The Hill : Republican governors should end racial preferences at the state level
GOP governors like Florida's Ron DeSantis and Alabama's Kay Ivey have been making splashy headlines for attacking diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs and environmental, social and governance (ESG) standards at companies like BlackRock and Disney. But the laws of their own states allow racial preferences in education, employment and publi ...
For some school boards, parents are the enemy
This article first appeared in the wall 2023 edition of Sword&Scales. This year California legislators tried to create new criminal penalties for parents who "harass" school board officials or disrupt school board meetings. The legislators drafted a vague bill that defined harassment as two or more acts directed at an education official. Pot ...
When government gets between a mother and a midwife
This article first appeared in the winter 2023 edition of Sword&Scales. The birth of a child is a sacred experience in a mother's life. How and where she chooses to bring her baby into the world is a deeply personal decision that should be free from government interference. Yet in some states, certificate-of-need (CON) laws stand between ...
Racial quotas for city contractors may ruin this family business
This article first appeared in the winter 2023 edition of Sword&Scales. In the mid-nineties, Jerry Thompson was headhunted for a Texas company that paid good money. He was a whiz at sales. So he moved his wife, Theresa, and two kids from Michigan to Texas. He loved living in Texas. But two years in, he couldn't stand his job. Why'd you ...
The Boston Tea Party was a fight against monopoly, not high taxes
On December 16, 1773—250 years ago—Samuel Adams gathered an angry crowd in Boston. Three ships loaded with East India Company tea were docked in Boston Harbor. One ship, the Dartmouth, had been docked for 20 days while the people of Boston protested and argued. That day, December 16, was the day the conflict would inevitably boil over—b ...
A federal judge ordered the SBA to stop its racial discrimination—but the agency isn’t listening
The Small Business Administration (SBA) is deliberately circumventing a nationwide injunction in Ultima Services Corp. v. Dept. of Agriculture—a case litigated by the Center for Individual Rights (CIR)—to stop racial preferences in the SBA's 8(a) program, which makes "socially and economically disadvantaged" small business owners eligible for c ...
For cancer patients, telehealth restrictions are a matter of life and death
In 2012, 18-month-old Jun Abell loved walking around his New York house and climbing the stairs. Then one day, his parents noticed that the toddler wasn't walking at all. Jun's parents were concerned by his unusual behavior. Doctors couldn't find any physical signs of injury or distress, but just to be safe, an MRI was ordered. The scans reveale ...
In 30 states, you can’t use telehealth with out-of-state doctors
At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when all 50 states and the federal government declared public health emergencies, telehealth became a lifeline for Americans. Now, to patients' dismay, most states have rolled back telehealth access—disrupting care and putting lives at risk. Emergency telehealth waivers Telehealth, or telemedicine, ...
Law & Liberty : Watchdog or Lapdog?
Taxpayers fund the bipartisan United States Commission on Civil Rights to be "a watchdog, not a lapdog" when overseeing other civil rights agencies, just as its former Chair, Mary Frances Berry, once said. Unfortunately, its most recent report—"The Federal Response to Anti-Asian Racism"—ignores decades of federal agencies turning a blind eye to ...