- “Electronic Arts Has Right to Refer to John Dillinger in Its Video Games” [Volokh]
- Fans of “Civil Gideon” (constitutional entitlement to publicly funded lawyers in civil cases) glum that SCOTUS didn’t give idea much of a boost in Turner v. Rogers case last week [Concurring Opinions symposium, ABA Journal]
- Feds (in particular, the FTC) go after Google [AW, Manne & Wright/TotM, Stoll]
- “The Dept of Education, Yale, and the New Threat to Free Speech on Campus” [Greg Lukianoff/HuffPo] “In Making Campuses Safe for Women, a Travesty of Justice for Men” [Christina Sommers, Chron Higher Ed] Feds crack down on campus flirting and sex jokes [Michael Barone, D.C. Examiner] Heather Mac Donald on Yale hostile-environment complaint [City Journal, earlier] “Why Cross-Examination Rights Matter in Campus Sexual Harassment Cases” [Hans Bader]
- Trial lawyer propaganda coup? HBO airs plaintiff’s-side “Hot Coffee” documentary [Abnormal Use, Ted Frank/PoL, Schwartz/NYT, more, yet more]
- Financial institutions abroad will be pleased to be roped into U.S. regulatory schemes. Won’t they? [Dan Mitchell, Cato at Liberty]
- Proposal for judge-guided negotiations in NY med-mal cases leaves Ted Frank underwhelmed [PoL]
- “Virginia inmate sues after gruesome tries at sex change” [AP]
Posts Tagged ‘hostile environment’
“Due Process Stops at the Campus Gates?”
My Cato colleague Ilya Shapiro on the Obama Education Department’s unsettling insistence that colleges and universities, on pain of losing federal dollars, pare back the due process accorded to those accused of sexual misconduct. [Cato at Liberty]
Plus: earlier on Yale’s submissive reaction to Title IX complaint and suspension of a fraternity. More: “hostile environment” Title IX complaints leveled against other schools as well; Cathy Young on campus sexual assault numbers.
Behind a Yale fraternity’s suspension
Federal regulators and private complainants step up pressure for tougher university disciplinary action against offensive males — and speech-related offenses will be very much under scrutiny. [Greg Lukianoff/Daily Caller, Harvey Silverglate and Kyle Smeallie/Minding the Campus, Caroline May/Daily Caller]
More: The Yale Alumni Magazine notes that DKE (Delta Kappa Epsilon) brought the University “bad publicity.” And Dave Zincavage has been blogging critically about the affair. Further: Scott Greenfield.
April 2 roundup
- Schumer: ban gun ownership by persons arrested but not convicted of drug offenses [Jeff Winkler, Daily Caller]
- Urban-farming pioneer in Oakland may come a cropper for selling produce without license [SFGate via Perry]
- Harvard-trained Obamanauts’ revenge? Feds investigate Yale for alleged sexually harassive environment [Zincavage] Related: strings attached to federal money for university “sexual assault prevention” include mandatory student sensitivity-training attendance [TBD, more]
- Trade dumping law as competitive shakedown mechanism [Tabarrok]
- “Forwarding a Sentence-Long Message from a Listserv = Copyright Infringement?” [Volokh]
- “Product Defect Case Over Ear Candle Cleared for Trial” [OnPoint News, McConnell/D&D, Abnormal Use]
- Oh, Title IX, couldn’t you at least leave our booster club alone? [Saving Sports] Wrestling team axe is just the start for men’s sports cuts at Liberty U. [same]
- “Wal-Mart v. Dukes [Lawyers] Ask Courts To Fix The World” [Dan Fisher, Forbes] Liptak/NYT on use of “social framework” evidence in case [Mass Tort Prof] Rhetoric about “day in court” tends to obscure actual stakes [Daniel Schwartz] More: Hans Bader, and Jon Hyman with many links.
“I’m harassed by your affairs with others”
“Third-party” harassment claims pose a legal headache for employers. [HR Capitalist]
“Father Sues District Over Reading About Slavery”
U.K.: “School ‘no touch’ rules to be scrapped”
“‘No touch’ rules discouraging teachers from restraining and comforting children are to be scrapped, Education Secretary Michael Gove has said.” [BBC] And the incoming Cameron government is proceeding with a previously signaled broad effort to roll back excessive health and safety rules that discourage harmless goings-on in schools, workplaces and the community [BBC, earlier] On the other hand, the Conservatives intend to go forward with most of a package of new measures devised by the previous Labour government that would expand discrimination and harassment law in the direction of wide-open U.S.-style rights to sue [Telegraph, Daily Mail]
U.K.: “Council outlaws mother-in-law jokes”
At least for its employees: the London borough of Barnet admonishes staff that mother-in-law jokes, “as well as offensively sexist in their own right, can also be seen as offensive on the grounds that they disrespect elders or parents.” [Telegraph]
P.S. Notes SiouxsieLaw, in reference to this case: “In the US, we sue over mother-in-law jokes.”
(Litigious) life in academia
Lawsuits fly in various directions arising from almost implausibly colorful fact patterns (“professor-dominatrix”) at the University of New Mexico English department [Chronicle of Higher Education]
“Posner – ‘Nebulous suspicions voiced by a busybody’ not protected under Title VII”
Who could resist a headline like that? And the case is worth knowing about, filed by a hospital employee who seems to have jumped to the conclusion that “because her boss was a Southern Baptist and a ‘good ole boy,’ … he therefore had ‘inherent sexist attitudes.'” [Jay Lechner, Greenberg Traurig Labor and Employment Blog via Ohio Employer’s]