Washington, D.C

On the Streets of D.C., Praise and Protest of a Landmark Ruling on Race in Admissions

Published

1 year ago

June 29, 2023

On the Streets of D.C., Praise and Protest of a Landmark Ruling on Race in Admissions

Smoke from Canadian wildfires hung over the Supreme Court, in Washington, D.C., on Thursday morning as a crowd of journalists, tourists, and protesters began whispering to one another.

“Affirmative action is down!” someone yelled.

Around the nation’s capital, scenes of defeat and victory, disappointment and division, were visible in the hours after the justices struck down race-conscious admissions.

The legal cases, against the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Harvard College, cited claims of discrimination against Asian American students. Asian Americans were present both to protest and to praise the ruling.

Representatives of the Asian American Coalition for Education, which supported the court’s decision, held a large banner that read, “Equal Rights for All.”

“It’s a historic win for Asian Americans because our children will no longer be treated as second-class citizens in college admissions,” said Yukong Mike Zhao, the coalition’s founding president. “It’s also a win for all Americans because universities preserve meritocracy, which is the bedrock of the American dream.”

It wasn’t long before counterprotesters showed up. A handful of students from various colleges across the country, carrying light-blue handkerchiefs, told reporters about their opposition to the ruling as Asian American students, saying that the cases had wrongly pitted Asian Americans against members of other racial-minority groups.

“It’s unfair that our community is being used as a wedge to take down multiracial democracy, not only at the university level but at levels above,” said Jack Trowbridge, a third-year student at Wesleyan University, in Connecticut. “Because it all starts in higher education.”

Nearby, a sign propped against a police partition read, “We Are Not a Wedge.”

But others, like Christopher Banks, a guest lecturer at Washington Adventist University, condemned the ruling, calling it “highly regrettable.”

We call upon higher education to revisit its own standards and look inwardly.

A few blocks northeast of the court’s building, on Second Street, a group of Black, Latino, and Asian civil-rights lawyers — including a former New York City mayoral candidate, Maya Wiley — held a news conference in a small studio to voice their opposition to the ruling and express support for continued efforts to diversify America’s selective colleges.

“We call upon higher education to revisit its own standards and look inwardly because race-conscious admissions does some of the work but not all of the work,” said Damon Hewitt, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. He said such colleges should further reduce their reliance on standardized testing and legacy status in admissions.

A few minutes earlier, the lawyers had watched President Biden appeal to those institutions to re-examine their admissions practices, an assertion that “heartened” them, they said.

An hour later, in a navy-carpeted room at the National Press Club, less than two miles away, the plaintiffs’ lead lawyers in both the Harvard and UNC cases, along with their clients, declared victory.

Today’s victory belongs to thousands of sleepless high schoolers applying to colleges.

Edward J. Blum, the founder of Students for Fair Admissions, the organizational plaintiff in both cases, heralded the ruling as a re-establishment of principles outlined in the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which, he said, “clearly forbids the treating of Americans differently by race.” He founded Students for Fair Admissions in 2014 to represent students who had felt discriminated against in college admissions because of their race.

“Today’s victory belongs to thousands of sleepless high schoolers applying to colleges,” said Calvin Yang, a student at the University of California at Berkeley whose rejection by Harvard in 2021 spurred his activism to take down race-conscious admissions. “It belongs to those with the last names of Smith or Lee, Chen or Gonzalez. Most importantly, it belongs to all of us who believe that if we work hard enough, we all can have a chance and get our own slice of this grand American dream.”

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Washington, D.C

Four Seasons Hotel conman wanted by DC Police

Published

1 hour ago

December 26, 2024

Press Room

Four Seasons Hotel conman wanted by DC Police

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WASHINGTON – D.C. police are asking for the public’s help identifying a man accused of committing fraud and theft at the Four Seasons Hotel in Georgetown.

The incident occurred on Sunday, November 24, around 3 p.m. at the luxury hotel located on the 2800 block of Pennsylvania Avenue NW.

Surveillance footage captured the suspect arriving at the hotel in a Porsche SUV. He was seen wearing dark pants and a puffy winter coat, carrying a backpack. The man entered the hotel and was observed speaking with an employee at the front desk.

According to police, the suspect then dined at the hotel’s restaurant, ordering various items and charging them to a room number he was not registered to.

Following his meal, he proceeded to the hotel gym for a workout before leaving the premises and driving away in the Porsche.

Detectives are urging anyone who recognizes the suspect to contact them. A reward of $1,000 is being offered for information leading to an arrest and conviction in this case.

Attempts to reach the Four Seasons Hotel management for comment were unsuccessful, as they declined to discuss the incident.

Crime in the DMVWashington, D.C.Metropolitan Police Department

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Washington, D.C

‘I felt the boom': Burning building collapses in DC after car crash

Published

10 hours ago

December 26, 2024

Press Room

‘I felt the boom’: Burning building collapses in DC after car crash – NBC4 Washington

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Washington, D.C

Cal Thomas: Washington D.C.’s political Christmas tree

Published

18 hours ago

December 26, 2024

Press Room

Cal Thomas: Washington D.C.’s political Christmas tree

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Thursday, December 26th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown. Up next, WORLD commentator Cal Thomas on a bad Christmas tradition in Washington D.C.

CAL THOMAS: When Washington politicians speak of a Christmas tree this time of year, they are not referring to an actual tree. It means they’ve loaded up a bill with another kind of “green,” the kind that’s decorated with money.

The “bipartisan” bill passed just before midnight last Friday, minutes before a government “shutdown” would be an embarrassment to anyone but the politicians who voted for it. Like Christmas, this scenario gets played out almost every year with no regard for the growing debt.

The first bill was more than 1,500 pages. Elon Musk denounced it and suddenly it shrunk to over 100 pages, but that was too little for the big spenders. What passed last week at 118 pages may take days to digest, but you can be sure of one thing: pork is part of it. Always is.

For the last ten years, Republican Senator Rand Paul has published what he calls a “Festivus” report on just some of the wasteful spending in which our Congress is engaged. His latest – and you should Google it to see it all – includes the following:

Some of the highlights – or lowlights as I like to call them — include funding for the National Endowment for the Arts to subsidize ice-skating drag queens and promoting city park circuses. Additionally, the Department of the Interior invested in the construction of a new $12 million Las Vegas Pickleball complex. Interior also allocated $720,479 to wetland conservation projects for ducks in Mexico. This year, the Department of State is featured eleven times, with expenditures including $4.8 million on Ukrainian influencers, $32,596 on breakdancing, $2.1 million for Paraguayan Border Security (what about security at our border?), $3 Million for ‘Girl-Centered Climate Action’ in Brazil, and much more!

Hey, it’s not their money, it’s our money.

At least this time a pay raise for members didn’t make it to the final bill. Members should be having their pay cut, not raised, for under-performing.

Perhaps Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk can do something about the misspending that has led to the unsustainable $36 trillion dollar debt with interest of $1 trillion dollars just this year.

Others have tried and failed to break the spending habit. Maybe they will succeed this time, but the odds are not good. It’s not called “the swamp” for nothing.

I hope you had a Happy Christmas. Your politicians did.

I’m Cal Thomas.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.

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