Kenny Xu

Wednesday

Kenny Xu

The Youngkin-Sears playbook for 2024

“I don’t think parents should be telling schools what to teach,” Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe infamously said at the second debate in September 2021. His comments opened an opportunity for Republican upstarts Glenn Youngkin and Winsome Earle-Sears, running for governor and lieutenant governor, respectively, to seize control of the educational debate. “In our poll, we were showing that we were hitting, like, a 45” percent polling average before McAuliffe’s debate comments," Sears admitted to me in an interview. But McAuliffe’s comments (and the campaign materials printed about them) opened the spigot, and the votes for Youngkin came pouring out.

glenn youngkin winsome sears

Monday

Kenny Xu

Harvard’s diversity disgrace

In 2014, the non-profit Students for Fair Admissions filed a lawsuit against Harvard University, alleging discrimination against Asian Americans in its admissions process — discrimination resulting from Harvard’s stated commitment to “a diverse class.” After defeats at the District and Court of Appeals level, the suit has arrived at the foot of the United States Supreme Court. The case will be argued in the 2022 term. Harvard’s reputation is not all that’s at stake. The case threatens to bring down the entire system of race-based affirmative action that dominates college admissions. Looking at the numbers, it’s easy to see why Students for Fair Admissions believe they have a case.

harvard