WTW8: Michael Powell's First NYT Piece Also Was Terrible

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:42 Thomas: And welcome to Where There's Woke. I'm Thomas Smith, and this is co-host for today, Lydia Smith.

0:00:47 Lydia: Hi.

0:00:48 Thomas: It going over there in the other part of the house?

0:00:48 Lydia: Pretty good. Yeah. Lonely.

0:00:54 Thomas: How do we start this? So this is a fun deep dive debunking that you've gone on because of our current show favorite journalist, podcast favorite Journalist Michael Powell. Yeah.

0:01:05 Lydia: Yeah, you know, yeah, in honor of him moving to the Atlantic, which is big news, right? We can go ahead and, you on his storied career at the New York Times and his, you know, free speech identity politics

0:01:18 Thomas: Oh. Yeah, now we can do like a full review and It's like, this is, it'll be a audio, no, it'll be like a course. Yeah. This guy, oh boy. So in case you didn't hear, I mentioned it somewhere, I don't remember, but yeah, Michael Powell, the guy who wrote the NASA thing and was terrible and just lies about the anti-woke, essentially he has the same shtick and we're gonna see it today. Um, left the New York Times, not any clue if it's related to anything, but like, you know, yeah, you know when um hon of the best films ever made space jam yeah

0:01:23 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, interesting timing. Oh,

0:01:55 Thomas: Is like the anti-woke aliens are drafting a new team and they're stealing from the nba teams and they'RE MAKING IT AT THE ATLANTIC IS WHAT'S HAPPENING AND IT IT FUCKING SUCKS BECAUSE I USED TO LIKE THE ATLANIC I THINK THERE'S STILL A GOOD JOURNALIST OR TWO THERE BUT IT'S REALLY BECOMING POPULATED WITH THIS EXACT fucking person yeah

0:02:04 Lydia: Yes. You this used to be the sports beat, guys, so I appreciate bringing Space Jam into it, too. This

0:02:19 Thomas: Foghorn yeah this we initially started the research on the nasa thing um and essentially when I was tipped off by how bad the coverage is that this michael powell guy is a bad actor naturally the first thing to do is like okay okay, let's check out what else he's written. And going back in the New York Times, we kind of split it up. And this was when you, I think this is his first article over there, right?

0:02:41 Lydia: Yeah, this was officially his first article on that beat. He tweeted about it when it occurred June 25th, 2020 was the date that this article came out. And he took a deep dive into this area of the world.

0:02:54 Thomas: And heart of the centrist anti-woke agenda is this guy. And it's really worth taking a look at. That. So we knew he was going to move the Atlantic and it wasn't super public or anything, not that we knew a secret, but just like, you know, it was a minor thing that he announced on like his Facebook page or some shit. And you And I were paying attention to that. But, you there was a delay and he was gonna finish something out. And we both kind of lost track, like, oh, we were kind of waiting to see you might have set an alert or something, but we're waiting to see what

0:03:10 Lydia: Yeah.

0:03:19 Lydia: I was Like, I was checking in every now and then, like, when's his when's the next article? Yeah.

0:03:24 Thomas: What when's he's gonna write his first fucking Atlantic piece? And I'm browsing uh X the other day, which I still just have open on my computer. I fucking hate that we don't have a social media thing to use anymore, that's topic for another time. But it's still there because I like to follow Michael Hobbs and other people like that, and I see Michael Hobbes retweeting, and all I can kind of see is that it's an Atlantic article and he's summarizing, and I was was like, "Oh, what are the odds? What are the odds?

0:03:37 Lydia: Mm.

0:03:46 Lydia: -hmm. Like is it is it

0:03:51 Thomas: Is it? And oh yeah, it wasn'T in the, um, that he quoted, but I read the paragraph and I was like this is fucking Michael Powell and so, yeah, and so I clicked on the link. I go to the Atlantic and there he is. There he is! So he, that, I'm sure we'll cover that, um maybe not. We'll cover something he does over there because it is, it is a formula and I'm interested to, to break it down here. So I guess let's get into it. A quick content note before we get started. We will be discussing campus sexual assault and other kind of related issues. We go into no detail, and I don't even think we talk about particular cases per se, we do talk hypotheticals and scenarios and just wanted to give you the content note.

0:03:56 Lydia: You're like new yeah Yeah. Yeah.

0:04:30 Lydia: Okay, so I I mentioned this was his first piece on this particular beat, that he took over, um, or created rather, in June 2020. Um, and it was about the overhaul of sexual misconduct regulations for school campus under Title IX. Was titled "Overhaul of Campus Sex Assault Rules When Surprising Support." Yeah. So I wonder who's supporting it. But before we dig into that, just really briefly, kind of level set, what is Title IX? Where did it come from? And sort of what changes we're talking about in the article itself. So IX was tackled the '70s to add to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which addressed discrimination in employment. But there was nothing to address in education.

0:05:16 Thomas: Is Title VIII's lazy ass doing? I don't understand.

0:05:18 Lydia: Don't know what Title VIII is. It doesn't get much press.

0:05:20 Thomas: Yeah. No, I never hear Title XI. I

0:05:23 Lydia: 1964, sex wasn't considered a protected class. And essentially what happened, a named Bernice Sandler, considered the godmother of Title IX, faced a lot of discrimination in her educational journey. And as she stepped into activism, she stumbled on an amendment to an executive order by Lyndon B. Johnson that added sex to the protected classes from discrimination by federal contractors specifically. So when she saw that, she just went for it.

She started filing class action lawsuits all over the place, more than 250 that she filed to demonstrate that women were being discriminated against based on sex as protected class. She started collecting data and material. And with that, she went to Representatives Edith Green and Patsy T. Mink, who were both on the House Committee on Education and Labor. So with that information, they launched hearings because they said, "Hey, there's a problem. We have the data to back this up.

Let's dive into this and figure out what we can do to fix this problem," because there is unequal access to education for women because of this, you know, sort of cultural discrimination as part of it, the unequal access to opportunity. Those hearings started in 1970. There, it, the House, went to the Senate,

0:05:26 Thomas: Hmm.

0:06:45 Lydia: Birched

0:06:45 Thomas: What do you mean it passed the house? Those are just hearings, oh, so they wrote some legislation, okay, and

0:06:47 Lydia: Oh, well, yes, sorry. They put together their act within the House from the hearings. Yes, yes. And then it went over and

0:06:56 Thomas: They actually passed it in the house and

0:06:57 Lydia: They passed it. Yep, yep. Yep. And then it went over to the Senate for consideration and Birch Bayh, a from Indiana. Super cool guy. Just some really quick, fun facts. Birchbayh, amazing name, right? Not the coolest thing about him. B -A -Y -H. And they actually like did a jingle for his campaign. So people knew how to pronounce his last name. Some cool things about him. Authored the 25th Amendment and the 26th Amendment.

0:06:57 Thomas: Okay okay cool Birch By is

0:07:23 Lydia: Yeah. So the 25th amendment, basically, if the president is incapacitated, what that you know that they can be removed for, you know.

0:07:31 Thomas: Wow that's that's a weird one to be like your accomplishment yeah, hey, remember when um, our, our president was, you know, shot in the skull and, god damn it, Anyway, I, uh, I wrote that other people would take over when that is like, it's not, I'm not saying it's a bad accomplishment. It's just a weird one to brag about.

0:07:33 Lydia: Yeah, and we need to do something. Yeah and then yeah yeah but 26th Amendment lowered the voting age to 18. So he was responsible for that. He's the first person since James Madison and the only non -founding father to have written more than one constitutional amendment. Yeah, this guy's awesome.

0:08:03 Thomas: Like, Cool trivia. Hey, trivia alert, trivia heads. Birch By? Buy? I never would have thought someone named Birch, but this is a senator.

0:08:07 Lydia: Yeah. Here's a senator.

0:08:12 Thomas: He said senator. Okay, forget everything you've just heard, listener. You just heard the name Senator Birch By in 1967 or whatever. You're 100, like, "Okay, well then he's a white supremacist, he's like, segregation now, segregation today." So I know it's not literally him, but you're gonna think it's like, what state date was it?

0:08:13 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Indiana.

0:08:30 Thomas: Indiana. Oh, that's a that's a wild card. Okay, Birch By

0:08:31 Lydia: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, you you would love this guy, honey. Like he led efforts in the Senate to ratify the ERA. That was one of his like big pushes was he was really trying to get that done.

0:08:35 Thomas: Yeah I have to admit when you said the 25th and 26, I thought that was gonna be one of what is that one that did- that- no, that isn't it, didn't pass, right? Or wait, that's

0:08:45 Lydia: Oh, it didn't pass. It wasn't ratified by enough states in time. Yeah and he also talked about eliminating the Electoral College back in the 70s. Yeah

0:08:50 Thomas: Right okay man wow is this a time traveler from our time? That would explain how fucking weird his name is. Well, who are you? Uh, he's looking at a birch tree, but uh, Birch, and then he- he sees somebody who's bi, clearly, sitting weirdly, and then he's like, bi!

0:08:59 Lydia: I know. He's amazing. Yeah. He also

0:09:13 Thomas: Oh,

0:09:14 Lydia: Pulled Ted Kennedy off of the plane during the plane crash 1964 when the legislative aid and pilot died. And Ted Kennedy had like serious injuries. He like he and his wife were on the plane and he went up and said, like, is there anyone, you know, still alive or whatever in the plane? I don't think that's his actual quote.

0:09:21 Thomas: I don't remember this.

0:09:34 Lydia: Anyone there? And Ted Kennedy called out to him, and he went and grabbed him and pulled him out of the plane, and then walked to go find someone after they crashed to get help. Yeah, guy.

0:09:42 Thomas: Wow. Kennedies. I don't - I don't think you could say, like, oh, feel bad for those Kennedes, but, like, Jesus, a lot of weird shit. Anyway,

0:09:50 Lydia: Oh, I know. Yeah, that poor family. Bay, super cool. And it passed the Senate and And as of 1972, we had Title IX, which prohibited sex -based discrimination in any school that receives funding from the federal government. If a school was found to have violated this, they would lose their federal funding. And at the time when it was passed, only 42 percent of students in American colleges were female.

0:10:23 Thomas: Surprised it was that high.

0:10:24 Lydia: I mean, it doesn't say what they were pursuing. I think like if you looked at STEM fields versus like teachers colleges. Right. Would probably be some differences there.

0:10:26 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, there's a lot f - mm -hmm, yeah. Yeah. There's a lot, like funneling into certain pla - you know, it wasn't - you wouldn't really call it, like - equality in any way if like, you know, yeah, so so so that's Title Nine and interesting that it said just federal funding, I guess that makes that I thought that was okay. So whenever they do that, I feel like, "Oh, that's an executive order and that's limited to that because that's all the president can really control." But isn't Title IX, did the states like adopt it individually or something? How did that work? Because I feel like it's still in effect for, right,

0:10:35 Lydia: Nursing. Yeah. Mm hmm. Yep.

0:11:02 Lydia: So it's tied to like the Civil Rights Act. Right? Like these are all it's federal legislation that if you are to receive federal funding, you have expectations to maintain your school is free discrimination or that you have processes in place if discrimination is raised as a concern. That you can address it.

0:11:21 Thomas: Maybe there's state versions too. Because I don't, does every state school receive federal funding just de facto? And that's why, hmm.

0:11:27 Lydia: No, you can. I mean, you can opt out of federal funding. There's actually a college. It's like a case study of what happens when you don't get federal funding and you aren't subject to Title IX.

0:11:37 Thomas: I was specifically talking about state schools though.

0:11:38 Lydia: Oh, state schools. Yeah, I'm pretty sure everybody wants the federal government's money with state schools, so I don't know.

0:11:39 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, anyway, just a civics question. I wasn't sure if they later passed something that made that more broad, or if states took it on themselves, or if it is just that they receive federal funding, so it's like, "Yeah, we're going to do that." Okay.

0:11:47 Lydia: Yeah.

0:11:57 Lydia: Yeah, yeah. Do know California has additional laws on top of the federal expectations, right? Right? They have their own protections that are in addition. So part of that process of passing it was actually this push to, it's called the Tower Amendment, and it was to try to exempt college athletics from being held to this sex discrimination concern, because they didn't want to have to say, "You athletes in college deserve the same as male athletes in college.

0:12:26 Thomas: Jeez. There cannot have been that many female college athletes, right? Or am I?

0:12:32 Lydia: Were not. That was very, very low. And that's actually one of the huge gains that you've seen post -Title IX implementation, just of women that are participating in college athletics, because otherwise there was no point. You know, they were doing high school, And then there was no place for them in college to continue that. Because of that push, that amendment was like really widely publicized. Everyone thought for a long time this was a sports equity law.

0:12:32 Thomas: Yeah.

0:12:59 Thomas: I 100% thought that because it's really, it sucks and it's a little bit sad because most of the context of hearing about Title IX for me is my upbringing was someone complaining about Title IX. Like, oh, no, we got to give the girl the title. And it's like, oh no, actually that's a really good idea. We should totally do exactly that.

0:13:01 Lydia: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:13:21 Thomas: I was always complaining about it, but I definitely 100% thought it was a sports related law. Like I just, I was like, I just thought, oh they probably were tired of, you know, just all this money going to men's sports so they they uh they wrote that Title Nine good on them

0:13:27 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah but I mean at its heart it's anti discrimination right. Right. It's a matter of civil rights. And athletics is one place where you see that discrimination, where women's programs had worse facilities. They offered fewer scholarships for women athletes than they did men athletes. They didn't have access to trainers, to appropriate staff and resources to heal from injuries. You know, they didn't get those prime prime times to their games, right? So then they're selling fewer tickets and it's a perpetual cycle. So and 90s, that's when they started talking about like late 80s, 90s. They started talking About, okay, this isn't just about sports. There are instances in which there's sex discrimination on some other avenues that are reasonable. And in the Supreme Court, they issued decisions in several cases making clear that sexual harassment and sexual assault are a form of sex discrimination.

0:13:34 Thomas: Yeah yeah yeah

0:14:32 Lydia: So those are things that the colleges need to be concerned and filter them through their Title IX office.

0:14:38 Thomas: So I um move on until I answered my own question and maybe you're gonna get to it but uh does look like you the court started going shitty in the late 80s and weird that that started happening, you know what are the, what are they, what arethe odds that once we put a bunch of fucking federal society pieces of shit originalists in their, textualist, that it started going bad. They're They started kind of encroaching on it a bit with picking apart. This is so, it's funny how consistent these justices are. This is exactly what they're doing now with stuff.

But back then, 1988, it was like, okay, there's a college and it, you know, it only has some funding federally, is it cool if they just totally discriminate against women and like the Department of Education? And mind you, now that I think about it, that's that'S Reagan's department, unless this predates that. Let's see. No. Yeah. I mean, 1984, 1988. I'm pretty sure I'm not doing a deep dive on this, but it's the 80s. So I think that's like Ronald Reagan's Department of Education, unless this case took 10 years to get there, which is possible. I'm Not saying it's, you not impossible, but. It might be that like the Department of education back then, I think not every single level of government was always so polarized. You know,

0:14:41 Lydia: Yes. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:15:46 Thomas: You'd have like, you could have civil servants just kind of doing their job maybe a little bit. I don't know. I'm speculating, but they were like, well, no, naturally, because not. Not only does this college receive some funding, like certain do, not only that, a lot of the students, and I didn't think of this, a lot of students are on federal assistance for like loans and stuff. And back then that was good and not a rip off piece you know, when they made that change that made it just impossible. But anyway, back then, and so it was good federal money back then.

Um, and So that was the Department of Education's reasoning, was like, "Yeah, no, for these reasons, it applies to this." And the court was like, "All right, you only have to be not a bigot on directly, like, the program that receives the it's like, "Fuck you, man, just fuck you," and so the court yeah, like, you can be kind of sex hold on, which classroom are you in? Are you hey, hey, you're, you're sexually harassed, you got to go, to go to the designated sexual harassment classroom, that's where it's okay, that's where Justice Thomas and Scalia is Scalia there yet? I forget, that's right, that's probably not, that's where they say it's

0:16:12 Lydia: Yeah yeah. Pro -rate. Yeah.

0:16:39 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah.

0:16:47 Thomas: Okay. So, um, and so then what happened God, do you remember when, like, no, we don't remember, we were babies back then, but like, there used to be a time when not everything was the worst possible fucking thing, and somehow, this is what's blowing my mind, somehow Congress was like, "Well, let's fix this." And again, this is 1988, and not like this is the I guess Reagan must have decided, I fucking didn't expect to be researching this, but they passed, they're like, "Well, we don't like that the Supreme Court just, like, was like, hey, we're gonna limit your thing that you Congress wanted to do."

Talk about encroachment of powers and all that crap, so they're like, "All right, fuck you, court," God, I love this, is what this is a model for what we need to do now, by the way, this is actually really good that we're digging into this now, this is what needs to be done now if, you know, what it requires is voting in enough fucking Democrats to do it, yeah, voting is the thing that will do this. Anyway, um, what they did was they passed another, and I love this, it's the Civil Rights Restoration Act, passed

0:17:21 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah.

0:17:37 Lydia: I was going to say, everybody vote. Mm hmm.

0:17:48 Thomas: In 1988, which is like, "All right, fuck faces," I hope they put that in the, like, whereas, fuck faces, and then they're like, "Hey, um, like, it. Okay. Guess what? More Title Nine for you. And it goes to all programs of any educational that receives any federal assistance, both direct and indirect.

So that totally answers that question, because you're not, there's no way you're going to have, you know, unless it's like a school really hell bent on being able to sexually harass people or whatever, to be unfair, which I'm sure there are a few, you Hillsdales or whatever the fuck, but, uh, yeah, they're the odds that you're gonna have nary not a student or program or anything, excuse, doesn't receive federal funding either direct or indirect, uh, I think that that answers my question as to why this is just ubiquitous, like, I never even heard anyone, like, you know, tear that apart, like, in my lifetime, it's never been like, "Oh, does that apply to this?" No, it's just like Title Nine, I I actually assumed it was like the it's just the whole country, this applies to them. But that's actually an interesting legal point. Sorry, I just had

0:17:58 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:18:47 Thomas: To know that. So, sorry,

0:18:47 Lydia: No, no, I love that. Yeah. Though, it was pretty slow in terms of what was happening with Title IX. There was guidance issued in 2001. And then nothing again that I saw until the Dear Colleague letter in 2011 in the Obama administration. And this is what this is. It's called a Dear Colleigue letter. So essentially, it's not regulations. It'S intended to provide provide clarity under Title IX, additional guidance, but not rulemaking and not an executive order, nothing like that. No. No, like an equivalent in like state government would be like departmental letters, right? They're issued to provide guidance to folks that need it. So this really sparked everything else that came after. It sparked the reaction from the that Michael Powell interviews in the article, a lot of

0:19:14 Thomas: What's this? Hmm. But not a presidential. Okay, okay. Yeah, okay, okay?

0:19:41 Thomas: Are

0:19:41 Lydia: Pushback.

0:19:41 Thomas: These the feminists that are weirdly supportive of Trump's policies here?

0:19:43 Lydia: Yes. Yes, oh, they sure are. And so I thought we could talk a little bit about what those changes were. In the Dear Colleague letter, the Obama administration did a few things. They, first of all, ensured that it was centered on the person making the complaint. Right. They really wanted to elevate voices of those that were victims in the situation. The complainants. It discouraged universities from giving the accused the right to question their accusers.

0:19:46 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:20:12 Lydia: And it also discouraged disclosing identities of witnesses. It defined sexual harassment specifically as any unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature. Is an area where there's been a lot of back and forth, and we'll see why in a minute. It. Then, interestingly, it lowered the bar from clear and convincing to preponderance of the evidence. So it was a lower standard of a burden, right, that you had to show in order to find the individual likely violated, you at the school under this.

0:20:46 Thomas: And, know we're going to get into it, but I do, I mean, these are these are tough questions, uh, in some ways. And wouldn't be in favor, obviously, of like, okay, murder trial, it's 50 plus one. It's like, no, I mean, you know, we need to make sure the state meets their They're burdened because the state loves to black men. It kind of depends. This isn't like the law. They're not going to jail, right? I mean, this is, it's an important thing, you know, like obviously you wouldn't want any system to find an innocent person guilty. Like when you're dealing with things like this, you face tough questions, you face trade -offs.

0:20:51 Lydia: Yeah. Mm Yeah, yeah, of course. Correct. Mm hmm.

0:21:23 Thomas: And I think just off the top of my head here, these issues are often very difficult to prove. They're often he said, she said, you know, and specifically that gender, like they're often that, not always. And those are the kinds of things where it I'm sure there are a bunch of cases. I'm not sure what motivated this. Is there a bunch Of cases where like, holy shit, we know that this fucking guy did something bad, but like he did it in a cunning enough way or got lucky enough that like, okay, yeah, you've got some people saying, you yes, know, he did. It. Yeah. She told me he did It. But is that a preponderance or is that A blah blah blah, you Know, and it's it's I imagine it's because of that.

0:21:30 Lydia: Right. Yeah yeah.

0:22:02 Lydia: Yeah and I mean we'll definitely get more into this too but just for everyone's awareness Title IX proceedings are disciplinary hearings. It's administrative, right? It's it's demonstrating whether or not the student has, you done something that's against the school's code of conduct, if it's done something, that's a safe school environment, they're right? Not going to jail. They're not gonna get charged with crimes. It might mean that they're suspended. It may mean that their expelled, it might mean, that they are, you moved to a different dorm um

0:22:12 Thomas: I was going to say I some of this and I've read broadly some some of this, but just identifying the patterns that I know that our listeners, if they've listened thus far to all the episodes, you can already see the pattern so many times. What it's going to be is a bunch of Michael Powell's or whatever, a bunch of fake feminists that aren't really feminists saying, no, this person gets expelled and they never can get A job again because of 50% plus a little bit. And it's, that's unfair. And what will really happen is again, it's a big country.

There's a lot of colleges, maybe you could find a worst case scenario, sure, edge cases, there are always going to be fucking edge cases on everything, there's Not gonna be a system you come up with that won't have some tough cases, that's just being human, that's that's what it is, um, you do your best and you hope that people show good discretion and stuff and you in adjudicating those, but what I bet you see is a whole lot of times where the punishment was like you said, moving dorm or nothing, or like

0:22:57 Lydia: Yep. Yeah. Yeah.

0:23:32 Thomas: Often I know there are these cases because I've seen that you have had to like sue for this where where the punishment was like the woman has to leave something, you know, like They they put the whole burden on like the girl to avoid the guy, you know, there's All gonna be all kinds of that bullshit, but the consistent anti-woke um way to argue, which is always bad faith, is take the harshest possible punishment that could ever be and the minimum fucking standard on the hardest case and just assert that that's Every case, like that's what's it's Every Day, that's happening every day and ignore all the rest of it, like all the good like outcomes that might happen because of these changes, which there will be a a lot.

0:23:40 Lydia: Yeah. Everything.

0:24:00 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. So.

0:24:10 Lydia: Uh, see, so those were the Obama era, um, not even rules, guidelines, um, then 2016, 2016, we elected a crazy person.

0:24:19 Thomas: What happened then? I don't remember.

0:24:22 Lydia: And yeah, God, if only.

0:24:22 Thomas: Was that COVID?

0:24:26 Lydia: DeVos came into the Secretary of Education role, and they had a big problem with the to Title IX. And they actually decided to go the formal regulatory route rather than issuing these sort of guidelines and, you know, more informal letters meant to provide clarity. And so theirs was a long process, very, very long. They had the official notice and comment period. Final report ended up being something like 2 ,300 pages that they put together that I started to go And I was like, oh, my God,

0:24:28 Thomas: Oh, fuck.

0:25:01 Thomas: No,

0:25:01 Lydia: This is too much.

0:25:01 Thomas: You don't get paid enough for

0:25:02 Lydia: Yeah, it I think here we can kind of dive into the article and and we'll get more into what the DeVos standards were. But Michael Powell sets up some of it for us. So,

0:25:12 Thomas: That. I read the article, but I have not done the debunk because we're doing the format of, you the dummy pretending to, you know, I'll-be-the fucking New York Times article you well-off liberal who like thought Joe Biden was like radical, like pretty far left and was like, yeah, this is great. I'm voting Joe Biden and he's so left it's really progressive this is um and uh think that person is particularly who I'm worried about with people like Michael Powell and this God, I won't go off on a huge thing but like these exact fucking journalists wield so much control, like they have such a big outsized voice in our media, in our newspapers, in our web publication, all that crap. And I don't, it's infuriating to me because they do not deserve it, but they, they're, they control so many of these outlets in different ways and they do such shoddy crap journalism, so let's see how good this article is.

0:25:31 Lydia: Yeah, yeah, Yeah.

0:26:02 Thomas: Not to, uh, not to color your perceptions, but I think, I think we know that he sucks, so I don't think I'm surprising anybody that

0:26:03 Lydia: I first Yeah. I, I first want to say, in, a in related to this piece, Michael Powell, his quote was, there's an argument to be made for the DeVos standards. And that's what drove me to those three female law professors.

0:26:21 Thomas: An argument to be made, let's go pursue it, let's see what, let's cover it, how could you say no, how could you not want to cover that argument? That's a, that's a good, that is deserving of the "all the news fit to print" moniker that goes on the New York Times. And no, that's just wrong, like it's just like saying, what you know, hey, there's an argument for the Charlottesville guys, let's go find that argument for why they were marching with those tiki torches, that are, that's an argue, there's... there's a, there's... there's an argument that exists, so we need to go do journalism on the biggest paper, the most important fucking paper in the world, and that's, that just wrong, like that's just not, it's not proportionate, it's, it's stupid, it's finding conflict out of nothing.

0:26:25 Lydia: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

0:27:01 Thomas: I could almost like told you what this article was without reading it, at least for part of it. You know, I don't know the facts.

0:27:05 Lydia: All right, I'll go home. I'm just kidding. I're home.

0:27:08 Thomas: That. I'll just do the Thomas version. Let me know if I get anything wrong. It'S like, and Hey, you know, this thing that Trump or Trump's people are doing, that's obviously bad and it sucks. Ah, look at how mad these liberals are at it. They, and then you'll quote some, like the fucking thing that you get to say is, well, I'm just, I've just quoting that side and set it up is like, they're hysterical, but actually those people are fucking idiots because here are feminists, feminists. It's in the name. So they must be fucking Betty Friedan. No, that's probably not a good example. I need to pick somebody current.

0:27:43 Thomas: You know, he's never, you never know when those older feminists like reach their limit and we're like, no, fuck you.

0:27:21 Lydia: Yeah uh yeah I mean that that's a big through line here too

0:27:49 Thomas: Yeah. Side note. Yeah oh oh crap yeah so anyway it's like these feminists they think this be a good idea so it'll be somebody who's obviously, not right wing, there'll be that annoying, you centrist who just spends all their time critiquing the left, but pretending they're on the left. You You know, they'll be like a Dave Rubin type, but really, you they're just, if you do deeper research, I'm sure you'll find that they are just incredibly shitty and trick or not really trick. Cause I think Michael Powell's in on it. They'll, be the perfect quote for him because they look like they're leftist. Cause you associate feminists with left, with progressive, blah. But they won't actually be. There'll be fucking what's her name? Who's the factual feminist? Did she come up in this?

0:27:50 Lydia: Yeah yeah yeah Christina Hoff Summers.

0:28:30 Thomas: Oh, wow. Nice job, huh? Jeez. I didn't know you.

0:28:32 Lydia: Yeah I had to watch videos of her for this.

0:28:33 Thomas: Oh, God. Well got into it. So, yeah, it won't be that. It'll be Christina Hoff Summers. What's... And missing in this fucking analysis in this article is, boy, you sure... um, a big deal about how, like, "oh, these Democrat idiots are like arguing against feminists and they're so dumb." Did you cite or reference or quote or give any context as to the other side of this, like the pro fucking rapist side? That's like, you just go anywhere on Twitter and you'll find that he always references the mean tweets of the left, but it's never like... And also, this guy thinks, you know, shouldn't even be allowed to go to school. And that's like, that guy's like in Trump's cabinet. Nope. Doesn't cover that. Never covers that. Um, yeah. How would I do? Is it that close?

0:28:55 Lydia: Yeah yeah yeah. Pretty good. I mean he He, you know, he doesn't hide some of this. I mean, obviously not in the article, but also his approach. He has said in interviews that he specifically is drawn by the contrarian, right? He loves the stories of where like someone doesn't share the same beliefs of a group that they share an identity with.

0:29:29 Thomas: Fuck you, man. Just it's such, oh my God. That is so telling.

0:29:41 Lydia: It is. It is. And and very upfront about that, which I found really shocking in some ways that that he can be that blatant.

0:29:46 Thomas: Yeah. I, I, yeah. I bet he thinks it's like this brilliant thing. Like, oh, it's just a fucking intellectual, Intellectual, you know, jerk off motion for him.

0:29:49 Lydia: Yeah. A noble cause. Yeah. Mm hmm.

0:29:56 Thomas: But also, hun, does he find a lot of like you country bumpkins who are like, actually, I think women should be allowed to go to school, not be harassed, no, Weird.

0:30:03 Lydia: No, absolutely not.

0:30:05 Thomas: He doesn't find that it's all people who you think are left who are actually saying things that are just right wing, basically. Weird. I would love that character though, well, it, I think affirmative consent is that it is like the guy who did the "honest work" meme, or or whatever. Like, it's honest work. With Find that guy. And he's like, he's, he might've even voted for Trump. You got to find her, something or everybody around him voted for Trump, and he's like, giving you like fourth wave feminism theory, you know, about like, that would be cool.

0:30:05 Lydia: It's all one side. Yeah, yep. Yep. Yep.

0:30:34 Thomas: If you want to do that, Michael Powell, do that.

0:30:31 Lydia: Yeah. Here's here. Okay. Long con. I have a long con idea for us. You can start writing articles, Schmeichel Schmowel, and then, yeah, Peichel Mowel.

0:30:42 Thomas: Yeah. Inverse good universe. Michael Powell. Yeah,

0:30:46 Lydia: And then we'll do that stance. We'll go track down folks like that.

0:30:52 Thomas: That's interesting that he was that open about that in the interview. I actually hadn't come across that when I was doing the NASA stuff. So, fascinating.

0:30:57 Lydia: Yeah, yeah, Yeah, threw so he starts off the article, right, basically setting up the DeVos standards are here, and the liberals are mad about it. The unions representing teachers and college professors are PO'd, National Organization for Women is upset. The Trump rules, they said, constitute a radical rollback of protections for victims who seek justice after sexual assaults. And then he says there is a surprising audience that offers praise for these standards.

0:31:28 Thomas: Hmm.

0:31:29 Lydia: An influential of feminist legal scholars applauded the administration administration for repairing what they viewed as unconscionable breaches in the rights of the accused.

0:31:39 Thomas: What?

0:31:39 Lydia: Really centering what they want here. I want to talk a little bit about what those changes are a tiny bit. Yes, more protections for the accused. Did roll back protection on basis of gender identity. I saw something about sexual orientation, But I don't know if that got hashed out in the notice and comment period. Said that the complaint must go to the Title IX coordinator. It can't go through like a teacher or a coach to then act upon. The student had to reach out to the title nine coordinator.

0:32:10 Thomas: Why? What? Why?

0:32:11 Lydia: Don't know why. Yeah. More hoops.

0:32:13 Thomas: Yeah. There's no... Look, obviously, this is going to be a bunch of... DeVos is blatantly evil. She wasn't hiding it. Like, you know, and so don't this even know if they had a reason for that. Here. You The game is make this as hard as possible for sexual harassment victims or sexual assault victims in college. Just make it as hard As possible because fuck you.

0:32:20 Lydia: Yeah.

0:32:31 Lydia: I'm pretty sure it's somewhere in that 2,000 page document where they explained all their reasons for doing everything and ignoring some rules and going with others, um, yeah,

0:32:34 Thomas: Oh, yeah, yeah. Because like, well just think about that change, like to humanize this a bit, you something happens to you at your university and are you going to talk to? You're going to talk like probably the closest professor you might have. Somebody you feel most comfortable with. Yeah.

0:32:47 Lydia: Someone you trust in the

0:32:52 Thomas: Not, oh, that title nine coordinator that you've never met.

0:32:56 Lydia: Office yeah. Um, also, uh, that harassment off campus and online doesn't count.

0:32:56 Thomas: Yeah. Oh God. I saw this and that is so fucking stupid.

0:33:03 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. I originally, they were saying all harassment off -campus and and then later clarified to say if it's an affiliated student organization, like a frat house or something, then that would count, even though it's technically off campus. It is you... sanctioned living situation. Redefined sexual harassment, saying that it needed to be severe enough, was interesting.

0:33:27 Thomas: Severe enough.

0:33:29 Lydia: And who knows what that means? Yeah, this is actually interesting. One of these, you, legal scholars that really likes the DeVos standards, was open and said that she and a couple of other colleagues pushed back on that because they were concerned about that language. And it wasn't based on their feedback. But she still likes the standards.

0:33:29 Thomas: That's the wording.

0:33:49 Thomas: Yeah. Okay. I was going to say that'll be there. Wouldn't surprise me if there was a leopards ate my face, says the person who voted leopards. If whatever, if somebody, you know, got, was a useful idiot and was like, yeah, no, some of these, oh, no, but you still should make it bad if someone like sexually harassed. No, you're not going to make it mad if someone sexually harasses someone. Oh, okay.

0:34:11 Lydia: Yeah. They also said that you couldn't do no contact accommodations. So basically moving, you out of the situation to try and prevent contact with the accuser because it's unfair for the accused. And it didn't prescribe any sort of timeline to conduct the investigation. Investigation, um, critics of this have said it basically said schools can drag their feet. There's there's less costly for them to not push through an investigation in a prompt manner. Um, just don't expend resources on it, they don't hire enough staff to cover all the the cases, um,

0:34:11 Thomas: Jeez. What? The fuck, yeah.

0:34:51 Thomas: It's Just let's make it harder in

0:34:53 Lydia: Yeah, right, yeah,

0:34:53 Thomas: Every way for victims to get any sort justice or even, not even forget, justice, just any sort of, you know, fucking anything, accommodations of any kind, not have to be around the, the, I mean, it's just it's god, it's terrible, uh,

0:35:04 Lydia: And then it uh, bumped the standard of proof back, back up. Yeah. Let's let's get back to the article. Yeah, they all suck. We're done here.

0:35:09 Thomas: So those all suck, but Did you know, some feminists called Ayn Rand and Ava Braun, who are they gonna be, you know, like, feminists love this. One weird trick to make it easy to sexually harass somebody. And

0:35:22 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah I mean and so one of the feminists kind of kicks off this article and

0:35:32 Thomas: I'm sorry, we didn't go into this enough. The fucking, not on campus. So if, let's say you live, you're a student, you live off campus and woman, let's, and as you're walking home, you live nearby off campus, which, you know, I went to college, a bunch of us were, that and you're walking home and a dude follows you from campus to no longer on fucking home base, then it's, it's game on and they can't even, what, and they can't, what, just do anything about, like, is that go

0:35:34 Lydia: Sure. Yeah yep. Yep. You'd have to go to the police. Yeah that's the only thing that you could do.

0:36:04 Thomas: Yeah, but the the school but the university can't do anything,

0:36:08 Lydia: The student has not violated any code of conduct or policies, you know, anti -harassment, nothing. Yeah.

0:36:08 Thomas: Any policy, Jesus, fucking Christ, how could I get, these people are evil, but like, why do you not, not like, that seems crazy. You know what I mean? There's going to be some, some level of, like, okay, but yeah, but that would just mean if they go 10 feet to the left, you can just do whatever that, that surely that's not correct. Right? Nope. It doesn't matter. I get, you know what? Here's how they probably justify it. They probably think everything ought to be the highest possible criminal standard for every, for all of this. And they probably think That universities, no one should, it's inappropriate, even though the punishment is not the same as the fucking justice system, and therefore it would make sense to reduce your burden of proof the lower the stakes are, you must be, how they justify it to themselves, yeah.

0:36:28 Lydia: Right.

0:36:43 Lydia: I think it's interesting, too, because, you far more sensationalist violation of what's expected of you as a student on campus as opposed to, like, plagiarism, right? It's something that is criminal in a variety of contexts. And I think for some people, it's really hard to grapple with not pursuing that in a criminal manner. So they conflate those situations. I think that's partly what's going on. Have some other reasons why I thinkthat, but sure. So the quote that kind of kicks us off to meeting these female professors is from Professor Hawley, who says, It says, the new system is vastly better and fairer. The fact that we're getting good things from the Trump administration is confusing, but isn't it better than an unbroken avalanche of bad things?

0:37:21 Thomas: That's Did she start, start the quote with, I want to thank my husband for allowing me to be interviewed for this?

0:37:51 Lydia: Yeah, well, it's interesting. It says who specializes in gender and sexuality at Harvard Law School. Else that professor this has said is like, yeah, yeah.

0:37:58 Thomas: Well, Harvard Law School is unimpeachable in terms of its fucking ethical output.

0:38:02 Lydia: Yeah, more on that.

0:38:05 Thomas: The moron.

0:38:07 Lydia: And I have some stuff here, too, is a professor who believes that it's important to take a break from feminism, um

0:38:15 Thomas: Wait, just like in your daily routine, like take, take 15 minutes and just, and just don't feminism for that time.

0:38:17 Lydia: I think she yeah it's like, like meditative yeah no, she, she, um, I think is of of the opinion essentially that it can kind of keep you riled up and

0:38:23 Thomas: Yeah.

0:38:32 Thomas: Yeah, I like that feminism is the thing that creates all this anger and not any, you know, checks notes, any of the other identity politics that, like, you hating, that's not, I don't have to take a break from that, apparently that's fine, I can do that all day, but feminism, you can only take so much in your diet, you know, you don't want to overload, yeah

0:38:41 Lydia: Yeah Yeah. Also against affirmative consent from a legal perspective. She thinks that's concerning. And 71 years old, I think is worth highlighting because that's a common thread with some of these folks.

0:39:01 Thomas: People who probably were progressive at some point and then we're just like, nope I'm done, the march of progress stops here, I know that's never never been true. As Eli likes to say, in the history of humans, where they're like, the people saying "we've gone the left has gone too far," they're never right. They've never once been right. Their batting, the same average as the people who say Jesus is about to come back. Like, it's been 2000 years, and they're Jesus any day, he's, he's coming, he'll be my lifetime, he's coming that same batting average as people were like, "Look, no, I know people people said this before, but no, the left this time has really gone too far."

0:39:04 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:39:36 Thomas: And history will, no, they won't, you're, you know what'll happen, your children and grandchildren won't talk to you anymore, that's what we

0:39:44 Lydia: Yeah. So she's kind of the cornerstone in some ways in this. University was putting together their Title IX approach and their policies. And she really didn't like it. So she ended up mobilizing a lot of professors at the law school to advocate for their own Title IX policy. They wrote a letter. It was 28 professors. 21 of them were men. Seven of them were women.

0:40:09 Thomas: The sexual harassers of, what, oh yeah yeah, not

0:40:12 Lydia: Dershowitz, because of course. And that and subsequent work was successful, and Harvard University said, fine. Harvard Law School developed their own Title IX policy that is more reflective of, you proceedings because they in the law.

0:40:31 Thomas: A good school, I'm, I'm gonna go ahead and say not a school, now I'm, gone that far ethically Maybe you learned some good law stuff stuff, but but yeah.

0:40:35 Lydia: Yeah, it of All three of the folks affiliated in this are all Harvard law. All signed the letters, obviously, because this is what they believe.

0:40:48 Thomas: What, when did they sign these things?

0:40:50 Lydia: 2015.

0:40:51 Thomas: Right. 2015. So, yeah. Alan Dershowitz was respected right up until, till like a few minutes after Trump was elected I think or a few minutes before one or the other we're

0:40:51 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so they they push forward. They got their own Title IX policy that was more of, I think, what we would see with the DeVos standards when those came through. That's who Janet Halley is. So now we know.

0:41:13 Thomas: We're only one feminist in do

0:41:15 Lydia: We're We're one feminist in. All

0:41:18 Thomas: Right. Well, it has become clear based on, uh, indications I'm getting from hot correspondent, Lydia Smith, that while that, first uh. Fake feminist was, you one thing. This next one is entirely too much to cover on this first part here. It's, she's, I don't know. This is entirely like, I have no spoilers for me. I'm really excited about this, but like I get the indication. It sounds like you're calling it here on part one because it's just too much. And I'm like, well, I'm not going to do that. I don't start getting into the next fake feminist and that's going to be a whole fucking thing.

0:41:32 Lydia: Yeah.

0:41:49 Lydia: Yeah, I think we got we got a lot of good stuff on this next one.

0:41:52 Thomas: Can't wait so uh we'll call it there and I'm excited for part two we get to hear about there's so much more to this debunking and that's and that's the thing that's the thing about bunking in the first place is it takes so much more work to tease it apart than it did to just write this shitty fucking article but you know what no one's doing it or not enough people are are doing it or they're being overwhelmed by fucking Shapiro on the on you know on the internet so we're that's that's our job now and we accept so therefore we're calling it for part one and I can't wait to hear even more about how Michael Powell sucks and these people aren't really feminists or they're fake feminists they're actually secret Nazis or whatever it'll be who knows I don't know I haven't been the spoiler yet so we'll see you for part two I'm I'm excited.

0:41:53 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

0:42:36 Lydia: Woohoo.

0:42:37 Thomas: And make that part two available early on patreon.com/wherethereswoke, please, pretty please support the show. I promise you that it is directly contributing to us being able to do it more and more frequently and more often. I promiseyou that where things are in the works, we're making it happen, hopefully. So please, patreon.com/wherethereswoke. We'll give you part two early and there's going to be other bonus stuff so please sign on there if see you for part two thanks so much hun this has been the Smiths over here should

0:42:54 Lydia: Yep.

0:43:05 Lydia: It fun. To dive into more.