Author Archive | David Bernstein

A ten-year-old in Manchester, England, has been arrested and charged with a racially aggravated public order offence. District Judge Jonathan Finestein said the decision to prosecute the youngster – accused of calling a fellow pupil a “Paki” and a “nigger” – was “political correctness gone mad”. He attacked the police for not “bothering” to prosecute […]

In You Can’t Say That!, I recounted the following troubling incident: the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission ordered the Saskatoon Star Phoenix newspaper and Hugh Owens to each pay $1,500 (appoximately $1,000 U.S.) to each of three gay activists as damages for publication of an advertisement placed by Owens conveying the message that the Bible condemns […]

Edward Peck has submitted a response to criticism by me and James Taranto of OpinionJournal.com. OpinionJournal has published the piece on its website, and I encourage VC readers to take a look. You can read Taranto’s response here. Most extraordinary is that Peck continues to assert that critics of Mearsheimer and Walt’s “Israel Lobby” paper […]

In defense of the ABA’s role in accrediting law schools, under fire for the ABA’s pending insistence that all law schools use racial preferences even if they are illegal under federal or state law, Wade Henderson, executive director of the Leadership Council on Civil Rights, says: “The ABA has a long, well-respected tradition of accrediting […]

My guest-blogging stint was supposed to end several days ago now, so it is time for me to take my leave. Those who may be interested might wish to know that a much revised version of 2 of my posts on discrimination against atheists is going to be published in the April 17 issue of […]

Passover starts tomorrow night at Sundown. I’m running my own Seder for the first time, so the interminable rabbinical commentary about how the ten plagues were really two hundred and fifty blah blah blah will be replaced, hopefully, with more interesting discussion, aided by a book I bought from Amazon, “Creating Lively Passover Seders.” Anyway, […]

All with Fannie Mae loans, of course. Details at the Housing Bubble Blog. The time for lawmakers to make it clear that they are not going to bail out Fannie is now. The time to abolish Freddie and Fannie is also now. UPDATE: Does the existence of Fannie make fraud more likely? Yes, because Fannie […]

I am the Editor of an interdisciplinary academic journal, the Journal on Firearms and Public Policy. The Journal is now accepting submissions for its next volume, our 18th year of publication. Some sample issues, in PDF, are here. (We hope eventually to put all volumes on-line.) Because we are interdisciplinary, articles may be written in […]

I regret to report that Professor Bernard Siegan of the University of San Diego Law School died last Monday. Siegan was author of the 1980 book Economic Liberties and the Constitution, which revolutionized thinking about the “substantive due process” jurisprudence of the Lochner era. Typical of pioneering books, this book had some flaws, but was […]

Northern Virginia Available Homes Inventory March 1, 2005(left number) April 2, 2006 (right number) Alexandria City 121 846 Arlington County 159 807 Fairfax City 26 90 Fairfax County 800 5,764 Falls Church City 6 46 Loudoun County 708 3,369 Manassas City 34 269 Manassas Park 18 125 Prince Will. Cty 673 3,708 Source: Virginiamls.com

Over at TaxProf, Paul Caron summarizes the biggest moves in the new 2007 U.S. News law school rankings. On the one hand, I’m pleased to report that George Mason moved from number 41 to number 37. On the other hand, don’t make a decision on where to attend law school based on annual fluctuations in […]

I’m wondering if all the individuals stating in various threads that conservatives and libertarian students who are concerned about whether they will be living and studying in a respectful environment should “get over it” would have the same attitude about someone who posted something like the following: “I live in the South and my 17 […]

I get occasional emails and personal inquiries regarding which, if any, elite colleges are “safe” for politically active and or outspoken conservatives and libertarian students in the sense that students and faculty will generally treat them respectfully, even if they are a small minority, and that they won’t need to worry about being hauled before […]

As regular VC readers know, I’ve been highly critical of Mearsheimer and Walt’s “Israel Lobby” paper. However, I think many of their critics are erring in accusing the authors of anti-Semitism without supporting evidence. Where some critics see anti-Semitism, I see what is much more likely the result of simple sheer arrogance. As is very […]

Seventeen year-old Kiwi Camara uses the word “nigs” to refer to African Americans as an unusually young Harvard law student. He later apologizes, and denies that he harbors ill feelings towards African Americans. Several years later, editors at the Yale Law Journal, unaware of his controversial past, offer to publish an article he wrote in […]