That lawprof chatfest promoting the idea of wider rights to sue over online speech has provoked a bit of a furor; see addenda to our earlier post as well as continuing coverage at Scott Greenfield’s site. Good! Better to have a controversy now than wait until after some academic consensus has already hardened around a MacKinnonite “of course we need to let people sue more widely over speech, or else women’s voices will be silenced” position. Update March 2010: David Kopel covers at Volokh.
The episode has also helped spin off a second, tangential controversy taking the form of a new round in the ongoing dispute between some “practical” law bloggers and their counterparts in legal academia, on which see Greenfield and Marc John Randazza.
2 Comments
Slight correction: My post on the worthlessness of legal education wasn’t really a spinoff. In fact, it isn’t even related to the silliness at Concurring Ops. And, don’t forget that I’m in “legal academia” too. I’m casting stones from within the walls, not from the outside.
That said, I’m delighted with your summary of the seemingly orthodox line that the academics have taken — “MacKinnonite “of course we need to let people sue more widely over speech, or else women’s voices will be silenced”. Poo!
I feel like you are stalking me! 🙂
Nah, its just gmta. Anyway, my point over there was that they have tried this in Canaduh, and Mark Steyn can tell you how well that is working out.
Its amazing how the left thinks these days. on one hand its: “gay marriage is in the constitution.” on the other hand, freedom of press, which you know, is in the constitution, is treated like the proverbial redheaded stepchild. Which is exactly the danger posed by activism.