In a dissenting opinion, Alito takes a potshot at Bush’s signature racial justice program.

The Supreme Court announced on Tuesday that it will not hear Coalition for TJ v. Fairfax County School Board, a lawsuit attacking a school admissions program that was considered a cutting-edge conservative idea a quarter century ago — and whose most prominent champion was Republican former President George W. Bush.

Two justices dissented, with Justice Samuel Alito writing an angry opinion attacking a school admissions policy that closely mirrors Bush’s signature racial justice program.

In the late 1990s, when Bush was governor of Texas, he signed legislation creating that state’s “top 10 percent” law for university admissions. As the name implies, Bush’s law guaranteed that Texas high school students who graduated in the top 10 percent of their class would be admitted to state-run universities. The program is still in effect, although the state’s flagship school, the University of Texas at Austin, only accepts the top 6 percent or so of students due to increased applications.

  • EdibleFriend@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    I remember thinking Bush was the lowest we could possibly get. I hate that man with a burning passion and will fucking celebrate the day he finally dies the death he deserves.

    Yet I would take him back in a heartbeat over Trump. How the hell did we smash through the bottom of the barrel as hard as we did?

    • stoly@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      I have similar feelings about seeing Liz Cheney as “one of the good ones”.

      • cmbabul@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Donald Trump and his followers have caused me and Mitch McConnell to be in agreement like 4 times in a decade. I’ll never feel clean again but I guess at least I’ve still never been on the same page as Ted Cruz, I’m pretty sure

    • z3rOR0ne
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      10 months ago

      Lol. Wait until we’re saying the same thing about Trump in a decade or so. You really think we’ve hit the bottom yet? We’re riding this thing straight past the nine circles of hell.

      • EdibleFriend@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        I am scared shitless of that. Trump has shown them just how far they can go. Sooner or later another republican is gonna end up in office, and most likely one much, much smarter then Trump.

        • z3rOR0ne
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          10 months ago

          No, that would be a marked improvement. I’m thinking something along the lines of a Elon Musk/Homelander like situation.

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            10 months ago

            now that you mention it. I never see elon musk and homelander in the same place at the same time!

    • III@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      It’s because we elected a great, black president. Racists can’t handle losing that hard, so they react.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    Holy fuck, look at how woke the Reagans were!

    Nancy liked Lena Horne! Lena Horne was black! Woke!

    Ronnie liked Jerry Lewis! Jerry Lewis was a Jew! Woke!

    Ronnie liked Sammy Davis, Jr. Sammy Davis Jr. was a black and a Jew! SUPER WOKE!

    But it gets worse!

    Ronnie and Nancy really liked Elizabeth Taylor, who was a crusader for LGBT+ causes and set up her own AIDS foundation which still exists. HOLY FUCK THAT’S WOKE!

    Oh god… no… it can’t be… RONNIE LIKED ELTON JOHN!

    It’s true. Ronald Reagan is the most woke president we’ve ever had. We need to make sure Republicans know that. In fact, I highly recommend you show the picture of Ronnie with Elton to any easily-shocked Republican for entertainment purposes.

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      10 months ago

      Not to take away from this great post, but oh my God Elton John looks so plain. That man is Elton John’s secret identity.

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      10 months ago

      They loved Rock Hudson until he got AIDS and publicly addressed his homosexuality. From stories of Hollywood at the time, I’m sure Ronald Reagan was most upset to find out that he used to suck off a gay dude instead of just two straight buddies blowing each other.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        You know that and I know that, but do we have to let them know that?

        I mean I wouldn’t be surprised if Ron and Nancy used the N-word in private all the time too. And if they didn’t, they certainly had friends who did and they were fine with it.

      • stoly@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Worse: Reagan has a lot of gay friends but abandoned them when he wanted to become governor of CA. He literally cut people out of his life over his politics, which is the sort of thinking that has lead us to where we are today.

        • kandoh@reddthat.com
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          10 months ago

          Pretty sure I remember hearing he was informing on everyone in Hollywood when he was head of the screen actors Guild

    • elliot_crane@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Holy hell… was Elton John still heavily using drugs when that photo was taken? It’s wild how much healthier he looks today.

      • gsfraley@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Really? I mean, no comment on his actual health, but I think he looks fine in that photo, I can think of 3 straightlaced computer nerds in my life who more or less look exactly like that. Maybe just needs some exercise and veggies.

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          10 months ago

          It could be bad lighting but to me his skin looks really washed out, his eyes look sunken in, and his hair looks really brittle. Compared to today, even as an older man he just looks a lot healthier to me 🤷🏻‍♂️

    • agent_flounder@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      I know it’s satire and you know it’s satire.

      But just in case anyone actually thinks Reagan wasn’t a raging, bigoted, evil piece of shit, lemme drop this conversation between him and Nixon…

      (And, TW, this is really fucking offensive and I feel gross even posting it but I think it is important to make sure everyone knows.)

      “Last night, I tell you, to watch that thing on television as I did,” Reagan said. “Yeah,” Nixon interjected. Reagan forged ahead with his complaint: “To see those, those monkeys from those African countries—damn them, they’re still uncomfortable wearing shoes!” Nixon gave a huge laugh.

      https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/ronald-reagans-racist-conversation-richard-nixon/595102/

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        There are so, so, so many reasons you could give to show what a piece of shit Reagan was that it could probably take all night. But that is not a bad one. Another example would be the fact that Reagan didn’t even use the word AIDS in a speech until 1985, after he was re-elected and, of course, after thousands of people had died. Because it was “the gay disease.” Nancy even turned down Rock Hudson’s plea for medication after he came out of the closet and announced he had AIDS. His former so-called friends abandoned him and let him died. Fucking ghouls those two.

  • TheFriar@lemm.ee
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    10 months ago

    There are so many dead canaries in his here mine that I feel like we should all be panicking way more than we are.

    Did anyone see Jon Stewart’s return to the daily show last week? And see how democrats were upset with him for “both sides’ing?” Like…Jesus Christ. How sycophantic do you have to be to refuse to acknowledge shortcomings in people you support? We’ve lost all capacity for nuance, and with all the dangerous trends humanity has been exhibiting, I think the death of nuance is right up there with the climate crisis.

    They go hand-in-hand, actually. People and en political allegiances. It’s either 0 or 100. There is no middle ground.

    Now, I’m not a liberal, I’m not conservative. Idealistically, I’m an anarchist. But I’m also a realist. That means we have to discuss how to operate in this current world, under these current (horribly, fatally flawed) systems. A lot of leftists fall into this trap as well. Most of them, actually. Most people, period. Your beliefs can’t be so purist that you refuse to operate on this plane of existence. Things aren’t black or white. The entire world is a mish mosh of grays and people can only seem to discuss things in terms of absolute black or absolute white. It’s completely hampered our ability to band together to fight our unjust system. Not to mention, it’s really goddamn frustrating.

    • 🔍🦘🛎@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      A big part of it is how the media portrays the divide. Even the conservatives I talk to have a bit of nuance in their views; they’re not Alex Jones screeching about psychic vampire pedophiles.
      But the nuance is secondary to herd mentality. They’ll support calling frozen embryos babies because it helps their cause of banning abortion.
      So, the core issue is still tribalism, and that’s not ever going away, given the media landscape we live in now.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    10 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    As the name implies, Bush’s law guaranteed that Texas high school students who graduated in the top 10 percent of their class would be admitted to state-run universities.

    The program is still in effect, although the state’s flagship school, the University of Texas at Austin, only accepts the top 6 percent or so of students due to increased applications.

    As Bush said in 2000 while campaigning for the presidency, top 10 percent-style programs “affect the pool of applicants of minority students available for higher ed in a positive way.”

    It did so by leveraging the fact that many American communities remain racially segregated, which causes Black and Latino students to cluster in certain public high schools.

    Among other things, the chair of the school board that adopted the new admissions program said it “needed to be explicit in how we are going to address the underrepresentation” of Black and Latino students at TJ.

    That said, before the Supreme Court’s decision last year in the Harvard case, selective schools were allowed to take some limited account of race for the purpose of diversifying their student body.


    The original article contains 932 words, the summary contains 185 words. Saved 80%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!