Legal Commentary

Teaching evaluations by faculty colleagues

Posted on February 14, 2010
At my institution, the evaluation process for each retention, tenure, and promotion decision includes class visits by other faculty members to observe the candidate's teaching. I imagine this is standard procedure everywhere. I have experienced this once already (my retention review) and before long will experience it again (tenure review)...

Labels Matter, or the Irrelevance of Law

Posted on February 13, 2010
A recent poll conducted by CBS on the repeal of Don?t Ask Don?t Tell reveals some a fascinating result. Support for repeal depends substantially on whether you call ?them? ?homosexual? or ?gay.? Fifty-nine percent support allowing "homosexuals" to serve in the U...

Climate Change: Is our social world "heating up"?

Posted on February 13, 2010
I'm prone to dismiss the endless media hype of the angry Americans who were confronting congressional Democrats at the "town hall" meetings on health care back in August or telling pollsters this month that they are less trusting in the federal government doing the right thing than at any time in history...

Keys to Productivity?

Posted on February 12, 2010
I've been thinking about the keys to productivity lately, mainly because I've gotten a slow start on the numerous projects I plan to complete during my sabbatical. It is true that I've had lots of unexpected distractions in the last month, but the key to productivity, in my experience, is to learn to keep writing no matter how many distractions occur...

To access this complete feed in the blog feed reader login or register for free.

Justice Anorexia: Why We Imagine Our Courts to be so Lenient

Posted on February 12, 2010
Anorexia Nervosa is an eating disorder that leads sufferers to undergo often life threatening disciplining of their food intake in an effort to ward off imagined obesity. Something similar seems to beset our collective penal imagination. Despite decades of growing penal severity that have given us the world's largest prison population (and not just in per capita terms) and the most severe sentences, most Americans still imagine our courts to be the leaky and lenient institutions they were (unfairly) depicted as being in 1970s backlash movies like Dirty Harry (1971)...

Look Deeply Into My "I"

Posted on February 12, 2010
At the VC, Eugene has an interesting post about whether "the number of 'I''s in some speech are a proxy for narcissism or some such." He suggests that the answer is no. The particular controversy at issue is whether folks like George Will are grasping at straws when they accuse the President of narcissism for using the first person singular too often in his speeches, and so naturally the comments section degenerates a little...

Instilling a sense of professionalism in our students

Posted on February 11, 2010
Do interactions with students outside of the classroom gives us additional "teaching moments" beyond the doctrinal lessons of our courses? As a teacher, I am struck by some of the ways in which students treat our interactions. Student emails are often very informal, even given the relaxed norms of electronic communication...

Book Club on "The Ghost of Jim Crow"

Posted on February 11, 2010
Next week Prawfs will be hosting a book club on Anders Walker's "The Ghost of Jim Crow." Walker's book examines the legacy of Southern moderates in the post-Brown era and describes how their tactics quietly effectuated continued resistance to the civil rights movement...

The Circularity of the Fixation Thesis

Posted on February 11, 2010
A variation on the interpretation thesis (see here and here) holds that a nonoriginalist conception of interpretation is somehow logically or conceptually impossible, leaving originalist conceptions as the only available candidates. Larry Solum seems to take something like this view when he argues that the linguistic meaning of the Constitution has to be its original public meaning because the fixation of meaning at the time of utterance is logically necessary for written communication over time...

Problems with Segregating Sex

Posted on February 11, 2010
I received two reactions to my first post on food rations for women in Haiti. One shared with me this amazing story ? a woman refused to sit in the back of a sex-segregated Orthodox bus in Israel. http://www.vosizneias.com/46434/2010/01/07/jerusalem-woman-sprays-tear-gas-at-orthodox-man-in-bus-segregation-fracas Another disagreed with my characterization of men as ?being constructed as a sex that ignores rules,? stating that the violence of men in Japanese subways was a reality that merited the separation of sexes...

My Perverse Sense of Constitutional Meaning

Posted on February 11, 2010
Ok. So I?ve realized through my experience in conversations here on prawfs so far this month that very few people seem to share my view of contested constitutional meanings?and that?s alright. I still have not been persuaded to reform my ways, however, and I want to take one more, brief, shot at stating my case...

Uh, I'm very shallow and empty and I have no ideas and nothing interesting to say.

Posted on February 11, 2010
This post is a bit of a digression, but was prompted by Jack Chin's earlier pop culture shout out. I think pop culture references in law school classes serve serious and legitimate pedagogical functions. First, they remind students, particularly 1Ls, that the practice of law is not self contained...

The PrawfsBlawg Interview: Michael Olivas on the Future of Legal Education

Posted on February 10, 2010
Michael A. Olivas is the William B. Bates Distinguished Chair of Law and Director, Institute of Higher Education Law & Governance at the University of Houston Law Center, and one of the academy?s most respected immigration law scholars. He is president-elect of the AALS and a former General Counsel of the AAUP, but, as part of a series on legal education I plan to post during my visit, I asked him to share his personal views by email on some questions about the direction of legal education...

Is Interpretation Synonymous with the Search for Original Meaning?: Part 2

Posted on February 10, 2010
My last post ended with a question: If not the actual social practice of interpretation in general or constitutional interpretation in particular, what could the interpretation thesis possibly be attempting to describe? (The thesis, recall, is that interpretation is effectively synonymous with the search for original meaning...

Spring Submission Poll

Posted on February 09, 2010
Given all the interest in the spring submission season, I thought it might be helpful to offer another poll on the subject. Click Here for PollOnline SurveyEnterprise Feedback Management | Website Polls | Email Marketing | Crowdsourcing SoftwareView MicroPoll

Overruling Austin: Constitutional Modalities in Citizens United

Posted on February 09, 2010
On my first, and concededly very rough, cut through Justice Kennedy's opinion in Citizens United, I was interested in his justification for overruling Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce--a decision rendered just twenty years ago. By my read, he deploys a reasonably diverse set of modal arguments--including assertions cast in the structural, historical, ethical, and even doctrinal forms--in explaining the Court's decision; but it is prudentialism that does the real work...

Diamonds are a girl's best friend

Posted on February 09, 2010
As I mentioned in my first post, I'm particularly interested in how social movements create norms and move them into legal institutions. I recently wrote a piece on blood diamonds which describes the coalition between human rights activists, corporations and states and how that coalition created a new international institution to regulate the diamond trade...

Our Rotten Prisons (A California Gripe)

Posted on February 09, 2010
A Penitentiary-house, more particularly is ...what every prison might, and in some degree at least ought to be, designed at once as a place of safe custody, and a place of labour. Every such place must necessarily be, whether designed or not, an hospital -a place where sickness will be found at least, whether provision be or be not made for its relief...

Free Money for You (Yes, You) from the World's Largest Faculty Club

Posted on February 09, 2010
Lesley Wexler is turning me green with envy with her hip, ironic pop culture references. I can just imagine what her students think: "Gee, Wexler is so cool! She makes me want to learn! I'm going to spend the weekend reading note cases!" I do the best I can, but my references to scenes from Matlock, or whether a certain encounter between Officer Dibble and Top Cat amounted to a Terry stop generate more confusion than enlightenment, and playing the episode in class if anything, makes the situation worse...

Is Interpretation Synonymous with the Search for Original Meaning?

Posted on February 09, 2010
One familiar argument for originalism, which I shall call ?the interpretation thesis,? holds that only originalism is consistent with our commitment to interpreting a written constitution as binding law. The idea here is that originalism is somehow inherent in the concept of interpretation...

Procedural Crisis

Posted on February 08, 2010
Jack Balkin (among several other commentators) argues that we are in the midst of an emerging constitutional crisis, over the rules and norms of the Senate and the uses to which they are being put.* The routine filibuster--in which the GOP speaks, acts, and is perceived as controlling the Senate by having 41 out of 100 seats--was the start...

Toyota Class Actions: let the games begin

Posted on February 08, 2010
The National Law Journal reports on the several class actions that have been brought against Toyota in the wake of the gas pedal problems and recalls. The lawsuits are consumer class actions that seek damages for economic losses stemming from reduced value of cars subject to this problem...

When are you submitting?

Posted on February 08, 2010
Kaimi Wenger at CoOp is running a poll for those planning to submit articles in the coming cycle: What is your target date? Click over and add your voice. I presently am shooting for late this week. But if enough people say it is best to wait a week, I could be convinced.

The Semantics (Colloquially Speaking) of Semantic Originalism

Posted on February 08, 2010
A major target of Larry Solum?s much-discussed ?semantic originalism? is the confused claim (which he attributes to many nonoriginalists) that normative considerations can transform the original meaning of the constitutional text. This claim is indeed confused, but Solum is mistaken in attributing it to sophisticated nonoriginalist theories, which for the most part are best understood as normative accounts of how judges and other interpreters should attribute legal (rather than linguistic) meaning to the constitutional text...

Nebraska Safe Haven Snafu, Revisited

Posted on February 08, 2010
You might recall the sad circumstances, reported in the news about a year ago, surrounding the Nebraska "safe haven" law. Safe haven laws, which exist in all or virtually all states, permit a parent to surrender an uninjured newborn or infant at a location such as a hospital with no questions asked and no risk of liability...

Entrench the Filibuster

Posted on February 07, 2010
With all the discussion of the filibuster, including some evidence of hypocrisy on the part of a certain allegedly anti-pork Senator from Arizona, it occurs to me that the Democrats in Congress might consider something to put the Republicans to the test: Propose an amendment making the filibuster a constitutional rule...

Welcome to "Voces Latinas"

Posted on February 06, 2010
I wanted to bid welcome to the legal blogosphere to a new law-prof blog, "Voces Latinas" (Latin Voices), headed up by my friend and FIU colleague Ediberto Roman. It is devoted to providing "Perspectives on Latin-American Communities and their Issues" and includes several top Latino/a scholars.

SEC Mandate on Reporting Corporate

Posted on February 05, 2010
SEC Mandate on Reporting Corporate Board Diversity In December, the Securities and Exchange Commission approved a rule to require more information for shareholders about the makeup of leadership in public companies. Disclosure of diversity considerations in hiring directors will be required for proxy and information statements...

Pointless Parentheticals: A Diatribe (arguing against use of unnecessary parentheticals in law review articles)

Posted on February 05, 2010
Student law-review editors are great. How many people, after all, are willing to read our work closely enough to offer detailed, line-by-line feedback? But sometimes it feels like they're demanding adherence to institutional rules just for the sake of following the rules, and not because they make the article better...

They don't call it a quarter pounder with cheese

Posted on February 04, 2010
Unionized French workers, frustrated with layoffs and cutbacks, are attempting both old and new(ish) strategies. These new strategies include bossnappings, in which employees hold senior managers on the premises to protest layoffs or other unfavorable policies, and aggressive sit down strikes, along with more recognizable forms of labor unrest like the recent strike at the Pompidou...

Bloggers, promote your law blog by nominating your blog for inclusion in USLaw.com's Law Blog Directory and RSS Reader. Benefits described.