Ted Lieu is a Congresscritter representing L.A. County in California. He assumed the seat of Henry Waxman in every sense of the word. Yesterday, at a Judiciary Committee hearing on The Importance of a Diverse Federal Judiciary, Lieu laid himself out like a two year old having an overtired tantrum.

Ted Lieu is a Stanford undergraduate and law school graduate and serves in the Judge Advocate General Corps, with the rank of Colonel, in the U.S. Air Force Reserves. These facts are germane to this discussion because the back and forth with attorney Peter Kirsanow that caused the tantrum was about Asians in the Federal Judiciary. Lieu made a choice. There are many pathways to the federal judiciary. Lieu chose a different path and that’s good. That’s an American virtue.

Here is the video of the Lieu-Kirsanow incident:

Peter Kirsanow has been a member of the United States Commission on Civil Rights since he was appointed in 2006. He was trying to point out that he had filed a brief on behalf of Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. versus Harvard in the Supreme Court. This is a fair point about the pipeline to the Judiciary.

Ted Lieu doesn’t want to be bothered with facts:

“Stop bringing in irrelevant issues!” Lieu shouted, interrupting Kirsanow.

Lieu then launched into a rant in which he accused Kirsanow of bringing up the Harvard case to evade his questions about systemic racism affecting Asian American representation on the federal bench.

“Underrepresented, definitely,” Kirsanow said. “But underrepresented based on the fact that there has been discrimination in the pipeline that we have been talking about. Profound discrimination against Asian Americans. Without question profound discrimination.”

I personally believe that most of the people in high places in government went to Ivy League schools. We need more state school people who worked their way through the school. But, if the Ivy League is discriminating against Asian students, that’s a problem Lieu should be interested in fixing. But, no, the Asian man had to foam at the mouth while shouting at a Black man.

Kirsanow added that the perception of racial discrimination at Harvard contributes to a broader undermining of trust in institutions. He said, especially because Harvard pumps out a disproportionate number of federal judges, the way that it operates matters to the judiciary.

Like I said, pumping out Federal judges from any Ivy League school is a problem. So, the Asian man accused the Black man of avoiding the the issue of discrimination:

Lieu replied that Kirsanow was avoiding the greater issue that the federal judiciary is majority white.

“It’s corrosive to America to have an entire third branch of government in which people are selected on the basis of them being white,” he said. “That’s the only way to explain these statistics.”

Hey, Ted, you have to feed the pipeline. And, Ted, what about personal choice? What if Asian lawyers do not wish to join the bench? What if Asian lawyers prefer and use their own agency to make a different choice, as you did, Ted?

Lieu complains that the Federal Judiciary is 73% white and male. The NBA is 70% black and male. School teachers are 76% female, which I think is very bad for our nation’s boys. The point is that there are other reasons beyond racial discrimination that account for people’s chosen professions. Lieu chose to joint the Air Force and go then into the legislative branch.

And, not for nothing, but it’s a very bad look for an Asian man to be screeching like an overtired toddler at a Black man, Peter Kirsanow. Kirsanow has a long and distinguished career fighting for civil rights.

Maybe, Lieu needs a nap and his binky. Maybe, he needs to remember that people have choices in this country and you cannot force them into a career. Yet, that is.

Featured Image: The Clerk of the United States House of Representatives/wikimedia.org/cropped/Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)