Author Archive | David Bernstein

USA Today: Law schools eager to raise their national rankings are demanding higher scores on the Law School Admission Test, but they’re paying a price in terms of racial diversity as fewer and fewer black applicants make the cutoff. That’s the controversial argument of John Nussbaumer, an associate dean at Michigan’s Thomas M. Cooley Law […]

Empty:Inman Real Estate News: New home sales drop 7%: Inventory levels climb from a year ago Full: Industry Week: New Home Sales Rise 3/4 Full: CNN: New home sales soar: March gain of 13.8% the biggest in 13 years, showing surprising strength in housing market, but that was partly driven by builders cutting prices. Marketwatch: […]

Molly Ivins: One of the consistent deformities in American policy debate has been challenged by a couple of professors, and the reaction proves their point so neatly it’s almost funny. A working paper by John Mearsheimer, professor of political science at the University of Chicago, and Stephen Walt, professor of international affairs at the Kennedy […]

John Fund on Juan Cole on Israel: “He calls Israel ‘the most dangerous regime in the Middle East.’” Juan Cole on Israel, written in 2004, when Ariel Sharon was prime minister: “The most dangerous regime to United States interests in the Middle East is that of Ariel Sharon.” Juan Cole on John Fund on Juan […]

regarding Josh Stulman’s exhibit on the culture of terrorism in the Palestinian territories, as per this email letter to Ed Beck of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East: Thank you for your note expressing concern over the proposed art exhibit. President Spanier is out of town and his schedule will make it unlikely that […]

explaining why he gave up his U.S. green card and returned to Canada, in the Globe and Mail (hat tip: Leiter). For example, he claims: [After 9/11], fear replaced curiosity as the standard response to things unknown. Before 9/11, my wife’s English accent often generated a friendly response, including the comment “You sound just like […]

One of the more idiotic* things I kept seeing in the MSM last year is quotations from various “experts” that while it’s possible that certain “frothy” housing markets will see a correction, home prices never decline (in nominal terms) year over year nationwide, and thus will not do so in the future. This was said […]

Ted Frank at Point of Law reviews evidence that the judicial system is not exactly working well in the Vioxx litigation, at least in certain jurisdictions. Joinder of in-state plaintiffs (who are later dropped from the case)to avoid diversity jurisdiction, trial court judges ignoring Daubert trilogy standards for the admissibility of expert testimony, juries ignoring […]

Reader Andy Banducci points out that the “harassment” policy AD42 that Penn State has relied on in censoring student Josh Stulman’s exhibit of paintings on the culture of terrorism in the Palestinian Territories is under constitutional attack by the Alliance Defense Fund. You can read the complaint here. According to this news story, Penn State’s […]

SEE IMPORTANT UPDATES AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST! I emailed Penn State spokesman Bill Mahon, who was quoted as stating that the Joshua Stulman’s exhibit on the culture of terrorism in the Palestinian territories (see linked post below) was not censored for content, but for other reasons, to explain what those other reasons were. […]

Not with regard to racial preferences, but because the ABA has heavy-handedly sought to require librarians, writing instructors, and clinical faculty be granted tenure or tenure-like protections. I can certainly see the case for law schools choosing to give these faculty members tenure (assuming tenure is a good idea to begin with, which I’m not […]

Penn State Digital Collegian: For Penn State student Josh Stulman, years of hard work ended in disappointment yesterday when the university cancelled his upcoming art exhibit for violation of Penn State’s policies on nondiscrimination, harassment and hate. Three days before his 10-piece exhibit — Portraits of Terror — was scheduled to open at the Patterson […]

Tony Judt in the New York Times: “Prominent Israeli leaders … pressed very hard for the invasion of Iraq.” Is there any evidence that this is true? Certainly, Israelis of just about every ideological stripe were happy to have Saddam taken out, given that, among other things, he financed suicide murderers, and had launched missles […]

Nova Southeastern has invited a controversial and undoubtedly extremely interesting speaker for its commencement–Salman Rushdie. Some Muslim students object to the choice, apparently because of his “blasphemous” writings. More or less par for the course. But here’s the kicker: Besides concerns based on Rushdie’s writing, students also expressed worries over safety. “Who is to say […]

The California Supreme Court has issued a very important decision in the Lyle v. Warner Brothers case, more commonly known as the Friends sexual harassment case (I wrote about it here). In a unanimous opinion, the court held that the plaintiff failed to make a prima facie case that the Friends’ writers sexual banter created […]