Big Government has been blowing the whistle on the Pigford settlement, which arose from allegations of racial discrimination in U.S. Department of Agriculture programs and has resulted in the allotment of billions in federal taxpayer money as compensation. The series of posts is here and here.
Posts Tagged ‘reparations’
Protectionism disguised as reparations-ism?
A California lawmaker targets a French railroad. [Coyote]
Armenians vs. Turkey in court, cont’d
£300 billion worth of long memories
Ugandans sue Britain over crimes during a 1893-1899 war [Telegraph]
If you’re not reading Point of Law
If you’re not following my other site, here’s some of what you’re missing:
- Advance-fee fraud (“Nigerian 419”) scam emails that pose as international product-liability payouts;
- Coverage of the recent Washington, D.C. developments on med-mal reform [Carter Wood and more];
- The soil from which ACORN grew;
- Judges keep swatting down California’s efforts to run its own foreign policy through reparations litigation;
- Which college majors lead to the lowest scores on the LSAT? Why, the most law-related ones;
- And the legal ethics of settlement negotiations.
Why not add Point of Law to your Google Reader or other RSS reader today, along of course with Overlawyered, if you haven’t yet?
Canadian Indian schools: when reparations don’t repair
Missed from earlier this year: in the fall of 2007, following extensive litigation, the government of Canada began issuing payments to persons of Indian ancestry who had attended an officially promoted network of residential schools where abuse was common and whose aim of assimilating students into broader Canadian life was later assailed as calculated to suppress native culture. While the payments brought benefit to many recipients, among others they seem to have led to new cycles of dysfunction, family strife and substance abuse. [Jack Branswell and Ken Meaney, “Native suicides linked to compensation”, Canwest/National Post, Jan. 26 via Western Standard]
Slavery apologies and the reparations question
“The Senate unanimously passed a resolution [Thursday] apologizing for slavery, making way for a joint congressional resolution and the latest attempt by the federal government to take responsibility for 2 1/2 centuries of slavery.” [WaPo] Not altogether surprisingly, if you ask leading reparations advocates Randall Robinson and Charles Ogletree, Jr., whether this should reignite talk of reparations, they say yes. My City Journal article of last year explains why I think the latter very bad idea never picked up the political momentum its advocates expected.
Stephen Bainbridge has this response to the resolution’s sponsor:
“You wonder why we didn’t do it 100 years ago,” Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), lead sponsor of the resolution, said after the vote. “It is important to have a collective response to a collective injustice.”
Memo to Senator Harkin: We had a collective response. It was called the Army of the Potomac.
April 3 roundup
- Those enviro-hazard warnings plastered all over because of Prop 65? They may be not merely pointless but untrue [California Civil Justice; a still-timely 2000 piece]
- Is it somehow wrong for a public medical examiner to testify against cops — even when it’s in another county? [Radley Balko, Reason]
- UCLA research scientists fight back against animal rights fanatics’ violence and intimidation [Orac/Respectful Insolence, “Pro-Test”]
- Ezra Levant, himself a target of Canada’s official speech tribunals, has written a new book denouncing them, buy before they ban it [Amazon; Andrew Coyne, Maclean’s] Has odious censorship-complaint-filer Richard Warman finally gotten his comeuppance? [Ken @ Popehat] More: another Warman case [Cit Media Law]
- Roundup of recent sports/assumption of risk cases [John Hochfelder]
- Already in trouble on charges of faking a will, Allentown, Pa. police-brutality attorney John Karoly now faces tax charges including alleged failure to report $5 million in income for 2002, 2004 and 2005 [TaxGirl]
- Lawprof’s “Reparations, Reconciliation and Restorative Justice” seminar led to introduction of Maryland bill requiring insurers to disclose antebellum slaveholder policies [DelmarvaNow]
- Judge tosses suit by Clarksville, Tennessee officials against activists who called them cozy with developers [Sullum, Reason “Hit and Run”]
Edward Fagan disbarred
A flamboyant lawyer we’ve been writing about for a long time, best known for international reparations suits, seems to have reached the end of his professional road. (Noeleen G. Walder, “Lawyer Disbarred for Failing to Pay Sanctions, Fees in Holocaust Case”, New York Law Journal, Dec. 12). Earlier coverage: Feb. 1, 2008, Nov. 26, 2005, etc., etc.
“Reparations, R.I.P.”
City Journal has now put online the article-length version of my essay on why the movement for slavery reparations has faded back into obscurity after its peak in 2001. I posted a few weeks ago on the shorter newspaper version and a lively discussion ensued.