“The organizers of the Pan American Games in Toronto…[saw fit to] require that people seek formal permission to link to its website at toronto2015.org.” [The Register] We’ve been here before, and before that, and so on. After only a little press attention, as The Register notes in an update, the organizers quietly changed the website’s terms and conditions to remove the ban.
Archive for 2015
Stop selling guns in suburbs, you’re having disparate impact
A Chicago gun-control group sues suburbs claiming that firearm sales in shops there display “disparate impact” in violation of discrimination law. [The Trace, WTTW]
July 22 roundup
- Can Uber survive California law? [Brian Doherty on ruling by state administrative law judge over shortcomings in accessibility; Kristian Stout/Truth on the Market on employee classification and compensation class action] The California Labor Commission’s worker-classification ruling has already killed cleaning-services startup Homejoy [Re/Code via @andrewmgrossman] Plus: Uber communicates satirically with its NYC customers in its battle with Mayor Bill de Blasio [Issie Lapowsky, Wired; related, Josh Greenman; and a new study of Los Angeles users finds Uber X twice as fast and half as expensive as taxis (Mark Kleiman)]
- Needed: RFRA for the prepared-foods aisle? “The Trans-Fat Ban Deals A Blow To Kosher Keepers” [Bethany Mandel, Federalist] Consumption of trans fats has already dropped by 85 percent, and “government doesn’t always know best” [me, Arizona PBS]
- “The U.S. Attorney’s Office might has well have a macro that generates gag orders” [Ken at Popehat on Reason subpoena, earlier here, etc.]
- SCOTUS struck down Ohio’s law banning false campaign speech, Massachusetts’s should fall next [Ilya Shapiro and Gabriel Latner, Cato]
- Roger Pilon on church, gays, and “simple idea that people are free to associate or not as they wish” [now un-gated, Cato/WSJ; related, Ilya Shapiro/Washington Times] More on EEOC’s ENDA-by-fiat attempt [Kent Hoover/Business Journals, Nicandro Iannacci, National Constitution Center/Yahoo (thanks for quoting in both cases); Laura Maechtlen and Sam Schwartz-Fenwick, Seyfarth Shaw; and a Washington Blade interview with EEOC member Chai Feldblum, who supported the ruling]
- More reactions to HUD’s ambitious local-neighborhood-diversity scheme, “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing” [Hans Bader, Michael Barone, earlier]
- “Star Of Viral Catcalling Video Is Reportedly Suing For Compensation” [Emma Whitford, Gothamist]
“Silence feature… will not extinguish a fire”
Bob Dorigo Jones has announced the finalists in the 18th and latest of his series of annual Wacky Warning contests, which document such phenomena as a “Harmful if Swallowed” warning on a hook-laden brass fishing lure. This year’s entries range from the depressing (at a bowling alley: “Bowl at your own risk. Risk of bodily injury is associated with this game.”) to the bizarre (on a small ceiling-mounted smoke alarm: “Silence feature is intended to temporarily silence the horn while you identify and correct the problem. It will not extinguish a fire.”) John Stossel’s studio audience will pick the winner on Friday, July 24. More: Washington Times, and our wacky warnings tag which includes earlier coverage of the series.
Higher education roundup
- “Virtually a model of how to regulate badly”: law professor Carl Schneider discusses his new book on institutional review boards, The Censor’s Hand: The Misregulation of Human-Subject Research [Inside Higher Ed via Zachary Schrag]
- Does Title IX require colleges to police off-campus behavior? [University of Kansas; Greg Piper, The College Fix] “No Due Process, Please; This is a Campus” [KC Johnson, Minding the Campus]
- Fourth Circuit: no insurer duty to defend Liberty U. in Miller-Jenkins kidnapping suit [WSET, Virginia Lawyers Weekly, earlier here and many other posts]
- Ex-Arkansas college student wants $75,000 after claiming she broke fingers in musical-chairs game [AP/Daily Journal]
- “Portland State University Will Shut Down Political Activity If It’s ‘Triggering'” [Robby Soave, Reason]
- The Scarlet Transcript: D.C. bill would would flag students who quit college with sex charges pending [Washington Post, more/update (“unconscionable“)]
- Virginia Tech now requires professors to demonstrate work towards diversity/inclusion to receive tenure [Ashley Thorne, National Association of Scholars]
“Stadiums Would Be Lined With Nets If Foul Ball Suit Succeeds”
A California resident has “cited the estimated 1,750 fans a year who are struck by balls, mostly fouls, in a [new federal] lawsuit [against the commissioner of Major League Baseball] seeking to force major league stadiums throughout the U.S. to erect safety nets from ‘foul pole to foul pole.'” [Bloomberg]
Wrong opinions? No permits for him!
Boston mayor Martin Walsh gives Donald Trump the Chick-Fil-A rush over his immigration opinions [Boston Herald]:
If Donald Trump ever wants to build a hotel in Boston, he’ll need to apologize for his comments about Mexican immigrants first, the Hub’s mayor said.
“I just don’t agree with him at all,” Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh told the Herald yesterday. “I think his comments are inappropriate. And if he wanted to build a hotel here, he’d have to make some apologies to people in this country.”
More on the use of permitting, licensing, and other levers of power to punish speech and the exercise of other legal rights at Overlawyered’s all-new regulatory retaliation tag. And no, I’m not exactly thrilled with Mayor Walsh for making me take Trump’s side in an argument.
P.S. Now the NYC sequel, from Mayor Bill de Blasio: no more city contracts for the guy with the wrong opinions [The Hill] And welcome readers from the Foundation for Economic Education, which generously calls this blog “indispensable.”
Restaurant found 55 percent responsible, actual attackers 45 percent
Adventures in negligent security: “A Southern California jury awarded $40 million to the parents of a man who was stabbed to death in a TGI Friday’s restaurant. The panel found [last month] that the restaurant’s operator was 55 percent responsible for the January 2009 death at a TGI Friday’s in Riverside.” The attackers, who “pleaded guilty to assault with a deadly weapon” and were sentenced to three and four years in prison respectively, “were found to be 45 percent responsible.” [Orange County Register]
More adventures of Oregon BOLI commissioner Avakian
The Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries, recently in the news for ordering Melissa and Aaron Klein to pay $135,000 for not wanting to make cake for a commitment ceremony, in 2013 ordered the owner of the Twilight Room Annex, a gay-friendly bar in North Portland, to pay $400,000 for disinviting a trans club from meeting at the nightclub on Friday nights after business from other customers dropped off [Oregonian]
“The jaw-dropping police/prosecutor scandal in Orange County, Calif.”
Radley Balko wonders why it hasn’t made the evening news. The office of District Attorney Tony Rackauckas “is both the beneficiary of and willing partner in” the police and evidentiary shenanigans that are calling dozens of cases into question. Earlier here, here.