I’m delighted to say that Ronald Collins and, briefly, Floyd Abrams will be guest-blogging this week here at the Conspiracy. Prof. Collins, the Harold S. Shefelman Scholar at the University of Washington Law School, is the author of many articles and books, including On Dissent: Its Meaning in America (2013, with David Skover) and Nuanced […]
Archive | May, 2013
Eliminating the “C” in Law School Grading?
By Kenneth Anderson on May 12, 2013 2:28 pm in Academia, Law Schools, Legal Professor, Uncategorized
Via Paul Caron at TaxProfBlog and the Wall Street Journal Law Blog, a proposal by Joshua Silverstein, law professor at Little Rock-Arkansas William Bowen School of Law, to eliminate the “C” in law school grading. Here is the SSRN abstract for “A Case for Grade Inflation in Legal Education,” forthcoming in University of San Francisco […]
Woman Parading Dressed as Pope from Waist Up, Naked from Waist Down, Charged with Public Nudity
TribLive (Pittsurgh) reports: Carnegie Mellon University police on Friday filed charges of indecent exposure against two art students accused of public nudity during a campus parade sponsored by the College of Fine Arts. Police identified the female student accused of parodying the pope as she paraded nude from the waist down as Katherine B. O’Connor, […]
6 Years + 300 Lashes in Saudi Arabia for Helping Woman Convert to Christianity
Agence France Press reports: A Saudi court jailed a Lebanese man for six years and sentenced him to 300 lashes after convicting him of encouraging a Saudi woman to convert to Christianity, Saudi dailies reported Sunday. The same court sentenced a Saudi man convicted in the same case to two years in prison and 200 […]
Judge Denies Administration Request for Stay of Plan B Order
Judge Edward Korman is unhappy with the Administration’s handling of Plan B contraception. On Friday, the NYT reports, he denied the Administration’s request to stay his order requiring that Plan B be made available over-the-counter to all women and girls of any age.
James Harkin Does Not Know Much About Economics
Henry Farrell takes apart a James Harkin essay on Marx and public choice in the Los Angeles Review of Books, and it ain’t pretty.
Auto Safety Prior to NHTSA
My old friend Matt Harrington now runs a Center for the Study of Common Law at the University of Montreal Law School and he blessed me with an invitation to speak a program last week on common law as a regulatory system and the interaction of common law with regulation. My job was to add […]
Standing Up for Matthew Yglesias on International Labor Standards
I missed this controversy when it broke two weeks ago, but Matthew Yglesias noted that the “entire Internet” seemed to be mad at him for a post that, really, just reflects common economic sense. He wrote: Bangladesh may or may not need tougher workplace safety rules, but it’s entirely appropriate for Bangladesh to have different—and, […]
IRS Officials Knew of Targeting in 2011
AP, The Hill and Politico are all reporting that senior IRS officials were aware that Tea Party groups were being targeted as early as 2011. The disclosure is reportedly contained in a draft inspector general report that is due to be released later this year. In March 2012, the IRS Commissioner denied charges that the IRS was […]
The Moral Sickness of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement against Israel
Summarized in two headlines: Today: Chomsky helped lobby Hawking to boycott Israel event Last October: Islamic University of Gaza awards honorary doctorate to Chomsky You might assume that Chomsky at least avoided meeting with officials of the repressive, theocratic, dictatorial, anti-Semitic, government of Gaza, which, at the very time of Chomsky’s visit was lobbing rockets […]
The IRS’ Inquiries into Conservative Groups [Post Pulled; See Note]
[Note: I’ve decided to pull this post about my experience with a conservative organization that had been contacted by the IRS about political activities because after further conversations with folks involved, I think the timing of letters from the IRS isn’t enough to connect this particular group, which has long had its tax exempt status, […]
A Cautionary Tale About Driving and Bar Fitness
Law students thinking ahead about not just passing the bar exam, but also the fitness and character requirements might take a lesson from a former student of mine. He contacted me with some alarm a few days ago to tell me that the Virginia bar committee that has to approve fitness and character of applicants […]
Seeking Samples of Excellent and Influential Amicus Briefs (But Not Supreme Court Merits Briefs)
I’d like my First Amendment Amicus Brief Clinic students to read some excellent amicus briefs, to see what works, and to see the various kinds of briefs that work. I have some samples, but I’d love to see more, and in particular briefs that are not U.S. Supreme Court merits briefs. [UPDATE: I at first […]
Nullification Nonsense
Earlier this week I took Steve Benen to task for suggesting that state governments could not refuse to enforce federal laws. Benen had suggested that such decisions were tantamount to nullification. (A claim he has walked back, to his credit.) While Benen’s outrage was a bit misplaced in the post I critiqued, it’s not as […]
IRS Admits Targeting “Tea Party” Groups
Some conservative and libertarian groups have long suspected that the Internal Revenue Service has targeted right-leaning non-profits for extra scrutiny, but such allegations were always difficult to prove (and often sounded a bit conspiratorial). Now, however, the head of the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt organizations has admitted her division targeted “tea party” and “patriot” […]