandates.
Many folks took early retirement. Younger folks with marketable skill sets quit then packed up and moved. The impacts of the policies put in place during Covid will be felt for some time. Particularly in availability of workers with in demand skills in locations who abused them.
I never personally suffered from Affirmative crap because I had rare highly sought after skills. I did see plenty of other white people who were shafted. I do not like injustice, regardless of race.
Who is John Galt?
This comment could be upvoted to infinity and that still would insufficiently characterize how precisely you’ve hit the bulls eye.
For decades, conservatives have railed against judicial activism, but Thursday’s decision striking down affirmative action by colleges and universities in admissions was the height of conservative judicial activism. The court rejected almost half a century of precedents, overturned decisions made by public and private universities across the country, and ignored the history of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.
Dean Chemerinsky isn’t too bright. That’s not what “judicial activism” is. Overturning precedent is … the actual work of the court, if it so deems. Decisions made by “public and private universities” have nothing to do with the court exercising “judicial activism”. ANd Cherminsky is dead wrong about the 14th amendment, though I happen to be of the opinion that the SCOTUS was incorrect in applying the 14th to this case.
THE SCOTUS did nothing close to judicial activism. Chereminsky and his ilk just don’t like their decisions, but the complaint would not be that it was “judicial activism”. That’s just silly.
Chereminsky doesn’t seem to know very much about law … or he is just really good at hiding it.
Chereminsky is a brilliant jurist. But his leftism supercedes his dedication to the Constitution.
He knows TONS about the law, and works it to his convenience.
You beat me to it.
Activism is grabbing scope of authoritah, or standing on your head n squing to get the policy outcome you want. “Rule this way, because it’ll make society better.”
The recent sometimes-called “activist” decisions have been “That’s not our business.” or “The law — which we, BTW don’t make — doesn’t say that.” They declared stuff out of scope; out of what the black letters actually said.
Even Governor Hair-Gel seemed to get it when he screeched making a constitutional amendment for whatever his posturing of the week was. One hopes he will propose repealing the equal protection clause of the 14th, it being so inconvenient.
/moar popcorn.
Slavery was the law of the land for years yet it too was overturned.
However, please remind me, which extremely racist party locked up totally innocent Asians citizens during WW2?
Shameful what they have done to the law, how they allowed it to become a sub-field of activism, ruled by progressive principles, antithetical to fundamental law and justice.
Wow. Well said.
“Chemerinsky told Fox News Digital, “I am sad that someone took a video of my class discussion and excerpted it in this way.”
—EC spinning and warbling.
Now ask EC how upset he was at the leaking of the DOBBS draft decision.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
The racism that dare not speak its name…
Wow, this is the very same dean who supports Jew free zones at his law school. His now open admission that he wilfully violates anti-discrimination law at his law school and will lie about it under oath if deposed is breath-taking. A disciplinary complaint should be filed against him with the California Bar. He’s not fit to practice law in that state.
Forget it, Guahan. It’s Berkeley.
It’s quite odd how “diversity” rarely extends to ensuring that conservatives are hired to teach at elite institutions. The conservative law professor is an endangered species–when the Republicans retake the presidency maybe we can get some alphabet agency to issue a regulation requiring intellectual diversity.
Most of these “elite institutions” require faculty applicants to submit “diversity statements.” That makes sure they don’t hire any conservatives, Republicans, or even moderates. Berkeley canned over 70% of applicants based just on their “diversity statements.”
“I’m a white, hetero male of a certain age. Hiring me would increase the diversity off your department and school along each of those dimensions.”
I agree that Dean Chemerinsky did not accurately characterize the action of the SCOTUS.
He said
“The court rejected almost half a century of precedents, overturned decisions made by public and private universities across the country, and ignored the history of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.”
This is obviously not true, and suggests to me that he has yet to read the opinion, and concurrence, or even the dissents that were circulated independently.
The concurrence in particular goes into both the prior and the subsequent history of the 14th Amendment.
I, myself, am old enough to remember how Affirmative Action was placed to the American people as a temporary remedy for past injustice. It was acknowledged to be violation of our Constitution, but said to be justified because it would be temporary.
Now racists whine about violating the “precedent” of violating the Constitution, as an experiment. I find this argument disingenuous.
If Harvard admitted only from the top academic decile the next class would be
Asian-American 51.52%
White 36.52%
Hispanic 2.69%
Black 0.76%
Watch for it.
And, we know from Harvard’s own defiant statements (and, those of other universities), that the school won’t countenance a colorblind, merit-based end result, such as you describe.
I hope you’re not talking about Med School because black babies are twice as likely to die unless they have a black doctor according to Ketanji Brown Jackson.
It’s obvious Cultural Marxists are not ever ever take no as a answer
Anyone possessing a modicum of common sense and awareness knows that universities, companies and government bodies have been brazenly violating the U.S. Constitution and a slew of federal labor laws with their manifestly racist, inequitable and lawless admission, hiring and contracting award policies.
Waging non-stop lawfare is the only way to expose these policies — through the discovery process, now that these entities are adept at hiding incriminating evience,.
The Republic is in great peril until the Marxists are removed from higher education
Among many other spheres of influence from which they are spreading their cultural and moral rot — to wit, mainstream media, corporate boardrooms, popular culture outlets and all levels of government.
In this thing of theirs the schools practice omertà.
Is affirmative action woven into the fabric of our society?
Or merely into the fabric of our ruling elite?
They think they “rule”, and are “elite” because we let them.