James Comey Indictment & The Fall of Affirmative Action | Amicus Podcast

Indictment of James Comey

• 🎯 James Comey, former FBI Director, was indicted on charges of making false statements and obstruction of Congress.
• 🔍 The indictment, unusually short, accuses Comey of lying under oath about authorizing an FBI colleague to leak information to the press.
• 💡 The claim stems from a 2020 exchange with Senator Ted Cruz, where Comey denied authorizing leaks, a denial the indictment alleges was false.
• 🚫 The indictment is considered bogus and demonstrably nonsense, with the Justice Department's Inspector General previously finding the overwhelming weight of evidence supported Comey's version of events.
• ⚖️ The case was brought in the Eastern District of Virginia, a move seen as politically motivated to find a more pliant grand jury than one in D.C.
• 🏛️ Trump allegedly pushed out the US Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia and installed his own attorney, Lindsay Halligan, to pursue the indictment after career prosecutors declined.
• 📉 This action is viewed as an unprecedented abuse of the Justice Department, orchestrated by Trump to persecute a personal enemy.

The Impact of SFFA v. Harvard on Affirmative Action

• 🎓 The Supreme Court's 2023 decision in SFFA v. Harvard has fundamentally altered college campuses, particularly impacting minority admissions.
• 📉 Black enrollment has seen dramatic declines at institutions like MIT (15% to 5%) and Amherst (11% to 3%), with several Ivy League schools also experiencing significant drops.
• ⚖️ Chief Justice Roberts' majority opinion stated that the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race, signaling the end of affirmative action.
• 🌍 The decision is placed within a larger context of racial discourse in America, with concerns about its broader implications for racial justice efforts.
• 📚 Professor Justin Driver's book, "The Fall of Affirmative Action," explores these issues and proposes alternative mechanisms for universities to maintain diversity.

Legal Principles and Future Implications

• ⚖️ The Equal Protection Clause can be understood to prohibit racial classifications (anti-classification) and racial subordination.
• 🧠 Justice Thomas, while claiming to be anti-classification, also embraces anti-subordination, arguing affirmative action is predicated on a theory of black inferiority.
• 🗣️ The concept of "mismatch" suggests that affirmative action may elevate students into realms for which they are ill-prepared, a notion that conservatives like Justice Thomas emphasize.
• 💡 Driver suggests universities can still pursue diversity through race-neutral means, such as preferences for students from underserved areas or descendants of enslaved people.
• 🏛️ The Supreme Court's recent actions, including overturning precedent, are seen as imperiling the institution's legitimacy and moving at breakneck speed.
• ⚠️ The author argues that the SFFA decision, by incentivizing applicants to write about racism, may exacerbate the sense of victimization and clash with the idea of America's progress toward racial equality.