Academic

Delgado on Selective Prosecution

By Lawrence Solum

Richard Delgado (University of Pittsburgh - School of Law) has posted Of Cops and Bumper Stickers: Notes Toward a Theory of Selective Prosecution (Syracuse Law Review, Vol. 57, p. 175, 2007) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

The author, Professor Richard Delgado, takes as his point of departure a remark by the chair of the University of Colorado committee that voted academic sanctions against Ward Churchill. This essay explores the role of retaliatory motives in academic misconduct cases. In Churchill's case, Colorado authorities delved deeply and painstakingly into Churchill's publications only when it appeared that the state could not fire him from his tenured position for his inflammatory remarks on the victims of the 9/11 tragedy. What bearing should the investigation's relation to the hue and cry that led to it have on its own legitimacy?

Professor Delgado examines various possible frameworks for analyzing cases like these and argues that the committee chair's way of seeing the matter was the incorrect framework.

Full post as published by Legal Theory Blog on July 09, 2008 (boomark / email).