- “Law school plotted to sabotage its own students?” [Steele, Cassandra Burke Robertson, Caron on Phoenix allegations]
- Bryan Garner’s take on law reviews [Green Bag]
- Washington & Lee’s innovative practice-oriented third year has drawn much attention, but job placement results lag [Deborah Merritt via Alice Woolley]
- “Law school sues for liability insurance coverage” [VLW on Liberty U., Miller-Jenkins kidnapping case]
- The business of one high-flying law school: documents shed light on NYU [Joe Patrice, Above the Law]
- Concussions: NFL players’ union to fund $100 million Harvard project, including HLS, on football and health [Cohen, Prawfs, with further thoughts from a notorious gadfly on lobbying by lawprofs]
- John O. McGinnis and Russell Mangas, “An Undergraduate Option for Legal Education” [IRLE/SSRN]
- Toward more sensible law school rankings? ABA makes it harder to count higher expenditures themselves as a plus [Above the Law]
Archive for July, 2013
The return of Eliot Spitzer
I have a few things to say about it at Cato at Liberty (& welcome Reihan Salam, Abby Schachter, Scott Greenfield readers).
P.S. “Eliot Spitzer wants New Yorkers to give him the one thing he has never shown anyone else: forgiveness.” [John Dickerson] “Spitzer: Prostitution Should Remain Illegal, ‘Fundamentally Wrong'” [Daniel Halper, Weekly Standard]
“…in five years there’d be a shortage of sand.”
In Argentina, famed for agricultural bounty, government folly leads to shortages of wheat [Bloomberg; original Milton Friedman quote]
Redefining obesity as a disease
Aside from the important employment law implications linked last week in this space, the American Medical Association’s decision to reclassify obesity as a disease has implications for Medicaid and private reimbursement of therapy (“now coverage policy must catch up to that consensus,” exulted an officer of the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery) and more pervasively for nanny-state initiatives: “Already, Harold Goldstein, executive director of the California Center for Public Health Advocacy, has cited the AMA declaration to boost his group’s efforts to ban junk food and tax soft drinks.” [Mike Tanner] (& welcome Joe Palazzolo, WSJ Law Blog readers)
July 8 roundup
- Judge Ruehlman orders seizure of Ohio town’s traffic cameras [Cincinnati.com, earlier]
- On Citizens United, liberal foundations should preach what they practice [Washington Examiner editorial linking my new Capital Research piece]
- “Texas teen makes violent joke during video game, is jailed for months” [Robby Soave, Daily Caller]
- Fulton County judge gets award from Georgia bar as questions linger about custody ruling [WGCL]
- Patton Boggs has reason to regret involvement in Chevron-Ecuador legal slugfest [WaPo]
- WSJ: “Risk-Averse Culture Infects U.S. Workers, Entrepreneurs” Now why might that be? [Prof. Bainbridge]
- Much more coverage for Mimolette cheese story [Washington Post front-pager quotes my groaner pun; Simon Lester, Cato, on the trade-law aspects]
“I’m a [Muskogee Creek] Native American woman…”
“… and I oppose the Indian Child Welfare Act…..I fought for my right to choose where my child grew up.” [Frances Danger, XOJane, earlier here, etc.]
As the prosecution rests
One view of the Florida trial: “After the killing of Trayvon Martin, I was disturbed that George Zimmerman was not arrested, and was glad that charges were brought and would be resolved in court. I was wrong; I did not understand how weak the evidence was.” [Jack Chin [UC Davis Law], PrawfsBlawg] More from Jacob Sullum here and here. And from Jack Shafer, a defense of cable TV’s coverage of sensational trials.
“Bill of Rights a live wire, 222 years later”
At Utah’s Deseret News, reporter Eric Schulzke writes on how “the U.S. Bill of Rights remains a work in progress 222 years after it became law — a continuing struggle between government claims for order and security, and the individual’s interest in clarity and freedom. This past year, the struggle played out in numerous areas, including free speech and search and seizure rules, to touch just a few.” He quotes me on the hope of bright-line rules establishing the public’s right to take pictures of law enforcement (recent Hawthorne, Calif. cause celebre here), on the need to focus on state and local police use of DNA databases before the inevitable abuses establish themselves, and on how four significant Fourth Amendment cases made it to the Supreme Court this year: “‘Here we are 200 years later, and a lot of big, interesting questions still haven’t been settled on what the Bill of Rights says about search and seizures,’ Olson said.” A sidebar reviews the year in civil liberties controversies.
A Supreme Court “libertarian moment”?
And with Justice Anthony Kennedy as the pivot? It just might have happened this term, or so I conclude in a new Cato post.
The Very Model of a State Attorney General, cont’d
Following a letter from 22 state attorneys general, Urban Outfitters has agreed to stop selling a humorous mug with a “Prescription: Coffee” design. The AGs argued that prescription drug abuse is a very serious matter and not something to be joked about. [via Eugene Volokh]
The humor-impaired AGs participating (is yours on this list?) included those from Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Utah, and Wyoming, as well as Guam. According to Maggie Thurber at Ohio Watchdog, “the Partnership at Drugfree.org went further and categorized [the mugs and related coasters and other trinkets] as ‘prescription drug paraphernalia products.'”
Aside from a few core functions such as defending their states in litigation and issuing legal opinions to guide state agencies, state attorneys general have far too much discretionary authority to butt into whatever controversial areas may suit their taste for popularity and political advancement, even when, as here, there is no evident basis to think that Urban Outfitters had violated any actual law. It seems highly unlikely that the novelty mugs send any particular message that undermines public respect for prescription drug laws, but if for some reason they did, they would be entitled to more protection against AG bullying, not less, since expressive objects that send a symbolic message of disrespect for government policy will often qualify for First Amendment protection.
Congratulations to the 28 AGs who resisted the temptation to join in this busybody intimidation. (cross-posted at Cato at Liberty)