David and Sarah at Yale

On today’s podcast, David and Sarah take a trip to New Haven to speak with ...

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On today’s podcast, David and Sarah take a trip to New Haven to speak with the law students of Yale University. It’s another packed show. The Supreme Court heard oral argument in a case that dealt with whether a state can defend a rule when the United States stops doing so. Plus, they discuss public-accommodation law and a redistricting lawsuit in Arkansas, but that’s not all, sparks fly when our hosts open the floor for questions.

Show Notes:

–Arizona v. City and County of San Francisco, California

–303 Creative LLC v. Elenis

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  1. Phil Hoxie

    On David's FOIA of schools, I have some suggestions. First, I generally agree with David's CRT take, but Sarah seems to have a more accurate grasp on how CRT is actually explained to students. On to my point. I don't think you'll find anything that illuminating from a search of curriculum. That's not how CRT actually enters the classroom from what I have heard from school board members in my CA town or seen from my college friends that are teachers. First, the ADL does trainings that present the oversimplified CRT ideas to staff/ school board members. Second, the principal will make CRT messages as part of the school assemblies or topics for "home room" periods, which have limited official curricula. Third, the teachers themselves view their work as quasi-political. Many of the liberal arts students that graduated with me a few years ago are now school teachers and you can see it in what they post on social media. None of that will show up in curricula. So, although I am totally sympathetic to David's quest, I don't know what fruit it will bear. I also recognize that what I am suggesting is difficult to quantify, but I suggest that these alternate routs CRT enters schools is what many parents saw with their own eyes as kids sat in their living rooms on zoom.

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    Nathan

    I think the CRT questioner had a legit question, or part of one, at one point and it was unanswered. He asked "you are not opposed to anti-CRT laws in principle, then?" David French was very consistent in arguing that the particular laws on the books were bad, but this question rises above those particulars. David answered, "I would need to see the text of the law". That seems like a dodge. It doesn't answer the question.

    I suppose David could be thinking "maybe it's possible to make a good law in that category, but I don't know how, so I'll say I need to see the particulars", but if someone is unable to entertain the idea of a good law of that type existing, why should I think that their arguments couched as objections to particular laws are more than just a screen for an objection to those laws per se?

    David was doing this extemporaneously, so I don't want to be too hard on him, but I really would have liked to see (in one of his several anti-anti-CRT law articles) a short bit on what such a law might look like if it were written well. Could you do that, David? If not, is your objection really as narrow as you are saying? I'm asking honestly, not as some sort of "gotcha".

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    1. Avatar photocircle-angle-nib
      Sarah Isgur vertical-nib Author

      Check out Monday's episode.

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        Nathan

        lol excuse me for having a job! I'm catching up as fast as I can! /s

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  3. John Townson

    The student who criticized Sarah because she is buddies with the wrong person should apologize to her.

    But the same student had a legitimate criticism of David's position on CRT. If David is not categorically opposed to state laws intervening to stop CRT, he certainly acts and writes that way. Has David ever suggested improvements to any of the state laws? Drafted legislation that he would agree with? The student's question about how David would react to state laws combatting anti black principles in K-12 was spot on.

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    Brian Jennings

    The "in principle" question is a set-up that I would not answer. Change "anti-CRT" to a million other things and it's still a problem.
    "In principle do you agree with Federal laws?"
    "In principle do you agree with anti-anti-anti-anti-CRT laws?"
    "In principle do you agree with gun laws?"
    Ummm, we're gonna need to be a bit more specific!

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    Andrea Leane

    I know this is probably too late but I think the white feathers would look great in a shadow box with a black background

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  6. Karin

    Commission a miniature quiver to collect the feathers.

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  7. T.L. Cubbage

    Guys, the APA is the Administrative Procedure Act, not Administrative Procedures (plural) Act.

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    Dan Pierron

    Regarding 303 Creative, am I correct in thinking that if the court decides in favor of 303, website designers with sincere religious objections may also be within their rights to refuse to make websites necessitating particular speech (such as a wedding website) when that speech would run afoul of their beliefs in any circumstance, to include, for example, where the couple has become pregnant before marrying, a mixed race couple, an interfaith marriage, etc.?

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    1. Eric L

      The interesting thing about a couple of your examples at the end is this is a question of the SPEECH in question, not who the speech is regarding.

      For example, a wedding website for an interfaith couple may not include any speech that promotes interfaith marriage (as in the website wouldn't say 'hey this is an interfaith marriage'). So in the event a creator discriminated against a potential customer based on WHO they are rather than the SPEECH they are requested to create is a substantially different issue and would likely be considered unlawful discrimination.

      This same issue existed in masterpiece cake shop I think. There is a difference between discriminating against a gay person asking for a white cake with chocolate frosting and no script, versus refusing to make a rainbow cake that says "gay pride" in frosting. Discriminating against the customer is unlawful, but dictating the type of speech you are willing to express is likely not discrimination against the customer.

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        Dan Pierron

        Yes, I was careful in selecting the category of website and the categories of people. I wonder what will happen should a web designer who ONLY makes wedding websites has a prospective customer who is in a category they have religious objection to creating a wedding website for. There, it would be the same conduct that is most likely rightfully considered speech as in this case, but by how they have entered the market they will have effectively discriminated against that category of people entirely.

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    Joe J Edvik

    I almost didn't listen to this one because I'm so far from a Yale law student I was afraid I'd just be lost. But it was fantastic. I think I'm becoming obsessed with "David French Hatred". I truly don't understand it and wish I knew what made them so angry. Very interesting.

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  10. DocHeartless

    In my mind, the CRT culture war issue is an effect of a more fundamental root problem, which is the ideological homogeneity of humanities and education programs in colleges. We are struggling to combat a symptom of the disease (new teachers coming out of absurdist college programs) and not the disease itself (these programs need diversity of instruction and need to inculcate critical thinking and basic respect for opinions apart from their own). I go back to my "I'm not sure if I'm kidding or not" idea of boycotting all colleges that do not take measurable steps to address this. If Yale can't push back effectively against woke homogeneity (and conservative troll-ism like CRT guy) then they should earn a deserved reputation for worsening our cultural problem. We shouldn't hire their graduates until the pain in their pocketbook (from falling admissions and donors) is bad enough to gain a course correction.

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