Tuesday, December 03, 2024

Major trans rights, minor trans rights, and political expediency

Jonathan Chait argues that Democrats must distinguish "major" from "minor" trans-rights questions and take a stand on the major questions while leaving minor (and, coincidentally, unpopular) issues alone. According to Chait (for whom this is bound up with sensitivity to accusations of being anti-trans):

The major questions about trans rights are: Do some people have the chance to live a happier and more fulfilling life in a different gender identity than the one to which they were born? Do some of these people need access to medical services to facilitate their transition? Do they deserve to be treated with respect and addressed by their chosen names and pronouns? Do they deserve equal protections from discrimination in employment, housing, and military service? Must society afford them access to public accommodations so as not to assault their dignity?

* * *

Democrats mainly ran into trouble because they either supported or refused to condemn a few highly unpopular positions: allowing athletes who transitioned from male to female to participate in high-level female sports, where they often enjoy clear physical advantages; allowing adolescent and preadolescent children to medically transition without adequate diagnosis; and providing state-funded sex-change surgery for prisoners and detainees.

Some thoughts about why it is not as simple as he makes it sound:

 

Continue reading "Major trans rights, minor trans rights, and political expediency"

Posted by Howard Wasserman on December 3, 2024 at 09:31 AM in Howard Wasserman, Law and Politics | Permalink | Comments (0)

Monday, December 02, 2024

Why California Should Not Be Admitting Teenagers to Law Practice

California has lately been admitting teenagers to the practice of law, including two siblings who each passed the bar at age 17 after graduating from an on-line law school. This is a very bad idea for everyone involved, as I explain in my new column for The Hill.

Here is the gist:

Just because teenagers can become lawyers doesn’t mean they should

Twice in the past two years, the bar examiners announced that 17-year-old applicants had passed the bar examination, to be sworn in as lawyers upon reaching 18.

I don’t doubt the brainpower and studiousness of the teenagers, a brother and sister, born a year apart, who began their law studies while still in middle school. Nonetheless, it is simply impossible for even the most book-smart 18-year-old to have acquired the life experience necessary for the competent practice of law.

At 18, they still cannot buy alcohol or tobacco, obtain an interstate commercial driving license, become an airline transport pilot, qualify as a professional fiduciary, deal blackjack in a casino or purchase handgun ammunition. 

There are true prodigies whose unique talents benefit from intense development from an early age. But law practice is not music or gymnastics. It is basically a job. It can be rewarding, fulfilling and socially productive, but apart from transient novelty, there is no advantage to starting young. 

You can read the full column at The Hill.

Posted by Steve Lubet on December 2, 2024 at 11:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Saturday, November 30, 2024

Saturday Music Post - I Am a Pilgrim

"I Am a Pilgrim" is an American hymn dating to the middle of the nineteenth century. It was first recorded in 1924 by the Norfolk Jubilee Quartet, a prominent African American gospel group (don't miss their clip at the bottom of the post). I first heard it by Doc Watson, and then by the Byrds. I can't explain it, but I just love Doc's four note base run between "not" and "made by hand." Many of the other artists have picked it up, but not all -- which is too bad in my book.

You can decide for yourself at The Faculty Lounge.

Posted by Steve Lubet on November 30, 2024 at 06:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Monday, November 25, 2024

Fiduciary Parenting of Trans Youth

With Skrmetti about to be argued at the Supreme Court (on a state ban of gender-affirming care for minors), I thought I would post my draft on "first-responder" parents and their role in the constellation of care for trans youth.  The paper is here and the abstract follows:

This Article aims to evaluate whether parents of minors who identify as transgender have moral duties to help their children achieve
social or medical transition and whether they have moral permissions to take a more oppositional posture—and, if so, under what conditions. Very child-centered theories of parenting might recommend that children should get to make their own decisions without parental gate-keeping; and very parent-centered theories of parenting might recommend that parental interests or values are appropriate to guide decision-making, instead. A particular account of fiduciary parenting, the view developed and defended here, does not require that parents always accede to their children’s demands for gender transitions. However, parents have obligations stemming from their fiduciary role to evaluate their children’s demands with careful deliberation, conscientiousness, and sensitivity to dynamic change. In particular, children can require from their parents a decision procedure that properly orients parents towards children’s welfare rather than parents’ own and a decision procedure that also doesn’t center “irreversibility” as a core anchoring mechanism, an entailment of careful and conscientious deliberation. It is an essential moment—as the Supreme Court is about to take up state bans on gender-affirming care for minors—to gain more clarity about how “first-responder” parents should be managing demands from their children about their gender expressions.

Posted by Ethan Leib on November 25, 2024 at 04:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

60 Minutes swallows nonsense campus-speech narratives

In an absurdly fawning piece on University of Austin as the answer to cancel culture and student self-censorship (uncited, but obviously based on FIRE's statistic nonsense) and thus the only place committed to open-minded and all-sides debate (as opposed to a politically one-sided grift).

The piece reveals the stickiness of the conservative narrative of censorious liberal students attacking conservative speakers and making them "feel" unwelcome while the right commits the free-and-open exchange of ideas. t never distinguishes between government censorship and one person's First Amendment desire to disassociate from another person because the latter spews hateful ideas. And it never mentions: 1) Florida's actual laws restricting what faculty and students can say, teach, and learn on campus and seeking to eliminate tenure or 2) four university presidents (whom the piece mentions at the outset as an example of left censorship) lost their jobs because Republican legislators and wealthy donor Bill Ackman (mentioned as a UATX supporter) believed they had failed to sufficiently restrict or sanction pro-Palestinian campus speech. It thus continues the narrative that the real threat to free speech is an offended sophomore at Oberlin and not the laws of a state.

Posted by Howard Wasserman on November 25, 2024 at 02:49 PM in First Amendment, Howard Wasserman | Permalink | Comments (0)

Consistency and Transparency in Assessment: The Case of Grading "Participation"

In my upper-level, seminar-type courses, I generally provide, in the syllabus, something along the lines of "X% of your final grade will be based on participation" (with the rest based on papers, etc.). The X varies, but I suppose it's generally been about 30%.  (In larger and first-year courses, I do not do this, and instead say something about the possibilities of "grade bumps".)

I have to admit/confess, though, that -- even after 25 (!) years -- I have less than complete confidence in my ability to consistently, predictably, rationally "assess" "participation" and I (still) worry about the possibility that the exercise sometimes (often?) ends up as just a gussied-up bit of intuition and impression. I wonder, have others identified good ways to avert, or at least minimize, this possibility? One idea I heard from a lawprawf was to ask each student to "assess" his or her own "participation" -- to assign him or herself a letter grade for it -- and to use that self-assessment . . . in some way. Have any readers done that? Comments are open!

Posted by Rick Garnett on November 25, 2024 at 11:21 AM in Teaching Law | Permalink | Comments (2)

Trans rights, the 2024 Election, and Trump II (Updated)

I have been tossing around ideas for this post since the election. My thoughts are not fully formed, but I wanted to get them down on paper.

• Trans and non-binary people form a vanishingly small percentage of the U.S. population. The question is what to do with that information. One narrative criticizes Republicans for obsessing and seeking to suppress a tiny group whose existence does not affect their lives--"why do you rally around hurting such a small group." A second criticizes Harris and Democrats for caring so much--"why do you care so much about (and feel the need to express support for) such a small group." Unfortunately, the latter has taken hold among Harris voters, particularly in light of evidence suggesting that Trump's anti-trans rants (the "She's for They/Them, Trump is for you" ad and Trump's stump bullshit about boys coming home from school as girls) moved meaningful numbers of votes. On the second narrative, it is not enough for Democrats to downplay support for this group--Harris should have responded by joining Trump and Republicans in piling on this group and agreeing to push them out of the polity. And the required move becomes not just declining to "promote" trans issues (whatever that means), but refraining from protecting trans people when the other side attacks. The idea seems to be that a small vulnerable group does not need protection.

Continue reading "Trans rights, the 2024 Election, and Trump II (Updated)"

Posted by Howard Wasserman on November 25, 2024 at 09:31 AM in Howard Wasserman, Law and Politics | Permalink | Comments (0)

Saturday, November 23, 2024

Independent Agency or Codependent Agency?

As I watch for various aspects of "realignment" that render dated a great deal of commentary that relies on "left vs. right" or "conservative vs. liberal" classifications, I was struck by one passing example of this, from Senator Elizabeth Warren:

Image

Information and discourse from That Place (where That Place equals any social media platform) are to be treated skeptically if not contemptuously, and it is always worth remembering that many or most of the statements from public figures and elected officials on such sites come from the minds of smart, earnest young creatures whose instructions are imperfect and who lack fully developed prefrontal cortices. And I have no reason to doubt this prediction from Senator Warren, or at least (assuming someone else wrote the tweet) "Senator Warren" in a more corporate sense. I have the general sense that she maintains a strong interest in the agency. Strictly speaking, though, shouldn't we consider it odd for a member of the legislative branch to pledge in advance the support of an independent executive-branch agency, as if this single senator can speak confidently for it? Could she not at least instruct her staff writers to maintain the niceties of form?   

Posted by Paul Horwitz on November 23, 2024 at 05:19 PM in Paul Horwitz | Permalink | Comments (0)