Author Archive | Todd Zywicki

On Monday, I will be participating on a panel at the American Enterprise Institute to discuss John Lott’s new paper, “The Judicial Confirmation Process: The Difficulty in Being Smart.” You can download a copy of the paper here. The program is at 9:00 a.m., and we have learned that C-Span intends to braodcast it if […]

Yesterday, the Senate Judicary Committee held a hearing on the Bankruptcy Reform Legislation that has been introduced yet again. The legislation has been kicking around for 7-8 years now, and this is the Fourth Congress that has considered it. Everytime it has been voted on it has passed both houses of Congress by overwhelming majorities, […]

A couple of interesting reviews of “I Am Charlotte Simmons” by my colleagues, Frank Buckley in Crisis (although I don’t get the title of the review) and Peter Berkowitz in Policy Review. Neither of them comment much on the character I found most striking–the weasel professor who is more concerned about politics than the academic […]

Today’s Washington Post has an interesting column by Laura Thomas from a Twenty-Something on the future of Social Security. The opening paragraph: People my age are as likely to believe in Social Security as they are in Santa Claus. And, if you ask me, it would be equally naive for a twenty-something to believe in […]

Sometimes “lost films” are lost for a reason, as Joe Malchow reports about a campus film festival last night. Check out the second short film on the war on terror in particular, which you can also view directly here, in which the director poses the stimulating question of whether now that the United States has […]

Thank you to all of you who have filled out and returned a petition to help me to get access the Dartmouth Trustee ballot. I am gratified not only for your support but all of the kind words and well wishes that I have received over the past week from Dartmouth friends and concerned alumni. […]

My former colleague Larry Ribstein offers sound advice to new law professors: The discussion feels like Groundhog Day not because of some mysterious plot device, but for the more down to earth reason that new people keep arriving [into the profession], and they need to have something to say. And sometimes they do. The truly […]

From The Telegraph: “A 25-year-old waitress who turned down a job providing ‘sexual services’ at a brothel in Berlin faces possible cuts to her unemployment benefit under laws introduced this year.” Update: Tom has some interesting Rants on the implications of this. Update: A was forwarded a bit of different report on this issue, a […]

The Problem: First Amendment no big deal, students say Study shows American teenagers indifferent to freedoms The Solution: The Bill of Rights Institute I am the Chair of the Academic Advisory Committe, Eugene is on the Academic Advisory Committee, and David has lectured at programs for the Bill of Rights Institute. It is a very […]

The Commercial Law League of America (“CLLA”) is reporting brewing activity on the bankruptcy reform front for the–get this–7th consecutive year. The non-issue of the dischargeability of debts related to abortion-related torts remains the sticking point. It is a non-issue because established case law already uniformly finds these debts to be nondischargeable as intentional torts […]

Last week I posted an article by a current Dartmouth student providing his personal criticism of the lack of intellectual diversity at Dartmouth. There was an interesting follow-up letter in today’s issue of The Dartmouth, the traditional college newspaper by a recent Dartmouth graduate. I have expressed this view privately in response to emails from […]

Over the weekend, I had the opportunity to read a terrific paper by Kimberly Krawiec and Kathy Zeiler on the duty to disclose in contract negotiations. The paper collects a huge database of cases involving claims of an affirmative duty to disclose and examines the various variables that have been argued by theorists that explain […]

From today’s Washington Times, “Supporters of President Bush’s judicial nominees have hired the same media firm used by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth for their efforts to defend the next nominee for any upcoming Supreme Court vacancy. The aggressive media style of Creative Response Concepts (CRC) will be met by a “war room” already set […]

After conversations with many readers and Dartmouth Alumni over the past few weeks, I have decided to run as an independent petition candidate for the Dartmouth Board of Trustees this spring. I apologize to VC readers who may not be interested in this, but for Dartmouth alumni who are reading this, I would like to […]

I recently listened to an abridged version of the Edmund Morris’s controversial biography of Ronald Reagan, “Dutch.” Based on my experience, I can recommend the abridged book-on-tape version as a very entertaining and interesting profile of President Reagan–indeed, I suspect that the abridged book-on-tape version is probably better than the book itself. First, it cuts […]