Author Archive | Eugene Volokh

More attempts to suppress dissent in Europe: One of Belgium’s leading civil rights groups has announced it intends to sue Belgian cardinal Gustaaf Joos for violating the country’s anti-discrimination laws. Joos said in a recent magazine interview that he believed that 90-95 percent of gay people were “sexual perverts” and that the remainder needed help. […]

Washington state law criminally punishes people who “knowingly, recklessly, or with criminal negligence” “[f]ail[] to provide [an animal in their care] with necessary food, water, shelter, rest, sanitation, ventilation, space, or medical attention and the animal suffers unnecessary or unjustifiable physical pain as a result of the failure.” Hey, I have two dogs; I certainly […]

Several readers have e-mailed me about this Florida Sun-Sentinel report: Archbishop McCarthy High students [were disqualified] from a [drama] competition early this week for their performance of The Children’s Story. In the play, first published in 1963 by Shogun author James Clavell, third-graders in a classroom in a United States that has been defeated by […]

Howard Bashman blogs some more about the controversy over proposed Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 32.1. Brief summary of debate: Many federal appellate decisions are unpublished, and aren’t supposed to be binding precedent. Many federal circuits actually prohibit the citation of these decisions in briefs before the circuit, and before federal district courts in that […]

Even before Levy and DeLong, Socrates himself famously said, “An uncaffeinated life is not worth living.” Or something like that.

if it’s offensive enough to cotenants based on race, religion, sex, national origin, disability, or familial status (or, in some jurisdictions, sexual orientation, political affiliation, occupation, or “matriculation”). That’s what Neudecker v. Boisclair Corp., a case that the Eighth Circuit federal court of appeals decided last month, held as to disability, but its logic applies […]

Stu’s Views:

Pete Guither writes, apropos my post about the UCLA speech code that prohibits any references, direct or indirect, to alcohol, illegal drugs, and crime in posters distributed in campus housing: Thought you might like to know that I’ve been dealing with a similar situation at Illinois State University. Illinois State’s policy is only slightly less […]

A reader writes: “I’m not totally sure why you’re spending so much time on this guy. Is he significant in some way?”      Well, here’s his bio, from townhall.com, where he’s a regular columnist; his column also runs in the Washington Times: Paul Craig Roberts is the John M. Olin fellow at the Institute for Political […]

Does Lawrence v. Texas recognize a fundamental constitutional right to sexual autonomy? There was a hot debate about this following the Lawrence decision; I argued here that it does.      Today’s Eleventh Circuit decision upholding Florida’s statutory ban on adoptions by practicing homosexuals shows the importance of this question. The Eleventh Circuit correctly points out that […]

Claim to fame: The person credited for writing the Ctrl-Alt-Delete code is retiring. (It’s not clear from the story whether he also hit on the idea of using Ctrl-Alt-Delete as the restart sequence.) Thanks to How Appealing for the pointer.

Columnists Paul Craig Roberts begins a recent column with a criticism of the income tax — something that certainly could be criticized — but then says (emphasis added): Compare an American taxpayer’s situation today with that of a 19th century American slave. Not all slaves worked on cotton plantations. Some with marketable skills were leased […]

was apparently selling a line of “Everybody Loves [Ethnic Group] Girls” T-shirts — “Irish” with shamrocks, “German” with beer steins, “Jewish” with purses and dollar signs: I’m pretty cautious about charging people with anti-Semitism; and I should also acknowledge that the target market for the shirts is obviously Jewish girls, so it would be Jewish […]

I’m pleased to report that Wonkette has just been added to our blogroll. I normally don’t announce such things, but given this post, I think I have to make an exception.      I know, I know, the old “don’t blogroll her, or else we’ll never link to you” ploy is the oldest trick in the book; […]

I’ve finally finished up a draft of my Crime-Facilitating Speech article that I’m ready to show the world. There are still a few substantive points that I need help on (marked in the piece), and I’ll have to do a lot of editing. What’s more, the piece is nearly 120 pages, which is too long […]