Legal Commentary

Civil Rights Legislation in the Obama Administration

Posted on November 12, 2008
One of the many issues the Obama Administration will have to resolve is where to go on civil rights legislation. The campaign website's section on civil rights gives prominent focus to enacting the Fair Pay Act, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (protecting gays and lesbians and, seemingly, transgendered people) and the Matthew Shepard Act (expanding federal hate crimes law to include gays and lesbians), overturning the Ledbetter decision (which seems to be what the Fair Pay Act does, so maybe they're double-counting), depoliticizing DOJ and reinvigorating civil rights enforcement...

Post-Meat Market Silence

Posted on November 12, 2008
We are not hiring at Marquette this year, and so for the first time in four years I was not at the FRC. I don't have much to add to the prior posts concerning what separates the candidates who get callbacks from those who don't. And I couldn't agree more that the difficulty of drawing those distinctions can only be appreciated from the interviewing side of the table...

Southern for *!@#&!!

Posted on November 12, 2008
Leaving aside any of my own views on Sarah Palin, I must offer a note of translation to those who watched her interview on the Today show, or read about it here. Palin is quoted as saying the following about her unconventional desire to give a concession speech of her own on Election Night, which was nixed by the McCain campaign:Ms...

The Weird Lineup in Pleasant Grove v. Summum

Posted on November 12, 2008
Following up on an earlier post, oral argument in Summum is today. Pamela Harris (O'Melveny and Lecturer at Harvard) is arguing for Summum; Jay Sekulow (ACLJ) is arguing for the City. But the lineup of amici is striking, and it reveals how weird this case is...

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Executing Retributivism, redux

Posted on November 12, 2008
I'm home now from the autumnal delights of Falls Village, CT only to be hobbled by terrible sniffles just before class begins this afternoon. Alas, I'm not the Canadian I once was. In any event, I meant to get this up on the blog last week, but better later than never...

[Legalize] Bong Hits 4 Jesus!

Posted on November 12, 2008
The then-18-year-old Alaskan who held up that infamous "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" banner has received a $45,000 settlement from the school district according to this story in the Anchorage Daily News. Apparently the student, Joseph Frederick, had additional claims that weren't decided by the Supreme Court including a claim that his free speech rights were violated under the Alaska Constitution, which states: "Every person may freely speak, write, and publish on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of that right...

Why We Watch (Guest Post From Frederick Vars)

Posted on November 12, 2008
I've already written here about my enthusiasm for the work of my new colleague Fred Vars, who brings a set of valuable methodological tools to a variety of interesting questions. (Commenters last time asked: is it law? is it economics? My answer -- whatever...

"You Know, Content"

Posted on November 12, 2008
I'm not much of a Ron Rosenbaum fan, but I very much like this piece in Slate arguing against "new media guru" hype. It's a nice counter to the usual blog triumphalism and disdain for the actual discipline of journalism that pervades and pollutes so many corners of the blogosphere, most certainly including the legal blogosphere...

Another Cheer for Clicker Technology

Posted on November 11, 2008
Miriam Cherry on Concurring Opinions has a fun and informative post about gaming in the classroom. She mentioned "clicker technology," and the basic setup is that the students have these clickers and they can use them to answer multiple choice questions that a professor can throw out on an overhead...

Another Paper for the Institutionalists Among Us

Posted on November 11, 2008
I briefly plugged Judith Areen's excellent new paper on academic freedom and governance yesterday. Let me also plug another new paper that ought to be of interest to people with an interest in First Amendment institutionalism, as well as privacy law scholars...

Law School Hiring Thread, Part II: Callbacks/Offers Phase

Posted on November 11, 2008
My apologies for the delay in getting this new thread started. Here's some of the info agglomerated so far from here. Per Pro Bono Publico's reasonable request, please use the comments to this thread as a place to share info about callbacks and offers for the law teaching market...

What do you call the little "(i)" and "(i)(i)" in a statute?

Posted on November 11, 2008
Apparently, "romanettes":Monday's Supreme Court oral argument in United States v. Hayes (pdf) was dense with debate over rules of grammar and statutory interpretation, all aimed at figuring out what Congress meant when it passed a statute in 1996 that expanded the scope of a law that makes it a crime for those convicted of felonies to possess a firearm...

A quick question about the FRC

Posted on November 10, 2008
Like Michael, I'm just back from the FRC, where I had a great time meeting a bunch of (intimidatingly) talented and accomplished people. I was struck, during the conversations, that nearly every candidate, when asked (something like) "do you have any questions for us", asked "why do the Irish stink at football these days?" (not really) or (something like) "is there research support for junior faculty"? And, my colleagues and I responded each time with what must have seemed like a canned recitation of our policies with reference to first-year teaching loads, pre-tenure leaves, internal workshops, travel and summer-research funding,...

Tip for Political Junkies: "A Perfect Candidate"

Posted on November 10, 2008
A big story in this past election was the change of Virginia from a red state to a blue state. If you are a politico coming down off the heady fumes of this year's contests (cf. the chart included in this post), you should check out the documentary "A Perfect Candidate...

Scientocracy and the Need for Judicial Process

Posted on November 10, 2008
The Ellis colloquium would seem to indicate a pervasive belief among high-energy physicists that lawyers and judges have no proper place in investigating and reviewing their experimental undertakings. If that is true, such an standpoint constitutes a substantial and direct threat to that cherished bedrock concept of modern society, the rule of law.

The Blogging Guinea Pig

Posted on November 10, 2008
In my first post last week, I wrote about my hesitancy in signing up to guest blog. On the one hand, I wasn't sure how comfortable I'd be with such a public sharing of such nascent thoughts. I tend to be more a writer who ruminates, revises and reworks before sharing and later publishing...

The DC Circuit's Dicta-Fest on Academic Freedom

Posted on November 10, 2008
On November 4, as the nation busied itself with other matters, the DC Circuit issued a very interesting opinion in a case called Emergency Coalition to Defend Educational Travel v. United States Department of the Treasury. (Thanks to Jonathan Adler at VC for linking to the decision...

Greenawalt's Religion and Constitution and "The Philosopher's Brief"

Posted on November 10, 2008
A few weeks ago my friend and co-blogger Rick organized a superb roundtable conference to discuss the second volume of Kent Greenawalt's superb treatise Religion and the Constitution, titled Establishment and Fairness. Rick has now outdone himself, organizing a collection of responses to Kent's books, stemming from the conference, to be published in Constitutional Commentary...

AALS faculty recruitment conference: any objections to requesting photo on candidate cv?

Posted on November 10, 2008
I just returned from the AALS faculty recruitment conference, and I share Michael's general reactions, about the high quality of the candidates and about how strenuous the process can be, on both sides of the recruiting table. One of my colleagues on the interviewing team had an interesting idea that might improve the process a bit...

Pleasant Grove City v. Summum

Posted on November 10, 2008
It's been a quiet year for law-and-religion cases at the Supreme Court -- no Free Exercise cases, no Establishment Clause cases, nothing about the meaning of the various federal statutes addressing religious exercise (RFRA, RLUIPA, etc). The closest thing we have is Pleasant Grove City v...

AALStamina...

Posted on November 08, 2008
A couple hours ago our committee finished its last interview at the meat market meet market AALS Faculty Recruitment Conference. This is my second year as a tenure-track professor, and my first appointments committee experience. Comparing this experience to the one I went through just a couple short years ago, I learned the following: 1...

The Media Say Data Are Awkward

Posted on November 07, 2008
The worst is Tom Clancy. Someone persuaded the techno-thriller mega-novelist that the singular ?data? is a grammatical no-no. As a result, Clancy?s got every submariner under the Atlantic talking like a tweed-coated pipe-smoking grad student ? everyone of them looking for a ?datum? that will pinpoint the location of a lost Russian sub.

Weekend Viewing

Posted on November 07, 2008
A must-see: South Park's take on the presidential election. Full episode here. And here is a story on how they produced the episode--and how they would have dealt with a McCain victory. In its own inimitable way (and around a lot of profanity and scatological humor), it captures the excess on all sides...

Judicial Process Course Materials

Posted on November 07, 2008
Despite my best intentions, I?m about to break the promise I made in my last post (and what better way to celebrate an election than by breaking a pre-election promise?). I thought about whether I could do another Malcolm Gladwell post, based on his latest piece, but haven?t quite been able to find an angle on that that I like...

If it's Thursday, I Must Be in Room 4513 -- Or Was it 4315?

Posted on November 06, 2008
So I gather it's hiring conference time again. Of course, I wish the best of luck to everyone. Herewith, some unsolicited advice.* 1) Sometimes -- less often than used to be the case, I think -- you will find that particular interviewers, or even whole factions of the interviewing committee, have some ideological commitment or hobby-horse that you cross at your own peril...

Barack Obama and John Kerry

Posted on November 06, 2008
So I'm staying at the Marriott in D.C. (like a lot of Prawfsblawg readers and writers), looking forward to interviewing some great candidates. Anyway, we get the USA Today, and there's a fascinating county-by-county map relating to the 2008 presidential election in today's paper...

Prop 8 Retroactivity

Posted on November 06, 2008
I have to confess that the seeming passage of Prop 8 dampered the election for me. I'm very happy about Obama's victory but it really is counterbalanced by a fair bit of depression about the fate of Prop 8. California at its worst, alas. I also think there is very little chance that any of the litigation to undo Prop 8 will succeed; indeed, it looks foolish to try to go back to the courts on this one (unless some showing of voter fraud or undercounting can be made, neither of which seems on the table)...

A Simple Cost-Benefit Analysis for Elena Kagan

Posted on November 06, 2008
Why would Elena Kagan give up the deanship of Harvard Law School, for which she has been widely celebrated, for the cloistered life of the Supreme Court? Um, let's see. Perhaps the ad wizards at American Express MasterCard (thanks for the correction, Mike!) can help us out here: Hiring every law professor in the country: Sweet...

We Rise.

Posted on November 06, 2008
I'm just now emerging from the crush of edits I've had to do this past fortnight, and I plan to enjoy a brief reprieve this weekend communing around Connecticut campfires with the wonderful alumni of the Dorot Fellowship. Before I go, however, I wanted to share this video of Maya Angelou, talking with Harry Smith about the meaning of Obama's election...

Patenting DNA

Posted on November 05, 2008
After a brief diversion to rant about analyze the Bilski decision, I return now to the last post of my Everything is Patentable series. I end this series of posts with one of the thorniest patentable subject matter questions ? products of nature, including DNA...

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