Month: April 2025

When is it okay for district judges to issue universal injunctions?
I am not a lawyer, but to me the answer would be found in the Constitution or from rulings by the Supreme Court.
Senator John Kennedy (R, Louisiana)is one of my favorites and on 3/31/25 while questioning Assistant Attorney General nominee Brett Shumate, Kennedy systematically dismantled any justification for these sweeping judicial orders.

From PJ Media:
Kennedy asked, “What’s the statutory basis for a federal judge issuing an order that affects people other than the parties before the court?”
“I’m not aware of a statutory basis, Senator,” Shumate admitted.
“There is no statutory basis, is there?” Kennedy reiterated.
“No, Senator,” Shumate confirmed.

Kennedy then challenged Shumate to name a Supreme Court ruling that interprets the Constitution to allow such injunctions.
“Can you name me that case?” he asked.
“I’m not aware of one, Senator,” Shumate responded.
“There isn’t one, is there?” Kennedy pressed.
“I’m not aware of one, Senator,” Shumate repeated.

Kennedy then laid out the fundamental issue: “You have a plaintiff and a defendant, and the plaintiff files a lawsuit in federal court. The judge has jurisdiction over those parties. How can a federal judge issue an order that affects everyone else outside of that courtroom?”
“Uh, it shouldn’t be possible, Senator, but district courts do it all the time,” Shumate admitted.

“I thought that if you wanted to affect parties who aren’t in court, you had to file a class action,” Kennedy countered.
“That’s correct, Senator,” Shumate agreed.
Kennedy pointed out that instead of filing class-action suits, plaintiffs often seek universal injunctions, which have no legal foundation. 

“The universal injunction has become a weapon against the Trump administration, has it not?” Kennedy asked.
“Yes,” Shumate affirmed.
In his closing remarks, Kennedy highlighted the constitutional issue at hand: “Tell me the basis for universal injunction in Article III. Where does it mention universal injunction?”
“It does not, Senator,” Shumate said. “It says courts are to decide the case or controversy before them, which is based on the parties to the case.”
Kennedy concluded, “So Congress could act and say, ‘Look, federal judges, you render a decision to a plaintiff or a defendant, but you can’t impact people outside of your courtroom other than through a class action.’ That’s why God created class actions, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Senator,” Shumate agreed.

So there it is! All laid out quite nicely by Senator Kennedy.
Universal injunctions have no statutory basis, no affirmation by the Supreme Court, and have been used as a weapon against President Trump with no apparent legal basis.
Why is the Supreme Court sitting on their hands?
4/2/25

The following certainly seems to be a pattern. First in San Francisco and now in Seattle.
From Hot Air:
“Progressive educators attack tracking and advanced math courses on the grounds that equity demands everyone be in the same classroom. Somehow this was supposed to improve things for the mostly black and Hispanic students who were falling behind without doing any harm to the mostly white and Asian kids who had previously been in the advanced classes.

Eventually, San Francisco figured out that it didn’t work. Apart from making life much harder for the advanced kids, some of whom had to take a year of math in summer school to keep up with their college-bound peers in other cities, getting rid of Middle School algebra did nothing for the students on the other end of the achievement gap. The city eventually reversed course once the failure of de-tracking became undeniable.

In Seattle many parents were not happy when certain classes were cancelled in the guise of DEI.
After some back and forth, the district’s chief of equity, partnerships, and engagement, Keisha Scarlett wrote, ‘I also fundamentally believe that we don’t advance racial equity as a measure toward racial and education justice through a focus on increasing access and inclusion. These are band-aids to camouflage institutional racism.’”

First of all what is a “chief of equity, partnerships, and engagement” other than a poppycock spewer?
Anyone with a frontal lobe could explain to Keisha Scarlett that this would not work. The lower end students would not benefit, and many of the higher end students would transfer to private schools that offered the advanced classes that are necessary to compete for college admissions.

Again from Hot Air:
“All of this was predictable and was in fact predicted by parents who warned the school system in advance that it was a bad idea to tear down the current system without coming up with a solid replacement and putting that in place first. The city didn’t listen (just as it didn’t when it jumped on the “defund the police” bandwagon” in 2020).
Finally, it seems the city is coming around but only after losing a bunch of its best students and taking advanced classes away from many more. This was always a terrible idea. The fact that DEI made it seem not just positive but necessary should be cause for some much needed reflection on the value of DEI in education.”
4/1/25