Both facts and rhetoric often shape the public discourse on thorny topics. In fact, no subject other than race illustrates the gulf of differences between the two. On one hand, adherents to a race-based dogma demand top-down filtering of socioeconomic policies and culturally acceptable viewpoints through the lens of race. To the left, observed disparities in wealth, health, education, and so on must be attributed to discrimination. If the haves are doing well, there must exist an opposing group of powerless and oppressed have-nots, whose identifiable characteristic is skin color. On the other hand, those rejecting the dogma acknowledge nuanced realities and complex causal pathways, rather than essentializing group characteristics.
Unfortunately, living at a time marked by fast-shifting news cycles and proliferating cultural distractions means that rhetoric-promotion can easily overtake fact-seeking. Worse, dissenters to the race orthodoxy held by the establishment and intelligentsia are expected to be quiet about this displeasure, or risk enduring shaming, ridicule, smears, and other effective mob tactics of repression.
Repression is what happened to Kai Peters, a young college student who joined my group, Californians for Equal Rights Foundation (CFER), in a lawsuit to challenge a decades-long, race-based scholarship at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). Almost immediately after our lawsuit was filed, the defendants reached out to settle by offering to replace the challenged “Black Alumni Scholarship Fund” with a race-neutral, merit-based alternative. Even the offenders realized how illegal racial discrimination is. We accepted the settlement in early October. Case closed.
Or, is it really?
[RELATED: UCSD’s $10,000 Scholarship Only for the ‘Right’ Race]
Legacy media outlets never waste a crisis. Following the dismissal of the case, journalist-activists and their allies singled out Kai, the only named co-plaintiff in the suit. Kai had issued a written statement to the press through me:
UCSD attempted a thinly veiled ploy to enshrine institutionalized racism by blurring the line for unconstitutional racial preferences between public and private. Luckily, this practice was rightfully challenged and stopped in the court of law. The defendants’ immediate desire to settle shows that universities across the country are recognizing America’s position at the dawn of a new era when such behavior shall not and will not be tolerated. I thank CFER and my amazing counsel at Pacific Legal Foundation for their help in achieving this outcome.
Without reporting on the fact that Kai categorizes the scholarship as racially discriminatory and hails the dismissal as a win for constitutional equality, the nationally syndicated CalMatters manufactured a false narrative:
One of the students, Kai Peters, said he was denied access to the scholarship because he isn’t Black. Peters sent a written statement to CalMatters through the Californians for Equal Rights Foundation, the nonprofit plaintiff. He said his rejection is an example of ‘institutionalized racism’ — a phrase that was created in part to characterize how government institutions discriminate against Black Americans.
The article, however, misrepresented both the legal facts and the interviewee’s statement, taking portions of it out of context in a way that altered its meaning. Our complaint did not state that Kai had applied for or been rejected from the scholarship. Rather, it argued that our members—including two current UCSD students, one unnamed Asian-American student, and Kai—were excluded from consideration solely on the basis of race.
Kai’s statement was intended as a broader critique of race-based practices that have become common in higher education. A fair reading of his words would not suggest that he personally applied for the scholarship or that his comments stemmed from an individual experience of rejection.
Feeling the sting of mockery, Kai says the article insults and defames him. I fought back on his behalf with a formal complaint to the editorial board:
CalMatters prides itself as a ‘nonpartisan news organization … Yet, intentionally misrepresenting an interviewee’s statement, just because the reporter disapproves the political persuasion and opinions of the interviewee and his group, screams narrow partisanship and betrays your mission to educate citizens with information. Portraying an interviewee in a negative and ridiculing light under the ideologically loaded dichotomy of black-versus-white is also tantamount to open mockery designed to insult, defame and intimidate Mr. Peters, a young college student who was courageous enough to take an open stand for truth and equality. If Mr. Echelman (the journalist) thinks pulling such a trick can shame and silence voices disfavored by the intelligentsia and cultural orthodoxy, he can rest assured this letter is not the end of my efforts to seek justice for brave young individuals like Mr. Peters. As such, I request that the CalMatters editorial team exercise its sound judgement to make necessary changes to Mr. Echelman’s unethical depiction of our member Mr. Peters.
One day later, the editor responded dismissively:
We will change the following sentence to say this: ‘He said his lack of access is an example of ‘institutionalized racism’— a phrase that was created in part to characterize how government institutions discriminate against Black Americans.’
At that point, the damage had been done, with the article reposted on The Associated Press, LAist, Greenwich Time, Los Angeles Times, San Diego Voice & Viewpoint, San Francisco Chronicle, Sacramento Observer, and others. Even the Daily Signal, a conservative outlet, recycled the misrepresentation in its otherwise favorable coverage of the lawsuit:
Peters said he was denied the scholarship because he wasn’t black. Peters had called the use of the scholarship ‘institutionalized racism,’ a phrase frequently used by the Left with no meaning. But in this case, it seemed quite applicable.
The Daily Signal piece got reposted again, unintentionally repeating the same lie concocted by a radical activist reporter who occupies a megaphone to intimidate and smear a conservative college student.
The backlash is immediate. UCSD Guardian, the student newspaper, asked Kai why he wanted to apply to the scholarship and ran an article describing Kai as “a white transfer student.” What matters is not the views and ideas of participants in the dialogue on race, but their racial background.
[RELATED: California State University, Northridge Doubles Down on Racial Discrimination]
On campus, leftist students started to dox Kai. A Reddit post, which the moderators have removed, called Kai “a huge Ku Klux Klan fanatic” and recruited the university community to find him. Another removed Reddit post said: “UCSD student Kai Peters sues [because] he wasn’t awarded scholarship intended for Black students.”
Zeroing in on Kai’s racial identity, rather than his political persuasion or ideological convictions, an increasing amount of media reports and social media posts have bombarded the public with disingenuous misrepresentations and innuendos. Kai’s life has changed; he filed a police report about the doxing and is anticipating confrontation: “At this point they are spreading slander about me that’s inspiring harassment.” He added: “They basically made my fight of stopping illegal racial discrimination into a mockery, and me into a mockery.”
What befell Kai Peters is emblematic of the left’s modus operandi: create political narratives to appeal to the masses, shame the doubtful into silence, and ruthlessly repress viewpoint diversity. This is precisely why equality advocates often struggle to find victims and plaintiffs who are willing to take a public stand for the principle of equal protection. The inflammatory rhetoric alone makes potential participation of individuals affected by race-based policies cost-prohibitive. Perpetuators of “racism yesterday, racism today, racism forever” are banking on their gambit of suppression. They want to make Kai an example to scare others: Look what happens to the one who speaks up, and we can do the same to you.
To accommodate their race-centric worldview, journalists readily forego ethics and integrity. “It is critical for journalists to report the words of interviewees accurately. It is therefore unacceptable for reporters to mischaracterize the words and views of an interviewee, especially when they are given written quotations that explicitly state the views of the interviewee,” commented Lance Izumi, senior director of education studies at the Pacific Research Institute. Izumi added, “The importance of accuracy is especially important when the interviewee is a young person who is more vulnerable and is in an unfavorable position in any power dynamic.”
In the face of snowballing rhetoric that distorts facts and defames opponents with incendiary labels, standing firm in the truth that we are doing the right thing can set one free. The truth is a principle that transcends personal interests and crude categorizations; reducing individuals into cartoonish identity representatives is worth defending, even at the cost of media spins. At the end of the day, fake media must live up to its namesake.
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