Author Archive | Dale Carpenter

A very reasonable column by Jeff Jacoby: It is one thing to say that places of public accommodation may not refuse service on the basis of national origin. It is something much more radical to say that a sign exhorting customers to speak English should be illegal, too. Anyone offended by Vento’s views is free […]

One thing that continues to amaze me is how major legal institutions, staffed by lawyers who presumably know the law, are consistently willing to brazenly announce their defiance of the law in the name of diversity. It’s not that I’m even always opposed to the relevant programs on their merits [and I’m also not one […]

Inside Higher Ed and the Chronicle of Higher Education (subscription only) are carrying stories about Friday’s U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Hearing on proposed ABA Standard 211, which would in effect require law schools to use racial preferences in admission or risk their accreditation. Unfortunately, neither article is very good, and neither captures the essence […]

except for spelling… (seen in the new bus terminal, Tel Aviv).

The defeat of the federal marriage amendment in the Senate on Wednesday was welcome, if entirely expected. It was a nice surprise to see the amendment fall short of 50 votes even on a procedural motion (its total would have been lower had it come up for a substantive vote); to have seven Republicans vote […]

Thanks to those who responded to my invitation to do the “mitzvah” of providing charity in the Holy Land by sending me $1 (and sometimes more) via Pay Pal to distribute on my recent trip. I distributed the proceeds, plus my own contribution, partly to the Magen David Adom (Israel’s Red Cross), but mostly to […]

On this happy morning, it seems right to quote from her ode to America’s greatest city. From her essay, published in McCall’s in January 1928, entitled “My Home Town”: It occurs to me that there are other towns. It occurs to me so violently that I say, at intervals, “Very well, if New York is […]

She died 39 years ago today, as one reader reminded me. This is from an amusing little essay called “The Little Hours” on trying to get to sleep when you’re wide awake at 4:20 a.m.: And what suggestion has anyone to murmur as to how I am going to drift lightly back to slumber? . […]

Yesterday C-SPAN aired a panel discussion on the federal marriage amendment sponsored by Cato and the Center for American Progress. The video of that discussion is now available online here. Panelists were Prof. Michael Seidman, Bruce Fein, Mark Agrast, and me. Although all of us opposed the amendment, you’ll see that we had somewhat different […]

Today’s New York Times includes a story on the proposed federal amendment banning same-sex marriage. The story contains the following paragraph, describing the effect of the proposed amendment: His [President Bush’s] speech came as the Senate began to debate the proposed amendment, which would define marriage as being between a man and a woman and […]

One of the footnotes in the debate over gay marriage has been the discussion between Stanley Kurtz (on one side) and just about everyone else (on the other side) over what effects, if any, gay marriage has had on the European societies where it has recently been recognized. Over at Marriagedebate.com, Maggie Gallagher has posted […]

This is stunning news. First, here’s a little background to put this development in context. By the middle of 2003, the Federal Marriage Amendment had been languishing in Congress for a couple of years. Its main organizational sponsor, the Alliance for Marriage, had gotten a few congressional sponsors but no prominent politicians had made it […]

You’ve already got the publicly stated opposition of prominent conservatives like Bob Barr, Dick Cheney, Chris Cox, Bruce Fein, John McCain, Ramesh Ponnuru, George Will, and others (not to mention several VC bloggers). Now you can add to the list James Q. Wilson, a respected voice in conservative intellectual and policy circles. Last March 18, […]

“Coming in to this class, I thought all people with his ‘lifestyle’ were morally depraved. Now I recognize that Republicans aren’t all bad.”

a Manhattan bicycle messenger, but none of the skill. The concept of “blind spot,” in particular, means nothing to them.