The most important policy news yesterday was the publication of the EO on "Restoring Equality of Opportunity and Meritocracy," specifically attacking disparate-impact theory.

As so often with this White House, the EO makes for great reading: "A bedrock principle of the United States is that all citizens are treated equally under the law. This principle guarantees equality of opportunity, not equal outcomes. It promises that people are treated as individuals, not components of a particular race or group. It encourages meritocracy and a colorblind society, not race- or sex-based favoritism. Adherence to this principle is essential to creating opportunity, encouraging achievement, and sustaining the American Dream."

"But a pernicious movement endangers this foundational principle, seeking to transform America’s promise of equal opportunity into a divisive pursuit of results preordained by irrelevant immutable characteristics, regardless of individual strengths, effort, or achievement. A key tool of this movement is disparate-impact liability, which holds that a near insurmountable presumption of unlawful discrimination exists where there are any differences in outcomes in certain circumstances among different races, sexes, or similar groups, even if there is no facially discriminatory policy or practice or discriminatory intent involved, and even if everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed. Disparate-impact liability all but requires individuals and businesses to consider race and engage in racial balancing to avoid potentially crippling legal liability. It not only undermines our national values, but also runs contrary to equal protection under the law and, therefore, violates our Constitution."

Amen!

But what can an EO do, since it cannot overturn Griggs v. Duke Power, the Supreme Court decision which enshrined disparate impact theory in American law, nor the 1991 Civil Rights Act, which codified Griggs into American law?

Well, not nothing. As Heather MacDonald points out at CityJournal, "Most momentously for law enforcement, the executive order initiates the review of federal consent decrees that rely on disparate-impact analysis (i.e., almost all of them), with the implied goal of dissolving those decrees. (A consent decree is a negotiated settlement, overseen by a judge and his representative, binding a government entity to an elaborate set of reforms.) Dissolving such decrees will not only liberate police departments from a costly yoke of superfluous red tape but will also defund the federal monitor racket, whereby monitors earn millions of dollars declaring for years on end that the overseen police department has yet to comply punctiliously with an average of 200 or so mandated reforms, often regarding paperwork."

The Executive Branch can do a lot by what it decides to fund and not fund, and enforce and not enforce.

But the longest run impact may have been foreseen by Charles Murray, who points out that if enforcement will stop, or at least pause, litigation may not. And this could set up a process to challenge Griggs and have the Supreme Court overturn it (which it would have to do on constitutional grounds to overturn provisions of the 1991 CRA as well). Let's hope he's right.

Policy News You Need To Know

#DEI — Speaking of, and showing why this process is so essential, some explosive reporting from the Washington Free Beacon: "Writing the foreword to the Harvard Law Review's Supreme Court issue is arguably the most prestigious honor in legal academia. Since 2018, only one white author has penned it—and that's no coincidence, according to internal documents obtained by our Aaron Sibarium. (…) The Law Review incorporates race into nearly every stage of its article selection process, which as a matter of policy considers 'both substantive and DEI factors.'"

#DEI — Speaking of, still, but this is important, Chris Rufo has obtained "damning documents" showing that Princeton engaged in systematic racial discrimination against whites.

#DOGE — Good reporting from the Journal on how DOGE is planning to go ahead as Elon Musk's role winds down, in partnership with Russ Vought's OMB.

#Voting #Constitution — More injunctions: a judge has blocked the Trump Administration from requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote. This can't go on.

#FirstAmendment — EPPC fellow  Eric Kniffin filed an amicus brief in Cedar Park Assemblies of God v. Kreidler. This case was brought by a Washington State church seeking relief from the State’s “Parity Act,” which requires all health plans to include access to elective abortions.

#FamilyPolicy — Very interesting post from EPPC's Patrick T Brown offering a "kids' menu" of family policy options, that is to say, smart pro-family policies that have a low sticker cost.

#Manufacturing #Chyna — Very good article from RAND scholars on China's industrial policy "playbook", that is to say, "beyond tariffs." Much to learn there.

#Chyna — Speaking of the Chinese regime's playbook, RAND scholars also look at the risks related to sabotage by Chinese spies.

#K12 — From Corey DeAngelis at The Daily Economy: "Texas Joins the School Choice Revolution."

Friday Essays

Renaud Camus has been in the news lately since the author of "The Great Replacement," and probably the most important political thinker living and active today, was banned from entering the United Kingdom (here's an article by Craig Simpson of the Daily Telegraph on the affair, and Dominic Green's excellent column in the Journal on the same topic), which is why we will recommend some recent essays on his thought: this interview in The European Conservative, this review of a recent translation of a collection of essays in the Salisbury Review, and another one by Simon Evans in the Critic, and finally here's Douglas Murray in The New Criterion. The great Mary Harrington has also written a series of essays on Camus' thought. If you have the time for video/audio content, this ISI panel featuring such luminaries as Nathan Pinkoski, Rusty Reno, and Rod Dreher, is a great introduction to Camus' thought.

Spencer Klavan makes his debut at the outstanding New Atlantis magazine with an article arguing against the mechanistic vision of human nature: "You are not an ape-brained meat sack." Indeed you are not!

Claremont's Daniel J. Mahoney has a review essay on the political philosophy of Pierre Manent, one of the great contemporary French political philosophers, whose thought repays study.

Roger McFillin at the Brownstone Institute (with memes!): "How Your Family Doc Became a Drug Enforcement Agent"

Jack Salmon, an economist at Mercatus, has done an in-depth study of the empirical literature to estimate the tax multiplier, in other words, for every $1 of tax increased, how much economic activity is destroyed? If that's your sort of thing, this is a very interesting article.