From the Justice Department press release, issued last Friday: The department’s complaint alleges that Essex County refused to permit Yvette Beshier to wear a khimar (religiously-mandated headscarf) while working as a corrections officer…. Title VII prohibits discrimination in employment on the basis of race, color, sex, national origin and religion. The act’s religious discrimination provisions […]
Archive | 2010
California Statute Allowing In-State College Tuition for Some Illegal Aliens Not Preempted by Federal Law
So the California Supreme Court unanimously held Monday, in Martinez v. Regents, reversing a California Court of Appeal decision I had blogged about two years ago. I don’t have much to say on the subject, except that it involves the question whether the particular language of two federal statutes (8 U.S.C. § 1623 and 8 […]
D.C. Circuit Orders Extra Briefing on the Post-Heller D.C. Gun Law Challenge
An order handed down yesterday, in Heller v. D.C. (D.C. Cir.): BEFORE: Ginsburg, Henderson, and Kavanaugh, Circuit Judges O R D E R It is, on the court’s own motion, ORDERED that the parties file supplemental briefs addressing the following questions: (1) After the Home Rule Act, Pub. L. No. 93-198, 87 Stat. 774 (1973) […]
Five-Year No-Firearms Condition in Sentence for Misdemeanor Use-of-Weapons-While-Intoxicated Set Aside, Partly on Second Amendment-ish Grounds
From State v. Rogers (Ohio Ct. App., decided Monday) (one paragraph break added): We find the five-year firearm condition/sanction against appellant for a misdemeanor violation of R.C. 2923.15(A) [using a weapon while intoxicated] under these circumstances was unreasonable, overbroad, and an unwarranted implication of his Second Amendment rights. We have herein affirmed appellant’s conviction and […]
Federalist Society National Lawyers Convention
The Federalist Society National Lawyers Convention is happening this Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C. I attend this every year that I can; and this year I’m on one of the panels, debating Christian Legal Society v. Martinez Friday at noon. As is usual for Federalist Society conferences, the panels […]
The Cantor Contoversy
Congressman Eric Cantor, soon to be the highest-ranking Jewish Congressman in history, recently met with Israeli P.M. Binyamin Netanyahu. Following the meeting, Cantor’s office issued a press release summarizing it: Eric has a long standing friendship with Prime Minister Netanyahu and appreciated the opportunity to catch up last evening. The discussion lasted over an hour […]
GM Benefits from Tax Law Ruling
In the terrific conference on the Constitution in the Financial Crisis that Co-Conspirator Todd and I were privileged to attend last week at Stanford Law School, one of the panelists (this was a panel looking at the peculiar incentives and disincentives created for corporate governance by having government as a controlling shareholder, as in GM) […]
The NYT’s Room for Debate Blog on Investing/Lending to Finance Lawsuits
The often very interesting Room for Debate blog at the New York Times has a new discussion on the question of whether it is good policy to allow outsiders to invest in someone else’s lawsuit. Here’s the opening to how the question is framed: With litigation costs rising, many plaintiffs and their lawyers do not […]
Greenwald: Israel has a “Higher Standard of Living” than the U.S.
Glenn Greenwald, in the midst of a typically ridiculous, over-the-top [update: and false in its underlying premise] screed about American policy toward Israel, writes (emphases mine): In other words, Cantor wants American citizens to sacrifice in the extreme, to lose all sorts of benefits and security in the name of austerity, but wants to shield […]
Coming Hate Speech Prosecutions in New York?
Newsday reports: A group of teens spotted Sunday evening slapping up stickers along a Bellmore street [including on a lamp post and a Chamber of Commerce sign] could be charged with felonies for posting white supremacist messages and images …. One sticker, photographed and removed by police, reads “White Pride World Wide.” Another says “Don’t […]
Winter Blues Update
If you are like me and tend to suffer from winter blues when the daylight fades away (and Brings Out the Inner Aztec Pessimism about the possible disappearance forever of the Fifth Sun), this article by Leslie Tamura in the Washington Post is a good roundup of expert advice on how to combat it – […]
Question for Law Students and Recent Law Grads
Have you ever cheated on a law school exam? For purposes of the question, construe “cheating” broadly to include getting outside help when not permitted, violating the rules of the exam to get an advantage, and the like. No. Yes, on a take-home exam. Yes, on an in-class exam. Yes, on both take-home and in-class […]
Do New High-Tech Scans at the Airport Violate the Fourth Amendment?
Some airports have begun using backscatter x-ray and millimeter-wave technology scanners to look for weapons and explosive devices on passengers to stop terrorist attacks. The new devices have raised privacy concerns, fueled in no small part by this YouTube video and by the prominence given to the issue at the Drudge Report. Some readers have […]
Another good internship program for libertarian-minded law students
The Independence Institute’s Future Leaders Program. As a law student, you would work directly for me or for Rob Natelson (retired U. Montana constitutional law professor, and perhaps the most knowledgeable person in the world about American legal thought and practice in the Founding Era). The Independence Institute is a think tank, not a public […]
Good Summer Internship for Libertarian Law Students
The Pacific Legal Foundation is accepting resumes for summer internships in Sacramento.