Legal Commentary

The Times on Rent Control

Posted on May 28, 2008
The New York Times had an article yesterday on apparent efforts by Tishman Speyer Properties to investigate and challenge the status of the residents of its massive Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Villages complexes, some 110 buildings housing 20,000 people in Manhattan...

Magnum Opus

Posted on May 27, 2008
Kent Greenawalt, my teacher and mentor, has just published the second and final volume of his magisterial study, Religion and the Constitution. Volume One focused on Free Exercise issues; Volume Two focuses on Establishment Clause issues. It is a characteristically Greenawaltian work: careful, nuanced, rich, attentive to particulars, and generous in spirit...

Watch What We Do, Not What We Say

Posted on May 27, 2008
In case you missed it, last week the Ninth Circuit reversed a trial court's dismissal of a constitutional challenge to the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy. The decision, in a case involving an Air Force major's suspension from duty because of her sexual relationship with another woman, is a fascinating read for any number of reasons, but I'll just flag a couple for now...

Two-hour v. One-hour Class Blocks

Posted on May 27, 2008
When I attended law school, all the four-hour courses were taught in two separate two-hour blocks. At UC Davis, we primarily teach four-hour courses in four one-hour classes, although we can request longer classes. Do any professors have thoughts on whether two two-hour classes are pedagogically different/better than four one-hour classes? I'd also be interested in hearing from any students out there - do you prefer multiple class hours in a row, or is better to spread it out?

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Are law schools like Hawaii?

Posted on May 27, 2008
... Or other island ecosystems where weird species thrive, isolated from predators that would otherwise exterminate them? The thought occurs to me because I have encountered repeatedly in the law reviews the statement that it is a fallacy to derive an 'ought' sentence from an 'is' sentence -- citing (who else) David Hume...

Employee Primacy at Southwest

Posted on May 27, 2008
On Saturday Joe Nocera had a nice column on the retirement of Herb Kelleher, long-time chief at Southwest Airlines. The fest came at Southwest's annual meeting, which overflowed with shareholders and employees expressing their admiration for the departing chairman...

Deed Restrictions

Posted on May 27, 2008
I was in Houston earlier this weekend and through the steamy air (and between BBQ and Bluebell), I saw some signs that made my tired legal eyes pop. Some Houston neighborhoods have signs with the name of the neighborhood in the median of the major thoroughfares when one enters the neighborhood...

An Open Letter to ExpressO: Improving Law Review Submissions through Authors' Electronic Commitment to Accept the First Offer

Posted on May 26, 2008
Paul Caron collected some recent blog posts, including mine, discussing law review submission reform. His Cincinnati colleague Lin Bai offered an interesting solution to the circus of mass submission and expedites: As compromise between the circus and the single-submission system common in other disciplines, authors can submit to as many journals as they like, but should be expected to accept the first offer...

Why We Fight

Posted on May 26, 2008
As today's Memorial Day, I thought it would be the right time to honor someone who gave her life for democracy almost 60 years ago. Milada Horakova was a Czech freedom fighter, democratic MP and campaigner for women's rights, who battled against both the Nazis and the Communists...

Weekend Trivia Challenge ? The Biggest Law School

Posted on May 26, 2008
Which law school has the largest total enrollment of J.D. students, including both part-time and full-time?

An Academic Manifesto From A "Courageous" Scholar

Posted on May 26, 2008
In response to my self-congratulatory post below, Brian Leiter adds a very thoughtful comment extending our ongoing discussion on the blog about civility, the search for truth, and so on. It's worth reading. Since my reply on the comments was running long, and since it's a nice opportunity to talk more broadly about the role and duty of academics, let me put up my reply as a post...

Is Obama Good for the Jews?

Posted on May 24, 2008
As Official Guest Jew (and understudy for the PrawfsBlawg Hofjude), let me take Dan's bait and opine on whether Obama is good for the Jews. Comments will be closed for this post for obvious reasons. The split American Floridian Jews on Obama reflects a larger generational divide among American Jews over where Israel falls within their political thought...

Obama, the Jews of Florida, and this Jew in Florida

Posted on May 23, 2008
Apropos the increased chatter that Hillary may serve as BHO's veep and my friend Jodi Kantor's piece in today's Times on Obama's quest to calm the rattled nerves of Florida's Jewish Democratic population, I thought I'd register the following conundrum of ambivalence, which I wonder if others share, regardless of their demographic...

If You Say So....

Posted on May 23, 2008
I won't weigh in on the continuing debate in the comments to another post here on whether it is possible to be blunt and unyielding in defense of what one considers the truth, or at least sound argument, and against falsity and unsound argument, without being uncivil, and on where the line between civil and uncivil discourse lies in academic debate...

Electioneering in the Wild West

Posted on May 23, 2008
So Tuesday was an exciting day for Oregon?the MSM actually focused their flickering and fickle attentions on our Democratic primary. Obama?s win was a surprise to no one?but here are some more subtle points that were lost in the general coverage: It?s pronounced Or-i-GUN, not Or-e-gone...

Professor Johnson Responds to the Flames

Posted on May 23, 2008
I write this post for two reasons. First, I derive enormous satisfaction from referring to myself in the third-person as ?Professor.? But second, and more importantly, my guest stint here on PrawfsBlawg has garnered me an intense amount of flaming from the PrawfsBlawg readership...

"People of color" as pernicious phrase

Posted on May 23, 2008
At the risk of being gratuitously provocative, it occurs to me that the phrase "people of color" might be pernicious and misleading. Given that the suggestion will probably inspire ire among some readers, I make it tentatively. (Contrary to some academics, I regard pugilistic exchange at workshops and on blogs not as a sign of intellectual toughness but only as a symptom of over-compensating machismo...

"Extremist" as weasel word

Posted on May 23, 2008
I'd like to invite you all to join my so-far unsuccessful campaign against the use of the term "extremist," when used as a term of opprobrium. The term, so used, is the epitome of a "weasel word" -- a word that allows its users to conceal their need to define their moral terms and thereby (like the lithe little predator that gives its name to the phrase) slip past their opponents' defenses...

Levitin's Law of USB Flash Drives

Posted on May 22, 2008
I?d like to propose a variation on Murphy?s Law for USB flash drives: a flash drive will always be inserted into a USB port upside down on the first attempt. I follow scientific naming conventions for any new species I discover to a punctillio of an honor the most sensitive...

Tolerating Intolerance at Civic Events

Posted on May 22, 2008
Brian Leiter has recently become quite over-wrought over my skepticism concerning protests against Washington University?s decision awarding an honorary degree to Phyllis Schlafly. The issue seems not to require quite the indignant tirade to which he treats us ? but I confess to being easy-going to a fault about politics...

What was Dale DuTremble thinking?

Posted on May 22, 2008
I recently received a copy of a letter from a prosecutor -- Dale L. DuTremble, the City Prosecutor for North Charleston, South Carolina -- addressed to the victim of an alleged crime. The allegations involved an assault, and DuTremble sent the letter to both of the women involved, explaining why he would not prosecute the case...

Bloggers' Happy Hour at LSA, Montreal

Posted on May 22, 2008
Once again, Prawfs & Concurring Opinions bloggers are joining forces for the good cause of conference bar drinks. The venue is the Hilton's indoor bar (I believe it is Le Belvédère) Friday at 9:30. Feel free to announce this on other blogs and please make sure to introduce yourselves, I am terrible with names and faces in large conferences...

OK, OK -- More on Schlafly

Posted on May 22, 2008
The posts below by Howard and Rick both add interesting observations to the discussion about l'affaire Schlafly. Let me add a couple of observations of my own. 1) Rick hastens to assume that the objection to Schlafly is based on the view that her opinions are beyond the pale...

The paradox of academic intolerance?

Posted on May 22, 2008
Brian Leiter's anger at Phyllis Schlafly's getting an honorary degree from Washington University, her alma mater, perplexes me. At first glance, I am inclined to believe that Leiter's position is a product of academic intolerance for viewpoints not prevalent in the academy but widespread in the population at large...

If not Schlafly, then who?

Posted on May 22, 2008
Washington University in St. Louis awarded an honorary degree to Phyllis Schlafly last week, a choice that sparked outrage among faculty and alumni and calls for the university to rescind the invitation, which it declined to do. Brian Leiter covered the controversy in detail...

Classroom Laptop Use and Final Exams

Posted on May 21, 2008
I've long been convinced that my students would do better in law school if they left their laptops at home and came to class with a pencil and notebook. I took notes the old-fashioned way in law school and have no regrets about the results. But when it came time for final exams, I dragged out the laptop...

Jeff Toobin and "Extremism"

Posted on May 21, 2008
According to Jeffrey Toobin, in this much-remarked (though, in my view, underwhelming) New Yorker essay, Sen. McCain's May 6 speech on judges and the judiciary, and the facts that he "has long touted his opposition to Roe" and "has voted for every one of Bush?s judicial appointments", show that he is "getting his advice on the Court from the most extreme elements of the conservative movement...

Same sex marriage and the "parade of tolerables"...

Posted on May 21, 2008
Rick's correct to note the general point on slippery slopes below, but I think his application of the point doesn't translate. Let me offer a couple quibbles re: the fine-grained legal theory. To get us to reach a conceptual ledge, Rick writes: Public nudity is, well, publicly visible; bestiality does not foster emotionally important human sociability; polygamy thrives on subordination of women; and so forth...

The slippery slope to endless "slippery slope" rhetoric

Posted on May 21, 2008
The California Supreme Court's recent decision on gay marriage has predictably revived that old perennial favorite of arguments against substantive due process arguments for sexual privacy -- the "slippery slope." You know the drill: If courts strike down x law regulating sexual conduct, then it will be logically impossible to avoid striking down y, z, a, b, and c laws...

More on the Free Speech Protection Act

Posted on May 21, 2008
Yesterday, I wrote about the personal-jurisdiction issues with the Free Speech Protection Act of 2008, proposed federal legislation that would create a cause of action to stop U.S. enforcement of a foreign defamation judgment where the speech at issue would be protected from liability by the First Amendment...

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