Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Posts Tagged ‘colleges and universities’

“Student Who Sued GVSU Over Campus Pet Rule Honored”

First the complaint, then the money, now the public accolade: as we noted last month, student Kendra Velzen filed a complaint — and got a $40,000 settlement — after administrators at Grand Valley State University in Michigan declined to allow her emotional-support guinea pig to live with her in the dorm, even though she had a doctor’s note for it. Now the “Fair Housing Center of West Michigan has given … Velzen its annual Outstanding Effort by an Individual award. The group says Velzen was honored for promoting ‘equal housing opportunity for university students throughout the country.'” The center has a previous connection with the case, having assisted Velzen in her complaint. [AP/WILX]

Filed under: , , ,

D.C. vs. campus due process: the consequences

“Unsubstantiated accusations against my son by a former girlfriend landed him before a nightmarish college tribunal.” Washington has recently made things worse, through Department of Education regulations that force colleges to jettison protections for the accused such as requirements that misdeeds be proved through at least “clear and convincing” evidence. [Judith Grossman, WSJ; earlier here, here, here, here, here, here, here, etc.] More: Scott Greenfield.

Filed under: ,

April 11 roundup

  • More on Maryland cyber-bullying law vs. First Amendment [Mike Masnick/TechDirt, and thanks for quote; earlier here, here]
  • Family of Trayvon Martin settles with homeowners’ association for an amount believed north of $1 million [Orlando Sentinel, earlier]
  • Best of the recent crop of commentaries on violent political terrorists of 1960s landing plum academic gigs [Michael Moynihan, Daily Beast, earlier]
  • First the New Mexico photographer case, now attorney general of Washington sues florist for not serving gay wedding [Seattle Times; earlier on Elane Photography v. Willock]
  • “‘Vexatious litigator’ is suspect in courthouse bomb threats in five states” [ABA Journal]
  • Cannon, meet moth: Ken instructs a guy at WorldNetDaily why hurt feelings don’t equal fascism [Popehat] “The Trick In Dealing With Government: Find The Grown-Up In The Room” [same]
  • A true gentleman and friend: R.I.P. veteran New York editor and publisher Truman Talley, “Mac,” who published many a standard author from Ian Fleming to Jack Kerouac to Rachel Carson to Isaac Asimov and late in his illustrious career took a flyer on a complete novice in the books that became The Litigation Explosion and The Rule of Lawyers [NYT/Legacy]

Filed under: , , , , , ,

Should the Bob Jones case trouble liberal pluralists?

Mark Graber at Concurring Opinions, reviewing James Fleming and Linda McClain, Ordered Liberty, a book which lays out a constitutional analysis consistent with the viewpoint Graber calls “Solid Liberalism”:

Another point where Ordered Liberty threatens but pulls back from challenging core Solid Liberal beliefs occurs during the discussion of Bob Jones v. United States. Ordered Liberty suggests that the Supreme Court in that case correctly ruled that religious organizations can be denied tax exemptions if they teach racism and other abhorrent doctrines. I confess to be troubled by the analysis. I suspect that most Jewish schools at the very least encourage students to date and marry other Jews, that these schools teach the doctrine that Jews are a chosen people, and that a great many other religions engage in similarly illiberal teaching. Given the importance of the welfare state in the lives of most citizens, a point Fleming and McClain make elsewhere in the book, I confess to some discomfort with the constitutional rule they eventually endorse that forbids religious coercion but permits religious groups to be denied state benefits that go to other religious groups with more liberally accepted beliefs. I think based on what the authors suggest elsewhere in the book, a case can be made that Bob Jones ought to be rethought.

Filed under: , , ,

Schools roundup

  • More on court’s enjoining Alabama House from sending schools bill to governor [Joshua Dunn, earlier]
  • Connecticut mom’s fibbing to get kid into better school district, interpreted as theft of services, contributes to 12-year sentence (also predicated on four unrelated charges of drug sale and possession) [WFSB]
  • Student speech hit by one-two punch: post-Newtown hysteria, campaign against bullying [Hans Bader, more]
  • Turn Pell Grants into entitlements? Has the Gates Foundation taken leave of its senses? [Neal McCluskey, Cato]
  • “The Dubious Case for Regulating Day Care” [John Ross, Reason, responding to Washington Post coverage of Virginia push]
  • Kansas lawmakers push back against court’s power grab on edubucks mandate [K. C. Star, earlier]
  • “Call to Ditch Red Tape on Playtime Safety” [U.K. TESConnect via Free-Range Kids]

Filed under: , , , , , ,

Suing for admission to Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority

The Howard University students’ feelings were hurt, it seems [Will Sommer, Washington City Paper via Huffington Post]:

Some of the “hazing” rules sound innocuous, if extensive, like being forbidden from wearing the sorority colors of pink and green or any colors that could be blended into pink and green. In one humorous moment, the lawsuit notes that the pledges, who were called the “sweets,” couldn’t even wear white pearls.

Other hazing allegations are more serious. At one point, the pledges were told not to talk to non-sorority members at Howard, according to the suit. “[Alpha Kappa Alpha members] on campus addressed the sweets by calling them weak bitches,” Compton’s mother wrote in a complaint to the sorority.

After Cofield’s mother, also an Alpha Kappa Alpha sister, complained, the two pledges found themselves ostracized in the sorority for being “snitch-friendly” or “snitch-sympathists.”…

The aspiring sisters say they’re being discriminated against because, as legacies, their mothers were also in the sorority. In other words, they’re being treated differently because of their “familial status”—a protected class under the D.C. Human Rights Act. In addition to monetary damages, the would-be Alpha Kappa Alphas want the court to grant an injunction putting the pledging process on hold.

P.S. In 2008 we covered the “Oprichniki” lawsuit involving Miss Porter’s School in Connecticut (follow-up). And there’s a current controversy over what one alumna calls the “pretty tame” hazing dished out on a voluntary basis during a Bryn Mawr tradition known as Hell Week [Julie Gerstein/The Frisky, Philly.com]

Filed under: , ,

Prof’s “lobby for nannyism” classroom assignment: some reactions

As I noted yesterday here and at Cato at Liberty on Wednesday, GWU law prof John Banzhaf sent out a press release boasting of having assigned undergrads to lobby for NYC-style soda bans or, alternatively, other ventures in “obesity policy.” Some reactions from Robby Soave at the Daily Caller, Katharine Mangu-Ward at Reason (“I’m gonna guess there aren’t a lot of libertarians in his class”), George Leef at Phi Beta Cons, Center for Consumer Freedom (Banzhaf hoping to stir pot for high-stakes litigation), Jamie Weinstein/Daily Caller (“There are radical Pakistani madrassas that are more intellectually open than Professor Banzhaf’s class sounds,”) and on Twitter from @rogerkimball (“Where’s the outrage?”) and @keepfoodlegal (“Vile. Illegal, too?”) And Prof. Bainbridge:

I wonder what people would say if I made my students write letters to their Congressman supporting Senator Shelby’s Dodd-Frank corrections bills? Actually, I don’t wonder. they’d say I was abusing my power. And they’d be right. Only someone blinded by their own self-righteous arrogance would fail to see the gross impropriety here.

Now Banzhaf has sent out another press release, which aside from tossing an inaccurate brickbat or two at my motivations for challenging him, takes care to specify — as his earlier press release did not — that students in the class are free to propose lobbying for at least some deregulatory ideas. The two examples he gives are as follows: “students could also ask legislators to reduce limits on the sale of items from food trucks [or] cut back on unnecessary food-related regulations.” Whether liberty-minded students could actually get course credit for lobbying on behalf of food-related positions that Banzhaf opposes — as distinct from seeking out some subtopic in the field where he happens to agree with them — remains unclear.

Filed under: ,

Assigning students to lobby: John Banzhaf’s latest

A press release from George Washington University Prof. John Banzhaf describes his latest stunt as follows: “Undergrads Required To Lobby For Obama Policy.” In this case, it’s more for a policy identified with Michael Bloomberg — limits on the size of sweetened drinks — which students were asked to promote in letters to their own lawmakers. I’ve got a write-up at Cato at Liberty, where I list some of the other occasions on which Overlawyered readers have met the gadfly professor. (& Katherine Mangu-Ward, Center for Consumer Freedom) Update: many reactions, including another press release from Prof. Banzhaf.

Filed under: , , , ,

#SOTU

My tweets and retweets last night during the State of the Union address and the GOP response by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), in regular rather than reverse chronological order:

Also, by way of pleasant contrast:

And here’s Cato’s response video with scholars Michael Tanner, Julian Sanchez, Alex Nowrasteh, Simon Lester, John Samples, Pat Michaels, Jagadeesh Gokhale, Michael F. Cannon, Jim Harper, Malou Innocent, Juan Carlos Hidalgo, Ilya Shapiro, Trevor Burrus and Neal McCluskey.

Filed under: , , ,

“Lehigh U. student sues over grade, seeks $1.3 M”

In a case that went to trial Monday in Northampton County, Pa., Megan Thode is suing Lehigh University over the C+ she was given in a graduate education course. Thode, the daughter of a Lehigh faculty member, “was attending the Bethlehem school tuition-free in 2009 when she received the poor mark in her fieldwork class. … She needed a B to take the next course of her field work requirement.” [Allentown Morning Call] Update: Judge rules against her.

Filed under: ,