Rep. Brandon Gill Grills Head of American Bar Association About DEI, Future of Law Schools
“Do you believe that all of us have implicit biases? Against which groups do you have implicit biases?”
Republican Rep. Brandon Gill of Texas questioned American Bar Association President Michelle A. Behnke during a House hearing on DEI and the future of law schools on Wednesday.
Their back-and-forth was at times humorous and in other instances maddening. Gill kept trying to talk to Ms. Behnke like a human being, but her responses were just carefully rehearsed legal statements. Why can’t witnesses in this situation ever just talk like a person?
Gill made his position on DEI policies quite clear before the hearing even happened, releasing this statement:
“DEI is a cancerous ideology that promotes unlawful discrimination and steals opportunities from Americans who would otherwise earn jobs and law school admissions spots on merit. The ABA has abused its accreditation power to force harmfully racist and often illegal DEI policies and coursework in law schools across the nation. The ABA’s promotion of DEI has created poorly trained lawyers who prioritize political activism over following the law. Congress must do its part to identify harmful DEI policies within the ABA and legal profession to help root them out and ensure equal opportunity and access to justice for all Americans,” said Task Force Chairman Gill.
In this clip, which Gill shared on Twitter/X, Behnke struggles to offer straight answers right away.
GILL: According to the ABA’s website, quote, all of us have implicit biases, would you agree with that statement?
BEHNKE: The ABA believes that, uh, diversity, equity and inclusion, improves the lives of…
GILL: Would you agree with the statement? That, quote, all of us have implicit biases, from the ABA’s website?
BEHNKE: The ABA believes that diversity in all of its…
GILL: Is that a yes? Can I take that… It’s a yes or no question. Do you believe that all of us have implicit biases as your website says?
BEHNKE: The ABA looks to remove barriers and…
GILL: That’s not my question, ma’am. Do you believe that all of us have implicit biases?
BEHNKE: I’ve expressed what the ABA is doing…
GILL: That is the ABA’s position. Umm. As expressed by their website. Against which groups do you have implicit biases?
BEHNKE: The ABA believes that it’s important to always express…
It goes on and on like this. Watch:
The American Bar Association claims on their website that all of us have "implicit biases."
I asked their President what groups she has implicit biases against and if she'd like to reflect on them. pic.twitter.com/PhTo9fvSTL
— Brandon Gill (@realBrandonGill) July 22, 2026
In this clip, he is asking her about the diversity of the U.S. Supreme Court.
GILL: Would you say that it’s helpful, it’s beneficial if our Supreme Court resembles the racial diversity of America?
BEHNKE: The ABA believes that diversity in all of its forms is important. We want people to bring all of who they are, whther they be from small practice…
GILL: Diversity. Can you define diversity here? You want to… Should the Supreme Court resemble America’s racial makeup, roughly? It’s a yes or no question.
BEHNKE: The ABA does not… uh… support quotas.
GILL: I’m not asking about quotas, I’m asking if it should roughly resemble America’s racial makeup.
BEHNKE: It should represent all of what people are…
GILL: What people are, OK. So right now there’s about. There’s two of nine Supreme Court justices are black, that’s about 22 percent of the Supreme Court. Umm, according to your testimony, about 13 percent of America’s population is black. If the Supreme Court should roughly resemble America’s demographic makeup, as the ABA states is proper, um, in your opinion, regardless of qualifications, should the Senate refuse to confirm another black Supreme Court justice?
BEHNKE: The ABA supports and encourages diversity in all of its forms.
Watch:
The American Bar Association says that the Supreme Court should reflect America's racial demographic makeup.
I asked the ABA's President if that means the Senate should refuse to confirm a third black Supreme Court justice. pic.twitter.com/gWkGL56lzY
— Brandon Gill (@realBrandonGill) July 22, 2026
Finally, he asks some questions on the transgender issue.
GILL: So transgenders haven’t been represented on the Supreme Court. Do you think it’s important that the next justice be transgender?
BEHNKE: The ABA does not subscribe to any particular quotas.
GILL: I’m not asking about a quota, I’m asking about representation, diversity, equity and inclusion.
BEHNKE: The ABA supports diversity in all of its forms…
GILL: Have transgenders been included on the U.S. Supreme Court?
BEHNKE: The ABA supports a full spectrum of…
GILL: Do you think that it’s a problem the transgender community has never had representation on the U.S, Supreme Court?
Again, it goes on and on like this. She can’t give a straight answer.
Me: "Transgenders haven't been represented on the Supreme Court. Is it important that the next Justice be transgender?"
ABA President: "The ABA does not subscribe to particular quotas."
Me: "Does that mean you have implicit transphobia?" pic.twitter.com/agbc2Hc5Ii
— Brandon Gill (@realBrandonGill) July 22, 2026
Professor Jacobson commented:
This is the way. Alinsky Rule 4: "Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules." https://t.co/qVz57CEeha
— William A. Jacobson (@wajacobson) July 22, 2026
Featured image via Twitter/X video.
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Comments
“There’s two of nine Supreme Court justices are black, that’s about 22 percent of the Supreme Court. Umm, according to your testimony, about 13 percent of America’s population is black.”
Give me nine people in the mold of Clarence Thomas and I’ll be fine with a 100% black Supreme Court.
Mostly that’s because I don’t give a 💩 what color your skin is. I care about your character.
Well said.
However I’ll point out that KBJ is not even half a justice so the black representation in the supreme court is closer to 16%,
NOTE: democrats maintain Thomas isn’t black so that would make the actual black representation on the supreme court according to them 11%,
“Why can’t witnesses in this situation ever just talk like a person?” Then she would no longer be a good Democrat in right standing with the party such as it is.
Really… it’s because if they did, and they told the truth, they’d be writing themselves an express ticket to the slammer.
Pretty soon, they’ll just be reduced to repeating, “Am I free to go?”
Woudn’t be much of lawyer if she talked like a person.
Maybe Gill should have suggested that the witness be excused and her lawyer be sworn in…
Black woman. She most likely believes the crap she spews. However even if she didn’t she’d spew it otherwise she’d be drummed put of her tribe.
It maybe racist but I believe now the South should have picked their own damn cotton and we should have never given women the vote.
I’m not sure expanding the Franchise to women has made the nation any better off.
I’d propose a few modifications. HS graduation required to register. Homeowners get an additional ballot. Combat Veterans get an additional ballot. Filing for personal bankruptcy removes ballot access for ten years from filing. Felony conviction lose ballot access for maximum sentence range from date of conviction; so of the range is 2 to 20 then no ballot for 20 years but automatic restoration after that along with removing bar to firearms.
Forget all that. Just bring back literacy tests. Proper ones, rigorously designed and administered with absolute fairness.
Blind administration; the person judging the test have no clue about the applicant’s identity or appearance. Like they were doing in music, until they discovered that this worked against black people.
Administer it at the time of registration, not voting, so as not to slow things down on election day.
And/or take up Heinlein’s variation: to vote one must first solve a randomly generated quadratic equation. Not everyone who should be allowed to vote knows how to do those, but everyone who should be allowed to vote can learn how. Voting access advocates can hold classes teaching people how to do it. People can practice all they like. But on the day, the voting machine shows you a random equation, and if you solve it you move on to the next screen which is the ballot, if you don’t solve it you don’t.
Also ink fingers, like in Iraq. No one gets to vote twice.
Heinlein in Starship Troopers had it so only those with federal service of some kind could vote. I’d support that even though it would mean I would lose my vote.
Meh I kinda like my plan better. The HS graduation serves as a simple proxy for literacy test. The additional ballots for both homeowners and Combat Veterans also tilts political power in a small way to the folks with an easily quantifiable additional degree of higher contribution to/service to/personal stake in the Nation and their community.
Running elections in Iraq was a bit of a goat f%&k from first hand experience. Heavily armed presence didn’t always deter attempted shenanigans. As an example the Iraqi Army, Iraqi Police (more a gendarmerie or Carabinieri than what we think of as local cops) and even militia units sometimes had ‘separate’ voting. Now maybe they only voted at the Army voting booth and didn’t vote again at home (Units were raised in one area and deployed to another area of the Country to mitigate potential for collaboration, infiltration, corruption and keep them from worry about being ‘hard’ on locals for fear of reprisals v them or their family).
Instead of just an ink finger IMO we’d be better off with a common basic standard on registration cut off date of Labor Day for November elections and 90 days prior to primaries together with only in person voting (- traditional absentee validated reasons) and draconian penalties, ruthlessly enforced for any shenanigans …to include officials who suddenly can’t print ballots, ordered the wrong paper/ink/markers/pens, didn’t have back up power plan, didn’t have enough personnel to process voters and so on. Pass tough, malfeasance statutes and put those folks in prison for that sort of thing instead of accepting the current ‘oh well, whatcha gonna do’ wink and a nod willful blindness.
ztakddot, I’m not talking about Starship Troopers, which is after fiction. I’m talking about his fairly serious proposal, in Expanded Universe. Though his added bit that if you can’t solve the equation the booth incinerates you was obviously facetious.
That’s a terrible and inequitable idea. There are many good citizens with math abilities limited to the McDonald’s value menu,
Chief, high school graduation is credentialism, subjective, and doesn’t account for immigrants. Anyone should at any time be able to apply to vote, by passing an objective test, regardless of what schooling if any he had, or how he spent his youth.
Milhouse,
I agree that there are differences in quality of HS ED between School Districts and HS. It is definitely not ‘subjective’ b/c one either does/doesn’t have HS diploma/transcript. For immigrants use the GED/HS equivalency test. Its not perfect, it is a proxy and vastly better than what we have now plus it is vastly easier and far less costly to implement.
I disagree very strongly about ‘anyone at any time should be able to apply to vote’. That runs headlong into problems of timeline to evaluate/investigate the legal sufficiency of the application at levels above the clerk. By setting a 90 day timeline we allow time for that by both State elections officials and interested parties to review v other databases and act or be compelled to act via lawsuit.
Mass used to require a test to graduate, This upset some people so they had a ballot issue whether to keep it or not, The idiots in this state voted to remove. This essentially means a MA HS diploma is worthless. There is no longer an objective indication that a graduate knows anything.
Colleges and likely the military have to run remedial courses now. Obscene.
I’d like people to have to pass the citizenship test they give to immigrant applicants in order to vote. I’ve never taken it myself but I have the impression that new citizens know more about our system of government then many native born college students.
Multiply all sentences fr crimes by 10. Criminals serve 1/10 of their sentence and the rest on parole.if they commit another crime the go back to prison and serve the remainder of their sentence.
Going from “the court should look like the US” to quotas is a very short and sharp slope. I don’t believe there are any Lithuanians on the court, so is the next appointment required to be Lithuanian? Albanian? (and so on, and so forth…)
That is absolutely juvenile. Is she an attorney in real life?
Yes
U of Wisconsin graduate.
All she is doing is saying in legal code “I will not answer your question; I will not let you force me to reveal the stupidity of my side’s position. Go suck eggs.”
The vast majority of licensed attorneys (85% +) in USA are NOT ABA members.
It’s a left wing lobbying group that uses ethics as as a trojan horse for left wing policies. I never considered giving them a dollar.
Say, this Brandon Gill character, I like the cut of his jib.
If Gill keeps progressing like he has, he has the chance to become something huge in national politics. The most effective questioner in Congress already. Let’s have him get some bills passed. Would have loved him against Talarico.
Agreed. He’s looking like a superstar in the making.
BEHNKE would never pass the Turing Test. Most AIs these days have more personality and seem more human than she does,
I came to post: from her responses we have found another job that can be replaced by AI.
There’s an institutional problem throughout academia and governmental staffing: these bodies are full of leftists that actively and consistently pretend not to know things…it’s just sickening.
These are bullshit exchanges. Put words into her mouth and tell her that her testimony will be considered to agree with them unless she contradicts.
“Ma’am, you believe that all people are biased. You also b believe that all white people are biased against all black people. True or false? Anything except a yes orno answer will be recorded as a ‘yes’ .”
[answers with a DEI non-answer]
“OK, so yes. And all black people are heavily biased against white people and transsexuals. True or false? Again, anything but a yes or no answer will be recorded as a ‘yes.’ ”
It would be interesting to see where that goes. Make increasingly outrageous claims to see where witnesses crack. They’ll crack; the only question is when.