“The Department of Homeland Security wants border drones that can recognize faces and track individuals over long distances.” What could go wrong? [Matthew Feeney interview with Caleb Brown, Cato Podcast, and background blog post]
How expansively should courts define an ADA “place of public accommodation”?
In Magee v. Coca-Cola Refreshments USA, Inc., the Supreme Court is being asked to resolve what might be a relatively narrow question under the Americans with Disabilities Act: whether a soft drink vending machine (which happens to be web-enabled) counts as a “place of public accommodation.” Plaintiffs in the case argue that it is a “sales establishment,” but the Fifth Circuit found that term more appropriately to cover business establishments that a customer might enter. Lurking in the background, for possible guidance if not resolution by the Court, is the much bigger question of whether virtual-only elements of commerce, such as websites, are “establishments” of “public accommodation.” The high court has not resolved that question, which has allowed for the growth of the fantastically expensive and onerous theories of web accessibility under which lawyers are now rolling out a large volume of lawsuits, such as one challenging as inaccessible the order-taking website of the Five Guys hamburger chain. Perhaps aware of these major if not necessarily immediate implications, the Supreme Court has invited the U.S. Department of Justice to offer comments on whether it should grant certiorari in the case. [Daniel Fisher]
The war on deadbeat dads, a quarter century later
Following the 1985 publication of Lenore Weitzman’s The Divorce Revolution, an alliance of conservatives and feminists in Canada, as in the US, helped pass punitive “deadbeat dad” laws aimed at bolstering the legal position of mothers and sparing costs of welfare to the public fisc. A generation later, writes Christie Blatchford in the National Post, it has become evident that these laws
…disproportionately punish poor men from the margins. What’s more, they’ve resulted in new “debtors’ prisons.”
As [Nipissing Prof. Paul] Millar wrote in The Prosecution of Child-Support debt in Alberta, “child and spousal support … are private debts for which incarceration is a consequence of non-payment.”
…[Besides pursuing incarceration, provincial child-support] agencies can also suspend driver’s licences, impose fines, seize passports, and the debtors have little procedural protections. As Millar concluded, “… the standard of proof is lower than for civil process, yet the penalties are more severe than those for some criminal offences.
“I call this regime inverted justice, since the protections are all for the advantage and convenience of the state, rather than of the individual.”
“We don’t just protect cops who behave badly in Philly…”
“…we give them promotions and parties.” [Helen Ubiñas, Philadelphia Daily News]
Higher education roundup
- U.S. Department of Education and Title IX: “The Office for Civil Rights Is Still Out of Control” [KC Johnson]
- Mobility penalty: “The residency requirement in Cuomo’s free tuition plan makes a bad idea worse” [Beth Akers]
- Loyalty oaths? Many colleges now require diversity statements for hiring and promotion [George Leef] Public college expels nursing student for breach of professional ethics code that includes ideological commitments, Supreme Court should review [Ilya Shapiro and David McDonald/Cato, Eugene Volokh on petition for certiorari in Keefe v. Adams]
- Maryland lawmakers move to bar colleges from asking applicants about criminal records [WYPR; Michael Dresser, Baltimore Sun]
- “Colleges and the First Amendment” [video, Federalist Society panel with Michael McConnell, Philip Hamburger, et al.] Eugene Volokh presentation on free speech on campus Reason video, etc.
- “Torch the miscreant, resanctify the community.” Laura Kipnis attends a Title IX trial [Chronicle of Higher Education, (from her forthcoming book); more at Reason]
“Bologna is in the same category as cigarettes”
An American Cancer Society spokesman is quoted giving cover to an animal rights group’s lawsuit demanding the removal of cured meat from school cafeterias [San Diego Union-Tribune] More on the soi-disant Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine and its publicity stunts here and here.
The power to describe what a ballot proposition does
State attorneys general aggressively use, and frequently misuse, the legal authority often vested in them to sum up in language for voters what a ballot measure would do or mean. One chronic area of frustration: AG summaries of measures intended to bring California public pensions under better fiscal control [Judy Lin, L.A. Times via Steve Greenhut, California Policy Center]
A reputation-scrubbing scheme and its elusive notaries
Try to track down the notaries who signed on this search-engine-scrubbing scheme as witnesses, and they melt away as if but a dream [Eugene Volokh]
Banking and finance roundup
- “The real-world impact of Dodd-Frank, stress tests and other regs” [M&T Bank slideshow, American Banker] “Six feet of new mortgage regulations help explain slower housing market” [Ira Stoll]
- Will Trump administration allow banking for cannabis-related businesses? [Kevin Funnell]
- “‘Sustainability Standards’ Open A Pandora’s Box Of Politically Correct Accounting” [Howard Husock and Jim Copland]
- An assumption of complete transparency would take away “the reason for financial intermediation in the first place” [Arnold Kling]
- Statutes of repose in securities actions are important in protecting interests on both sides [WLF on CalPERS v. ANZ Securities, Inc.]
- Encrypted messaging services allow Wall Streeters to bypass all sorts of regulatory scrutiny and speak freely, can’t have that [Bloomberg]
Free speech loses a round Down Under, 18C unchanged for now
In a defeat for free expression in Australia, the country’s Senate has rejected the Turnbull government’s proposal to soften elements of Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, which bans so-called hate speech based on race [The Guardian, ABC] Opposition to the change was led by the opposition Labor Party, whose spokesman for multicultural affairs, Tony Burke, said “Any change that results in more permission being given for racial hate speech is bad for Australia.” In 2011, an Australian federal court found commentator Andrew Bolt guilty under the law over remarks in which he is said to have implied that some fair-skinned persons of part-aboriginal descent elect to classify themselves as aboriginal for career advancement.
By coincidence — although not really so, if you see what I mean — a planned lecture tour of Australia by AEI’s Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a vocal critic of female genital mutilation, sharia law, and jihadism, has been called off following calls to venues and insurers threatening “trouble.” Ali, who was born Muslim but came to disagree with the religious tenets of Islam, already travels with armed guards because of the credible threat of assassination [Kay Hymowitz, City Journal]