The Glenn Show

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John McWhorter – Is DEI on Its Way Out? Feb 02, 2024

Show notes

PREORDER Glenn's memoir, LATE ADMISSIONS: CONFESSIONS OF A BLACK CONSERVATIVE. Available here or wherever you get your books: https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393881349

0:00 John: Claudine Gay needed to resign, but her plagiarism wasn’t a mortal sin

6:50 Has DEI taken a hit after the Gay controversy?

13:50 When “DEI” really means “racial preferences”

22:12 The case of Neri Oxman

23:52 John: Bill Ackman looks “absurd”

26:47 Three cheers for John’s dinosaurs

28:22 Is Glenn really a “black conservative”?

31:11 The three dimensions of black conservatism

37:50 Black elites and immigration

42:35 Ibram X. Kendi undeterred

44:48 Roland Fryer is still standing

46:48 Is Amy Wax getting railroaded by Penn?

Recorded January 27, 2024

Links and Readings

John’s NYT piece, “We Need a New Word for ‘Plagiarism’”

Elon Musk’s DEI airline post on X

Neri Oxman’s CV

Adolph Reed’s essay, “‘What Are the Drums Saying, Booker?’: The Curious Role of the Black Public Intellectual” (originally published in the Village Voice, April 11, 1995)

Wilfred Reilly’s comparative IQ post on X

Recording of Amy Wax’s FIRE webinar

Glenn’s December 2021 episode with Amy Wax

Glenn’s August 2022 episode with Amy Wax

Charles Murray’s book, Human Diversity: The Biology of Race, Gender, and Class

Glenn’s conversation with Charles Murray

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit glennloury.substack.com/subscribe

David Kaiser – States of the Union Jan 26, 2024

Show notes

Preorder Glenn's memoir, Late Admissions: Confessions of a Black Conservative. Available here or wherever you get your books: https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393881349

0:00 The many, many books of David Kaiser

3:01 David: Claudine Gay is a symptom, not a cause, of what’s wrong at Harvard

6:09 Western Civilization and elitism at Harvard

10:03 Meritorious elitism and luxury elitism

12:35 Intellectuals in the wild

14:28 How James Bryant Conant built the modern Harvard …

17:33 … and how it was broken

18:52 Glenn’s previous conversation with Omer Bartov

24:12 Why David thinks the Gaza War falls short of genocide but maybe not ethnic cleansing

25:51 What Claudine Gay could (and maybe should) have said at her congressional hearing

27:51 Why David thinks originalists will have a problem rejecting attempts to remove Trump from electoral ballots

32:38 David: Mitch McConnell should have impeached Trump when he had the chance

36:07 David’s new book, States of the Union

41:03 Have state of the union addresses always been as boring as they are now?

44:55 Washington, Lincoln, FDR, Reagan, and their legacies

57:37 Why Obama didn’t propose a New New Deal after the 2008 financial crisis

1:01:01 Biden’s silence

Recorded January 10, 2024

Links and Readings

David’s book, Economic Diplomacy and the Origin of the Second World War: Germany, Britain, France, and Eastern Europe, 1930-1939

David’s book, Politics and War: European Conflict from Philip II to Hitler

David’s book, American Tragedy: Kennedy, Johnson, and the Origins of the Vietnam War

David’s book, The Road to Dallas: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy

David’s book, Baseball Greatness: Top Players and Teams According to Wins Above Average, 1901-2017

David’s book, NFL 1965: The Most Exciting Season

David’s book, A Life in History

David’s book, States of the Union: A History of the United States through Presidential Addresses, 1789-2023

Glenn’s previous conversation with David

Fareed Zakaria on elite universities

Glenn’s conversation with Omer Bartov

David’s blog, History Unfolding

David’s blog post about the Fourteenth Amendment

Howard Zinn’s book, A People’s History of the United States

John F. Kennedy’s June 11, 1963 address on segregation

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit glennloury.substack.com/subscribe

Ilya Shapiro, Robert George & Randall Kennedy – Clarence Thomas: Black American Icon Jan 19, 2024

Show notes

Preorder Late Admissions: Confessions of a Black Conservative wherever you buy your books.

If you missed Wednesday’s City Journal and Manhattan Institute-hosted livestream, I’ve got you covered. Today I’m releasing the recording of that livestream as a special bonus episode. This event marked the publication of my City Journal essay “Clarence Thomas and Me,” and I had a stellar line-up alongside me to discuss the essay and the work of Clarence Thomas: Ilya Shapiro of the Manhattan Institute, Robert George of Princeton, and Randall Kennedy of Harvard Law School.

0:00 Introductions

2:58 Why Glenn wrote “Clarence Thomas and Me”

5:27 Randall: “Justice Thomas trades on his blackness”

10:58 Glenn: Clarence Thomas has not “betrayed black people”

12:30 Thomas’s engagement with natural law jurisprudence

19:29 How would Thomas have come down on Brown v. Board of Education?

20:55 The loyalty trap

24:20 Randall: Thomas’s originalism may also commit him to sanctioning segregation

28:24 Robbie: There are originalist interpretations that support Brown v. Board of Education

34:07 Thomas’s race cases

36:03 Glenn: Thomas can act as both a principled jurist and as an advocate for the rights of African Americans

40:56 Randall: In 100 years, people will regard Shelby County v. Holder as one of the worst decisions in the Court’s history

44:36 Maintaining integrity under pressure

51:22 What are the differences between Thomas’s, Scalia’s, and Alito’s originalisms?

55:30 Will Thomas have broader popularity in the future?

1:01:10 Is racial solidarity inconsistent with judicial impartiality?

1:03:30 Closing remarks

Recorded January 17, 2024

Links and Readings

Glenn’s City Journal essay, “Clarence Thomas and Me”

Glenn’s book, One by One from the Inside Out : Essays and Reviews on Race and Responsibility in America

Michael McConnell’s article, “The Originalist Case for Brown v. Board of Education”

Randy Barnett and Evan Bernick’s book, The Original Meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment: Its Letter and Spirit

Lon Fuller’s book, The Morality of Law

The documentary on Clarence Thomas, Created Equal

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit glennloury.substack.com/subscribe

John McWhorter – Claudine Gay, MLK, and GLENN'S NEW BOOK Jan 15, 2024

Show notes

0:00 Preorder Glenn’s forthcoming memoir, Late Admissions: Confessions of a Black Conservative

2:17 Why Glenn wrote a memoir (and why you should order it now)

8:59 A ringing endorsement from John

10:00 What does Martin Luther King Jr. Day mean in 2024?

15:28 Preserving King’s belief in “the content of our character”

16:20 What would King have thought of Claudine Gay?

20:20 King’s radicalism

25:54 John: Being against DEI does not make you a racist

28:10 The Tabia Lee affair at D’Anza Community College

29:58 How Claudine Gay should have reacted to the plagiarism scandal

32:47 Glenn: “The DEI movement is hoist on its own petard”

35:57 How DEI’s dominance has improved John’s home media set-up

41:41 John’s upcoming cabaret show

Links and Readings

John’s NYT piece, “Claudine Gay Was Not Driven Out Because She Is Black”

Glenn’s conversation with Tabia Lee

“All’s Fair in Love and War” from Gold Diggers of 1937

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit glennloury.substack.com/subscribe

Omer Bartov – Israel's Hard Right Turn Jan 12, 2024

Show notes

0:00 The long road leading to the Gaza War

9:14 Don’t Palestinians have some responsibility for the current state of affairs?

9:48 The precedent of the 1973 Yom Kippur War

11:26 Omer: Israel only negotiates under pressure

13:31 Netanyahu and the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin

15:27 The US’s military support for Israel

16:32 The origins of Hamas

20:20 Omer: Netanyahu’s coalition is “a mirror image of Hamas”

24:45 The threat to democracy in Israel

26:27 Omer: Netanyahu is driving the country to the right in order to avoid a corruption trial

30:07 How “Jewish supremacists” have gained control of Israel’s government

34:01 Why Omer’s Zionism does not commit him to defending Israel’s actions

36:46 The risk of genocide in Gaza

40:05 The IDF’s procedure in the Gaza invasion

43:09 What will happen to the Gazan refugees?

45:00 The international community’s role in finding a resolution to the Gaza War

48:17 Is the IDF “the most moral army in the world”?

54:39 The revenge motive

57:07 Omer: The campaign in Gaza is a fiasco

59:38 A US-led plan for “the day after”

1:04:37 Is peace in Israel a pollyannaish pipe dream?

Recorded January 2, 2023

Links and Readings

Benny Morris’s book, One State, Two States: Resolving the Israel-Palestine Conflict

Omer’s New Statesman piece, “Both Netanyahu and Hamas see this crisis as an opportunity”

Hamas’s 1988 charter

Omer’s NYT op-ed, “What I Believe as a Historian of Genocide”

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit glennloury.substack.com/subscribe

John McWhorter – The Best of Glenn and John 2023 Jan 05, 2024

Show notes

I had planned to release the first Glenn and John episode of 2024 on New Year’s Day. Unfortunately, life had other plans, and John and I could not record as scheduled. So instead, my staff put together this collection of some of our favorite clips from 2023. John and I covered a lot of ground last year. Here you’ll see us addressing African American performance on standardized tests, the Supreme Court’s affirmative action decision, the riots of 2020, the Gaza War, and other big topics on the show.

0:00 A New Year's message from Glenn

2:36 How do we know that African Americans are just as smart as everyone else?

11:15 Glenn goes in on the 2020 riots

16:34 John: I love linguistics, but linguistics no longer loves me

25:37 Glenn: How can anyone argue that race-based affirmative action doesn’t violate the 14th Amendment?

34:58 When the smoke clears in Gaza

45:34 John: “We’ve been lied to” about George Floyd’s death

54:32 Glenn and John revisit their first conversation

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit glennloury.substack.com/subscribe

Philip Howard – Getting Unions Out of Government Dec 29, 2023

Show notes

0:00 Philip’s early work on post-nuclear war recovery

2:26 Philip’s skepticism toward the role of lawyers in the US

4:34 What’s wrong with the EPA, OSHA, and the EEOC?

6:59 How to ensure worker safety without “4,000 rules”

8:07 Why the US spends so much on healthcare

11:32 Philip: We’ve degenerated into a culture of distrust

14:58 The origins of American distrust

18:42 Re-instilling trust

21:38 The problems of national security and public health

26:57 Are public employee unions constitutional?

39:35 Market constraints don’t hold for government employees

34:55 Do public sector workers need protection from exploitation?

39:22 Philip: “Public service is repellant to good candidates”

40:58 A short history of the civil service

46:49 Is Philip inveighing against the Democratic Party and the labor movement at large?

53:12 Philip: Police unions prevent accountability, too

56:08 The necessity of a constitutional solution to public unions

1:00:58 Philip: The political organizing of public unions harms the public

1:04:46 Would the current Supreme Court be receptive to Philip’s case?

Recorded October 27, 2023

Links and Readings

Philip’s book, The Death of Common Sense: How Law Is Suffocating America

Philip’s book, Life Without Lawyers: Restoring Responsibility in America

Philip’s latest book, Not Accountable: Rethinking the Constitutionality of Public Employee Unions

Edward Banfield’s book, The Moral Basis of a Backward Society

Robert Putnam’s book, Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy

Philip’s forthcoming book, Everyday Freedom: Designing the Framework for a Flourishing Society

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit glennloury.substack.com/subscribe

John McWhorter, Liz Collin & JC Chaix – Filmmakers Reveal the Truth about George Floyd Dec 22, 2023

Show notes

0:00 How Liz and JC came to collaborate on their doc, The Fall of Minneapolis

4:18 JC: No, the footage in the doc is not AI-manipulated

6:08 How much of the body cam footage is previously unseen?

8:18 Who lied about George Floyd, what did they lie about, and why?

13:30 The relevance of Floyd’s behavior during the incident

17:30 JC: Minneapolis Chief of Police Arradondo perjured himself

22:30 Minnesota DA Keith Ellison’s email to Glenn

24:11 The expert testimony from Dr. Martin Tobin on Floyd’s cause of death

26:12 Adjudicating disputes about the cause of death

34:36 Were racial justice tropes part of the Floyd incident?

38:20 Why Liz and JC think Derek Chauvin didn’t get a fair trial

41:28 Why JC didn’t include the entire viral video of Floyd in the doc

44:30 What Chauvin told JC about the incident

47:40 Humanizing the Minnesota police

50:41 The aftermath of the Minneapolis riots

55:32 The lawsuits that followed the Floyd family’s settlement

56:34 The drugs that “complicated” Floyd’s restraint

Recorded December 16, 2023.

Links and Readings

Glenn and John’s episode about The Fall of Minneapolis

Liz and JC’s documentary, The Fall of Minneapolis

Liz’s book, They're Lying: The Media, The Left, and The Death of George Floyd

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit glennloury.substack.com/subscribe

Tabia Lee – An Ex-DEI Director Speaks Out Dec 15, 2023

Show notes

0:00 Tabia’s early career as a teacher

5:40 Tabia’s “rough ride” as a DEI director

17:06 The antisemitism problem at De Anza

25:25 The inescapable BIPOC binary

28:52 From disagreement to deplatforming

35:30 Why Tabia found support among students but not faculty

39:00 How attempts to silence Tabia backfired

40:54 Tabia’s broad vision of diversity

47:46 Learning from the medical professionals of Galilee

Recorded November 27, 2023

Links and Readings

Tabia’s New York Post piece, “I was a DEI director — DEI drives campus antisemitism”

Tabia’s Compact piece, “A Black DEI Director Canceled by DEI”

Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism

Do No Harm Medicine

Coalition for Empowered Education

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit glennloury.substack.com/subscribe

November 2023 Q&A Dec 06, 2023

Show notes

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit glennloury.substack.com

Glenn and John answer Substack subscriber questions from November 2023.