Academic

Part Time Work in the Legal Academy

Posted on April 29, 2008
Over at Crooked Timber, they're talking about academics who choose (often for family reasons) to work part time. Lots of reasons why one might want that. A lot has to do with having more time to spend with families. Sometimes,...

Can Psychological Injuries Ever Justify Execution?

Posted on April 28, 2008
During the recent Supreme Court argument in Louisiana v. Kennedy (the case considering the constitutionality of capital punishment for child rapists), counsel for the state detailed the serious injuries suffered by the 8 year old rape victim - including some...

More Thoughts on Crawford

Posted on April 28, 2008
Critics of the Court's opinion in Crawford are likely to assert that the Court turned a blind eye to the actual purposes of the voter ID law, which they claim is to deter people who lack photo ID from voting....

Thoughts on Crawford: Voter ID

Posted on April 28, 2008
In Crawford v. Marion County Election Board the Supreme Court has upheld Indiana's voter ID law, in a splintered set of opinions with no majority opinion. I have only scanned the opinions but it appears that the Stevens opinion (joined...

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SCT Upholds Indiana Voter ID Law

Posted on April 28, 2008
In a 6-3 decision released this morning the Supreme Court upheld an Indiana law that requires voters to produce a photo id in order to cast a ballot. Its not an easy decision to digest. Justice Stevens authored the lead...

The Morality of Doing Research Using Proslavery Treatises

Posted on April 28, 2008
This is a problem you don't face everyday. I'm in the midst of a short paper on the University of Mississippi's trial of its Chancellor (incidentally F.A.P. Barnard, the namesake of Columbia University's Barnard College) for taking testimony of a...

The 2008 Law Faculty Lateral Moves List

Posted on April 27, 2008
Updated as of April 27 and moved to the top. Other related posts include current dean searches and 2008-09 visitors. A slightly outdated list of laterals, by school of departure, is here. I'ved noted the newest changes in red. If...

Betting Markets Tilt Toward Hillary. Compared To Gore, That Is.

Posted on April 27, 2008
Over at Intrade, it appears that bettors - or shall we say, investors - think that Obama is about five times more likely than Hillary to get the nomination - at roughly 1:4 odds. Hillary is operating at something barely...

Are Law Professors Giving Senator Obama a Bad Name?

Posted on April 27, 2008
This morning I've been listening to Fox's interview with Senator Obama. Dig this from Chris Wallace (transcript here): WALLACE: But some observers, and some liberal observers say is that part of your problem is you come off as a former...

Genetic Surveillance: Crime Scene DNA Used To Hunt Down Offenders' Relatives

Posted on April 26, 2008
The LA Times reports today a story that reflects more of this "policing über alles" mentality I discussed in my last post. It seems that previously liberal California Attorney General Jerry Brown now plans to sample DNA at crime scenes...

Canada Supreme Court Nixes Suspicionless Dog Sniffs

Posted on April 26, 2008
The United States Supreme Court is moving toward allowing more and more suspicionless searching under the Fourth Amendment. In Illinois v. Caballos, for example, the Court held that an officer may conduct a dog sniff of the outside of a...

Early Intervierw Week, The Parody

Posted on April 26, 2008
"Chevron deference really does it for me", or so says Ms. Emily Bushnell, an NYU Law Student in a highly entertaining Law Revue spoof. We watch snippets of her interviewing at one after another after another faceless firm, trying hard...

Doug Glanville on Rookies and Veterans

Posted on April 25, 2008
Mr. Glanville--formerly of my beloved Phillies--writes in toady's New York Times: You enter the big leagues (usually) as a young, vibrant, wide-eyed rookie, inspired and inspiring and still able to talk about your career with the excitement of a 5-year-old...

Easterbrook Discovers Effective Lie Detector Test

Posted on April 25, 2008
A major scientific finding has just surfaced in the Seventh Circuit. In a new immigration opinion involving an asylum seeker, Judge Frank Easterbrook took a bold step into the land of pop psychology and endorsed a particular methodology of lie...

Colleges and Slavery Investigations

Posted on April 25, 2008
One year ago the University of Virginia's board of visitors apologized for that university's connections to slavery. And in the past year, self-investigations at the University of Maryland and William and Mary have begun. After Brown University's Slavery and Justice...

A Phallacious Crime in Congo

Posted on April 25, 2008
From Reuters: Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men's penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft. Reports of so-called penis snatching are...

Gore For President. And No, I Am Not Joking.

Posted on April 24, 2008
Weeks ago I argued that Gore was more likely than Hillary to score the Democratic nomination. I continue to believe this is true - and that every time Hillary lands a punch, as she did to a non-negligible degree in...

Workplace Prof Blog Books Millionth

Posted on April 24, 2008
Congratulations to Paul Secunda, Rick Bales and Jeff Hirsch as Workplace Prof Blog hits the notable Site Meter achievement of one million page views. In its three-plus years of existence, these folks have labored to produce a prodigious amount of...

Dartmouth Governance: No Democracy, Please

Posted on April 24, 2008
Todd Zywicki, over at the Volokh Conspiracy has a post concerning the Dartmouth governing board's attempt to dilute severely the voice of democratically elected alumni trustees. Another take on this issue can be found here. The entire issue raises the...

Start-Up Possibilities

Posted on April 24, 2008
Inside Higher Ed reports this morning that NY lawmakers have set aside funds to develop as many as three new law school in the state, one at a private institution and two as part of the SUNY system. That would...

Christian License Plate Considered in Florida

Posted on April 24, 2008
Florida's legislature is considering offering a Christian license plate as an option to owners of Florida-registered vehicles. Here is another link to an article discussing the plate, depicted in this post. It does not appear that Florida is preparing to...

Lemons Into Lemonade: Anti-Gay T-Shirt Spurs Great Free Speech Opinion

Posted on April 24, 2008
Kudos to Judge Ilana Rovner on the Seventh Circuit for her concurring opinion in Nuxoll v. Indian Prairie School District. A student in a suburban Chicago high school wanted to wear a "Be Happy, Not Gay" t-shirt on a Day...

Ice Cream Cakes Equal Love

Posted on April 23, 2008
No, this isn't a law post or one about ice cream cakes, per se. Rather, it's about a beautiful Wednesday night and my own love for found objects - or in this case, found language. One of the great virtues...

Exams

Posted on April 23, 2008
Alas, it's that time of the year where many of us are either writing or grading exams. Here at Willamette our semester ends mid-April, so I am hard at work grading my way through a stack of crim pro exams....

Don't Flush, Get Arrested

Posted on April 22, 2008
Did you know that it is illegal to sell beer in Nebraska unless there is a simultaneous pot of boiling soup on the stove? Or that butter substitutes are not allowed in state prisons in Wisconsin? (Hm on that one.)...

Is An Online JSD Next? Serious Law Bibliographies For People With Time

Posted on April 22, 2008
Patrick O'Donnell, over at Ratio Juris, is putting up some substantial bibliographies in a variety of areas of law. I can't speak for their comprehensiveness - and indeed, he is taking on so much real estate that they necessarily reflect...

Saving the Constitution from Lawyers: Part III

Posted on April 22, 2008
For nearly thirty years as a political scientist, I have focused my research and writings on two main subjects: the American presidency, and gun control. In both areas, I discovered full-blown constitutional theories that were starkly at odds with prevailing...

Art, Abuse, and Free Speech

Posted on April 21, 2008
Last week I posted an item concerning Aliza Shvarts, the Yale senior whose art project was said to consist of repeated self-inseminations and induced abortions (the art element appeared to consist of a video record of the miscarriages, together with....

Law School Visitors: The 2008-09 List

Posted on April 21, 2008
I'm pleased to announce the first iteration of this year's law school visiting professor list. This does not include visiting assistant professors who have yet to take their first full-time tenure track position. The entire list appears after the jump...

Making A Party Out Of Hazardous Waste Disposal

Posted on April 20, 2008
Most of us realize that we are sitting on a pile of hazardous waste - from household chemicals to old computers, CRT's, and other items that look awfully tame when they're sitting on the shelf at Best Buy or Circuit...

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