Andrew Prokop at Vox says that since the Trump administration has turned its beady eye on affirmative action programs at universities, this would be an excellent time to ask how the fuck Jared Kushner got into Harvard.

Of course few will be surprised that Kushner’s father, Charles Kushner, a wealthy and connected developer and political donor, helped him get in. But the details of just how that happened, described in Daniel Golden’s thoroughly reported 2007 book The Price of Admission, remain remarkable to this day.

What Golden found, essentially, was that Jared’s father handed Harvard (a school he did not attend) a big pile of money just as Jared was starting to apply to colleges. Around the same time,

A male person at Google has had just about enough of their diversity policy, and wrote a ten page memo to explain about it. Surprise plot twist: it’s because women just aren’t as good.

In the memo, which is the personal opinion of a male Google employee and is titled “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber,” the author argues that women are underrepresented in tech not because they face bias and discrimination in the workplace, but because of inherent psychological differences between men and women. “We need to stop assuming that gender gaps imply sexism,” he writes, going on to argue that Google’s educational programs for young women may be misguided.

The post comes as Google battles a wage discrimination investigation

Guest post by Josh Spokes.

The gay community’s historical project of sexual liberation was something very different than what I thought it was when I was a young man coming into that world in the late 80s and early 90s. I see now, of course, that it was an almost entirely male “community.”

The pleas for acceptance for “radical sexualities” that seemed so innocent to me, so reasonable, then—-these were just the seeds that have bloomed into today’s lesbian-bashing, misogyny, pedophilic interest in children’s bodies, and much worse.

I struggle with this. Many of us chafed against the “respectable” gays that wanted us to tone it down so they could present in their sweaters and khakis as just another … Read the rest

Sarah Boseley at the Guardian today takes up the story of Mary Beard and the eruption of enraged goons.

She said the tone of the debate left her dispirited. “It feels very sad to me that we cannot have a reasonable discussion on such a topic as the cultural, ethnic composition of Roman Britain without resorting to unnecessary insult, abuse, misogyny and language of war, not debate.”

Beard, a classicist at Cambridge University, who is well known for her robust responses to Twitter trolls, was one of those who pointed to evidence that there was at least some ethnic diversity in Britain under Roman rule.

There followed, she said in her blog in the Times Literary Supplement,

In June there was Sarah Bond.

Earlier this month, Bond published an article in the online arts publication Hyperallergic saying that research shows ancient Western artifacts were painted in different colors but have, over time, faded to their base light marble color — giving the false impression that white skin was the classical ideal.

Uh oh. We know where this is going.

“Modern technology has revealed an irrefutable, if unpopular, truth: many of the statues, reliefs and sarcophagi created in the ancient Western world were in fact painted,” she wrote. “Marble was a precious material for Greco-Roman artisans, but it was considered a canvas, not the finished product for sculpture. It was carefully selected and then often painted in

Ari Berman notes an anniversary:

53 years ago today bodies of Goodman, Chaney & Schwerner found in Mississippi. We must continue fight for voting rights in their name pic.twitter.com/iJLlhFfdHg

— Ari Berman (@AriBerman) August 5, 2017

… Read the rest

Here we go:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Special counsel Robert Mueller has impaneled a grand jury in Washington to investigate allegations of Russia’s interference in the 2016 elections, the Wall Street Journal said on Thursday, citing two unnamed people familiar with the matter.

The grand jury began its work in recent weeks and is a sign that Mueller’s inquiry into Russia’s efforts to influence the election and whether it colluded with President Donald Trump’s campaign is ramping up, the Journal said.

Important White House ethics rule: don't lie to a grand jury.

— Richard W. Painter (@RWPUSA) August 3, 2017

… Read the rest

52 years ago House voted 328-74 to approve Voting Rights Act. Today only 8 House Republicans support bill to restore VRA pic.twitter.com/Lp0z7Ty0sC

— Ari Berman (@AriBerman) August 3, 2017

Sierra Gray at the ACLU writes:

On the shoulders of my grandfather Dilmus Agnew, my mother watched Martin Luther King, Jr. give his renowned “I Have a Dream” speech in our nation’s capital in 1963. “We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote,” exclaimed Dr. King, as my mother watched on. “No, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like