billion. but you know what i hear on the other side, that they have no place that they can cut. the first place you know where i would go, since the pandemic's over, since we moved the legislation, even the world health organization says it's over, we have $50 billion to $60 billion right there of the $131 billion that has been appropriated but for two years has sat there. what if you bring that back to the taxpayers? that's just the start. you're going to tell me you can't find the inefficiencies in government? because all the democrats have done, spend more money and harm this entire country. we know we can do it together. did i give you a question? ok. sorry. yes. [laughter] >> volunteered in both the 2022 election and we'll volunteer in the 2024 election. it's helpful if we have fair and honest elections. for those of you that don't

know, the betty murphy award is given every year to an unsung hero, community service leader, an organization builder who inspires others' efforts. betty was an amazing woman. as many can tell, who knew her, she was chair of the nlrb and administer of the wage hour of the department -- at the department of labor and our very first co-chair. we have many past betty murray award winners. the founder of our pittsburgh chapter and was later nominated for attorney general in pennsylvania. we have linda kerns who led our philadelphia chapter in 2016. did a great job getting president trump's shocking victory in 2016. later we have mike davis who used to lead our colorado chapter. and mike left colorado to come here to help confirm his friend, kneel gorsuch -- neil gorsuch.

so that's going to be a great panel at the end of the day for all of you who want to watch that. lastly, we got brenda hankins. she founded her women's initiative. she was also one of the leaders of getting a universal reporting system for election integrity issues. i want to turn to this year's winner, ashley titus. when i asked the general counsel aaron clark for a quote on ashley, i had to cut it down because she was praising her so much. colorado is crucial to -- california is crucial to taking back the u.s. house. as the nrcc california lawyer, the california chair and lawyer for the california republican party. she organized statewide election integrity programs for years to ensure elections is clean as california can be. people forget one of the reasons for our success in 2020 in the u.s. house, despite president trump's lost, we learned how to ballot harvest in california. it's a terrible law but we have

to work within the existing law because the democrats do. so thank you, ashley. for chairman jordan, leader scalise, and speaker mccarthy. and all you do for the movement. and here is the betty murphy award for you. come up here and say a few words. [applause] ashley: thank you, everybody. i really don't like attention on myself. i don't like the spotlight but i'm gratified to accept this award and be recognized by the nlra. -- rnla. i think michael is one of the best people in the country in terms of how he hires people and the alumni speaks highly of the organization and for all the lawyers who volunteer for the rnla and for election integrity cycle after cycle. the rnla connects the dots between election lawyers like

me, the campaigns which, of course, changed from cycle to cycle and the volunteers and the rnla is the constant from election to election and i'm humbled to be part of carrying out the mention of the rnla on the west coast, as michael already mentioned. our program in california wouldn't be possible without the rnla so thank you for keeping the faith that california is not a lost cause. [applause] michael: betty, brenda, anybody that won in the past. come on up, brenda. let's go to the next panel. >> i'm very excited to have heather up here. i had the opportunity when i was snapt attorney general for civil rights at d.o.j. right after we came in on the transition, heather had just written her wonderful book, if you have not seen it, "the war on cops", and

i actually brought her in to the conference room of the civil rights division, j. edgar hoover's office, fifth floor of the d.o.j., and talk about what was going on at that particular point in time. we had baltimore. we had all the first wave of the pre-2020 kind of war on cops. it was just phenomenal having her in in and having some of my staff in there kind of hearing the perspective she brings to this and her willingness to tell things -- to tell truth through power. i wanted to say that, heather, before i invited lowell up to introduce you. lowell is managing partner for hush blackwell. she's also the rnla counsel which is a tough job being counsel to a bunch of lawyers. she's also on the rnla board of governors and served both as missouri's deputy director of revenue, director to the governor. with that, lowell.

lowell: i'll introduce ms. mcdonald from the podium and then i'll sit down and let her -- do you prefer to stand or sit? ok. this is a real honor for me. heather mcdonald is one of the great scholars in law in the country. she's the thomas w. smith fellow at the manhattan institute. she has a bachelor of arts from yale. a master of arts from cambridge. and a j.d. from stanford law school. the only thing i have in common with her is i went to stanford as well. so very -- that's where the similarities stop. she's an accomplished author. several beth-selling books. i'm not going to read you the titles but i do want to say at least two of them deal with defending the police. and the problems that we have in our urban areas. and she's won numerous awards from law enforcement agencies because of that. she's here today to talk about

her newest book which was just released in april which is titled "when race trumps merit." it's an extraordinarily well-reverend, thoughtful -- well-reverend, thoughtful anational -- well researched, thoughtful what's going on in the last three years. we will have time for questions. and she will be signing books in the lobby here after her presentation. so with all that, great privilege and honor to introduce heather macdonald. [applause] heather: thank you very much, mr. pearson. this is an extraordinary honor to be with this intellectual powerhouse here. the single trait of our time is this -- we live by sections. the press is fair-minded and objective. the washington nationals have a chance to win the world series. [laughter]

jet-setting climate activists are prepared to sacrifice one iota of their carbon consufrptive lifestyles -- consumptive lifestyles. men can get pregnant. the biggest terror threat facing the u.s. today comes from, quote, domestic extremists. that's code for disgruntled whites who are poised to violently overthrow the government. therefore, disinformation, i.e., dissent from orthodoxy, must be suppressed. but the most consequential fiction of all is that any racial disparity today in any institution is the result of racism. if a cancer research lab does not have 13% black oncologists, the black share of the national population, it is by definition a racist lab that discriminates against competitively qualified black oncologists. if a law firm does not have 13%

black partners, it is by definition a racist law firm that discriminates against competitively qualified black associates. if the prison population contains more than 13% black prisoners, our law enforcement system is by definition racist. the rule that racial disparities are necessarily a product of racism has affected institutions across the cultural and political landscape. perhaps nowhere more astonishingly than the fields of science and medicine. the crazy optimists who saw the diversity sledgehammer would never strike them, they were wrong. the american medical association insists that medicine is characterized by white supremacy. the biden administration's office of science and technology policy declares that science deepens inequalities.

the smithsonian institution announces that, quote, emphasis on the scientific message and interest in, quote, cause and effect relationships is part of totalitarian whiteness. and so pursuant to the principle that any lack of racial proportionality signals discrimination, we are dismantling behavioral standards that have an impact on underrepresented minorities in stem and elsewhere. part one of the medical licensing exam, for example, test medical students' knowledge of anatomy, physiology and pathology. black medical students score at the bottom of the grading curve. their low scores make it harder for them to land their preferred residencies. solution -- get rid of scores. last year part one of the licensing exam went pass-fail to ensure that hospital

departments, when choosing residents, could not distinguished among high and low-achieving students. some medical schools have waived the submission of the medical college achievement test for black applicants because the average black mcat score is a standard below white test applicants. and the gap between asian and black applicants is even wider. the mcats have already been redesigned to try to eliminate those gaps. a quarter of the questions now focus on social issues and psychology to no avail. the medical school curriculum is being revised in the hope of shrinking the grade gap, more classes in social advocacy, less time in clinical practice. the federal government is shifting medical research funding from pure science to research on racial disparities and social justice. why? not because of any assessment of

scientific need but simply because black researchers do more racism research and less pure science. the national institutes of health has broadened the criteria for receiving neurology grants because considering scientific accomplishment alone has a disparate impact. now having been in foster care or having used the welfare program, w.i.c., as a child will be counted as a qualification for doing federally funded alzheimer's research. what is at stake in these revisions? future medical progress and ultimately lives. the legal profession, which gave us the disparate impact in the first place has itself become a juicy target. upon taking office in 2021, president joe biden announced he would not submit his judicial nominees to the a.b.a. for a preliminary rating. allowing them to vet candidates

was incompatible with the quote, diversification of the judicialary -- judiciary, explained a member of the white house counsel's office. are you kidding me? they could not open their collective mouth without issuing a bromide about diversifying the bar. they are obsessed with the demographics of corporate law firms and faculties. this is the same that gave the highest rating to a supreme court nominee who would claim during oral argument on vaccine mandates that, quote, over 100,000 children are in serious conditions from covid and many are on ventilators. that would be justice sonia soto may yor who -- sotomayor. it is a measure how far the biden administration intended to stray from the diversity-driven standard of competence that it

saw the a.b.a. as a roadblock. one of those diverse biden nominee, one from the central district of california, has announced she would like to see attorneys in her courtrooms who's, quote, identities further the diversity of the legal profession, end quote. the code of conduct for united states judges holds that judges should, quote, promote public confidence in the impartiality of the judiciary. if i were a heterosexual white male attorney appearing before judge frempalm, and the opposing counsel was a trans-black female, was i at confidence i was at no disadvantage vis-a-vis opposing counsel? i would not. however, impartial judge frempam plight be in fact.

it would be widely replicated that would strike the very essence of the law. the promise of being judged by a neutral arbiter and governed by neutral principles. the only preference that a judge should have is for an attorney who can ably and professionally advocate on behalf of his client. . the overwhelm preference a pr-z should have is judges who will reason dispassionately and adhere to precedent. candidates have gone further officially lowering sentences for black convicts as a way to fight systemic racism. this will spread to the u.s. although it is undoubtedly already been adopted piecemeal and soto voce. meanwhile bar associations are lowering standards. in 2020 california lowered the test score on the bar exam because black applicants were failing. only 5% of black law school

graduates passed the california bar on the first try in february of 2020 compared to 52 of white law school graduates and 42% of asian law school graduates. the lack proportional representation among california's attorneys were prove of a discriminatory credentialing system. delaware lowered its bar passing score and cut by half the number of essays required for the same reason. the pressure to eliminate the lsat requirement for law school admissions is enormous because it, too, has a disparate impact. a single mother told an a.b.a. panel quote, i would hate to give up my dream on become ago lawyer just due to not being able to successfully handle this test. the problem always lies with the test. and never with the test taker. therefore the a.b.a. -- so the a.b.a. delegates voted this

february to preserve. lsat requirement, they do not have the last word. you heard it here first. the requirement will be axed. what about this foundational fiction that any disparity in any institution is the result of racism? the truth is this. the reason for the lack of proportional representation across a range of fields is the academic skills gap. and let me issue a trigger warning here. i'm going to raise uncomfortable facts, ones that many well-intentioned americans would rather not here. but without being able to acknowledge the skills gap, we are going to continue destroying our civilizational legacy. let me also say that i am talking about group averages not about any given individual. thousands of individuals with an underperforming groups outperform not only their own group average but us thats of

individuals within other groups as well. here are the relevant facts. in 2019, 66% of all black 12th graders did not possess even partial mastery of basic 12th grade math skills, defined as being able to do arithmetic or read a graph. only 7% of black 12th graders were proficient in 12th a grade math -- 12th grade math defined able to calculate aourbing ratios. the number of black 12th graders advanced in math was too small to show up statistically in the national sample. the picture was not much better in reading. 50% of black 12th graders did not possess even partial mastery of basic reading and only 4% were exams. if you wonder why gifted and talented programs are being eliminated across the country, there's your reason.

remember these data when president biden and the supporters vilify americans, especially republicans, for alleged bias against underrepresented minorities, because this institution or that is not proportionally diverse. the skills gap tphefrl closes. the disparities in the s.a.t. lsat, g.r.a.'s, and others are just as wide. we can argue about why those disparities exist and how to close them. something that policymakers and philanthropists have been trying to do for decades. in light of these skills gap it is irrational to expect 13% black representation on a medical school faculty stay or among a law firm's partners under purely merit standards. at present you can have diversity or you can have meritocracy. you cannot have both.

the consequences of the diversity fiction for our legal system are particularly dire. america's most complex moral and political questions have often been addressed through court decisions. the quality of reasoning in those decisions can strengthen our undermine the legitimacy of our constitutional order. commercial matters can be just as thorny. as do conflicts of law school demonstrated if you even dare to take the notoriously tortured subject, private parties rely on the transparency of case law to predict the outcome of legal disputes. when president biden declared he was limiting himself to black females for his first supreme court nominee, he radically constrained his options. by some reports only 2% of lawyers in the u.s. are black females. yet as of january, 2023, 24% of

all biden's judicial appointments have been black females. now consider the academic skills gap. over half of black law students are in the bottom 10th of their law school class after their first year of school. 2/3 of black law students are in the bottom fifth of their class. these twin constraints make a decline in our jurisprudence in a diversity regime almost inevitable. but the leaders of our mainstream institutions would rather accuse their completion and their country of phantom bias than acknowledge the pipeline problem. the fictions in law enforcement are as stupefying as those in stem and the law. we are all pretending that as president biden is fond of intoning, black parents are right to fear that their children will be killed by a police officer or by a white

gunslingerrer time those children step outside. we are all pretending that, quote, existing while black, is a high-risk activity thanks to racist whites. as the mayor of kansas city recently proclaimed. the facts are these. existing while black is far more dangerous than existing while white. the reason is the black homicide rate. black juveniles in the post george floyd world die of gun homicides at 100 times the rate of white juveniles. who is killing them? not the police. not whites. but other blacks. the press ignores those black juvenile deaths because they do not fit the anti-police, anti-white narrative. as for interracial violence, blacks are a far greater threat to whites than whites are to blacks. blacks commit 87% of all

nonlethal interracial violence between blacks and whites and whites and blacks. yet the national narrative insists on the opposite idea that whites are a constant risk to blacks, and we all dutifully play along. everything that has been going on in the criminal justice system since the george floyd race riots is driven by disparate impact. this is the missing key to the discussion of the previous panel. prosecutors are not charging suspects, and police officers are not making stops because doing so will have a disparate impact on black criminals. even colorblind technology is racist. speeding cameras disproportionately identify black drivers as traffic scofflaws. the solution to such disparate impact is the same as we saw with the medical whr-pbsing exam -- licensing exam. throw out the cameras. the results of this

deprosecution and dee policing has been widespread urban anarchy and the largest one-year spike in homicide in the nation's history. thousands more black lives have been lost to increased drive bye shootings, including hundreds of black children. how do we counteract these fictions? by refusing to be cowed by groundless accusations of racism. we must arm ourselves with the facts and be prepared to use them. as long as racism remains the only allow and explanation for racial disparities, the left wins. it is all coming down. even the arts are coming down. though we will once a white supremacist country, we are not that country today. every mainstream institution is twisting itself into knots to hire and promote as many underrepresented minorities as possible. yet those same institutions

accuse themselves of racism. should republican office seekers run on the restoration of merit and standards? hell, yes. [applause] of course the mainstream media and some in your own party will accuse you of waging a culture. oh, please. it is progressive elites who are engaged in a cultural revolution. republicans are not even playing defense. how about legislation to ban racial preferences in medical training and practice? how about eliminating the disparate impact standards in statutes and regulations? how about ending the allocation of lifesaving drugs on the basis of race? as we saw during the covid epidemic.

by all means promote the virtues of free markets and limited government. but the diversity regime is the nemesis of both. we must proclaim that excellence is not racist. standards are not racist. and that the legacy of western civilization is one of un-- unparalleled accomplishment. conferring on us beauty, freedom, and liberation from squalor and disease. in a word, speak the truth and never back down. thank you for your attention. [applause] >> thank you very much, ms. macdonald. send your questions forward, our volunteers will bring them up. i'll start. you talk in your book quite a lot about the impact on the

arts. i think for this audience they probably have some familiarity with the legal issues and the education issues. i think a brief discussion maybe one example from the many in your book about the impact on the arts would be interesting to the group. heather: there is not a single field in the arts that's not being subjected to this tyranny of race politics and identity politician, whether it's symphony, ballets, theater. they are all being driven just complete betrayals of their mission, their tradition, their inheritance by the phony charge of racism. the lead music critic of the "new york times" calls for the deblinding of orchestral auditions currently. most orchestras audition,

possible performers, behind a screen so that nobody can tell the sex or the race of people trying out. anthony calls for deblinding orchestra auditions so that the race of applicants can be taken into account. believe me, there is not a single orchestra in the country that is discriminating against applicants on any ground. conductors are fanatically perfectionists. all they care about is getting a french horn sole owist -- soleoist will not blood his solo. the metropolitan museum of art in new york city launch an exhibit based on the most absurd thesis which is that

abolitionist art, emancipationist art, anti-slavery art if created by a white artist is actually pro-slavery. is actually arguing that the national condition -- natural condition of blacks is to be enslaved. making this argument about an absolutely gorgeous bust by a french neoclassical sculpture required the met to repudiate every aspect of western art. it required claiming that using the nude was racist. that not naming a model is racist. that putting art on the market is racist. the met would rather deny truths about what it is to make art than allow a white piece of art

to stand up there unchallenged. the extraordinary thing is that only western civilization is subjected to the deconstructive acid of anti-racism. the met and other museums still approach other traditions, like chinese traditions, japanese traditions, african-american traditions with respect. trying to give voice to the artist's intention. they never ask about what were you doing with slavery? what were you doing with child sacrifice? what were you doing with genocide? they look at their art as forms of beauty. it is only the west that is self-deconstructing. >> thank you. we have a few questions. send them forward. the first one i'll ask you is this. what reforms to current employment laws, discrimination

employment laws, would you recommend to address the problems that you are discussing? heather: above all get rid of the disparate impact standard. force litigants to prove intentional discrimination. that's what our civil rights laws began with in 1964 and 1965. the reason that i believe we had griggsv. power in 1971 from the supreme court establishing the disparate impact standard is because it was becoming exceedingly difficult to find actual intentional discrimination. so the disparate impact standard was a way of expanding the definition of discrimination. if we could get rid of disparate impact in statutes, a president could do it with regards to the code of federal regulations. congress could do it with regards to statutes. changing some of the judicially

mandate the standards would be more challenging. but take advantage of the court while we can. and what's going to happen now, it actually will be once again easy to find intentional discrimination. it's just not been discrimination the left wants to recognize. because there is discrimination going on. if any of you have heterosexual white male sons, good luck to them. they are the bottom of the totem poll -- pole at this point. they will be the last people considered, the last people hired, and the first people fired. >> what advice would you have for graduate students in law, medicine, similar fields to address this within their educational institutions? heather: it's very tough. to be a nonlefty student on any college campus, or professional stkaol today -- school today is

extraordinarily difficult. the informal stigma against speaking facts that rebut the racism narrative is overwhelming. and it takes somebody with, frankly, a reckless degree of courage to do so. however, any of those students who are so inclined will be doing an enormous service to their country. and at least get the facts and where the situation permits give those facts against the pate kwrebt untruths of the race -- patent untruths of the racism narrative. so the federalists society does a good job of providing some kind of safe harbor. i would like to see it, perhaps, be a little bit more aggressive in taking on some of the

substantive issues. but it's very tough. all i can say is the only thing that is going to stop this juggernaut is the truth. and refusing to play along with the charge that america is today systemically racist. >> are there any parallels between your discussion so far today and the issue of transathletes and-n women sports that you can comment on? heather: well, i mean the trans issue is certainly the weirdest thing that has ever hit humanity in its entire history since the neolithic age. there is nothing like it. and i struggle on a daily basis to understand what does this represent at its root as a philosophical challenge? the connection is, of course,

the fictional nature of it. that we are being forced to go along with things that are so transparently untrue. and yet we mostly go along with it. i'm surprised -- see the "new york post," the only conservative -- truly conservative paper out there with a slight exception of the "wall street journal" editorial page, but they are going along with the pronounce -- pronoun conventions. it's really -- this is pushing us into realms of insanity that are beyond belief. i think it's driven by a hatred of all things traditional, of traditional standards, of child rearing. it's driven by hatred of the family. it's driven by hatred of childhood incense -- innocence.

there is nothing more cruel to a child than to destroy that precious moment of ignorance about sexuality. the preposterously renamed don't say gay laws were not about that. it should be, but if they were it should be don't say sex laws. it is simply inappropriate for there to be any rubbing of a child's nose until that child, frankly, is out of high school. parents can do their job. [applause] >> i guess you did have something to say on that topic. mr. wielder has a question. >> heather, with respect to the civil rights statutes, if this were title ix, designed to

protect biological females and biolocal males from the advantage they have. if gender is fluid, aren't we a step away from racial fluidity and everything else. if everything is fluid doesn't that destroy all the protections, all the sift rights statutes have? heather: yeah. i think this is a moment, the left insists that race is a social construct. that there is no basis for it. they are wrong. race is genetically correlated. but if that's the case, if race is a social construct, tell your white male sons to put black down as their race. why not? you can identify -- if i can -- if i'm a male, not that i have ever noticed, if i can change my chromosomes by wishing it, i don't see why people can't change their race. take down the regime. take it down from within.

so that it can't even function any longer. and i would just say -- on the title ix sports thing. i confess i love it. it is delightful to see females went about destroying male sports and insisting on equal funding for different sports that simply did not have the same purchase. and so now the males are destroying female sports. if i were a feminist i would say, isn't this just like a male to come in and destroy everything we built up. this is toxic masculinity at its worst. yet they are silent. my view is, let them -- let both sides take each other out and i'll watch happily from the sidelines. >> tom, any other questions from you? time for a couple more.

heather, i'll keep read interesting our cards. is there a parallel between this racial polarization that we have been talking about and the former efforts from the left to divide the world based on class. essentially a communist or marxist approach. can you comment on that question. heather: this gets to the cultural marxism term which i actually disagree with. i disagree with my fellow conservatives about this. i would take real marxism any day to what we've got now. it's more interesting. the categories of so-called robber barron railroad tycoons and worker or architect are much more interesting. they are actually things that people do. than the trivialities of race and ex. being female is not an accomplishment. being black is not an

accomplishment. being gay is not an accomplishment. these are not particularly relevant issues to our world. whereas marxism -- let's face it, some of the insight is about what the rise of capitalism was doing and observations about how workers function in a capitalist regime. they were interesting insights. and i recently subjected myself to howard zen's people's history of america. it was a bracing experience. i learned a lot. about the depth of the left hatred for success, for accomplishment, for any hierarchy of authority. but it had -- it was an interesting history about some of the labor strikes in this country. nothing about what the -- about what the left is doing now with

regards to sex and race has anywhere near that degree of insight. the people that like the term cultural marxist -- marxism say the same -- it's all about simply dividing the country. i think that takes the matter to too high a level of generality. the goal is not division. the goal in marxism was destroying free markets and capitalism. and subjecting all of society to a completely suicidal leveling. and the goal in the identity politics that we are seeing now is not simply division, it is to destroy western civilization and above all to destroy the males who brought us that civilization.

>> one last question. i'll give you a chance for closing remarks. heather: i don't have any. i spoke enough. >> answer the question and develop your remarks. one of our commenters from the audience suggests one of the things that's going on here is perhaps an intentional effort to have the citizenry trade liberty for security. if that makes sense. does that concept come into your thinking at all? heather: it certainly came into my thinking during covid. there was no more nauseating mantra that human, have come up than be safe. god, it made me want to throw up. how about be courageous. be entrepreneurial. be smart. be a chess grand master. be safe? that's supposed to be our as tkeur pigsal motivation? this was the -- the whole covid

insanity was the triumph of a femme niesed culture -- femme niesed -- femmeinized culture of male a trait of benefits to any given policy. i used to think that could he sid sr*eud was the worst policy failure in this country's history. i'm now having to maybe modify that judgment as i observe the insane electric vehicle mandates first out of my beloved home state of california, and now being picked up by joe biden. yes, americans -- the other dressing -- depressing thing about the covid era was to see how many americans were willing to trade liberty -- i don't like to use the liberty phrase. because i can imagine that there might be a epidemic of such serious proportions that would justify trading liberty.

i think the liberty versus safety or security dichotomy hands too easy a victory to the left. it's about trading science for safety. it's about trading facts for safety. covid as we knew affected overwhelmingly people 80 years and above with co-morbidities. it was not a threat to the population. it was not a threat to school children. and yet we have widened the academic skills gap. here's what's come out of covid. the academic skills gap, which is the reason we are tearing everything down, has widened. it's going to get worse. things are going to get even worse than they are now.

that was the problem is that we forfeited our commitment to reason and fact in favor of a suction -- subjection to government power. i don't think they are all that comparable. i think the disparate impact issue arises out of americans' completely understandablele sense of collective guilt about race that comes from our centuries-long betrayal of our founding ideals. from our centuries-long cruel, heartlessly cruel and gratuitous treatment, nasty treatment of blacks. as i say, i can both acknowledge that history, and say that we are not that country today. and we do not have any grounds for tearing down our civilization on the basis of that phony narrative.

i'm going to close it there. [applause] >> as i said earlier, heather will be signing books out in the lobby. i think we need to vacate this room. we do need to vacate this room. everybody, we mean vacate because they have to flip it for lunch and set up lunch. we need everybody out. michael, can people -- they have to take everything. take everything. don't leave anything at your table. i do have a little gift for ms. macdonald. thank you so much for being here. thank you so much. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2023] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy visit ncicap.org]

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