Republicans propose another deep state bureaucracy to enforce civil rights laws
Failure theater: In their typically impotent attempt to fight the leftist movement that is imposing a new racial bigotry across America, several Republicans in Congress have proposed a new special government office in Washington that will be specifically assigned the job of preventing racial discrimination at universities.
The College Admissions Accountability Act, introduced by Sen. J.D. Vance (R., Ohio) and Rep. Jim Banks (R., Ind.), would establish a special inspector general within the Education Department—separate from the Office of Civil Rights—to probe potential violations of the colorblind standard set forth in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which ruled that race-conscious admissions programs violate the 14th Amendment. The bill would also bar schools that flout the decision from receiving any form of federal aid.
…The bill, which appropriates $25 million for the new role and is cosponsored by Sens. Ted Budd (R., N.C.), Mike Braun (R, Ind.), Josh Hawley (R., Mo.), Eric Schmitt (R., Mo.), and Marco Rubio (R., Fla.), does include a sunset clause that would terminate the office after 12 years. Republicans seem to be betting that recalcitrant universities will, after a decade of robust enforcement, throw in the towel and evolve colorblind norms.
These senators and congressmen, along with several conservative think tanks, think naively that this office will the place for anyone of any race to go to get justice should a university receiving federal funds create a program that specifically excludes them solely because of their race. The aim will supposedly be to target specifically the new Diversity-Inclusion-Equity programs at universities and in governments that are imposing this new discrimination against whites, Asians, and Jews.
The foolishness of this plan is hard to measure. First, it expands the administrative state, which means it by definition increases the power of that bureaucracy to the detriment of Congress and the people who vote them into office. Congress has been doing this for decades, which is why it is now generally so helpless. By handing its responsibilities over to unelected bureaucrats (while simultaneously giving them lots of money to do this work), Congress now finds itself generally powerless to rein those bureaucrats in.
On what planet do these Republicans think this agency will be any different?
Second, it gives this new responsibility to an administrative state that remains deeply hostile culturally to the initial principles of equal treatment before the law. It is this administrative state — specifically the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights — that has allowed bigoted discriminatory programs at universities to spring up nationwide, all purposely aimed at discriminating against whites, Asians, and Jews, even though such programs are expressly forbidden in plain language by numerous civil rights laws. In many ways it is this administrative state that has helped establish critical race theory across America.
On what planet do these Republicans think this agency will be any different? While the first appointees to this office might try to stop the new bigotry of critical race theory, given time it is guaranteed the people running this agency will join the overall Marxist culture that dominates government bureaucracies. Before long, rather than fight the new segregation, this agency will work to support it.
Third, it is an utter fantasy to think this agency will simply disappear after twelve years. As Ronald Reagan said so accurately, “A government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth!” After twelve years, during which this agency will have certainly morphed from an opponent of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion to its rabid supporter, Republicans will then find themselves fighting vainly to stop Congress from extending its life. Such fights always fail, and thus this new office will go on, linked arm-in-arm with the rest of the Washington swamp in its effort to gain power over Americans in all things.
Republicans and Americans: still sleeping blindly.
Why don’t these damn Republicans for just once use the power that the Constitution actually gives them, to cut funding right off the bat? Why don’t the Republicans who control the House simply refuse to give any funding now to any school with such programs? Why do they need this new agency to do their work for them? Are they so weak and brainless that they can’t do it themselves?
I fear the answer to that last question is more than obvious, and explains why we are where we are today. And the reason we have such bankrupt leadership in Congress is our own fault. We get the government we vote for, and Americans have been asleep at the wheel for many decades.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
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Suggestion for penultimate paragraph: “Why don’t these damn Republicans for just once”
Andi: Heh. That’s how I read it, but not how my fingers typed it. Now fixed. Thank you.
One thing we do not need is another gov agency and that is a fact I am so pissed off at a lot of these so called republicans I have changed my party to independent and that still leaves a big void on whom one can vote for. With RINOS like this who needs dem/communists .I am also very fed up with the new so called speaker he is just another RINO.I think the country is pretty much gone
“We get the government we vote for, and Americans have been asleep at the wheel for many decades.”
Since the only way to get out of socialism is to shoot your way out, we see exactly what the Founders encountered:
“Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”
The benefit, and hazard, of the internet, is that no one can hide from it, on either side. We now have more information, but it’s harder to do anything effective with it.
The solution for government created problems IS ALWAY MORE GOVERNMENT. Every single time from the Uniparty. A Pox on both of them.
The Federal Government should butt out of the entire education industry. Close the Dept of Ed. Burn the buildings. Salt the Earth under it. Primary and Secondary education is the business of the States and localities. So called “higher ed” can be the business of the states and private. You want to go to college? Go to a bank and convince them you’re going to get a degree with a reasonable probability that the bank will get paid back.
Let’s see the Republicans get on that bandwagon.
When was the last time a government program with a sunset provision actually shut down? I suspect never.
It’s not like a narrowly Republican Congress has any power to do that with a Democratic Executive in place.
I do agree that what they *are* doing is probably worse than useless; they want to be seen to be doing *something* and the fact that this is so easy to co-opt means it might not be vetoed..
“The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.”
Politicians are just self serving snakes, they will bait you with whatever you want to hear for the “democratic” façade to continue, and most people then fall for it, hook, line and stinker.
Truth is, the Republicans and Democrats are accomplices that play rope-a-dope with the public. Keep the public stupid, divided, distracted, confused and pitch them against each other so they don’t, or can’t, unite against their self appointed tyrannical masters. It’s a very old game, many centuries old now, and it continues to work like a charm.
The “politicians” are all in bed with the enemy. Criminals have more incentive to get into office than honest folk do, x amount of criminals in power can then control who even gets into office.
The way it stands now, elections are easy to rig, “party policy” is corporate autocracy controlled by the plutocracy, most of which got their wealth from illegal activity somewhere along the line.
We all need a real Democracy with proportional representation (not the 1st past the convenient post), the democratic 2/3rd majority safety rule, and, real information for legit debates on legit issues. Government needs to be more transparent.
All we have now is, a rotten fake theatre with 2 bit lying actors who represent the sycophantic puppet masters that hide behind the curtain. lobbyists in particular need to be held to account for their corrupt manipulations.
If we don’t change it now, it could easily become an extinction event. They already tested bio weapons on us recently, what are they planning for us all next ?
Sheep fear the threat of the wolf but, ultimately, it is the Shepard they should fear the most. Shepard’s pie anybody ?
Remember this, we were all referred to as “the herd” during Covid. That is how they see us, they have little more than contempt for the public that they pretend to represent in parliament.
We are in grave danger and yet, everybody carries on as usual. I warned people during Clinton vs Trump, nobody listened, they just went along with the dog and pony show.
The people deserve the politicians they get.
@SDN
Socialism, whose version?
America has plenty of true socialist ethos within the culture, granted it is less now than the selfish “me me me” culture infestation of post 1988, but it still exists.
I know many natives, Democrats and even hardcore Conservatives that partake in local socialist activities, in both environments from the inner city to the middle of the wilderness with no road system for hundreds of miles in any direction.
We have all been manipulated by the greedy consumerism debt pushing bankster’s and the Cold War era propaganda of their version of “socialism” sold to us as “Communism”.
Communism itself is not too unlike our consumer capitalist system, a few corrupt people at the top get everything at the expense of the majority public who are made to suffer. Both systems fail for the same reasons.
True Socialism is the hard wired factory preset for our species, it was with us before these parasitical political and bankster systems appeared, it will return when they collapse. eg.. Look at the people of Europe during WWII, the vast majority of the public helped each other in very hard times.
Most don’t realize that true socialism is also part of American culture.
eg. The event of local community “pot luck” or “potlach” dining, community house building, the act of and entire history of Thanks Giving, community gardening projects, community barn raising etc. are all very American and true socialist events.
To help out a fellow countryman in need (with no fee attached) is the Christian and patriotic thing to do, many atheists also follow that rule. (others take advantage of these good natured folk, there are predators that see it as a weakness in a potential victim).
A true society is based on socialism because, we are fundamentally a group animal species that have more strength in numbers than going solo.
(Not looking for an argument, it is just friendly input for clarity and balance on a much misunderstood subject by most people)