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Law professor Terry Smith’s crusade to disenfranchise voters he sees as racist — 48 Comments

  1. That somebody at NBC actually thought publishing this was a good idea says all we need to know about them.

  2. Smith told her that “he had no use for any of [the candidates]” and called them “motherfuckers.”

    This guy should be Dean.

  3. Smith falsely and probably knowingly attributes to racism… cultural preferences.

    Support for cultural values like delayed gratification, a strong work ethic, pursuit of education and/or marketable skills and embracing personal responsibility and accountability for our actions is not proof of racism.

    It is proof of recognition of the values that lead to individual and a group’s socioeconomic success. That is what Trump is refering to when he expresses the desire to “Make America Great Again”.

    Minority socioeconomic success closely tracks the embrace, neglect and/or rejection of those values.

  4. So one of his examples is about jurors expressing overt bigotry and he compares that to voters. These are totally different scenarios.

    But while he’s at it maybe he can do black voters continually voting for Maxine Waters or the Muslim voters that voted for Omar. By this guy’s logic a good case could be made that they are exhibiting racist and religious bigotry.

    Again, NBC, a major media company thought it was just fine to publish this. Not some openly far left site. NBC.

  5. He has emotional problems. In his personal odyssey, the display of those problems one might wager got him what he wanted (which it would not outside of a campus setting). Then he encountered a situation where they didn’t, and he continued to escalate until his conduct was intolerable even in a faculty setting and even given the special dispensations which adhere to blackademics. I’m going to guess what got the machine on his tail was turning his wrath on another black faculty member.

    Note the career trajectory of Houston Baker, parody academic. Some people don’t overplay their hand.

  6. The argument presented by Berlatsky is utter nonsense. Guess what? The notion the constitution requires county clerks to issue ‘marriage’ licenses to pairs of dudes (the view of the state legislature be damned) is also utter nonsense. So is the notion that constitution provisions prohibit states from proscribing abortions. What Robert Bork said 20 years ago holds: constitutional law has ceased to exist as an authentic intellectual subdiscipline. This is what happens when systematized intellectual fraud is honored in key institutions.

  7. Here’s the HuffPo blurb on Terry Smith:

    Professor Terry Smith is a Distinguished Research Professor at DePaul College of Law. Prior to joining DePaul’s faculty, he taught for 16 years at Fordham Law School, clerked on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and practiced labor and employment law at Kirkland & Ellis. A specialist in labor and employment law as well as voting rights, Professor Smith is the author of numerous law review articles and the book Barack Obama, Post-racialism, and the New Politics of Triangulation (Palgrave MacMillan 2012).

    Does “practiced labor and employment law at Kirkland & Ellis” necessarily mean that he passed the bar? I’m wondering if Smith’s aggressiveness isn’t a cover for marginal competence.

  8. The arc of our history bends inevitably toward a future court throwing out surprising and unwelcome election results based on some sort of “emanation of a penumbra” constitutional BS. If that ruling stands, the second amendment comes into focus and those future US citizens begin to live in interesting times (the often-mentioned chinese curse).

    This has already happened in the Californian marriage referendum.

  9. At some point, the Left’s “Special Rules for Special People” will *HAVE* to collapse under the weight of its own inconsistencies, right?

    Sadly, I’m gettin’ up there in years, and may well die of old age before “Rule of Law applied equally to all people” comes back into fashion. But that’s really the only way to have a workable society.
    Once upon a time we knew that; apparently we’re going to have to learn it again. (Cue up The Gods of the Copybook Headings.)

  10. Diversity (e.g. racism, sexism) breeds adversity. We should be wary of indulging color judgments based on low information attributes.

  11. Wait.

    “Professors of color” don’t hand out crayons and say “let’s get to coloring kids; inside the lines, outside the lines, doesn’t matter so long as you’re laying down some serious wax!”

    The hell you say.

  12. The Chinese have mind reading technology. Maybe we could use it to cancel votes cast by voters with bad thoughts. Though since we’re all human, possibly no candidate would get any votes— especially if we also hooked it up to read the minds of the candidates.

  13. Art Deco
    I’m going to guess what got the machine on his tail was turning his wrath on another black faculty member.
    That would be my guess. That indicates that his irascibility couldn’t be blamed entirely on racism.

    The article states that Terry Smith is a visiting professor at the University of Baltimore law school.I couldn’t find him listed as a faculty member on the law school’s website, but an Advanced Google Search located him there. Advanced Google Search: terry smith @ law.ubalt.edu. Teaching at least one course and also cited in some articles that UBalt people had written.

    A university faculty is like any other workplace- you need to get along with each other, more or less for most of the time.

  14. Does “practiced labor and employment law at Kirkland & Ellis” necessarily mean that he passed the bar? I’m wondering if Smith’s aggressiveness isn’t a cover for marginal competence.

    Yes, it does mean that.

    I’ve rummaged around GoogleScholar and I find one book and about a dozen law review articles published since 1995 (NB, law reviews are edited by students and do not in their editorial process incorporate peer referees). GoogleScholar is not an optimal source. I find no indication that he has placed any articles on labor law. Most articles I find are about the mechanics of elections – redistricting, campaign finance, &c. There are political commentaries and political polemics. Pretty much all of it has some sort of racial angle. There is a sort of Dutch disease among black intellectuals, at least among those outside of STEM.

  15. visiting professor at the University of Baltimore

    The University of Baltimore is a formerly private school taken over by the state about 30 years ago. It was formed I think in the 1920s from a merger of four occupational schools. When I lived in the area, it was a strictly vocational institution which had no lower-division undergraduates and offered only night classes. In status terms, it’s quite a come down from research universities like dePaul and Fordham. They’ve had a law school there forever, but, again, it’s a night school.

  16. The history of the black race since the Civil Rights era is, it must be faced, a sorry and negative one. As a race, they have the highest % of fatherless babies, the highest rate of abortion, the lowest rate of achievement in any sector except male athletics (about which it might be said that it was to the ends of strength and endurance as field hands that male slaves were bred from 1619 to 1865). Why do blacks, even today, lead the unemployment numbers, as they always have?

    We still have the “HBCU”–Historically Black Colleges and Universities–of which none are distinguished nor have produced distinguished alumni. Why do they still exist as a defined category?

    We have the rare self-made, brain-using, thoughtful black, like Clarence Thomas, Ben Carson, Shelby Steele, but they are self-made with pushes from righteous mothers. These great men are disrespected, not admired, by their fellow blacks. Great, huh? Rare birds!

    Then we have the black millionaires, athletes and rappers all.

    I submit that we are not better off for our great Civil Rights achievements, all in all.

  17. DePaul is by no means a “conservative” institution; quite the reverse, so Smith’s conduct must have been egregious.

  18. The history of the black race since the Civil Rights era is, it must be faced, a sorry and negative one.

    The political culture within the black population has been rancid and you’d have to scrounge among black pols to find a constructive idea. The musical culture, formerly so handsome and creative, is largely ruined as well. The rest of your argument is misconceived.

    Inside and outside the black population there was after 1958 a breakdown in the quality of family relations, but the magnitude of the breakdown was of a similar dimension on both sides of the color bar. That was a general social force operating on a population with weaker social bonds.

    Since 1994 there has been a dramatic decline in the frequency of the most thorough forms of welfare dependency among blacks and other (but especially among blacks). Even as the black population has increased in size by 20%, the number collecting relief payments (TANF, formerly AFDC) has declined by more than 75%.

    Most of the decline in the crime rate over the period running between 1990 and 2014 was registered in sketchy inner city neighborhoods.

    You’re also neglecting occupational diversification among blacks. About 94% of the working population is found in occupations where blacks have a significant presence (3% or more of the total employed therein). There is a great deal of variation and some familiar and expected knots – occupations which incorporate porting things around (e.g. postal workers) are disproportionately black, as are occupations which involve delivering personal services (e.g. barbers and nurse’s aides). The employment-to-population ratio among blacks (0.593) is quite similar to that among whites (0.612), and all of the difference is attributable to longer job searchers. The labor force participation rates are the same. In 1960, personal income per capita for blacks was about 50% that for whites. Now, it’s about 66% of that for non-blacks. Contrary to common belief, blacks are not exceptionally well represented in public employment in general. They account for about 12% of the working population, about 14% of the public sector workforce.

    Since 1960, the life expectancy at birth has increased by 9 years among whites, 12 years among blacks.

  19. I submit that we are not better off for our great Civil Rights achievements, all in all.

    Kinda silly, unless you assume the social problems in black populations are a function of civil rights laws and we’d have been better off if there were all sorts of caste regulations in place a la Mississippi in 1948.

  20. Art Deco-
    You ignore the administrative effects of reduced relief eligibility rules.

    I dispute your claim about black public employment. My Southern town is 22% black and public employees constitute 30% of the public workforce.

    The American Postal Workers Union numbers >300,000 members.

    I rely on the most cited employment figure: black unemployment %, which is always higher than for whites. Your employment-to-population figure confirms that. Please do not give me “attributables”!

    Nurse’s aides are usually black, are at the bottom of the pay scale but remain caring people, on the whole, especially in nursing homes. Bless them.

    My point remains: the Civil Rights Act was not a fix-it. We see the results in cases like the law “professors” introduced to us by Neo above: rank charlatans, but Whoa! They are black and require special handling. Things are broken and are getting worse, and civil rights is not the issue, that’s all.

  21. I dispute your claim about black public employment. My Southern town is 22% black and public employees constitute 30% of the public workforce.

    Well, that’s your town. That’s not the nation. The point isn’t that obscure.

    Nurse’s aides are usually black,

    About 36% are black.

    My point remains: the Civil Rights Act was not a fix-it.

    That wasn’t your point. That aside, statutory law can only address a discrete range of social ills.

    We see the results in cases like the law “professors” introduced to us by Neo above: rank charlatans

    Those aren’t the results of civil rights laws per se (whether you favor or oppose such laws). Those are the results of certain mentalities found among white liberals.

    Things are broken and are getting worse, and civil rights is not the issue, that’s all.

    No, things aren’t getting worse.

  22. Of course we are racist….and every other variety of “ist”….ageist, genderist, LGBTQist, heightist, obesity-ist, and prejudiced against every slight and conceivable difference between our tribe and the other tribes. How did we get here alive after 300,000 years in the wilderness if we were not big bad racist folks? We had to notice any difference in any contacting group and to either kill or to flee. We had to kill and ward off any group that looked slightly different or spoke differently or walked differently or had odd nutrition or different eye color, ad infinitum,….anything that spoke of any conceivable intent to steal our food or our women or our kids or our warmth or our weapons or our shelter.

    All this imperfection in us kept us alive until now….when some, a few, of this imperfect animal maybe knows better. Thank god we do know, now, a better way, but understand how bizarre it would be if we were not racist and omni-bigoted against any difference under the sun. We haven’t been around THAT long. Give us a little time to evolve the traits of civilization.

    No one should be surprised when they hear that H.sapiens is racist. Oooooo!

  23. “I wonder what Smith would say about the black voters who vote for Trump – would he disenfranchise them, too, or do they get a pass because of their race? Or maybe he assumes they don’t exist?” – Neo

    The Root goes for Door Number 3: black conservatives don’t exist.

    https://freebeacon.com/politics/the-root-attacks-white-national-review-writer-whos-actually-black/

    A left-wing website attacked a “white” National Review Online writer for his perspective on black history, failing to realize the writer in question is black.

    Peter Kirsanow, a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and a former member of the National Labor Relations Board, argued in a piece published Thursday that the New York Times‘s 1619 Project has an “obsession” with slavery at the expense of the rest of American history. Michael Harriot, a senior reporter for the liberal African-American publication The Root, responded in a piece titled, “Black History, According to White People.” Harriot referred to Kirsanow as white throughout the post.

    Kirsanow was surprised to discover that he is caucasian.

    “Well, I guess if Elizabeth Warren can be Cherokee, I can be white,” Kirsanow told the Washington Free Beacon. “Wait till my wife finds out.”

  24. It should be okay to fire someone just for being an insufferable jerk that nobody wants to be around with no further excuses needed. Being able to “work and play well with others” is a perfectly valid job requirement. It is also a perfectly valid requirement to be a member of society. If one can’t manage this, being a recluse or hermit are always options.

    What sort of society would we have if everyone had a “right” to be an ass to everyone else? I know that there are occasional exceptions granted to particularly gifted or talented people (genius inventors and scientists, actors, etc…), but this ‘gentleman’ doesn’t seem to be a member of any of those protected species.

    His lawsuit should be dismissed with prejudice.

  25. In this case, both the accused, Smith, and his targets, the new professors, were “persons of color,” and that may have accounted for the bitterness and nastiness of Smith’s accusations – that he saw them as betraying what he sees as the proper politics for such people – his politics.

    Brown people aren’t allowed to be individuals.

    To be authentic and therefore deserving of progressive tolerance, brown people must only choose what old, credentialed, white lefties permit them to choose. If not…

    I know this old Miwok woman (“Mom”) who used to be a New Frontier Democrat.

    Then Bill Clinton took Monica Lewinsky into the Oval Office and turned her into a humidor. Mom was outraged and vowed to quit the party.

    She went to the polling place for the 2000 primary. She voted, then asked the white people in charge to change her affiliation. She said “I don’t want to be a Democrat anymore. I quit.”

    They asked her why and she told them “Bill Clinton is a piece of shit.”

    The old man asked “Are you a republican now” and she said no. “No problem” the old white man said.

    Mom assumed she was now unaffiliated; but instead, the mean, old, white lefties registered her as American Independent Party (“That’ll teach her.”)

    When Mom found out she was registered as AIP, she was confused. “I didn’t ask to join the AIP? Who are they?”

    At the time, I didn’t remember correctly. “I think they’re the far right, like the Birchers.”

    “Are the Birchers racist?” she asked.

    “I don’t think so. They hate foreigners.” I replied.

    “Do they hate white foreigners, too?”

    “I think so, yeah.”

    “Fine, I’ll stay with AIP.”

  26. I agree with Kate. I matriculated through DePaul many decades ago, and it has changed a great deal. So much so, that I dissuaded one of the Little Fireflies from attending, although it was her first choice. Fortunately another school offered a much more generous scholarship.

    DePaul was overtaken by a virulent, Catholic strain of SJW. I still haven’t found a Gospel passage where Jesus encourages using Roman Centurions and tax collectors to force others to be Christian, but it must be in that Book somewhere, because so many wise Christians insist it is the Way. Mayor Pete Buttigieg has certainly found the passage. There are signs DePaul may be turning a corner, but I fear there is too much to undue and it may not be possible. Especially considering the prevailing attitudes in Chicago, and its schools, where most of DePaul’s students come from.

    Being thrown out of DePaul for being too radical is quite a feat.

  27. “What’s extreme to you may not be extreme to me.”

    That brings to mind Roger Scruton, who said:

    “A writer who says that there are no truths, or that all truth is ‘merely relative,’ is asking you not to believe him. So don’t.”

    On the one hand, this must have been extremely embarrassing and difficult for DePaul, which is quite “woke”. On the other hand, Smith must really have been disruptive to get the chop like this. Someone above says Smith obviously has a personality disorder. There is a stereotype of the Angry Black Man.

    I believe that Smith is sincere in posing these outré thoughts. He may also be crazy. He may just be sincerely provocative. Okay, Smith said it. It’s nonsense. Berlatsky wrote about it. It’s still nonsense. NBC published it. It’s still nonsense.

    I think a lot of nonsense is published by NBC every day. It is their stock in trade, and the storeroom is never bare.

  28. Radical as this proposal may sound, it is no more radical than a nominally democratic system of government that gives citizens widely disproportionate voting power depending on where they live. The people should not tolerate a system that is manifestly unfair; they should instead fight fire with fire, and use the unfair provisions of the Constitution to create a better system.

    Those Harvard professors have a valid point, just not the one they intend.

    It’s wrong that US senators are popularly elected.

    It unbalances the operation of the Constitutional Newtonian machine to have different representative bodies with overlapping constituencies in the same legislature.

    The people already have representation in the House.

    Restore an important check on the feds (and the people) and resume the practice of state legislatures appointing US Senators.

  29. “I suppose at this point nothing that emanates from the race-baiting Trump-hating crew (some of whom are lawyers and law professors) should shock me.”
    No it shouldn’t. Don’t you remember law professor Archibald Cox and all those Nixon hating lawyers he hired to investigate Nixon? Cox had almost 100 lawyers and investigators investigating Nixon. Cox’s investigation makes Mueller’s investigation look paltry by comparison.

  30. Cox’s investigation makes Mueller’s investigation look paltry by comparison.

    Ray: Agreed. Although I’m no fan of Mueller and his investigation when conservatives hit the sticker price hard, “32 million dollars!”, I didn’t exactly blanch with horror.

    It reminded me of Dr. Evil’s evil plan in “Austin Powers” to blackmail the world for … “1 million dollars!”

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJR1H5tf5wE

  31. This is the Democratic Party of today. I know, some will say that the Democrats should not be characterized by the likes of Smith, but he is not the only one and I have yet to hear a Democrat politician criticize these people. The most vocal in the party would, in my humble opinion, say that there is some truth to his position. I’ve watched the Democrat presidential candidates debate- they are not too far off from this observation when you consider what they have advocated. They are happy to turn the world on its head. We are in danger.

  32. quiet conservative:

    I agree that radical ideas are quite mainstream now in the Democratic Party.

  33. Restore an important check on the feds (and the people) and resume the practice of state legislatures appointing US Senators.

    It will have no such effect. What you’ll do is replace Senators whose skill set is running fundraising and publicity campaigns with Senators whose skill set is building relationships with state legislators. I suppose that’s beneficial inasmuch as they’ll be thinking about what a home constituency wants rather than what donors want. The trouble is, what the home constituency will want is more goodies from the federal treasury, so you’ll get a Senate composed of people like Al D’Amato. They could care less about state autonomy.

  34. Art Deco:

    Not all states have the same relationship with the Feds, Consider Wy, Id, Ut, Or, Nv, where the Feds have a very large role in land use and access versus states on the east coast where there is little if any Federally controlled land, or the Mississippi River watersheds where the activities of the US Army Corp of Engineers is a very big deal,

    It was a very big deal when the EPA and the US ACE lost their power grab – Navigable Waters interpretation to the Clean Water Act, for all or non-urban Americans. So how Senators are chosen is a very big deal for most of the US,

  35. It will have no such effect. What you’ll do is replace Senators whose skill set is running fundraising and publicity campaigns with Senators whose skill set is building relationships with state legislators. I suppose that’s beneficial inasmuch as they’ll be thinking about what a home constituency wants rather than what donors want.

    Break it up, you two.

    The trouble is, what the home constituency will want is more goodies from the federal treasury, so you’ll get a Senate composed of people like Al D’Amato.

    So… fifty competing laboratories of corruption instead of one giant monopoly-sized corruption lab?

    I’d rather contend with fifty big, robot corruption-lions than a giant, unified, robot corruption-Voltron.

    They could care less about state autonomy.

    State legislatures could just direct their senator’s vote.

    The 17th amendment was a progressive-era misstep, like the 18th amendment. And arguably the 19th (zing.)

  36. Founding Fathers made a few mistakes in the Constitution. State legislators appointing their state’s US Senators was not one of them. I suppose Art Deco is also opposed to the Electoral College on the same grounds. Direct election=an Ultimate Good?

  37. Founding Fathers made a few mistakes in the Constitution. State legislators appointing their state’s US Senators was not one of them. I suppose Art Deco is also opposed to the Electoral College on the same grounds. Direct election=an Ultimate Good?

    Huh? I’m putting forward the thesis that repealing the 17th Amendment is not going to get you what you want. My thesis is right there in black letters. It’s not an argument for any particular set up.

  38. The word “racist” is now the single most meaningless word in the English language, at least as it is spoken in the USA.

  39. Art Deco:

    You spelled out nothing on the 17th Ammendment , you only cited one senator and the generalized quest for favors from the Feds, Pretty weak tea even for you.

  40. “What the hell does that even mean? What’s extreme to you may not be extreme to me.”

    Good point; now would he say that in a conversation about #MeToo or microaggressions?

  41. You spelled out nothing on the 17th Ammendment ,

    My thesis is spelled out in full. You can’t be bothered to read it, that’s your problem.

  42. Art Deco:

    You have a writing/ego problem; What you claim to have spelled out in full is a bit short on detail (none there), Do you work and show it. You get no points for the “authority” of Art.

  43. Yeah, when you have two POC (professors of color) in some kind of argument, it can get horribly ugly. Way back when when I was in academia, a black professor left the department in February (in the middle of the semester) for reasons I am not privy to. But the invective he directed at the chairman (also black) was horrifying. Needless to say, a white prof couldn’t say those things.

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