Author Archive | Cass Sunstein

plus more on campaign transportation, here. Thanks to Michael Klein for the pointer.

The line is reported at : North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley (D) made his endorsement official this morning, saying that Hillary Clinton “gets it” and is a fighter who he said “makes Rocky Balboa look like a pansy.” The editor of the Washington Blade (I’m still embarrassed that it took me years to get the […]

The recent discussion made me wonder about the actual legal norm as to general ages of consent. I set aside for purposes of this post what implications this data might have (though I hope to post soon some modest remarks on this, recognizing that of course the “ought” may well be quite different from “is,” […]

So reports The Register (U.K.). “The scientists reckon this will make biological research — not to mention school biology lessons — signifcantly less messy and traumatic, as it will no longer be necessary to cut the slime-filled creatures up in order to examine their innards.” By the way, while some frogs’ skin might feel slimier […]

and I mean that in the best possible way: The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office may have a major problem on its hands — the possibly unconstitutional appointment of nearly two-thirds of its patent appeals judges…. The flaw, discovered by highly regarded intellectual property scholar John Duffy of George Washington University Law School, could also […]

From Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s Speech to the NAACP: Different does not mean deficient…. Dr. [Janice] Hale showed us, that in comparing African-American children and European-American children in the field of education, we were comparing apples and rocks. And in so doing, we kept coming up with meaningless labels like EMH, educable mentally handicapped, TMH, trainable […]

This cover: is causing controversy (see here and here), apparently because of the supposed similarity to King Kong posters. A sample objection: “[T]here is a long history in the United States of imaging black men as brutish, and comparing black people to monkeys and apes. A good deal of racist propaganda has rested on those […]

The AP reports, Federal alcohol regulators … have ordered [Vaune] Dillmann [a brewer in the town of Weed, California] to stop selling beer bottles with caps that say “Try Legal Weed.” The agency, which regulates the brewing industry, said the wording could “mislead consumers about the characteristics of the alcoholic beverage.” … What next, going […]

Very troubling, if accurate; the New York Times covers the story, but here are excerpts from the Complaint: 11. On July 31, 2007, plaintiff Hall attempted to conduct and participate in a meeting of individuals who consider themselves atheists, freethinkers, or adherents to non-Christian religions. With permission from an army chaplain, plaintiff Hall posted flyers […]

A commenter on the thread below suggested that someone ought to respond to “[Michael Hirsh’s] claim on the merits.” The trouble is that the claim is so vague and impressionistic that it’s hard to see just what to say about it. Are Southern/Southwestern mores “savage [and] unsophisticated”? Are “Yankees” from the “Northeast and upper Midwest” […]

whose comment was cited in a Fourth Circuit appellate brief a few months ago. It’s in the Reply Brief of Plaintiff-Appellant Christopher Scott Emmett, filed by the Virginia Capital Representation Resource Center in Emmett v. Johnson, 2008 WL 345230, *5 n.5 (4th Cir. Jan. 11): Since the grant of certiorari in Baze, some commentators have […]

Some responses to my post about age of consent and Romeo-and-Juliet laws have said something like this: The question is not whether the behavior is harmful and wrong (in both cases, the answer is equally yes). Instead, it is whether someone is responsible. 16 year olds are not mature enough to decide to have sex; […]

(or at least An Academic Credo): A commenter on my age of consent post writes, This is a perfect example of why people claim professors are out of touch with reality. When someone can accurately but facilely summarize your suggestion with “he wants to change the law so that adults should be allowed to have […]

South Carolina Appellate Law Blog’s reaction to this line: The cognoscenti of health care nomology trust and rely upon Peer Review Statutes as the quiddity and hypostasis of the hospital/physician relationship. The quintessence and elixir of the peer review process is confidentiality.

The Seventh Circuit, in Nuxoll v. Indian Prairie School Dist. #204, just held that a student did have the right to wear such a T-shirt. (The student was wearing it in opposition to a pro-gay-rights National Day of Silence.) The panel majority (Judge Posner joined by Judge Kanne) also opined, though, that under Tinker and […]