Welcome back to the Libertarian Podcast from the Hoover Institution.

I'm your host Tom Church joined by the Libertarian Professor Richard Epstein.

Richard, if you don't know, is the Peter and Kirsten Bedford senior fellow here at the Hoover Institution.

He's the Lawrence A Tish Professor of Law at NYU, and he's also a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago.

Today we're talking about attempts to... at the University of Chicago.

Today we're talking about attempts to fix higher education and make private universities

more fair.

Now there are two sets of air quotations in there, I'll let you see if you can find them.

Richard, how are you holding up today?

Meanwhile I taught two classes today and I had a busy lunch and did a bunch of other stuff so I'm feeling just standing.

The rule is very simple. If the work is productive, you're not tired at the end of the day. If it's frustrating, you're tired at the middle of the day. So today was a good day and you are the beneficiary.

I appreciate that. I hope you're not tired after our

conversation. So let's set the stage, shall we? Sure. Here in California, California's

AB 1780 was approved, signed into law by Governor Gavin Newsom on September 30th of this year.

So as you noted in your weekly column, it sets out to stop the practice of legacy and donor admissions specifically in non-public higher education

institutions. That is undergraduate and graduate programs at private universities no longer able to use legacy or donor admissions to I guess put their thumb on the scale for applicants.

Richard I want to know how is this intellectually different from the Supreme Court's recent rulings about affirmative action

in public and private universities that, you know, many of our

universities focus more on merit and not on demographics

or other aspects.

How is this any different?

Well, it turns out it's not all that different and there in lies the problem with the Supreme Court decision.

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