Week in Review: Goodbye Affirmative Action?

Did you know that Asian-Americans were legally prohibited from owning property in the state of California until the 1950s?

It was a dark chapter in our nation’s history—yet the government has continued to perpetuate a similar form of bias against Asian-Americans through affirmative action, which grants preference to certain races in college admissions. That unjust system, and the recent Supreme Court decision striking it down, was the subject of a special Goldwater Institute virtual event this week featuring Goldwater Vice President for Legal Affairs Timothy Sandefur and George Mason University law professor David Bernstein.

“This case is Brown v. Board of Education for Asians,” Sandefur said after the court found that, despite their high grades and test scores, Asian-Americans were especially disadvantaged by affirmative action policies.

Americans deserve better than racial discrimination at our institutions of higher learning. That’s why the Goldwater Institute is reining in the left’s radical racial agenda around the nation, enacting America’s most powerful reform to defund “diversity, equity, and inclusion” bureaucracies at public colleges in Texas, and passing a crucial reform to ban mandatory “diversity” statement loyalty oaths in Florida. And across the country, we’ll keep championing the founding principles of liberty, opportunity, and equality for all Americans.

If you missed it, you can watch the video from our special virtual event here.

Victory! Court Upholds Rights of Property Owners, Not Bureaucrats

It’s a massive victory for Californians who fight back when the government infringes on their freedoms: An appellate court this week sided with the Goldwater Institute and struck down a local government’s attempt to sue property owners who had challenged a restrictive land-use ordinance.

After property owners sued the city of Rancho Mirage over the ordinance, the city responded by filing a motion against them, claiming that the property owners were violating the city’s free speech rights. Of course, government has no rights at all, only powers given to it by the people. The Goldwater Institute filed a brief supporting the property owners and showing that the city’s weird legal theory would deprive Californians everywhere of their right to go to court when the government violates their constitutional freedoms. And the court agreed, unanimously rejecting the city’s arguments.

That’s an unequivocal defeat for the city—but it’s an important victory for Californians who have the courage to stand up for their rights.

Read more from Timothy Sandefur at In Defense of Liberty. 

Phoenix Fails to Clean Up Homeless ‘Zone’… Again

Will the city of Phoenix protect all its citizens’ rights in its homeless “Zone” without a court mandate?

Simply put, no. That was the main takeaway from this week’s trial in a lawsuit brought by property and business owners who have suffered violence, property destruction, pollution, and other injuries from the city’s actions in creating and maintaining The Zone, a massive homeless encampment in downtown Phoenix. (The Goldwater Institute filed a brief in support of the property and business owners’ rights.)

In late March, a judge commanded the city to take steps to clean up The Zone by July 10. Yet the city has thus far cleaned just three blocks of The Zone—and it even took the entire month of June off from cleaning the area. In fact, more people are on the streets of The Zone now than four months ago. At this point, it’s clear that it will take further court mandates for the city to provide real relief.

“By all counts, Phoenix has failed,” Goldwater Municipal Affairs Liaison Austin VanDerHeyden writes at In Defense of Liberty. “The city has failed in abating the public nuisance, it has failed at finding real solutions, and it has failed to do anything but offer unrealistic visions for the future and false hope.”

Read more here.