Lively discussion of the policy aspects by commenters at Volokh (Nov. 11).

• Time for another aspirin: Harvard Law’s Charles Ogletree, key backer of lawsuits for slave reparations, mentioned as possible Attorney General [CBS News, BostonChannel WCVB, Newsweek; earlier speculation about post as civil rights chief]
• Calif. law requires supervisors to attend sexual harassment prevention training, a/k/a sensitivity training, but UC Irvine biologist Alexander McPherson says he’ll face suspension rather than submit [AP/FoxNews.com, On the Record (UCI), Morrissey, Inside Higher Ed, OC Register; ScienceBlogs' Thus Spake Zuska flays him]
• Fan “not entitled to a permanent injunction requiring American Idol singer Clay Aiken to endorse her unauthorized biography” [Feral Child]
• Local authority in U.K. orders employees not to use Latin phrases such as bona fide, e.g., ad lib, et cetera, i.e., inter alia, per se, quid pro quo, vice versa “and even via” [via -- uh-oh -- Zincavage and Feral Child]
• Participants in 10th annual Boulder, Colo. Naked Pumpkin Run may have to register as sex offenders [Daily Camera, Obscure Store]
• Joins drunk in car as his passenger, then after crash collects $5 million from restaurant where he drank [AP/WBZ Boston, 99 Restaurant chain]
• Election may be over, but candidates’ defamation lawsuits against each other over linger on [Above the Law, NLJ]
• School nutrition regs endanger bake sales, but they’ll let you have “Healthy Hallowe’en Vegetable Platter” instead [NY Times]

Well, that didn’t take long. Coyote spots language on the Obama transition site that seems to make explicit what was left studiously vague during the campaign:

Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by developing a plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year.

Update 12:15 a.m. Saturday: After my post was linked by Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit (thanks!) and began drawing thousands of visitors, the Obama website administrators at change.gov silently replaced the “require” language with something new and different:

Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by setting a goal that all middle school and high school students do 50 hours of community service a year and by developing a plan so that all college students who conduct 100 hours of community service receive a universal and fully refundable tax credit ensuring that the first $4,000 of their college education is completely free.

Robert Bidinotto noted the switch and Mike LaSalle saved the original page as a PDF for those who didn’t see it the first time. Glenn Reynolds did a second post taking note of the substitution and quoting the witty comment of reader Nancy Anne Potts: “Looks like the change.gov site is true to its title - it changes!” More: Acre of Independence. Update Monday: transition yanks entire “Agenda” from web, this section and others.

“The Juneau-Douglas (Alaska) School District and former student Joseph Frederick have reached a settlement in the ‘Bong Hits 4 Jesus’ case …. The school district will pay Frederick $45,000, [and] it is ‘required to hire a neutral constitutional law expert to chair a forum on student speech’ at its high school at a cost of up to $5,000.” (DRJ @ Patterico, Nov. 6; earlier).

P.S. And, yes, to clarify in response to commenter Melvin, the student lost his high-profile case last year before the U.S. Supreme Court. Imagine what the school would have had to pay if he’d won.

The innovation might itself prove to be quite an effective weapon for use in tormenting hapless victims (Feral Child, Oct. 14; Ki Mae Heussner, “Calling Out Bullies Incognito: New Site Lets Students Report Bullying, Harassment Anonymously”, ABC News, Oct. 16; more on snitchlines here, here, and here).

• Watch where you click: “Kentucky (secretly) commandeers world’s most popular gambling sites” [The Register/OUT-LAW]
• Erin Brockovich enlists as pitchwoman for NYC tort firm Weitz & Luxenberg [PoL roundup]
• U.K.: “Millionaire Claims Ghosts Caused Him to Flee His Mortgage, I Mean Mansion” [Lowering the Bar]
• Prosecution of Lori Drew (MySpace imposture followed by victim’s suicide) a “case study in overcriminalization” [Andrew Grossman, Heritage; earlier; some other resources on overcriminalization here, here, and here]
• Exonerated Marine plans to sue Rep. John Murtha for defamation [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]
• Snooping on jurors’ online profiles? “Everything is fair game” since “this is war”, says one jury consultant [L.A. Times; earlier]
• Allentown, Pa. attorney John Karoly, known for police-brutality suits, indicted on charges of forging will to obtain large chunk of his brother’s estate; “Charged with the same offenses are J.P. Karoly, 28, who is John Karoly’s son, and John J. Shane, 72, who has served as an expert medical witness in some of John Karoly’s cases.” [Express-Times, AP, Legal Intelligencer]
• School safety: “What do the teachers think they might do with the Hula-Hoop, choke on it?” [Betsy Hart, Chicago Sun-Times/Common Good]

• Jones Day catching more flak over heavy-handed trademark lawsuit against BlockShopper real estate news service [Levy/CL&P, Ambrogi/Legal Blog Watch, earlier; more, EFF, Plain Dealer]
• California state bar ethics complaint against serial ADA lawyer Thomas Frankovich, mostly over Jarek Molski cases [ABA Journal]
• When suing your community college professor, it’s not a good idea to include death threats [KSAT, Strange in San Antonio]
• Australia: school bans cartwheels, handstands on playground [Oz-ABC via Common Good]
• Myron Levin, whose L.A. Times journalism was known to induce hair-pulling at this site, turns up among plaintiffs in Joe Cotchett lawsuit seeking to eject Chicago meanie Sam Zell from paper’s ownership; and did you know co-plaintiff Henry Weinstein’s a founding faculty member of Chemerinsky’s new ideologically charged UC Irvine law school? [Editor & Publisher Fitz and Jen, Portfolio, PaidContent.org via Class Action Blawg; Forbes]
• Well-known Manhattan criminal defense lawyer arrested on charges of trying to “eliminate” and “neutralize” witnesses against drug dealer client [NYLJ, Greenfield]
• More coverage of Pearson pants appeal [Legal Times "BLT"]
• Swiping Nicole Black’s content and running it without credit on a splog is an ill-advised way to boost NYC services of attorney Michael Rehm [Sui Generis, Greenfield, viaTweet @nikiblack]
• Update on Barnstable harbor dredging blogger defamation suit [Cape Cod Today, earlier]
• “Ten things your lawyer won’t tell you” [five years ago on Overlawyered]

“A federal judge ruled [last month] that a Wichita Catholic school policy requiring students to speak only English didn’t break any civil rights laws.” U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten still felt free to give St. Anne Catholic School a tongue-lashing over the alleged divisiveness of its policy, though he found it did not rise to the level of creating a “hostile educational environment”, which would apparently have triggered liability even in a private religious school setting. (Ron Sylvester, “School prevails in English-only lawsuit”, Wichita Eagle, Aug. 16, GoogleCached).

• Saying fashion model broke his very fancy umbrella, N.Y. restaurant owner Nello Balan sues her for $1 million, but instead gets fined $500 for wasting court’s time [AP/FoxNews.com, NY Times]
• Spokesman for Chesapeake, Va. schools says its OK for high school marching band to perform at Disney World, so long as they don’t ride any rides [Virginian-Pilot]
• More on Chicago parking tickets: revenue-hungry Mayor Daley rebuffed in plan to boot cars after only two tickets [Sun-Times, Tribune]
• Too old, in their 50s, to be raising kids? [Houston Chronicle via ABA Journal].
• Britain’s stringent libel laws and welcome mat for “libel tourism” draw criticism from the U.N. (of all places) [Guardian]
• Beaumont, Tex.: “Parents sue other driver, bar for daughter’s DUI death” [SE Texas Record, more, more]
• “Three pony rule”: $600,000 a year is needlessly high for child support, even if mom has costly tastes [N.J.L.J., Unfiltered Minds]
• Advocacy groups push to require health insurers and taxpayers to pay for kids’ weight-loss camps [NY Times]
• Lester Brickman: those fraud-rife mass screening operations may account for 90 percent of mass tort claims [PoL]

This is the silliest claim I’ve seen in a long while.  The shooting victim’s family filed a claim against the school their son attended because it allegedly failed to enforce the dress code.  The “feminine-dressing” boy was thusly singled out for abuse.  (“Family of shooting victim files claim against Huenume School District”, VenturaCountyStar, Aug. 14).

Update: I revised the title for accuracy.

• 47% of those polled believe traditional media should offer equal time to opposing viewpoints.  Although 57% polled say blog sites should not have to allow other viewpoints, 31% believe the government should “force” them to.  Can you believe that?  In a related story, help me in welcoming John Edwards as next week’s guest blogger.  (“47% Favor Government Mandated Political Balance on Radio, TV”, Rasmussen Reports, Aug. 14).
• Speaking of John Edwards–is he the new Bill Clinton?  Some may think he’s the right person to carry on his legacy.  (“John Edwards is the new Clinton, Spitzer, Craig”, MiamiHerald.com, Aug. 13).
• I thought the law was well-settled that you could say ignorant, mean and hurtful things (and, shame on those who do).  But, anyway the Oregon Supreme Court unanimously agreed.  (“Oregon court says racist, insulting speech is protected”, OregonLive.com, Aug. 14).
• Also from Oregon–a young man’s family filed a wrongful death lawsuit in the police shooting death of their son.  “We were forced to go ahead and file this to shed light on the events of that night” his mother said.  Shed light?  So, what’s with the $14M demand?  And, what’s this about him threatening police with a knife? (“Tigard teen’s family sues for millions in fatal police shooting”, OregonLive.com, Aug. 13 & Sep. 17 ‘06).
• Let the plaintiff’s bar go to bat for you on this one–after a Utah school learned of a bat infestation it partnered with the county health department to exterminate them.  Meanwhile, the district made intercom announcements asking students who may have had contact with bats to seek assistance, and made voluntary payments to seven students for rabies vaccinations.  A student’s mother sues despite no evidence her son contracted rabies or suffered any other injury.  (“Lehi Mom sues Alpine School District over bats”, Deseret News, Jul. 17).

University of Iowa professor Arthur H. Miller (who is not the NYU Law professor Arthur Miller) allegedly traded grades and offered to trade grades for second-base action with female students, appropriately resulting in criminal charges and being placed on leave by the university.  Paul Caron points us to this Chronicle of Higher Education blog post that says Iowa has ordered all of its professors to undergo sensitivity training to avoid sexual harassment.  Because obviously a professor who would demand students let him fondle their breasts for a grade would never have engaged in such a behavior if only he had an additional hour of sensitivity training.

What this is really about is lawsuit prevention.  Just as a doctor fearful of being sued will order an inefficient, wasteful, and possibly counterproductive medical test, an employer fearful of being sued will insist upon inefficient, wasteful, and possibly counterproductive sensitivity training.

“A state appeals court lifted the cloud it had cast on the homeschooling of 166,000 California children and ruled Friday that parents have a right to educate their children at home even if they lack a teaching credential.” (Egelko, SF Chron; Malkin; earlier). More: Raymond Tittmann, Federalist Society “Engage”.

Orange County, Calif.: “Educational Testing Service said Trabuco Hills High students were allowed to talk, use study aids and send text messages.” So it voided test results for about 400 of them, and is being duly sued by a lawyer representing some. (Seema Mehta, “Testing group reveals why it voided AP exams of about 400 students at O.C. high school”, L.A. Times, Jul. 24).

Matthew Walls, a 13-year-old in the 7th grade at Robert Smalls Middle School in Beaufort, S.C., engaged with a classmate in a rather alarming-sounding pastime, namely “the ‘Open Chest Game’ in which two people punch each other in the chest.” You wouldn’t think a kid could get hurt doing that, but Walls did: he struck his head on the way down and ended up in the hospital in critical condition, though he’s back attending school (a different one) now. Donna Walls, Matthew’s mother, has now sued the Beaufort County School District, the state of South Carolina, and three former superintendents personally, and seeks punitive damages. (Jonathan Cribbs, “Mother sues school district over child’s punching injury”, Beaufort Gazette/Island Packet, Jul. 25; more).

New York City has spent large sums installing black rubber safety mats beneath the equipment on its 1,000 playgrounds, but the mats get hot in the summer, and some kids are suffering burns which have resulted in lawsuits. It would cost $100 million to replace the mats, and it’s not clear with what, since loose pea gravel or wood shavings might harbor discarded syringes and the like. The founder of a group called NYC Park Advocates has the perfect cost-and-convenience-no-object answer: “Playgrounds should be designed with canopies.” And: “The city should be pressuring the manufacturers to come up with a solution.” Or the kids could wear shoes. (Sewell Chan, New York Times “City Room”, Jul. 21).

15-year-old honor student and SADD member Lindsey Billman snuck out of a slumber party with three of her friends and had an alcohol-fueled night with two 18-year-old boys. Around 2:45 a.m., two boys and two girls had the clever idea of stacking milk crates to reach an air-conditioning unit that allowed them to clamber onto the roof of Anna S. Kuhl Elementary School. The two couples went to separate sides of the roof. Billman and Nicholas Moscatiello then had the further clever idea of doing whatever they were doing while sitting on a skylight, which didn’t support their weight, and the 33-foot-fall onto the gymnasium floor below killed Billman.

This is, alleges an Orange County, New York, suit filed by Lindsey’s parents, the fault of the school district and the city of Port Jervis, New York. After all, the district was “irresponsible” stacking milk crates by the school. A curious choice of words: out of the number of people irresponsible here, it seems to me that the district is at most a distant eighth. (Steve Sacco, “Parents suing Port Jervis, school in girl’s fatal fall through roof”, Times Herald-Record, Jul. 26; Adam Bosch, “1 teen dead, 1 critical in fall”, Times Herald-Record, Jan. 27). The attorney is Corey Stark, a 2001 law-school graduate in New York City who has single-handedly refuted the proposition that New York state needs more law schools. (Thought experiment: if the milk crates are an attractive nuisance, why isn’t the dairy liable?)

This doesn’t pretend to be anything more than a bit of unattributed circulating email humor, but it still made me laugh:

Scenario: Jack goes quail hunting before school, pulls into school parking lot with shotgun in gun rack.
1958 – Vice Principal comes over, looks at Jack’s shotgun, goes to his car and gets his shotgun to show Jack.
2008 – School goes into lock down, FBI called, Jack hauled off to jail and never sees his truck or gun again. Counselors called in for traumatized students and teachers. …

Full thing at Never Yet Melted.