Academic

Judith Krug, Founder of Banned Books Week Passes

Posted on April 17, 2009
The Chicago Tribune reports the passing of Judith Krug this past weekend in Evaston, Illinois. Krug is probably best remembered as the founder of Banned Books Week, the American Library Association's annual event that began in 1982 as a call...

Four Angry (Old) Men--from Texas

Posted on April 17, 2009
Worth every twangy second of the 2:56.

CIA Torture Memos In Downloadable PDF

Posted on April 17, 2009
Yesterday, the Obama Administration made available remarkable historical and political material regarding the conduct of the CIA in the aftermath of 9/11. These memoranda - signed by Judge Jay Bybee as well as Steven Bradbury - document waterboarding, dietary manipulation,...

Sweet Addie? Law School Law Revue Videos

Posted on April 17, 2009
Over at Above the Law, you can find Lat and Mystal's picks for the top Law Revue (not Law Review) videos of the year. My own favorite is Hot Bodies of Law from U Va. A few days ago, the...

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Facebook Nude Photo Extortion: Name That Sentence

Posted on April 17, 2009
Here are the facts of the case, according to the Birmingham News. Read them, name what you consider an appropriate sentence, then see the actual sentence after the jump. Court records show Vance gained control of his victims' Yahoo, Hotmail,...

William and Mary's Slavery Education Project

Posted on April 17, 2009
The Board of Visitors at William and Mary have just approved an eight-year education project regarding William and Mary's history with slavery. The "Lemon Project," named for a slave owned by the College in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, will...

Is the Rule of Law Nothing?

Posted on April 17, 2009
For transparency and democracy, yesterday's release of four additional Justice Department memos is a good thing. For the rule of law, they are a continuing reminder of the dangers of reading the law out of the body of applicable law....

Lawyer Survives Plane Crash Into Hudson River ...

Posted on April 17, 2009
... but not the economic downturn and its effect at Skadden Arps. Story here.

Rasband New Dean At BYU

Posted on April 17, 2009
James Rasband (pictured) is the new dean at the J. Reuben Clark Law School. BYU's press release is here. Rasband clerked for Judge Clifford Wallace (9th Circuit) and worked for Perkins Coie for a few years. He has been at...

Obama's Circuit Court Nominees

Posted on April 17, 2009
In March, President Obama nominated David Hamilton, a federal district judge from the Southern District of Indiana, to a seat on the Seventh Circuit. (White House press release here.) Earlier this month, President Obama nominated Gerard Lynch, a federal district...

Rutgers Newark Law Names John Farmer New Dean

Posted on April 17, 2009
Rutgers-Newark decided to go outside the academy to find a replacement for outgoing law dean Stuart Deutsch. John Farmer, a founding partner of the law firm Arseneault, Whipple, Farmer, Fassett and Azzarello in Chatham, New Jersey, will take over from...

Harvard Law Prof Featured In Newsweek Magazine

Posted on April 16, 2009
Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren (pictured), no stranger to those of us who have been anointed to teach commercial law, is featured in the current issue of Newsweek (April 20). Most of the article addresses her work as the chairperson...

Does Adam Liptak Have Any Sense of Humor?

Posted on April 16, 2009
Adam Liptak, who has replaced Linda Greenhouse at the New York Times, reported on Justice Thomas's recent talk to high school students in Washington D.C. The following excerpt from Liptak's article suggests he can't tell when the Justice is trying...

WatchOut! An iPhone Sex Offender Tracking Application?

Posted on April 16, 2009
Thanks to Doug Berman for surfacing this new product, WatchOut!, an iPhone app which allows phone owners to search for sex offenders wherever they are. The product press release is here. From the press release: The WatchOut! application features an...

Dramatic Shift In Racial Makeup Of Incarcerated Drug Offenders

Posted on April 15, 2009
From the Washington Post today: The D.C.-based Sentencing Project reported that the number of black inmates in state prisons for drug offenses had fallen from 145,000 in 1999 to 113,500 in 2005, a 22 percent decline. In that period, the...

The Deceptive Nature of College Waitlists

Posted on April 15, 2009
I was surprised to learn that, last year, Yale College placed 1052 people on its waitlist. 60 received offers of admission. MIT placed 700 students on the queue and accepted 35 of them. Cornell put 3,432 kids on the waitlist...

On Being a Junior Prof and Presenting at Your Home Institution

Posted on April 15, 2009
Posted by D. Daniel Sokol Today I presented a work in progress at a faculty workshop here at UF. This was a wonderful experience because the paper was in an early enough form (full draft but still at a point...

New York Thinking About Legalizing Same-Sex Marriage

Posted on April 15, 2009
Today's New York Times notes that Governor Paterson is planning to submit a bill legalizing same-sex marriage: Gov. David A. Paterson plans to introduce legislation on Thursday to make marriage between same-sex couples legal in New York, advancing his push...

Heirs of Founders on College Boards

Posted on April 15, 2009
Eugene Volokh notes that it is odd that New York's Education law stipulates that a lineal descendant of Ezra Cornell shall be a trustee. Cornell is not alone. California Education Code section 92204 stipulates that an "heir or representative" of...

Heckler's Veto in Action

Posted on April 15, 2009
The ugliness of the heckler's veto may be seen in this video from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Eugene Volokh has more.

Imagining Cyber Civil Rights

Posted on April 15, 2009
Danielle Citron's paper, Cyber Civil Rights, argued that one way to address anonymous online attackes - of the Auto Admit variety - is to conceptualize them as civil rights violations. There's some controversial stuff in the piece and Co-op is...

Obama Nominates Another Prof

Posted on April 15, 2009
Who said that President Obama has a fixation on law professors only at Harvard and Yale? Last Friday, President Obama nominated Larry Echohawk (pictured) to be Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs (Department of the Interior). Echohawk is a member of...

AAUP Reports On Economics Of Academia, Faculty Salaries

Posted on April 14, 2009
The AAUP's new report, On the Brink: The Annual Report of the Economic Status of the Profession 2008-09 is here. The news isn't particularly good. You may have heard...endowments are crashing. Paul Caron has extracted faculty salary information for top...

Perry Mason Arrested For Unauthorized Practice Of Law

Posted on April 14, 2009
A 43 year old man was, going by the name Perry Mason, was arrested in Houston today. He apparently was practicing law without a license and collecting fees for it. It's not clear whether he genuinely shared a monniker with...

SEC Discovers Ponzi Scheme. What Was First Clue?

Posted on April 14, 2009
Yesterday the SEC filed securities fraud charges against a firm for operating a $23 million investment scheme. The SEC?s complaint alleges that the firm ?purported to use investor funds to invest in risk-free, high-yield investment programs in real estate, commodities,...

Amazon Book Suppression. Censorship? No. Scary? Absolutely.

Posted on April 13, 2009
As Slate and the LA Times Jacket Copy blog both report, Amazon has pulled a tricky little maneuver to reduce the profile of a number of its...adult?...gay?...controversial?...titles. Amazon continues to sell all manner of books, but certain titles are no...

Increasing Scrutiny Of Public University Payrolls

Posted on April 13, 2009
The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports about growing public criticism of salaries at The Ohio State University, and other state schools. The first, and most obvious, target of these attacks is Gordon Gee - president of Ohio State. Gee earns north...

Where in the world is ...?

Posted on April 13, 2009
Did anyone notice Google's new feature - Google Latitude? Google describes the service as follows: ===================== With Google Latitude, you can: See where your friends are and what they are up to Quickly contact them with SMS, IM, or a...

Bobby Jones And The Masters

Posted on April 13, 2009
Many readers may have watched television coverage of the Masters golf tournament over the weekend. Some readers may know that golf legend Bobby Jones founded / created the Augusta National Golf Club and the Masters tournament. But did you know...

Clarence Thomas And the Bill Of Obligations

Posted on April 13, 2009
On a day dedicated to the Bill of Rights, Justice Clarence Thomas announced that he is kind of fed up with all this right talk. From the NY Times: "Today there is much focus on our rights,? Justice Thomas said....

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