Saturday, September 07, 2024
Saturday Music Post - Unrelated Cochrans
Eddie Cochran was one of the early rockers, with a rebellious image that was later perfected by Elvis Presley and Bob Dylan. Wayne Cochran was called the White Knight of Soul, and was well known for his friendship with fellow Georgians James Brown and Otis Redding (he played bass on Redding's early recordings). Hank Cochran was less famous than the other two, but was extremely influential in country music, writing hits for Patsy Cline, Eddy Arnold and others. Anita Cochran recorded "Fight Like a Girl" (at the bottom of the post) following her breast cancer diagnosis.
You can see them all at The Faculty Lounge.
Posted by Steve Lubet on September 7, 2024 at 01:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Friday, September 06, 2024
There Are No Holocaust "Revisionists"
Two recent headlines in the New York Times referred to a "Holocaust Revisionist":
Tucker Carlson Sharply Criticized for Hosting Holocaust Revisionist
Vance Declines to Denounce Carlson After Interview With Holocaust Revisionist
No, no, no, no, no. The so-called "revisionist" in question is Darryl Cooper, who in fact is a flat-out H0locaust denier. As the Times explains several paragraphs into the article:
Mr. Cooper, who has a podcast and newsletter called “Martyr Made,” proceeded to make a variety of false claims about the Holocaust and World War II, including that millions of people in concentration camps “ended up dead” merely because the Nazis did not have enough resources to care for them, rather than as a result of the intentional genocide that it was.
The White House got it right, which wasn't difficult:
“Giving a microphone to a Holocaust denier who spreads Nazi propaganda is a disgusting and sadistic insult to all Americans, to the memory of the over six million Jews who were genocidally murdered by Adolf Hitler, to the service of the millions of Americans who fought to defeat Nazism and to every subsequent victim of antisemitism.”
Holocaust deniers routinely call themselves "revisionists" to give their "moral rot" (as the White House put it) a veneer of respectability. One of their main organizations, for example, is called the Institute for Historical Review.
But the truth is that they are antisemitic deniers with no intellectual legitimacy, as Deborah Lipstadt proved in London almost 30 years ago.
There is no excuse for the Times to use the term "Holocaust revisionist" in 2024. I realize that the reporters don't write the headlines, but the editor who wrote this one should be reassigned.
Posted by Steve Lubet on September 6, 2024 at 02:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Thursday, September 05, 2024
FIU College of Law seeks tenure-track doctrinal faculty
Florida International University College of Law, South Florida’s public law school, invites applicants for multiple tenure-track positions to begin no later than the 2025-26 academic year. We seek candidates in Environmental Law, Intellectual Property/Technology, and Criminal Law and Procedure, as well as coverage in other first-year and core upper-level courses such as Administrative Law.
Continue reading "FIU College of Law seeks tenure-track doctrinal faculty"
Posted by Howard Wasserman on September 5, 2024 at 11:57 AM in Howard Wasserman, Teaching Law | Permalink | Comments (0)
FIU College of Law seeks legal writing faculty
Florida International University College of Law, South Florida’s public law school, invites applicants for a contract position in Legal Skills and Values, to begin no later than the 2025-26 academic year.
Continue reading "FIU College of Law seeks legal writing faculty"
Posted by Howard Wasserman on September 5, 2024 at 11:56 AM in Howard Wasserman, Teaching Law | Permalink | Comments (0)
Blogging Sabbatical
I've been an active blogger for fifteen years. After much reflection, I've decided that it's time for an extended break. Academic sabbaticals give people time to reflect and to work on other projects. The same will be true here.
I'll be back sometime next year. In the meantime, as Edward R. Murrow used to say when signing off, "Good night, and good luck."
Posted by Gerard Magliocca on September 5, 2024 at 11:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
AI and oral assessments
Over the years, we have had many posts and conversations about oral assessments. I have written about my oral arguments in Fed Courts and Civil Rights, which now provide the sole end-of-semester assessment (everything else happens in-semester).
A thought this morning: Would oral assessments provide a solution to the Chat GPT/AI problem?
Posted by Howard Wasserman on September 5, 2024 at 06:41 AM in Howard Wasserman, Teaching Law | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tuesday, September 03, 2024
Defending Michael Roth
Not that he needs me to. I agree with Steve--and have said as much, here and elsewhere--that university's discovery of the freedom to offend and to express the idea we hate miraculously appeared only when offense began targeting Jews.
As to Roth*: My instinct is to take him at his word--he intends to apply "no right not to be offended" across the board. He said as much during the parents' convocation last week. Of course, that tells us nothing about how the administrators in the DEI office act on the ground, but I only know so much at this point.
Full disclosure: I have been a fan for many years, since long before the current campus controversies or my kid's interest in going to the school. I saw video of him (from just after the Great Recession, when the bottom dropping out of humanities began accelerating) defending liberal arts and college education being about more than getting a job; I was hooked. That he has (mostly) gotten the speech stuff right--and that my kid decided to go there--only adds to my fanboydom.
Roth said something else to parents I found interesting: That students have a right not to be harassed but no right not to be offended and that the line between them is clear and obvious in most cases. And I think most people in that room agreed--it is clear and obvious. But I expect most would disagree with me (and him) about which side any particular case fell.
Posted by Howard Wasserman on September 3, 2024 at 02:50 PM in Howard Wasserman | Permalink | Comments (0)
A Stunning Reversal on Academic Boycotts Is All about Israel
My new essay in The Hill explains how the AAUP’s new position – legitimizing academic boycotts – is a threat to the principle of academic freedom. Here is the gist:
A stunning reversal on academic boycotts is all about Israel
There was a time when the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) deserved its self-description as the “most prominent guardian of academic freedom” for faculty and students in the U.S., but not any longer.
Last month, the organization rescinded its long-standing opposition to academic boycotts, which it had previously recognized as aiming “directly at the free exchange of ideas,” in favor of a new policy declaring that such boycotts “can legitimately seek to protect and advance . . . academic freedom and fundamental rights.”
The turnaround is a betrayal of academic values, which ideally comprise the “freedom of teachers and researchers to engage in work with academic colleagues” and “the freest possible international movement of scholars and ideas,” without political restraints.
You can read the entire essay in The Hill.
Posted by Steve Lubet on September 3, 2024 at 01:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
More on Wesleyan
Howard skeptically comments below on Wesleyan President Michael Roth's NYT op-ed, explaining that last Spring's Gaza encampment was permitted to continue because the students' "right to nonviolent protest was more important than their modest violations of the rules." In his persuasively understated way, Howard calls this a "unique take," which will of course invite greater disruptions.
I found another aspect of Roth's oped equally dubious:
I also met with pro-Israel students, mostly Jewish, some of whom felt beleaguered by what their classmates were saying. I made clear that if any of them felt harassed, I would intervene. I also said that I could ensure their ability to pursue their education, but that I could not protect them from being offended.
That would be a welcome change on many campuses, given the tendency of DEI offices to intervene whenever students claim to feel "unsafe." The question, of course, is whether Roth, or any other university administrator, will apply the "no protection from offense" policy to any groups other than Jews.
Posted by Steve Lubet on September 3, 2024 at 11:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
VAPs and Fellowships 2024-2025
A spreadsheet for candidates to track information about VAPs or similar fellowships (for example, the Climenko and Bigelow) for the 2024-2025 hiring cycle is now available. In the spreadsheet, you can enter information regarding screeners, callbacks, offers, and so forth. You can also write more general comments.
The tabs on the spreadsheet marked "Comments" and "Q&A" will, I hope, serve as substitutes for the comment thread on Prawfs, as the commenting function on Typepad is in serious technical trouble. If people have questions about the process, please post them on the Q&A tab, and everyone -- including current professors and fellows -- please chime in and answer!
Anyone can edit the spreadsheet; I will not be generally editing it or monitoring it.
Here is last year's thread and last year's spreadsheet.
Posted by Sarah Lawsky on September 3, 2024 at 11:16 AM in Getting a Job on the Law Teaching Market | Permalink | Comments (0)
Monday, September 02, 2024
Hiring Committee Topics of Interest 2024-2025
As of September 2, 2024, there are 134 unique schools represented in the hiring committees sheet. (If your committee is not represented on the spreadsheet, please fill out the Google form or send me an email!) Many, though not all, of these schools expressed interest in particular subject or subjects for hiring. Of course, that a school expresses interest in a particular area does not mean that the school will hire in that area. And schools may hire in areas that they do not list. Nonetheless, to see in what areas schools expressed interest, I classified all the topics listed to general classifications, and then counted the numbers of times each general classification was mentioned (graph below; see a spreadsheet with the full list and count; you could do this one-by-one in the filtering tool if you wanted to for some reason).
Continue reading "Hiring Committee Topics of Interest 2024-2025"
Posted by Sarah Lawsky on September 2, 2024 at 05:10 PM in Getting a Job on the Law Teaching Market | Permalink | Comments (0)
"Modest violations of the rules"
Wesleyan (where my son had his first class this morning) President Michael Roth published a NYT op-ed encouraging more political activity on campus this year, arguing that universities exist for the good of the individual and the good of the world, inherently political and public-leaning spaces in which to "practice democracy."
Speaking of last spring's encampments, Roth writes "[s]ince the protest was nonviolent and the students in the encampment were careful not to disrupt normal university operations, we allowed it to continue because their right to nonviolent protest was more important than their modest violations of the rules." Framing long-term encampments as "modest violations of the rules" is a unique take--certainly different from the notion that the encampments represented a sea change from small rulebreaking for a limited time to something "more aggressive, more interfering, and more permanent."
Posted by Howard Wasserman on September 2, 2024 at 12:12 PM in Howard Wasserman, Teaching Law | Permalink | Comments (0)
Musk suit proceeds v. Media Matters
So says Judge Reed O'Connor, denying motions to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction, improper venue, and failure to state a claim in Twitter's suit against Media Matters and a reporter.
On personal jurisdiction, I wrote at the time Musk filed suit that I did not see the necessary "Texasness" in stories written about a California company by a D.C.-based reporter and published to the world by a D.C.-based entity. The court found that Texasness because two of the "blue-chip" companies Media Matters featured as having ads running next to Nazi content (and who stopped advertising on Twitter) were Oracle and AT&T, both Texas companies located in the Northern District. On one hand, a claim that plaintiff's speech tortiously interfered with defendant's contact and relationship with a Texas company can be seen as directed to Texas or involving Texas conduct. On the other, this seems far more attenuated than stories about forum conduct by forum citizens in the forum; paraphrasing Walden v. Fiore, Twitter suffers the same injury regardless of the location of the companies featured advertising next to offensive content. The same analysis basically resolves venue--a substantial part of the events giving rise to the claim occurred in the Northern District as the location of the businesses interfered with.
On the merits, this suit raises the prospect of businesses using tortious interference to end-run New York Times for broad public speech. The Court has blocked past efforts, as by imposing an actual malice requirement on intentional infliction distress. I think the same thing needs to happen here, although O'Connor did not require plaintiffs to plead those additional facts. The merits discuss was, to coin a phrase, conclusory and failed to show what allegations establish which elements (to say nothing of the fact that MM's statements, as described in the complaint, were true).
While not a final judgment, denials of dismissal for lack of personal jurisdiction represent a common use of mandamus in federal court. Query whether Media Matters pursues that course to try to get away from Judge O'Connor as quickly as possible.
Posted by Howard Wasserman on September 2, 2024 at 11:50 AM in Civil Procedure, Constitutional thoughts, First Amendment, Howard Wasserman | Permalink | Comments (0)
Saturday, August 31, 2024
Do reasons for non-enforcement matter?
The Eighth Circuit declared invalid a Missouri law that a bunch of federal laws related to firearms "shall be invalid to this state, shall not
be recognized by this state, shall be specifically rejected by this state, and shall not be enforced by this state." No state or local officials possess enforcement authority. And the law creates a private right of action (because Republican lawmakers believe that is the magic bullet to stop everything they do not like) against any public official who enforces the law.
Missouri argued (correctly) that it can refuse to allow its officers to enforce federal law; thus, the reasons for refusing to enforce do not matter. Here, in full, is the Court's response:
That Missouri may lawfully withhold its assistance from federal law enforcement, however, does not mean that the State may do so by purporting to invalidate federal law. In this context, as in others, the Constitution “is concerned with means as well as ends.” Horne v. Dep’t of Agric., 576 U.S. 350, 362 (2015). Missouri has the power to withhold state assistance, “but the means it uses to achieve its ends must be ‘consist[ent] with the letter and spirit of the constitution.’” Id. (quoting McCulloch, 7 U.S. (4 Wheat.) at 421) (alteration in original). Missouri’s assertion that federal laws regulating firearms are “invalid to this State” is inconsistent with both. If the State prefers as a matter of policy to discontinue assistance with the enforcement of valid federal firearms laws, then it may do so by other means that are lawful, and assume political accountability for that decision.
I am a formalist and even I recognize this as utterly mindless formalism. This is not 1833 South Carolina preparing to wield the militia against federal enforcers. There is no meaningful difference between "federal law is illegal in this state and we will not enforce it" and "federal law is stupid and we will not enforce it" and "we don't wanna enforce it just 'cause and you can't make us--nyah." Missouri can reenact the identical law tomorrow and rely on #2 or #3 and land in the same place--no state or local enforcement, private right of action against any officer who attempts to enforce.
Maybe the law could include a preamble or finding saying "We, the legislature, believe these laws are invalid to this state, should not be recognized by this state, should be specifically rejected by this state, and shall not be enforced by this state, but the activist federal judges will not let us say that."
Posted by Howard Wasserman on August 31, 2024 at 08:21 AM in Constitutional thoughts, Howard Wasserman, Judicial Process | Permalink | Comments (0)
Saturday Music Post - Angelic Voices
"Seven Spanish Angels" was released by Willie Nelson and Ray Charles in 1984, becoming Charles's most successful hit on the Country charts. It was conceived by Troy Seals and Eddie Setser as a sort of Marty Robbins song, but Robbins had died in 1982. They offered it to Willie Nelson, who agreed to record it, but Ray Charles's producer had heard the demo and suggested it as a duet.
Brilliant idea, which you can enjoy along with many covers on The Faculty Lounge.
Posted by Steve Lubet on August 31, 2024 at 05:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Thursday, August 29, 2024
Information Technology Chair Search
It's a busy hiring year for my school. We are also initiating a search for a new Information Technology Chair. Again, feel free to contact me if you are interested or have questions.
Posted by Gerard Magliocca on August 29, 2024 at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)