Equality and Opportunity

Title IX refers to a specific provision of the federal Education Amendments Act of 1972. The provision, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, states simply: "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education progra ...

This article originally appeared in the Summer 2022 issue of our quarterly magazine, Sword&Scales. On days when Mark Shirley serves lunch at his food truck, Ole Time Smokehouse, he wakes up at 3:30 a.m. By the time most people in Farmville, North Carolina, are just getting out of bed, Mark's barbeque has already been cooking for hours.   ...

In 2015 the University of California enacted a seemingly innocuous policy which said, "faculty achievement that promote equal opportunity and diversity should be given due recognition in the academic personnel process." But this modest mandate for recognizing contributions to diversity has grown into a leviathan that imposes a loyalty oath to diver ...

We all know small business owners whose livelihoods were disrupted, if not destroyed, by the pandemic. Ami Hill, owner of Muse Gallery OBX, a brick-and-mortar art gallery featuring local artists and artisans, was not spared. However, she was also not deterred. Successful entrepreneurs have a way of forging a path where none is obvious. Ami didn' ...

On June 7, 1892, Homer Plessy, a 30-year-old shoemaker from New Orleans, walked up to the Press Street Depot ticket counter and bought a first-class seat on the 4:15 p.m. train.   There was nothing particularly extraordinary or even interesting about a man buying a ticket on the East Louisiana Local, as any onlooker would tell you. People bough ...

In late April, an Idaho judge allowed a vital free speech lawsuit against Boise State University to go forward. Big City Coffee, the plaintiff, had lost its contract with the university because some administrators and students were offended that the café supports local police. Thankfully, Judge Cynthia Yee-Wallace has denied Boise State's recent m ...

The South Carolina House Ways & Means Committee failed to move forward on a bill that would have abolished the state's antiquated Certificate of Need (CON) laws, which give existing businesses a competitor's veto to block new businesses.   In January, the bill passed the Senate with overwhelming support (35-6 vote) from both political part ...

During the Obama administration, the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) made significant efforts to crack down on sexual misconduct on college campuses, pursuant to its power to enforce Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which prohibits sex discrimination by federal funding recipients. OCR issued guidance (the "2014 ...

A federal district court recently struck down the Fairfax County School Board's (FCSB) revamped admissions scheme at the highly selective magnet school, Thomas Jefferson High School, in Alexandria, Va., as racially discriminatory against Asian American students. Although a 2-1 Fourth Circuit panel stayed the Coalition for TJ v. FCSB judgment and th ...