June 30, 2023

Friday, June 30,2023. Annette’s News Roundup.

I think the Roundup makes people feel not so alone.

To read an article excerpted in this Roundup, click on its blue title. Each “blue” article is hyperlinked so you can read the whole article.

Please feel free to share.

Invite at least one other person to subscribe today! buttondown.email/AnnettesNewsRoundup

_________________________

Joe is always busy.

The President said he “strongly” disagrees with the Supreme Court decision on Affirmative Action.

This was POTUS’ Press Conference yesterday, following the Court decision. 👇

Perhaps his most quoted words are, “This is not a normal court.”

Transcript.

THE PRESIDENT: Good afternoon, folks. Sorry to keep you waiting a few minutes.

Forty-five years — for forty-five years, the United States Supreme Court has recognized a college’s freedom to decide how — how to build diverse student bodies and to meet their responsibility of opening doors of opportunity for every single American.

In case after case, including recently, just as a few years ago in 2016, the Court has affirmed and reaffirmed this view: that colleges could use race not as a determinative factor for admission, but as one of the factors among many in deciding who to admit from a quali- — from a qualified — already qualified pool of applicants.

Today, the Court once again walked away from decades of precedent and make — as the dissent has made clear.

The dissent states that today’s decision, quote, “rolls back decades of precedent and momentous progress.” End of quote.

I agree with that statement from the dissents — from the dissent.

The Court has effectively ended affirmative action in college admissions. And I strongly — strongly disagree with the Court’s decision.

Because affirmative action is so misunderstood, I want to be clear — make sure everybody is clear about what the law has been and what it has not been, until today.

Many people wrongly believe that affirmative action allows unqualified students — unqualified students — to be admitted ahead of qualified students. This is not — this is not how college admissions work.

Rather, colleges set out standards for admission, and every student — every student has to meet those standards.

Then, and only then, after first meeting the qualifications required by the school, do colleges look at other factors in addition to their grades, such as race.

You know, I’ve always believed that one of the greatest strengths of America — and you’re tired of hearing me say it — is our diversity, but I believe that.

If you have any doubt about this, just look at the United States military, the finest fighting force in the history of the world. It’s been a model of diversity. And it’s not only been our — made our nation better, stronger, but safer.

And I believe the same is true for our schools. I’ve always believed that the promise of America is big enough for everyone to succeed and that every generation of Americans, we have benefitted by opening the doors of opportunity just a little bit wider to include those who have been left behind.

I believe our colleges are stronger when they are racially diverse. Our nation is stronger because we use what we — because we are tapping into the full range of talent in this nation.

I also believe that while talent, creativity, and hard work are everywhere across this country, not equal opportunity. It is not everywhere across this country.

We cannot let this decision be the last word. I want to emphasize: We cannot let this decision be the last word.

While the Court can render a decision, it cannot change what America stands for.

America is an idea — an idea unique in the world. An idea of hope and opportunity, of possibilities, of giving everyone a fair shot, of leaving no one behind. We have never fully lived up to it, but we’ve never walked away from it either. We will not walk away from it now.

We should never allow the country to walk away from the dream upon which it was founded: that opportunity is for everyone, not just a few.

We need a new path forward — a path consistent with a law that protects diversity and expands opportunity.

So, today I want to offer some guidance to our nation’s colleges as they review their admissions systems after today’s decision — guidance that is consistent with today’s decision.

They should not abandon — let me say this again: They should not abandon their commitment to ensure student bodies of diverse backgrounds and experience that reflect all of America.

What I propose for consideration is a new standard, where colleges take into account the adversity a student has overcome when selecting among qualified applicants.

Let’s be clear: Under this new standard, just as was true under the earlier standard, students first have to be qualified applicants. They need the GPA and test scores to meet the school’s standards.

Once that test is met, then adversity should be considered, including — including its lack — a student’s lack of financial means, because we know too few students of low-income families, whether in big cities or rural communities, are getting an opportunity to go to college.

When the poor kid — when a poor kid — may be the first in their family to go to college — gets the same grades and test scores as a wealthy kid whose whole family has gone to the most elite colleges in the country and whose path has been a lot easier, well, the kid who faced tougher challenges has demonstrated more grit, more determination. And that should be a factor that colleges should take into account in admissions. And many still do.

It also means examining where the student grew up and went to high school.

It means understanding the particular hardships that each individual student has faced in life, including racial discrimination that individuals have faced in their own lives.

The Court says, quote, “[N]othing in this opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an application’s [applicant’s] discussion of how race [has] affected his or her life,” but it’s — it’s through — but “be it through discrimination [or] inspiration or otherwise.”

Because the truth is — we all know it: Discrimination still exists in America. Discrimination still exists in America. Discrimination still exists in America.

Today’s decision does not change that. It’s a simple fact.

If a student has — has overcome — had to overcome adversity on their path to education, a college should recognize and value that.

Our nation’s colleges and universities should be engines of expanding opportunity through upward mobility. But today, too often that’s not the case.

The statistics — one statistic: Students from the top 1 percent of family incomes in America are 77 times more likely to get into an elite college than one from the bottom 20 percent of family incomes. Seventy-seven ti- — percent great- — greater opportunity.

Today, for too many schools, the only people who benefit from the system are the wealthy and the well-connected. The odds have been stacked against working people for much too long.

We need a higher education system that works for everyone, from App- — from Appalachia to Atlanta and to far beyond.

We can and must do better, and we will.

Today, I’m directing the Department of Education to analyze what practices help build a more inclusive and diverse student bodies and what practices hold that back, practices like legacy admissions and other systems that expand privilege instead of opportunity.

Colleges and universities should continue their commitment to support, retain, and graduate diverse students and classes.

You know, and companies — companies who are already realizing the value in diversity should not use this decision as an excuse to turn away from diversity either.

We can’t go backwards.

You know, I know today’s Court decision is a severe disappointment to so many people, including me, but we cannot let the decision be a permanent setback for the country.

We need to keep an open door of opportunities. We need to remember that diversity is our strength. We have to find a way forward.

We need to remember that the promise of America is big enough for everyone to succeed.

You know, that’s the work of my administration, and I’m always going to fight for that.

And I want to thank you all.

And I know you’ve been told I have a helicopter out there waiting to go up to do an interview in New York. I’ll be talking to more about this in a live interview.

But thank you very much. And we’re going to have plenty of time to talk about this. But we’re not going to let this break us.

Thank you.

Q President Biden, the Congressional Black Caucus said the Supreme Court has “thrown into question its own legitimacy.” Is this a rogue Court?

THE PRESIDENT: This is not a normal Court.

Q Should there be term limits for the justices, sir?

12:57 P.M. EDT (Transcript. The White House)

______________________

Kamala is always busy.

Kamala Harris tells Essence crowd SCOTUS affirmative action ruling is "a denial of opportunity.”

Vice President Kamala Harris shared her "deep disappointment" for the Supreme Court's affirmative action ruling during a speech Thursday in New Orleans.

Why it matters: The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that colleges can't explicitly consider applicants' race in admissions.

• The ruling will force colleges to reimagine the admissions process and likely jeopardize the representation of Black and Latino students on campuses, write Axios' Erin Doherty and April Rubin.

What she's saying: "It is in so very many ways a denial of opportunity," Harris said of the ruling, while encouraging the audience to read the "brilliant" dissenting opinion written by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.

• "There is no question we have so much work to do."

Driving the news: Harris was at the Global Black Economic Forum at the Four Seasons, along with other dignitaries and business leaders.

• The forum is happening all weekend as part of Essence Fest.

• Watch the livestream.

The latest: Harris will be speaking at Essence Fest on Friday about reproductive health. (Axios).

Watch the Vice President speak on Affirmative Action. 👇

_________________________

In case you want to know more about Bidenomics, Jennifer Rubin does the job. Read here!!!👇

Biden trying hard to educate voters about ‘Bidenomics.’


Some presidents don’t have a strong story to tell about their record, so they deflect, distract and demonize their opponents. Other presidents’ records almost speak for themselves.

President Biden, however, finds himself in an unusual spot: An economic record that has been working far better than most people anticipated but that the electorate doesn’t yet recognize.


The economy has created 13 million jobs, inflation has been more than cut in half, huge investments are being made in infrastructure and green energy, wage growth has begun to outpace inflation, the first drug price controls are going into effect and the biggest corporations will finally be forced to pay something in federal taxes.

Yet polls show voters incorrectly think we are in a recession and remain negative about the economy.
The White House is well aware of the problem.

Beginning this week, the White House is making a focused push to narrow the gap between performance and perception. On Monday, senior Biden advisers Mike Donilon and Anita Dunn released a four-page memo explaining the president’s vision, which they call “Bidenomics.”


Dunn and Donilon wrote, “Bidenomics is rooted in the simple idea that we need to grow the economy from the middle out and the bottom up — not the top down. … Implementing that economic vision and plan — and decisively turning the page on the era of trickle-down economics — has been the defining project of the Biden presidency.”

They then ticked off a list of accomplishments: an economic recovery five years earlier than expected, “13 million jobs since the President took office — including nearly 800,000 manufacturing jobs,” a higher job-participation rate for working-age Americans than at anytime in the past 20 years, “transformative investments that are not only bringing back good-paying jobs that don’t require a four-year degree, but also bringing back a sense of pride and dignity to communities across America.”

At the White House on Monday, Biden highlighted the infrastructure bill’s $42 billion investment in fast internet. On Wednesday, he delivered what was billed as a “major” economic address in Chicago.

There, he decried trickle-down economics that “failed” the country and the middle class.
His three-part vision: “targeted investment” that encourages private investment (comparing it to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s rural electrification and Dwight D. Eisenhower’s interstate highway program); empowering workers (made-in-America provisions, increasing Pell grants and support for historically Black colleges and universities); and promoting competition (enforcing antitrust rules, cracking down on noncompete clauses, Medicare negotiation for lower drug prices).

Biden stressed that the United States is “leading the world economies since the pandemic.”

As Biden said, it is “awful hard to demagogue something when it’s working.”


Biden is also emphasizing a break with trickle-down economics, which, he says, increased inequality, sent jobs overseas and hollowed out towns.

He argued that ending trickle-down and building up the middle class will also be a recipe for healing divisions.


The media remains fixated on Biden’s failure to sell his program. He should not need to sell a program that already passed. He does need explain what he delivered — without blaming the media for incessantly negative coverage or chalking up the gap between performance and perception to general cynicism about politics (although both are true).

Instead of expressing frustration with the electorate, he often sounds like a patient parent, noting with empathy that the country has been through a lot and acknowledging that Americans still feel uneasy about the world.


He is utterly determined to hammer his economic message home between now and Election Day. To help the average voter see what he has gotten (such as cheaper insulin and real wage growth), White House officials are providing a flood of data to highlight the transformative nature of the investments and to personalize Biden’s achievements.


On a macro level, the level of private and public investment in the heartland stand out.

Biden insists he is president of the entire country and that he will take care of regions that didn’t vote for him. In that sense, he is building the economy geographically from the “middle out,” as well.


According to a White House fact sheet, the bipartisan infrastructure law has already created 35,000 projects across the country.

Its green energy push has spurred more than 150 battery plants and 50 solar plants. “In all, we’ve seen $490 billion in private investment commitments in 21st century industries since the President took office, and inflation-adjusted manufacturing construction spending has grown by nearly 100% in just two years,” the fact sheet announced.

“New data … shows the clean energy workforce added nearly 300,000 jobs in 2022 and clean energy jobs grew in every state in America.

… Inflation-adjusted income is up 3.5% since the President took office, and low-wage workers have seen the largest wage gains over the last year.”

A recent Treasury Department report emphasized the volume of that investment and the quality of jobs created. “Real manufacturing construction spending has doubled since the end of 2021.”

It found: “Within real construction spending on manufacturing, most of the growth has been driven by computer, electronics, and electrical manufacturing. Since the beginning of 2022, real spending on construction for that specific type of manufacturing has nearly quadrupled.”

Because such investments increase productivity, the result should be both increased growth and downward pressure on inflation. (It is noteworthy that other industrial countries have not experienced such a boom and have higher inflation and higher unemployment.)


Biden’s success will depend on continued growth, job creation and inflation reduction. But it’s hard to deny the results so far have been impressive. Economists may look back on this time as an inflection point when historic investments ushered in a new era of domestic manufacturing, gave a new lease on life to the Rust Belt and improved the balance sheet of middle-class Americans.


The challenge for Biden, his advisers and surrogates will be to get the public to focus on these developments now, in real time. Because repetition is generally the key to political communication, be prepared to hear Bidenomics again and again over the next 16 months. (Jennifer Rubin, The Washington Post).

_________________________

Does the Supreme Court ruling mean diversity at college and universities will stop?

Supreme Court guts affirmative action in college admissions.

The Supreme Court says colleges and universities can no longer take race into consideration as an express factor in admissions, a landmark decision that overturns long-standing precedent that has benefitted Black and Latino students in higher education. (CNN).

Read the SCOTUS ruling. Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Justice Roberts wrote the majority opinion.

Justices Kagan, Sotomayor and Jackson dissented.

From Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Dissent.

Thomas …explicitly attacks Jackson's opinion.

"As she sees things, we are all inexorably trapped in a fundamentally racist society, with the original sin of slavery and the historical subjugation of black Americans still determining our lives today," Thomas wrote.

"Worse still, Justice Jackson uses her broad observations about statistical relationships between race and select measures of health, wealth, and well-being to label all blacks as victims," Thomas wrote at another point in his concurrence. "Her desire to do so is unfathomable to me." (CNN).

Justice Jackson seemed taken aback by what she called Justice Thomas’s “prolonged attack” on her dissent, saying that his opinion “also demonstrates an obsession with race consciousness that far outstrips my or U.N.C.‘s holistic understanding that race can be a factor that affects applicants’ unique life experiences.” (New York Times).

Here is Justice Jackson’s full, 29 page dissent.

Claudine Gay, President elect of Harvard, reacts to the Court’s decision. 👇

(BTW, 6.6% of Harvard undergraduates are Black).

What does the American public think about race and admissions?

The historian Michael Beschloss asserts (see tweet way above and below 👇 ) polls find a majority endorses affirmative action.

But the New York Times today had a banner headline which declared - “A majority of Americans say race should not be a factor in college admissions.”

Which is true? Do Americans support using race as a factor in admissions or do they oppose it?

Later in the same New York Times article the writer offers an explanation for the differing numbers, “Polls about affirmative action have proved to be highly sensitive to how the questions on the topic are asked, possibly reflecting some uncertainty or ambivalence in the public’s views.

When questions are framed around the Supreme Court’s role in deciding the issue, there tends to be greater consensus across racial and ethnic groups in favor of affirmative action. When a May survey from The Associated Press and NORC asked whether the Supreme Court should prohibit consideration of race in college admissions, about 60 percent of Americans, nearly uniformly across racial and ethnic groups, said the court should not.

However, when explicitly asked whether race and ethnicity should be considered in admissions, a majority of the public — white and nonwhite adults alike — said it should not be a factor, according to a February Reuters/Ipsos poll. And similarly, a different Pew poll from last year found that sizable majorities across racial and ethnic groups said race should “not be a factor” in admissions decisions.

The differing levels of support for affirmative action in the more recent Pew survey might reflect not just a contrast in how the question is asked — it specifically referred to selective universities using the practice to “increase the racial and ethnic diversity of the school” — but also shifting attitudes about affirmative action over time. The topic has taken on more prominence in the public conversation after California voters rejected affirmative action at the ballot box in 2020 and as the Supreme Court considered the issue, suggesting that a subset of voters might be giving the concept a fresh look.”

So the writer who so assuredly declared that Americans were against race as a factor in college admissions hesitates… it may be the polls, he says, and how the question was framed.

Or is there at least one another explanation too?

As the President said yesterday in response to the Court ruling, “Many people wrongly believe that affirmative action allows unqualified students — unqualified students — to be admitted ahead of qualified students. This is not — this is not how college admissions work.

Rather, colleges set out standards for admission, and every student — every student has to meet those standards.

Then, and only then, after first meeting the qualifications required by the school, do colleges look at other factors in addition to their grades, such as race.”

We have a population that doesn’t understand what Affirmative Action is or how it works. Perhaps we should remember they have been misled on Affirmative Action by political and media sources like the lead story in the New York Times today which bore a dangerous headline - “A majority of Americans say race should not be a factor in college admission.”

It depends on who is asking and how, as well as who answers, and who reports.

______

Earlier Thursday, the Biden administration outlined a series of steps it will take through the Department of Education and other relevant agencies to continue to support diversity in higher education.

The President asked Colleges and Universities to continue their quest for diversity. Watch him here. 👇

_________________________

A warning from the past or is it the future? - Why was Jared Kushner accepted to Harvard College?

In the light of the Supreme Court’s verdict against Harvard yesterday, it seemed appropriate to reprint this ProPublica article on Kushner from 2016.

The Story Behind Jared Kushner’s Curious Acceptance Into Harvard.

I would like to express my gratitude to Jared Kushner for reviving interest in my 2006 book, “The Price of Admission.” I have never met or spoken with him, and it’s rare in this life to find such a selfless benefactor. Of course, I doubt he became Donald Trump’s son-in-law and consigliere merely to boost my lagging sales, but still, I’m thankful.

My book exposed a grubby secret of American higher education: that the rich buy their under-achieving children’s way into elite universities with massive, tax-deductible donations. It reported that New Jersey real estate developer Charles Kushner had pledged $2.5 million to Harvard University in 1998, not long before his son Jared was admitted to the prestigious Ivy League school. At the time, Harvard accepted about one of every nine applicants. (Nowadays, it only takes one out of twenty.)

I also quoted administrators at Jared’s high school, who described him as a less than stellar student and expressed dismay at Harvard’s decision.

“There was no way anybody in the administrative office of the school thought he would on the merits get into Harvard,” a former official at The Frisch School in Paramus, New Jersey, told me. “His GPA did not warrant it, his SAT scores did not warrant it. We thought for sure, there was no way this was going to happen. Then, lo and behold, Jared was accepted. It was a little bit disappointing because there were at the time other kids we thought should really get in on the merits, and they did not.”

Risa Heller, a spokeswoman for Kushner Companies, said in an email Thursday that “the allegation” that Charles Kushner’s gift to Harvard was related to Jared’s admission “is and always has been false.” His parents, Charles and Seryl Kushner, “are enormously generous and have donated over 100 million dollars to universities, hospitals and other charitable causes. Jared Kushner was an excellent student in high school and graduated from Harvard with honors.” (About 90 percent of Jared’s 2003 class at Harvard also graduated with honors.)

My Kushner discoveries were an offshoot of my research for a chapter on Harvard donors. Somebody had slipped me a document I had long coveted: the membership list of Harvard’s Committee on University Resources. The university wooed more than 400 of its biggest givers and most promising prospects by putting them on this committee and inviting them to campus periodically to be wined, dined, and subjected to lectures by eminent professors.

My idea was to figure out how many children of these corporate titans, oil barons, money managers, lawyers, high-tech consultants and old-money heirs had gone to Harvard. A disproportionate tally might suggest that the university eased its standards for the offspring of wealthy backers.

I began working through the list, poring over “Who’s Who in America” and Harvard class reunion reports for family information. Charles and Seryl Kushner were both on the committee. I had never heard of them, but their joint presence struck me as a sign that Harvard’s fundraising machine held the couple in especially fond regard.

The clips showed that Charles Kushner’s empire encompassed 25,000 New Jersey apartments, along with extensive office, industrial and retail space and undeveloped land. Unlike most of his fellow committee members, though, Kushner was not a Harvard man. He had graduated from New York University. This eliminated the sentimental tug of the alma mater as a reason for him to give to Harvard, leaving another likely explanation: his children.

Sure enough, his sons Jared and Joshua had both enrolled there.

Charles Kushner differed from his peers on the committee in another way; he had a criminal record. Five years after Jared entered Harvard, the elder Kushner pleaded guilty in 2004 to tax violations, illegal campaign donations, and retaliating against a witness. (As it happens, the prosecutor in the case was Chris Christie, recently ousted as the head of Trump’s transition team.) Charles Kushner had hired a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law, who was cooperating with federal authorities. Kushner then had a videotape of the tryst sent to his sister. He was sentenced to two years in federal prison.

I completed my analysis, which justified my hunch. Of the 400-plus tycoons on Harvard’s list — which included people who were childless or too young to have college-age offspring — more than half had sent at least one child to the university.

I also decided that the Kushner-Harvard relationship deserved special attention. Although the university often heralded big gifts in press releases or a bulletin called — in a classic example of fundraising wit, “Re:sources” — a search of these outlets came up empty. Harvard didn’t seem eager to be publicly associated with Charles Kushner.

While looking into Kushner’s taxes, though, federal authorities had subpoenaed records of his charitable giving. I learned that in 1998, when Jared was attending The Frisch School and starting to look at colleges, his father had pledged $2.5 million to Harvard, to be paid in annual installments of $250,000. Charles Kushner also visited Neil Rudenstine, then Harvard president, and discussed funding a scholarship program for low- and middle-income students.

I phoned a Harvard official, with whom I was on friendly terms. First I asked whether the gift played any role in Jared’s admission. “You know we don’t comment on individual applicants,” he said. When I pressed further, he hung up. We haven’t spoken since.

At Harvard, Jared Kushner majored in government. Now the 35-year-old is poised to become the power behind the presidency. What he plans to do, and in what direction he and his father-in-law will lead the country, are far more important than his high school grades. (ProPublica).

Kushner wasn’t even legacy. Just rich.
_________________________