Archive | September, 2007

The L.A. Times reports: Chemerinsky and [UCI Chancellor] Drake agreed the new dean’s dismissal was motivated in part by an Aug. 16 opinion article in The Times, the same day the job offer was made. In it, Chemerinsky asserted that Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales was “about to adopt an unnecessary and mean-spirited regulation that will […]

InstaPundit has a podcast interview with Goldsmith (the Harvard law professor who is the former head of the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel, and the author of The Terror Presidency: Law and Judgment Inside the Bush Administration. Goldsmith is a very smart and thoughtful scholar and lawyer, and always much worth listening to.

Pepperdine law professor Douglas Kmiec comments on UC Irvine’s disgraceful treatment of Erwin Chemerinsky in the LA Times. Here’s a taste: Erwin Chemerinsky is one of the finest constitutional scholars in the country. He is a gentleman and a friend. He is a gifted teacher. As someone who participates regularly in legal conferences and symposiums, […]

I’m delighted to report that my new article, Choosing Interpretive Methods: A Positive Theory of Judges and Everyone Else, is going to be published in the June 2008 issue of the NYU Law Review. Here’s the abstract: In this Article, I propose a theory of how rational, ideologically motivated judges might choose interpretive methods, and […]

UC Irvine Chancellor Michael Drake has issued a statement defending the University’s decision to rescind its offer of the law school dean position to liberal legal scholar Erwin Chemerinsky. The statement is here. Brian Leiter calls the Chancellor’s statement an example of “the familiar administrative mode of ‘say nothing substantive, pretend everyone doesn’t know what […]

Like David Bernstein, I welcome some of the things conservative pundit Kay Hymowitz says in her Wall Street Journal essay on libertarianism, and of course I too appreciate her praise of the VC. At the same time, there are some significant shortcomings in her analysis. David has identified one of them: her treatment of the […]

David Blankenhorn, who came out against gay marriage in his recent book The Future of Marriage, now says he favors giving same-sex couples “90% civil unions.” Under his proposal, gay couples would get all the rights and benefits of marriage under federal and state law — but he would leave state laws (whatever they currently […]

It seems pretty clear that the New England Patriots violated the NFL’s rules governing the use of video cameras in Sunday’s game against the New York Jets. Patriots coach Bill Belichick apologized for something today, but he did not say for what. He deferred giving any specifics until after NFL announces any potential sanctions. Among […]

Happy New Year to all our Jewish readers. Through the magic of technology, I’m posting tonight via Powerblogs’ “publish later” function a post I wrote earlier. But in observance of the holiday, I won’t be responding to comments. Kay Hymowitz has an essay in the Wall Street Journal on libertarianism, which at times is fair-minded […]

UC Irvine’s decision to rescind its offer to Erwin Chemerinsky (who, I should note, is a colleague and friend) is so outrageous and boneheaded that I can muster only three explanations: 1) Incompetence: This one is obvious. Erwin’s views are well known. Any remotely competent administrator should have vetted any fears about his ideology before […]

Whether or not the President chooses to nominate Ted Olson as the next U.S. Attorney General, it appears he will not get the job. Earlier today Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid promised to block Olson’s confirmation if he is nominated. “He’s a partisan, and the last thing we need as an attorney general is a […]

The new issue of the ABA Journal presents a “scorecard” evaluating the Justice Department’s terrorism-related prosecutions. By the Journal‘s count, the DoJ has 31 wins, six losses and one tie. That is a better record that I would have guessed — even more so because the Journal counts a case as a “loss” if it […]

Some tentative, and very quick (I have to run to an event) thoughts, which I hope to supplement later: 1. From my colleague Steve Yeazell: “In some ways Erwin will come out of it much better than Chancellor Drake or Irvine. Think about being the next person Drake calls to offer the deanship: even if […]

Brian Leiter reports that the new University of California at Irvine Law School has rescinded its offer of the position of dean to Duke Professor Erwin Chemerinsky because they decided that the hiring of such a liberal dean would attract too much criticism from conservatives. Although Leiter and I disagree on a great many things, […]

Profs. Steven Cohen and Ari Kelman recently published a study describing American Jews’ attachment to (or alienation from) Israel, measured by various metrics. Not surprisingly, the study found that young Jews were less attached to Israel than are older Jews. (This is not surprising for a variety of reasons, including that young Jews are less […]