Russell Wheeler for the Brookings Institution: Trump administration defenders say that whatever else its accomplishments, it has reshaped the federal judiciary in a little over 18 months.
Trump’s 26 court of appeals confirmations as of late August — outpacing his predecessors at this same time in their tenures — occupy 15 percent of the nation’s circuit judgeships, and that percentage can only increase. But three countervailing factors limit the impact of those appointments: First, his 26 district judge appointees constitute only 6 percent of district judgeships nationwide and lag behind his six most recent predecessors (although 75 nominees are pending, 51 of whom have had Judiciary Committee hearings and the Senate seems posed to start moving them).
Second, his circuit appointees have mainly replaced Republican appointees, and, third, they have been concentrated in courts that already had majorities of Republican appointees. (Of course, replacing a 70-year old moderate Republican appointee with a 45 year-old conservative firebrand is not an apple-for-apple trade.)
The party-of-appointing-president composition of active-status judges shifts as judges leave full-time active status and new appointees take their place. Almost all judges leave active status by retiring, with salary, either to “senior status” or to full retirement under a statutory formula involving age and years of service. Since Trump took office, 19 active-status circuit judges have retired in one form or the other, 14 of them Republican appointees. Of the 16 circuit vacancies he inherited, Republican appointees created six.
Let’s not push marginal students into college
Oren Cass for the Manhattan Institute: The president of Amarillo College encounters two young people on a September morning. Alexandra, an 18-year-old woman, reports recently getting clean. Eddie, a 20-year-old man, has spent time in jail. Russell Lowery-Hart knows what they should do next: enroll in his community college, on the spot.
His advice is well intended. It is also extremely dubious. Fewer than half the students who enroll at Amarillo will return for the second year; fewer than 15% of those who attend full-time will graduate from the two-year program on time, and fewer than one-third will graduate within four years. Equally damning, six years after enrolling full- or part-time at Amarillo, only 54% are earning more than the $25,000 typical of someone with only a high school diploma. After accounting for the opportunity cost of the time spent in school, the tuition dollars paid, and the debts many will accrue, the median student is almost certainly worse off for having started.
Even these data paint too rosy a picture. They describe the aggregate experience across all students — including those who are prepared for the college’s courses, have an intentional plan for completion, and benefit from structural support at home. But who succeeds and who fails is not random, and the odds are much worse for the marginal student drawn into the system by the cultural drumbeat of college-or-bust and the rivers of cheap federal cash subsidizing the endeavor. For Alexandra and Eddie, who were behind even that marginal student until their chance encounter with a college president, the bet they are encouraged to make with their lives is a foolish one.
The college dropout is not an outlier in the modern American education landscape. He is the standard: both the median and the modal outcome. After half a century of intensive reform efforts, only 36% of Americans aged 25 to 29 have earned a bachelor’s degree — add in associate degrees, and the total still reaches only 46%. The share attaining a BA by age 25 has not risen for two generations.
Yet because college completion correlates with better career prospects and higher earnings, the cultural imperative persists to push more people into the college pipeline.
Union membership can help race relations
Amy Traub for Demos’ Policyshop: “Gentlemen, the Pullman Company is ready to sign.” With that concession from the company president on August 25, 1937, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters became the first black labor union to win a collective bargaining agreement with a major American corporation. After 12 years of struggle facing intense company opposition, the union of more than 8,000 African-Americans working segregated jobs as train porters and maids won higher pay, shorter work hours, improved working conditions, and a critical element of respect and dignity. Saving their wages and tips, unionized porters and maids sent their children and grandchildren to college, supporting social mobility across generations. …
I’ve looked at the impact of social exclusion in today’s labor market and workplace, documenting how large employers and their political allies deploy the constructed notion that workers of color are less deserving than white workers of employment, and especially of good jobs with the wages and benefits that enable working people to thrive and to sustain a family. The victory of the Sleeping Car Porters 81 years ago this week demonstrates how joining together in unions has long been a powerful means of overcoming social exclusion in the workplace and thus building an inclusive economy that enables the full participation and power of black workers. …
Unions contribute to structural inclusion by negotiating for pay transparency, protections from discrimination and harassment, and clear processes for raises and promotions that limit opportunities for managerial bias. As a result, the Economic Policy Institute finds that hourly wages for black workers represented by unions are 14.7 percent higher than wages paid to black workers who are not in unions, after controlling for other factors.
Compiled by Joseph Lawler from reports published by various think tanks.
