WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Under the Radar: Episode 4

Episode Date: March 4, 2025

This week on “Under the Radar,” hear about the President's latest efforts to cut the federal bureaucracy, a Supreme Court case about reverse discriminatio, a case that will define what free speech means in public schools, and more. I’m your host, Luke Miller, and on this show we’ll cover the news you didn’t catch this week from the mainstream media. While they’re covering the President’s latest tweets, here you can hear about the new legislation, executive orders, and Supreme Court decisions that affect you. Welcome to “Under the Radar.”

This is Under the Radar on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. Now, here's your host, Luke Miller. This week on Under the Radar, hear about the president's latest efforts to cut the federal bureaucracy, a Supreme Court case about reverse discrimination, a case that will define what free speech means in public schools and more. I'm your host, Luke Miller, and on this show, we'll cover the news you didn't catch this week from the mainstream media.

While they're covering the president's latest tweets, here you can hear about the new legislation, executive orders, and Supreme Court decisions that affect you. Welcome to Under the Radar. The first piece of news I have for you this week is an executive order signed by the president on February 19th entitled, Commencing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy. The president stated that the purpose of the executive order is to reduce the size of the federal government, as that will minimize government waste and abuse, reduce inflation,

and promote American freedom and innovation. So there's essentially four things within the federal bureaucracy that are cut by this executive order, the Presidio Trust, the Inter-American Foundation, the United States African Development Foundation, and the United States Institute of Peace. So what are these things? Well, first of all, the Presidio Trust, it deals with a national park called the Presidio National Park of San Francisco. It is a very small national park, about 2.4 square miles, and it's been there since 1776. It's been a fortified location since 1776. Obviously, we didn't have California as a state back then. but it was fortified then.

Now it's managed by the city of San Francisco on the outer 20%, the interior 20% is managed by the Presidio Trust, which is what's being cut by the executive order. It can't be a very large trust at all. This is a very, very small piece of land. Not all of it is even managed by this federal trust. I'm not really even sure why he bothered to put this in the executive order. Maybe it's a jab at Gavin Newsom just because it's a,

a place in California in San Francisco, which President Trump has had his complaints about how San Francisco has been managed. But this really does not seem like it's going to be a major cut to the federal bureaucracy in any way, shape, or form. The next thing that was cut by this executive order is the Inter-American Foundation, also known as the IAF. It's an independent agency of the United States government that funds community-led development in Latin America and the Caribbean, created through the Foreign Assistance Act of 1969 as an alternative to normal executive or congressional foreign aid. This is a really interesting organization. I did not know that this was a thing, but it does seem to be funded by the U.S. federal government as part of the executive branch funding, but it's not accountable to the government. It's an independent agency kind of like the Federal Reserve.

So funding an independent agency with the goal of giving foreign aid, when the executive branch is also giving foreign aid, does seem to be a little bit redundant. But in this instance, with the Inter-American Foundation, the executive branch is giving them taxpayer dollars to spend, but does not have any say as to where that money is going. So I think this is a more reasonable cut to be made in this executive order. since 1972, the IAF has awarded more than 5,800 grants in foreign aid to other countries. It's totaled about $1 billion, just under $1 billion in that amount of time. Again, that's not very much money. It's a very, very minute cut to the federal bureaucracy. But I can understand why the president would include this in there.

It is an independent agency. He does not have say as to where the money that they give to the IAF is spent. And so it's a form of government accountability really more so than it is cutting of spending or size of government. The next thing that was cut as part of this executive order is something called the United States Institute of Peace. It's very similar to the IAF. It's another thing. It was founded by Congress in 1984, the U.S. Institute of Peace, as a, quote, nonpartisan independent organization dedicated to protecting U.S. interests by helping to prevent, mitigate, and resolve violent conflicts abroad. their stated goal is to help reduce the risk that the United States will be drawn into costly foreign wars.

Again, this is another instance where President Trump seems to be calling out things that are funded by the executive branch, part of the federal bureaucracy in that sense, in that they're funded by it, but aren't necessarily accountable to it. It seems to be more of a step towards government accountability than cutting spending or size and scope of government, really. because again, this is not a large, not a large organization. It does seem, though, that they haven't been incredibly effective. They aren't given that much money by the federal government, but they really have not reduced the amount of money that we're having to spend on foreign wars.

That's been a focus of this administration as well is to try to cut the amount of money that we're spending on these foreign wars, either by eliminating the wars themselves or by reducing the amount that we are getting involved in foreign wars. So that seems to be another reason that this was included. Again, it's more of a step towards government accountability than it is of cutting the federal bureaucracy. It really seems like if the goal was actually to cut the size and scope of government, that we would be more focused on the actual powerful government institutions that are part of the executive branch. The different agencies within the executive branch that are actually spending tens to hundreds of billions of dollars a year and not these minor peacekeeping institutions, the reason for it just seems to be,

that they're independent organizations. They're not necessarily accountable to the president and how they're spending their money, and that seems to be the main reason behind including them in the executive order. Another organization that was cut as a part of this executive order is the United States African Development Foundation, which is another independent U.S. government agency

established by Congress that was created to invest in African businesses to give grants to entrepreneurs across Africa in hopes of increasing incomes and revenues and jobs across Africa. So it's another independent organization in the fiscal year of 2024. They gave about $26 million in grants to different entrepreneurs and different businesses across Africa. Again, it seems like another good peacekeeping kind of institution.

It seems like it's another investment institution, but it's, again, not accountable to the president. That seems to be an aim of this executive order. He needs to target those kind of organizations that are part of the, federal bureaucracy, the federal executive branch, but are not actually accountable in how they spend their money. Another part of that is that it's trying to reduce the amount of money spent overseas. Three of the four things that are receiving cuts as part of the executive order are things that spend money overseas. This administration has clearly been focusing on trying to spend less money

overseas, that's certainly a part of this as well. It's also worth noting that none of these organizations are being fully eliminated as part of the executive order. They are being cut to the lowest extent possible under law. That's the wording that the executive order uses. So overall, this executive order does not really cut anything out of the federal bureaucracy. It cuts some spending that's done by independent organizations within the executive branch. But if we were really trying to cut down on the federal bureaucracy. This was not the way to do it. The next piece of news I have for you this week is a Supreme Court case called Ames v.

Ohio Department of Youth Services in which a woman said that she is a victim of reverse discrimination. She claims that she was applying for a job and she was not hired for that job because she is straight. The thing that makes this case particularly interesting is that as it has gone up the ranks of the different courts, the courts have done. decided that she has to meet a more stringent standard of proving that they discriminated against her than if she had been a member of a minority group. So her case is claiming that she was

discriminated against because she's straight. The court is saying if she was claiming she had been discriminated against because she was, for example, a lesbian, she would have a lower bar to meet there than she does now if she's claiming that they discriminated against her based off of her being straight. The lawyers for Ames are arguing based off of the Supreme Court's decision a couple years ago that overturned affirmative action, that the Constitution's guarantee of equal treatment has to be universal in its application, meaning that if we are saying that you can't discriminate based off of anything, then the standard for meeting discrimination has to be the same across the board. Now, this is where it gets really tricky, because it is really hard to prove that you were discriminated against

based off of being straight. That is a really, really hard thing to prove. It probably is a little bit easier to prove that you have been discriminated against based off of being a lesbian or based off of being a racial minority. So it leaves the court in a really tricky situation to say that she does have to hold a higher standard there

because, in essence, that is the court discriminating. So the precedent is really tough for the Supreme Court here because obviously the... overturning of affirmative action did mean a more equal treatment based off of race in applying for schools. However, it's kind of led to this situation where you can sue for discrimination based off of almost anything now. Now, well, a lot of people would argue that it's perfectly fair to say that, well, if she can prove that she was discriminated against based off of being straight, she should have the opportunity to do so. However, the employer that Ames is suing,

offers a pretty convincing counter to that saying that if the court overturns the ruling, if the court says she can with a low bar sue her employer claiming that they discriminated against her based off of her being straight, that would essentially allow every employment discrimination case to go forward. In that instance, you go down a really slippery slope really quickly, where anyone could just say, hey, I'm going to take you to court if you don't hire me. And then the company says, well, we don't want to have to deal with lawyers and lawsuits, and it's going to look bad on our reputation. We're going to have to get HR involved.

We're going to have to pay legal fees. We'd rather just settle. And that would lead to a lot of bad situations for a lot of employers. It would also lead to a lot of extortion attempts from potential employees saying, you either hire me or I take you to court. where you'll most likely settle and give me money if you don't hire me. So it would lead to a really tricky situation for a lot of employers

if they were to allow this kind of employment discrimination case to go forward because it is really, really hard to prove that. And it doesn't seem that Ames has presented enough evidence already to suggest that she actually was discriminated against. It's mostly just her word and some feelings that she got. So that's where it becomes tricky for the court here, because it was an unfair situation that the courts had left us with, saying you can sue if you're in a minority group with this certain level of evidence that you have to prove, but if you're not in a minority group, you have to hold a higher standard to say that you're being discriminated against.

However, if you are part of the majority, if you are not in a minority group, it is inherently harder to prove that you're being discriminated against. So it will be interesting to see what the court decides here if they set the precedent that you can sue based off of what they call reverse discrimination, which is discrimination. It's just discriminating against the majority. That's how they define reverse discrimination. If they allow all reverse discrimination cases to go forward, that is going to lead to a slippery slope for businesses where they're going to get caught in this situation of being sued by a lot of different people who they don't hire. and I don't think we want to put our businesses in that kind of situation where they can't have the freedom to fully choose who they hire. And again, that goes against a lot of what conservatives have been preaching for years at this point about businesses hiring based off of merit. If we want businesses to hire based off of merit, they shouldn't be in fear that they're going to be sued for discrimination.

and that's something that conservatives have fought against for years now. And with affirmative action, conservatives have fought for years against affirmative action, saying colleges should be able to choose based off of merit who gets in without having to worry about being sued for discrimination. So that's what this court case leaves us with. I think it's very likely that the Supreme Court maintains the ruling that she can't sue for this. It's going to sound unfair. It does sound unfair.

and to some extent it is unfair. I think that that's what the Supreme Court is going to rule, and I think that this is just a really tricky situation for the Supreme Court to try to manage. Either way, a lot of people are going to be angry, but that's the nature of the game sometimes. The next piece of news I have for you this week is a case being considered by the Supreme Court.

It just went through the First Circuit Court of Appeals called L.M., which is somebody's initials, the town of Middleboro, Massachusetts. The case is essentially that a student, L.M., being represented by his parents, is suing the town of Middleborough, claiming that his First Amendment rights were violated when the school prohibited him from wearing a t-shirt that read, quote, there are only two genders. The court ruled that the school officials reasonably interpreted that the message on his shirt was demeaning to the gender identities

of other students, which is a quite unique take on the First Amendment. I don't think that there's anything in the First Amendment that talks about demeaning other people's gender identities. So the Court of Appeals ruling that probably does violate his First Amendment rights, which is why I believe that this case will be heard by the Supreme Court. There is a good case to be made that that particular aspect of the ruling is quite objectionable, and so the Supreme Court might hear it based off of that. However, there is an interesting precedent here called Tinker v. Des Moines independent school district, in which the Supreme Court decided that schools are allowed to regulate student speech that, quote, materially disrupts classwork or involves substantial disorder.

So this is where the Supreme Court has some standing to agree with the First Circuit Court of Appeals here to say that that t-shirt may have caused a material disruption within the class. Because shirts like that, whether people like it or not, are political these days. And generally speaking, shirts with political statements are going to be disruptive in some way, shape, or form. So the Supreme Court ruling in that case essentially meant that schools had the discretion to say that a message appearing on articles of clothing might be materially disruptive. And in that instance, if the school can claim that the shirt that read, there are only two genders, was materially disruptive, then the Supreme Court has sufficient standing to rule with the First Circuit Court of Appeals and so you can't wear a shirt like that in public schools.

So another very interesting case. Follow it as it goes up to the Supreme Court. I'm pretty sure it will go up to the Supreme Court because the first part of the circuit court's ruling is quite objectionable to say that the First Amendment does not let you demean gender identities, but there is some precedent to say that the Supreme Court can agree with the First Circuit Court of Appeals. So what does free speech mean in public schools? Can you make political statements? Can you wear clothing with political statements? That's kind of what's at stake with the Supreme Court case here. The next piece of news I have for you this week is an executive order signed by the president that increases the import tariff on aluminum from 10% to 25%, which is a massive raise. First of all, 10% is already pretty high. The average import tariff is about 3.5% that we have in the United States.

So it was already at 10% for aluminum. It has now been raised to 25% on all covered imports of aluminum and derivatives from all sources. So aluminum is most commonly used in products like aluminum foil, cans, like for canned goods, different furniture with chairs and siding on the houses, different. different construction uses, and then in different vehicles like airplanes and boats and even some parts of cars and off-road vehicles. So if you see an increase in prices in those kinds of products, then this import tariff might have something to do with that. Now, the reason that the president felt he could afford to do this is the fact that the United States produces a lot of aluminum already.

We produce 860,000 metric tons of aluminum in the last year. And in addition, we recycled about 3.4 million tons of aluminum, which is a crazy amount. So that's why the president felt that he could raise the import tariff on this. That will make producers who use aluminum more likely to buy American-made aluminum or American-refined aluminum, I guess is the more proper way of putting that. and it's not going to raise prices too much considering the fact that we produce so much of it. If it was a metal that we did not produce very much of in the United States and we put a higher tariff on imports coming from outside,

that would probably significantly raise prices. However, the fact that we produce so much of it means that with a higher import tariff, the producers who use aluminum will buy more American refined aluminum, will buy less foreign refined aluminum, and you won't see prices go up too much, if at all. They will probably go up in the short run. In the long run, it'll balance back out.

That's generally what happens if you can produce the thing nationally at a high enough rate. There are certain things like steel that we don't produce at a super high rate, so raising import tariffs is going to lead to a more permanent increase in prices, at least. But with something like aluminum where we produce and recycle so much of it, you're not going to see a long-term increase in prices in goods. that use aluminum. So again, this is not going to have a major effect on people's lives. However, you will see probably an increase in profit for American companies for American smelters that refine aluminum. And that's a good incentive to keep those companies in the United States.

The last piece of news I have for you this week is another case being considered by the Supreme Court called Chilace v. Salazar, which challenges Colorado's minor conversion therapy law. Now, when most people think of conversion therapy, the thing that has made the headlines about that is therapists convincing kids of their gender identity beliefs, whatever those may be. But in this case, Chilis is a professional counselor in Colorado who is encouraging young people with gender dysphoria through a religious undertone to appreciate the sex that they were born with. And apparently this violates Colorado's minor conversion therapy law. They define conversion therapy as any practice attempting to change in individual's sexual orientation or gender identity. The plaintiff argued that it violates free speech and free exercise clauses in the First Amendment in ordering her to practice her private counseling in a particular way that violated her right to use religious teaching in that.

The district court ruled that Chilis was not allowed to practice this kind of conversion therapy in which she was teaching people that they should live consistently with God's design, according to their biological sex, according to her description in the case. She says that she counsels her clients according to this religious belief system. And the court has ruled that she's not allowed to do that, that it violates the conversion therapy law that they have on the books. So Chilis is looking to take this case to the Supreme Court, where they will then rule on how far the state of Colorado can infringe on private practice

and whether counseling from a religious perspective is damaging to young people's mental health. So to summarize this week, we had two executive orders, one that raised aluminum tariffs, and another that cut funding to some organizations within the federal bureaucracy, and three court cases. The first about reverse discrimination, the second about free speech in schools, and the third about religious counseling. Tune in next week to hear more. Well, that's all I have for you today on Under the Radar. I'm your host, Luke Miller,

and I want to thank you for listening and encourage you to tune back in next time for more coverage of the news that fell under the radar. You're listening to Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. Thanks for listening to Under the Radar with Luke Miller, here on Radio Free Hillsdale, 101.7 FM.