patrick.net

The General Lee is back! With the Stars & Bars on top!

It's gonna be very awkward when Netflix makes a remake with two gay black dudes now.

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/miracles-monday-august-4-2025-c-and

On Friday, the D.C. District Court officially dismissed Luevano v. Ezell, a Carter-era consent decree that banned cognitive testing for federal jobs and birthed the modern DEI mandate in civil service. ... Harmeet Dhillon: “The Justice Department reopened federal employment opportunities based on merit—not race.”

Luevano’s demise isn’t just a policy tweak. It’s another tectonic shift. The decree had barred aptitude tests since 1981 and imposed two race-preferential hiring tracks, gatekeeping credentialism, and boosting the unqualified. Now, the gates are open again. Federal hiring is poised to return to a selection-based system, and private employers will probably rush past. After decades of progressives slavishly worshiping the golden calf of credentials, the meritocrats have finally come down from the mountain.

Let’s tackle a little history so we can understand what just happened.

Before Luevano, applicants for most federal jobs had to take something called the “Civil Service Exam.” The CSE was a standardized, general cognitive ability test the federal government used to assess applicants for entry-level white-collar jobs, especially the so-called “professional and administrative” positions (GS-5 through GS-9). It primarily tested I.Q. —general intelligence apart from formal education— in terms of verbal, mathematical, and analytical reasoning.

The CSE worked well, ensuring the federal government was generally staffed with smart people. But in 1979, a group of Black and Hispanic plaintiffs sued, arguing that the CSE resulted in a disparate impact for minority candidates. They didn’t claim intentional discrimination, but rather that, statistically speaking, the test produced racially disparate outcomes.

The Carter Administration didn’t fight the lawsuit. Carter’s DOJ essentially agreed, and entered into a voluntary “consent decree” that abolished a mandatory CSE, banned any future replacement test, and automatically made eligible any candidates with a 3.5 GPA or a top-third class ranking— thereby effectively substituting credentials for capability.

Thus, Luevano’s Consent Decree became the original root or wellspring of what would inexorably metastasize into the formal DEI infrastructure, which first took hold in the federal government and then infected every company doing business with the government, through contractor mandates and purchasing preferences. Over the years, it predictably mushroomed far beyond race to ritualistically preference sex, national origin, atypical sexual proclivities, insanity (“neurodivergence”), and most recently, outright, bona-fide mental disorders like gender dysphoria and autogynephilia.

That’s all over now. And the implications are staggering.

Possibly the most annoying symptom of the DEI credentialist era was the rise of the so-called “expert class” of midwit officials making policy and swanking their credentials throughout the pandemic. There are so many examples. Transsexual, luggage-stealing nuclear waste disposal directors. Senators cosplaying as Indians. Doctors who believe men can get pregnant. And my favorite example: obviously sick people running our public health system, such as LA County’s corpse-like health supervisor, Barbara Ferrer:




This kind of deranged thinking —the terror of using merit or inherent intelligence in hiring— infected everything. I have written extensively about the “big freeze” in arts, culture, and science that caused the post-millennial period to be the least fruitful era in modern history. For one example, in 2020, the American Economic Review published a paper concluding that, despite ubiquitous computers, the Internet, and more money than Solomon dreamed of, research productivity still fell sharply during the previous two decades...

“Everywhere we look,” the researchers said, “we find that ideas are getting harder to find.” If only someone could have seen this coming.

It is difficult to find a Nobel prize in the post-2000 period worth discussing at all.

And since grades and degrees became the new currency for earning well-paying employment instead of merit, skills, or qualifications, the Academy began aggrandizing an outsized political influence. Going to college became not just something kids did to pursue their interests, but they did it just to have a chance of getting a job. A vast parade of horribles ensued: grade inflation, social promotion, rising costs of college degrees, and a sprawling, federally-guaranteed student loan industry that collected in advance the first twenty years of kids’ expected earnings.

It no longer matters how smart a kid is. Critical thinking became a handicap. It now mostly matters only where kids went to school, and how well they conformed by pleasing their grade-awarding professors.

By cutting all this off at the original roots, President Trump has reset the game. Merit is back. The sharp decline in good ideas is almost over. Since it touches everything, it is literally impossible to imagine how wonderfully this single change will affect the arts, sciences, economy, and culture.

The end of credentialism is once again going to highlight the obvious differences in AVERAGE intelligence by race.

AVERAGE, not deterministic per individual. See the graph James Damore made:

https://patrick.net/post/1326489/2019-08-14-cnn-openly-hates-white-people?start=1#comment-1612047



This biological reality is absolutely unacceptable to everyone on the left, and even to most on the right. So now what?

On the one hand, meritocracy is essential for the functioning of our society. On the other hand, it exposes the truth which must never be spoken, the ultimate taboo.

WRT to 10.23 post: there are quite a few Nobel prizes worth discussing: 2001, 2003, 2005, 2010, 2019 in chemistry immediately come to mind. I am sure other fields also have something worthwhile. Just because writer is clueless does not mean good stuff does not exist.

Patrick says

On Friday, the D.C. District Court officially dismissed Luevano v. Ezell, a Carter-era consent decree that banned cognitive testing for federal jobs and birthed the modern DEI mandate in civil service. ... Harmeet Dhillon: “The Justice Department reopened federal employment opportunities based on merit—not race.”

BUT, that doesn't mean every department has to use the CSE, correct? They could still hire the same old way, correct?

https://x.com/ThomBrady5/status/1972055383306129466

https://slaynews.com/news/trump-admin-officially-designates-dei-violation-human-rights/

Trump Admin Officially Designates DEI as Violation of Human Rights

President Donald Trump’s administration has issued new instructions to U.S. embassies and consulates that significantly broaden the criteria used to evaluate foreign governments for potential human rights violations. ...

The updated guidance directs diplomats to categorize certain government-enforced DEI policies as potential human rights concerns.

According to a senior State Department official, the revised criteria are intended to address situations where policies “result in discrimination, limit equal opportunity, or restrict individual freedoms.”

The administration argues that DEI mandates in some countries have created systems that prioritize identity categories over merit and equal treatment.

Officials say the new standards reflect the administration’s commitment to opposing employment practices or government policies abroad that treat citizens differently based on race, gender, or other identity classifications.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/t-commits-ending-dei-programs-214653486.html

AT&T commits to ending DEI programs

Gerry McGovern, CEO of Jaguar, finally out after a year of a disastrous rebranding campaign:

https://x.com/Genghis_McCann/status/1996288045687926937?s=20

https://x.com/infantrydort/status/2001195133157380141