Author Archive | David Bernstein

I’ve been searching for a constructive response to the obscene boycott of Haifa and Bar-Ilan universities in Israel by the British Association of University Teachers. An email in my inbox today suggests one: Scholars for Peace in the Middle East Working With Bar-Ilan and Haifa Universities To Develop International Affiliate Faculty Status in Protest of […]

For reasons unknown to me (but that probably don’t reflect robust sales, unfortunately), Amazon is now selling the paperback edition of my book, You Can’t Say That! The Growing Threat to Civil Liberties from Antidiscrimination Laws, for 60% off the cover price, or a mere $5.18. Marketplace sellers are selling it for as low as […]

In a frozen custard, and, this time, there is evidence that it’s true.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: My original post on this issue contained a blatant error of fact, for which I take full responsibility. Oddly, I had recognized the importance of this fact, and checked on it several different times, but somehow screwed it up anyway, which, as I said before, will teach me not to blog at 3:00 […]

In a previous post on the purported (but non-existent) “Constitution in Exile movement,” I suggested that liberals who use the phrase are likely trying to imply not simply that some elite legal libertarians would like to revive constitutional limitations on government power that were enforced before the New Deal, but also that these scholars were […]

From PG at De Novo: “UPDATE: Note to self — always check Volokh first.” Hear, hear!

If you couldn’t make it to AEI today to watch the Lochner at 100 event featuring me, Jeffrey Rosen, and G. Edward White, you can watch a video of the event here. Jeff’s controversial New York Times piece came up in passing several times, but mostly the panel involved me talking about the history of […]

I’m sure he’ll fill VC readers in.

Laissez-Faire Books is having its annual 15% off everything sale, which is quite good considering that its regular prices match or beat Amazon’s. It’s a great opportunity to pick up at a discount 2005 Spooner Award winner Randy Barnett’s Restoring the Lost Constitution, or 2004 Spooner Award finalist You Can’t Say That! (by guess who?)

with a former BBC Middle Eastern correspondent who actually thinks BBC coverage is too pro-Israel. Among other things, he (1) justifies suicide murders; (2) compares Ariel Sharon unfavorably with Yasser Arafat; (3) claims that the Syrian occupation of Lebanon (a sovereign country) was not really an occupation, unlike the Israeli occupation of “Palestine” (a country […]

Good post by Jonathan B. Wilson defending Justice Brown’s opinion in Aguilar v. Avis Rent A Car System, although, if anything, Wilson concedes too much to Brown’s critics. Wilson writes, “[n]o one wants to encourage or permit the use of racial epithets in the workplace.” Well, I certainly don’t want to encourage it, and I […]

This story, on David Garrow’s criticism of Justice Blackmun for relying too heavily on his clerks, is quite typical in quoting adoring former clerks who strongly defend Blackmun. Have you ever seen a story about a Justice where the clerks are portrayed as anything but adoring? Have all the Justices for the last fifty years […]

By now, liberal interest groups no doubt have extensive dossiers on the non-squishy frontrunners for the next open Supreme Court seat, and will be ready with attacks immediately if one of these individuals is nominated. In turn, it would make sense for the Republicans to outmaneuver these groups by nominating a “dark horse” who hasn’t […]

Back in March 1987, Prof. Herman Schwartz wrote an article for The Nation that bears striking resemblance to Rosen’s N.Y. Times piece (to be clear, I’m not accusing Rosen of plagiarism, or even of ever having read Schwartz’s article; it’s just that 1987 seems like a time of similar hysteria over perceived libertarian influence on […]

Jeff Rosen is a learned guy who has written some rather perceptive things about the so-called Lochner era in his law review scholarhip. See 66 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 1241. Unfortunately, in his journalistic piece in the Times magazine, he simply regurgitates Progressive myths when recounting constitutional history. To wit: Rosen: All restoration fantasies have […]