Author Archive | Randy Barnett

On Thursday of this week (March 17th), I will be giving the Stranahan Lecture at the University of Toledo School of Law at noon in Auditorium. I will be speaking on “Medical Cannabis, the Commerce Clause, and Arguing in the Supreme Court.” On Thursday of next week (March 24th) I will be speaking on my […]

In case you missed the update to my previous post, click here. It turns out that there is not one story, but two.

This link from a VC reader shows why it is very hard to prove a negative. It turns out that there IS a student at Foothill College in California named Ahmad al-Qloushi who claims this happened to him, though Media Matters–“a Web-based, not-for-profit progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting […]

Have you heard the story of the college professor who asked his class to write a mid-term essay on “Why George Bush is a war criminal,” and then gave an “F” to a student who had been offended by the assignment and had instead turned in an essay on “Why Saddam Hussein is a war […]

On Letters of Marque, Heidi Bond makes an excellent point: I’ve basically come to the conclusion, after three weeks, that it’s bad for everyone that every single major Law Review gets something like two thousand submissions a year. It’s bad for us, because we can’t get our heads around all the papers, and feel swamped […]

Tom Smith writes about Peter Singer in Princeton Professor not eligible for babysitting job: I am thinking I would not let Peter Singer babysit my kids. In this charming discussion, he allows as how killing a newborn baby is not killing a person. What I want to know is, is killing a Princeton philosophy professor […]

Eric Goldman of Marquette has some very insightful things to say on the topic of getting a teaching job in a series of blog posts that you can access here. He and I agree about a whole lot, but there is one cliche he invokes that I resist: “Law professors,” he writes, “say that we […]

I received the following thoughtful email from a lawyer reader: I have been reading with interest your and others’ blogging on getting a position as a law professor. One point that I have not yet seen made, and that I think is important, is that no one should be going that route unless he has […]

In response to my Getting a Law Teaching Job in which I suggest that candidates aim to have published two articles before going on the market, Larry Solum posts on Legal Theory Blog: Right on the money–except that the magic number for publications is THREE not two. “Why three?” you ask. Because the AALS form […]

Lots has been posted lately about getting a law teaching job and I won’t try to link to it all. (For a starter set of links click here (Orin) and here (Chris Geidner)and here (Brian Leiter) and here (Christine Hurt) and here (Larry Solum).) I thought I would add my 2 cents. First as to […]

If you enjoy the Volokh Conspiracy, you may also like The Right Coast–a group blog by law professors at the University of San Diego. It is one of the few blogs I have on the favorites list of my Treo so I can read it while traveling. Everyone who posts there is interesting and insightful, […]

Tomorrow, I will speaking on Ashcroft v. Raich at NYU law school at 12:15 p.m. Vanderbilt Hall (located at 40 Washington Square South) Room 204 (lunch will be provided) and at Columbia law school at 6:30pm (Greene Hall 104).

I what I am told is an amazing development, the Student Senate at the University of Alabama has voted unanimously to condemn the speech code adopted by the Faculty Senate. Yesterday, the Student Senate unanimously passed a resolution that represents a stunning victory for academic free speech. In concise and clear wording, it explicitly repudiates […]

With the Academy Awards on Sunday, I keep thinking back to sitting on the Red Carpet at last year’s show and The Night Before Party that I attended with my wife. I thought some might enjoy my reposting this VC post from February 29th, 2004: THE NIGHT BEFORE: So while in LA for the Southern […]

There has been much blogospheric reaction to my post yesterday on the Libertarian Party (click trackbacks to read it). And I have received much thoughtful, cordial and sympathetic email–too much to respond to while on the road here in Alabama. I found the post that best defends the position I was suggesting was by Neo-Libertarian. […]