Author Archive | David Bernstein

Lawprof, blogger, and former Rehnquist clerk Rick Garnett offers his thoughts on the likely legacy of William Rehnquist over at Legal Affairs; in the same issue, lawprof and former Souter clerk Kermit Roosevelt offers a different take.

Going once…

As something of an antidote to the political and military images of we see every day on t.v., I though I’d pass along this picture my sister-in-law sent me of my niece and nephew (on the left) and their two friends.

A commentator at Janegalt.net: Correct me if I’m wrong, but about 6-8 weeks ago there was a flurry of activity in the blogosphere re: the dearth of conservatives/Republicans on university faculties. If I recall, the general, not to mention immediate, consensus among liberal/Democrat professors was that Republicans either didn’t have the intellectual oomph to be […]

Is it possible to write a lengthy article on the safety and other risks posed to consumers by early automobiles, have it reviewed by prominent legal historians, and published in a prestigious legal history journal, without ever considering the issue as to whether cars were more or less safe than the horse and buggies they […]

Some interesting background reading on Nancy Hopkins, the MIT scientist who helped create a brouhaha by walking out of Larry Summers’ controversial speech on women in science [“When he started talking about innate differences in aptitude between men and women, I just couldn’t breathe because this kind of bias makes me physically ill.”] It’s actually […]

Cathy Young provides a balanced appraisal of Ms. Rand in Reason.

Just someone whose hatred of Israel in general, and more hawkish elements in Israel in particular, have driven him close to the edge of Lyndon Larouche territory. Check out this dishonest and dishonorable hatchet job* on Douglas Feith, the outgoing (Jewish) high-level Pentagon official: Having a Likudnik as the number three man in the Pentagon […]

Steven Pinker, author of The Blank Slate, provides some sensible commentary on the Summers controversy to the Harvard Crimson, including: “People who storm out of a meeting at the mention of a hypothesis, or declare it taboo or offensive without providing arguments or evidence, don’t get the concept of a university or free inquiry.”

In Ha’aretz, reprinted from the New York Review of Books.

I really don’t see why Larry Summers needed to make an abject apology for merely suggesting the possibility that, along with other possible factors, including discrimination, innate differences between men and women may play a role in the disparity between men and women going into the sciences. To my knowledge, the subject of the influence […]

The New York Times weighs in on the Columbia Middle Eastern Studies controversy, and a VC reader sends the following criticisms, among others: (1) The article repeatedly quotes a crude email from a medical professor as a representation of the pro-Israel view on campus. (2) Everyone criticizing the professors are described as “pro-Israel,” while the […]

From the Washington Post: “Why stir up a political hornet’s nest …. when there is no urgency?” said Rep. Rob Simmons (Conn.), who represents a competitive district. “When does the program go belly up? 2042. I will be dead by then.”

You can follow the continuing saga over the alleged inappropriate behavior by Middle Eastern Studies professors at Columbia at a new website, Columbiaacademicfreedom.org. I find it especially interesting, and disturbing, that two of the professors appointed to a university committee investigating the charges are members of a department of which one of the accused is […]

University of Michigan law professor Richard Friedman announces: Beginning with the decision of Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, on March 8, there have been many significant and interesting developments with respect to the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment. This is a matter of great interest to me, and so I have just set […]