Monster of 2025: Kavanaugh Stops – Mother Jones

The opinion argued that the administration's decision to use race as one proxy for immigration status likely didn't run afoul of the Fourth Amendment or the court's precedents. But, to make these arguments, his concurrence contradicted both daily news reports and the evidence in the very case he was ruling on. Boldly, Kavanaugh let neither the law nor the truth stop him from writing many stupid sentences defending the indefensible...

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/01/monster-of-2025-kavanaugh-stops/ 

 

Trump’s focus on race backfires as voters punish economic failings

Work years ago by the economists Alberto Alesina, Edward Glaeser and Bruce Sacerdote concluded that racial barriers – fear, contempt, mistrust – are a big reason the United States did not develop the rich safety net that the more ethnically homogeneous democracies of western Europe built to protect their people from economic calamities. Indeed, when he started building the American safety net, FDR tailored New Deal programs to exclude Black Americans in order to get white southern Democrats onboard. On the day he signed the Civil Rights Act into law, President Lyndon Johnson, a southern Democrat, adroitly observed to his aide Bill Moyers: "I think we may have lost the south for your lifetime – and mine." 

In any event, ethnic resentment has become the central focus of Trump's domestic policy…

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/nov/18/trump-race-inflation

 

In blow to Trump, federal judges block new Texas congressional map - POLITICO

"The map ultimately passed by the Legislature and signed by the Governor — the 2025 Map — achieved all but one of the racial objectives that DOJ demanded," U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown, a Galveston-based Trump appointee, wrote for the panel majority… 

According to the court, the letter selected the four districts "based entirely on their racial makeup" and was the key factor that spurred Texas Republicans to take up the extraordinary redistricting effort. The bulk of Brown's 160-page opinion delves into the mindset of the state lawmakers and advisers who drew the new maps, suggesting that their motives clearly aligned with DOJ's race-based push and that their characterization of the new maps as based only on race-blind partisanship were not believable…

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/11/18/federal-judges-block-new-texas-congressional-map-00656680

 

Latino, Black students often blocked from algebra classes linked to good jobs - The Washington Post

"Because of implicit biases, racial biases, and mindsets about who is and who isn't a math person, Black and Latino students and students from low-income backgrounds — even when they demonstrate that they are ready and they are very clear that they are eager for those courses — are still shut out," Socol said. "Across the U.S., in every state, students of color and students from low-income backgrounds are often shut out of rigorous courses."…

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2025/11/18/algebra-racial-disparities/

Weekly Roundup: Iran, the End Times, and Christian Nihilism + Appeal to Heaven Flag at the SBA (Bradley Onishi and Daniel Miller; Straight White American Jesus podcast)

Is Trump Preparing for a Holy War?

In this episode of Straight White American Jesus, Brad Onishi examines Donald Trump’s mixed messaging on U.S. involvement in Israel’s conflict with Iran—through the lens of evangelical influence. He unpacks how Christian nationalist leaders frame the conflict as a cosmic battle between good and evil, and how that spiritualized rhetoric could shape Trump’s future actions.

Brad also investigates the growing signs that the ideology behind January 6th is becoming embedded in U.S. institutions—highlighted by the presence of the “Appeal to Heaven” flag at key government sites. He then turns to the media’s uneven response to recent political violence, comparing coverage of two alleged shooters and what it reveals about race, ideology, and public perception.

The episode wraps with updates on military and judicial developments tied to the Trump era—and what they signal about where we might be headed next.
Interview: 

https://www.straightwhiteamericanjesus.com/episodes/weekly-roundup-iran-the-end-times-and-christian-nihilism-appeal-to-heaven-flag-at-the-sba/

Trump is using his executive order targeting the Smithsonian to rewrite history

…Trump, in his executive order expresses disappointment that the show "promotes the view that race is not a biological reality but a social construct."…

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/-trump-smithsonian-museum-executive-order-race-rcna198533

 

‘People will die’: alarm after US orders removal of identity references from anti-trafficking efforts

The US government has ordered law enforcement agencies, the state department, and some non-profit organizations working to combat sex trafficking to remove references to victims' LGBTQ+ identities, race and immigration status from their communications and websites, a move experts warn will endanger vulnerable minors...

https://www.theguardian.com/law/2025/mar/21/anti-trafficking-race-lgbt-immigration-demographics

 

 

Elon Musk blasts part of MAGA as "contemptible fools"

A virtual right-wing civil war has broken out over race, class, immigration and the future of President-elect Trump's movement, and Musk is increasingly at odds with Trump's historic base…

https://www.axios.com/2024/12/27/elon-musk-contemptible-fools-maga-doge

 

Silicon Valley Is Reviving the Discredited and Discriminatory Idea of ‘Race Science’ | Scientific American

Modern proponents of race science insist they're not motivated by racism but are simply reporting data on intelligence. This dubious claim was fostered by the publication of The Bell Curve in 1994, which propagated the idea that African Americans were intellectually inferior. 

This central thesis was eviscerated in scathing criticism by experts ranging from Stephen J. Gould to Noam Chomsky, many of whom noted the data presented were riddled with errors and spurious inferences. 

This fatal criticism however was not enough to stop even some Nobel laureates, most notably DNA double helix co-discoverer James Watson and transistor co-inventor William Shockley, from pushing discredited claims on race and intelligence. Overall their arguments about ostensible racial differences commit a statistical fallacy, ignoring extremely relevant lurking variables; while slavery was abolished in the U.S. in 1865, this did not magically alleviate massive inequality or the legacy of historical harms that persist still.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/silicon-valley-is-reviving-the-discredited-and-discriminatory-idea-of-race/

On Race, House Speaker Mike Johnson Says His Views Were Shaped By Raising a Black Child - The New York Times

"And I've thought often through all these ordeals over the last couple of weeks about the difference in the experiences between my two 14-year-old sons," he said in the PBS interview. "Michael being a Black American and Jack being white Caucasian. They have different challenges. My son Jack has an easier path. He just does."

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/27/us/politics/mike-johnson-house-speaker-son.html

After affirmative action case, guidance explains how colleges can address race - The Washington Post

A Biden administration memorandum responds to the Supreme Court's rejection of race-based affirmative action…

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/08/14/affirmative-action-college-admissions-guidance/

Opinion | The New Beneficiaries of Affirmative Action Are White Men - POLITICO

It is hard to avoid the upside-down nature of a decision that ends up privileging the very group that has historically been most advantaged. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson condemned the "perverse" nature of the SFFA decision, which reads a part of the Constitution aimed at correcting racial injustice as barring a policy that does just that. A recent challenge to Harvard's legacy admissions policy is also premised on the backwards aspect of a decision that bans express accounting of race while permitting consideration of far less worthy traits…

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/07/19/scotus-affirmative-action-admissions-white-men-00106595

The Supreme Court didn’t end affirmative action for white people - Vox

The Supreme Court's decision to effectively ban the consideration of race in college admissions reversed more than 40 years of precedent. It also left other kinds of admission preferences in place — ones that often benefit white students...

https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/6/30/23778906/affirmative-action-white-applicants-legacy-athletic-recruitment

Judge orders books removed from Texas public libraries due to LGBTQ and racial content must be replaced within 24 hours | CNN

Books ordered to return to shelves include "Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents" by Isabel Wilkerson, "They Called Themselves the K.K.K.: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group" by Susan Campbell Bartoletti and "Being Jazz: My Life as a (Transgender) Teen" by Jazz Jennings.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/01/us/texas-book-ban-removed-library-replaced-judge/index.html

‘You’re not forgotten‘: how the right racialized the Ohio train disaster

Three weeks into the disaster, a new set of headlines has started to billow up from right-wing outlets and commentators. 

Now the tragedy of East Palestine has morphed into a racialized lament for the "forgotten" people abandoned by the uncaring "woke" Biden administration. For "forgotten", read white. 

Leading the charge, as is so often the case with such white-America nativist fearmongering, is the Fox News star Tucker Carlson.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/26/trump-fox-news-east-palestine-ohio-right-wing-race-baiting

Justice Jackson’s Crucial Argument About Affirmative Action - The Atlantic

In a day filled with questions about the meaning of "true diversity" or the educational benefits of diversity, Jackson's questions cut through the muck. Some students had historically been denied access to some of the nation's most well-resourced institutions of higher education—feeder campuses for prominent roles throughout society—because of their race. If SFFA wins, that fact will be one of the only things a university cannot consider in its admissions process, as though that history never happened—as though the system is fair enough already...

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2022/11/affirmative-action-supreme-court-ketanji-brown-jackson/671954/

Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is right about race and the Constitution - Vox

There's a glaring flaw in the Supreme Court lawsuits attacking affirmative action… 

The Congress that wrote the 14th Amendment, in other words, rejected the "colorblind" theory, and instead wrote a landmark civil rights statute that explicitly requires the government to consider race when deciding whether a non-white individual's rights were fully respected. And the Civil Rights Act of 1866 is only one of many such laws enacted by Reconstruction-era lawmakers...

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/23403021/supreme-court-affirmative-action-race-ketanji-brown-jackson-colorblind-originalism

 

No, Illinois high school is not grading students based on their race - PolitiFact

The school board and administrators discussed ways to more equitably assess students during a May 26 meeting. But there is no indication the district plans to grade students differently based on race...

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/jun/03/facebook-posts/no-illinois-high-school-not-grading-students-based/

 

Uproar as Mississippi signs bill to limit discussions of race in school lessons

…The short title of senate bill 2113 says it would prohibit "critical race theory". But the main text of the legislation does not mention or define the theory, and many supporters of the bill also have said they cannot define it...

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/mar/14/mississippi-race-republicans-schools-critical-race-theory

Florida Legislature passes bill that limits how schools and workplaces teach about race and identity - The Washington Post

"Is it possible to talk about slavery, or the fact that White people not Black people were enslavers," Gibson asked. "How does that conversation go so nobody feels or has the imposition of guilt or compelled to feel guilty?"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/03/10/florida-legislature-passes-anti-woke-bill/