"Professors guess millennial slang: UC Berkeley edition."

I found that because I was already at The Daily Californian as a result of Instapundit's link to "Berkeley Law’s ‘critical mass’ policy results in racial divisions." I was thinking I should write about that, and maybe I still should, but I've got to say that I impulsively clicked on the "Professors guess millennial slang: UC Berkeley edition" link in the sidebar. I guess I needed some refreshment.

The truth is I don't think what the law school is doing is so bad, within the context of the affirmative action law we have from the Supreme Court, which approved of the "critical mass" theory in Grutter. The law school doesn't have enough black students to get the critical-mass effect in all of its small sections, so it concentrates black students in some of the sections and leaves one section with no black students at all.

The idea of "critical mass," which justified taking race into account in admissions, is — according to Grutter — to have enough students of a particular minority in the classroom so that the minority student in the classroom isn't looked upon as expressing some sort of typical minority viewpoint. The idea is to overcome stereotypes and let all the students see each other as individuals.

"Many Professors Anxious About Legally Armed Students in Their Classrooms."

"I’m sure that many professors in the past were uncomfortable about having women, or blacks, or openly gay students in their classrooms, too. But happily, progress marches on and people’s visceral fears and dislikes weren’t allowed to rule."

Writes Glenn Reynolds.

I can see how it's disturbing to know that students might have guns, but I'm puzzling over the way knowing there are guns becomes more disturbing when you know that some of the people who have guns have them because it's not against the law. You might say, it's irrational to be disturbed, since using the gun other than in self-defense or the defense of others would be against the law, and if you're only worried about people doing things that are against the law, the legality of having guns should be irrelevant (or should cut the other way, since it's possible that a law-abiding, gun-bearing person might defend you against the law-violating, gun-bearing person).

But — as I was saying the other day — a professor could be worried about students who impulsively become violent and, because they have a gun with them, do far more damage than if they were unarmed when they suddenly become murderous.

Anyway, a student with a concealed weapon is not like a student who is female, black, or openly gay. For one thing, you don't have the easy option of leaving your femaleness, blackness, or open gayness back at home. It's possible to cover up these things, but for most of us, it's not easy. A gun isn't a necessary component of your physical being, and carrying a gun is behavior that you can chose to engage in or not. Schools impose many limitations on behavior, frequently based on fairly superficial distaste about things that involve essential personal freedom, such as how you dress and whether you can talk and move around. It's not the case that teachers must learn to tolerate students exercising their personal freedoms in the classroom.

"Hillary Clinton: I Totally Oppose The Trans-Pacific Trade Agreement I Negotiated In 2012..."

"... even though 'In her 2014 memoir, Hillary Clinton listed the negotiation of TPP as one of her key accomplishments as Sec. of State.'  As Twitchy asks, 'Did TPP flip-flopper Hillary even READ her book before sending it to GOP candidates?'"

I have the book in my Kindle, so let me do a search:

So we worked hard to improve and ratify trade agreements with Colombia and Panama and encouraged Canada and the group of countries that became known as the Pacific Alliance— Mexico, Colombia, Peru, and Chile— all open-market democracies driving toward a more prosperous future to join negotiations with Asian nations on TPP, the trans-Pacific trade agreement....

As President Obama explained, the goal of the TPP negotiations is to establish “a high standard, enforceable, meaningful trade agreement” that “is going to be incredibly powerful for American companies who, up until this point, have often been locked out of those markets.” It was also important for American workers, who would benefit from competing on a more level playing field.

And it was a strategic initiative that would strengthen the position of the United States in Asia. Our country has learned the hard way over the past several decades that globalization and the expansion of international trade brings costs as well as benefits. On the 2008 campaign trail, both then-Senator Obama and I had promised to pursue smarter, fairer trade agreements. Because TPP negotiations are still ongoing, it makes sense to reserve judgment until we can evaluate the final proposed agreement.

It’s safe to say that the TPP won’t be perfect— no deal negotiated among a dozen countries ever will be— but its higher standards, if implemented and enforced, should benefit American businesses and workers....

It "won’t be perfect," but perhaps the imperfections mounted after her involvement ended. I see a loophole she might be able to exploit.

"Carly Fiorina has feminists on the defensive."

"Once you realize that most of what’s marketed as feminism in the United States is just Democratic Party agitprop, this all makes sense. So does the New York Times’ lopsided 4-against-1 debate format."

Says Glenn Reynolds linking to a NYT "Room for Debate" collection of 5 essays on the topic "Is Carly Fiorina a Feminist?" I'll take his word for it that only 1 of the 5 answers yes.

I had a flashback to the time I was invited to write for a collection like this. I think the question was "Who is a feminist?" I forget what current issue made that seem like the right question to ask, and I'm sure my answer was something along the lines of: It depends on how you define the term.

20 minutes later... That was surprisingly hard to find. The question was "Who Gets To Be a Feminist?" — which is a a strange way to put it, suggesting that there's a gate-keeper deciding who's allowed in the club. It was in DoubleX at Slate back in October 2010. I wrote:
Click for more »