#RaceClass

"Everyone committed to democracy, intellectual freedom, and the rule of law should be alarmed at what is happening--and be prepared to act." That call came from Professor Jafari Sinclaire Allen in a recent piece for The Nation that catalogued MAGA's ever-escalating assault on Black studies. Jon and Arnie use the piece as a jumping off point to discuss why home-grown authoritarians from Florida to Texas to Tennessee are leading the charge to purge Black studies and gender studies from our universities. The answer is simple: those who prefer domination over democracy fear an educated public that understands the source of their precarity and the path to freedom and liberation.

Justice Clarence Thomas doesn't know what "diversity" means. UC Berkeley Law Professor David Oppenheimer does. David joined the #RaceClass Podcast to discuss his new book "The Diversity Principle." The book traces the diversity principle's long and circuitous (and often overlooked) history -- one that weaves through John and Harriet Mill, the legendary Pauli Murray, and fights for academic freedom in the United States and against Apartheid in South Africa.

SMU Law Professor Carliss Chatman joined the #RaceClass podcast to discuss DEI "rollbacks" and the rise of "reverse racism" lawsuits from private actors and the Trump administration. We do a deep dive into Section 1981 and the myth of "free markets" -- with a specific nod to "white economic comfort," a term Professor Chatman coined to capture a powerful dyanmic that continues to drive who can enter and benefit from capitalist systems free from racial discrimination and exclusion.