Conventional wisdom tells us that the electoral college requires that the person who lost the popular vote this year must nonetheless become our president. That view is an insult to our framers. It is compelled by nothing in our Constitution. It should be rejected by anyone with any understanding of our democratic traditions — most important, the electors themselves.... In this election, the people did not go crazy. The winner, by far, of the popular vote is the most qualified candidate for president in more than a generation. Like her or not, no elector could have a good-faith reason to vote against her because of her qualifications. Choosing her is thus plainly within the bounds of a reasonable judgment by the people.
American Law Institute rejects affirmative consent standard in defining sexual assault In a rebuke to a feminist idea that has migrated from college campuses to mainstream culture, an influential legal group overwhelmingly rejected Tuesday a provision that would have endorsed an “affirmative consent” standard for the purpose of defining sexual assault.
Legal Group Weighs Radical Expansion of Sex Crimes Imagine the following case: Two recent college grads meet in a bar, talk, begin kissing, and go to her apartment. After a little more talking, they resume kissing there. He undresses her and initiates sexual intercourse. She neither objects nor resists. He leaves, and they have no further contact. A month later, she files a criminal complaint with police, complaining that this was rape because she never expressed verbal consent and was physically passive.
“Whether or not you agreed with him–or made a lot of jokes about him, like I did–one thing you’ve got to admit is that he had a great sense of humor,” Colbert began. “People have actually broken down the transcripts of oral arguments, and he told more jokes and got more laughs than any of the other justices.” “I was lucky enough to have one conversation with Antonin Scalia that explained his appeal to me,” Colbert continued, describing his speech at the 2006 White House Correspondents Dinner. “Not many people laughed in the front row,” where the “important people” sit.
The University of Denver Sturm College of Law will continue leading legal marijuana education with an investment from Denver-based law firm Vicent Sederberg. The law school announced today that Vicent Sederberg made a $45,000 commitment to enable one faculty member to serve as the Vicente Sederberg Professor of Marijuana Law and Policy. “As the marijuana industry expands in Colorado and around the nation and the world, there is a growing need for attorneys qualified to represent business owners,” Vicente Sederberg founding partner and DU Sturm College of Law alumnus Brian Vicente said in a press release. “With the launch of this professorship, Sturm College of Law will be taking the lead in providing law students the training they need to enter this new field. We are proud to be able to support their efforts in this area.”The Denver Business Journal elaborates:
Now more than ever, it is critical that law students develop the ability to engage productively and analytically in conversations about sexual assault. Instead, though, many students and teachers appear to be absorbing a cultural signal that real and challenging discussion of sexual misconduct is too risky to undertake—and that the risk is of a traumatic injury analogous to sexual assault itself. This is, to say the least, a perverse and unintended side effect of the intense public attention given to sexual violence in recent years. If the topic of sexual assault were to leave the law-school classroom, it would be a tremendous loss—above all to victims of sexual assault.Because we can't have nice things in academia anymore, we have, of course, a response. Margaret Drew is a law professor at the University of Massachusetts, and she thinks that Jeannie Suk's article "misses the point":
Some students at the UCLA School of Law have expressed concerns after a professor asked an exam question this week relating to the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, in Ferguson, Mo. The exam, given by Professor Robert Goldstein in Constitutional Law II, asked students to write a memo related to the Ferguson shooting. Some students who took the exam said they found it difficult to write about the incident in terms of the first amendment while ignoring issues such as police brutality.... Hussain Turk, a second-year law student who took the exam, said he thinks the question was problematic because he thinks exams should not ask students to address controversial events. He added that he thinks the question was more emotionally difficult for black students to answer than for other students.
The lawsuit by Teresa Wagner against the former Dean of the University of Iowa’s College of Law has received a lot of attention, a tortured procedural history (including a prior appeal) and confusing results. In the latest twist, a judge has denied Wagner’s motion for a new trial (full opinion embedded at bottom of post). The lawsuit concerns claims by Wagner that she suffered discrimination based on her conservative political views, resulting in her being denied a promotion (she’s still employed).Paul Mirengoff of Power Line describes the outrageous facts behind the case:
Wagner was already the associate director of the law school’s writing center. Moreover, she had taught legal writing at George Mason University Law School, edited three books, practiced as a trial attorney in Iowa, and written several legal briefs, including one in a U.S. Supreme Court case. In addition, the faculty-appointments committee at the University of Iowa College of Law recommended her appointment as a full-time instructor.
I have been traveling since about 6 this morning. What did I miss? Do we have amnesty yet? Has Snowden officially gone over to the other side yet? Is IRS-gate still a "gate"? Patricia sent me this email: What do we have to do to ...
“Buy when everyone else is selling.” From Warren Buffett on down, it’s a time tested approach to investing. It doesn’t mean purchase anything that comes along, or overpay, but it’s a contrarian approach to the madness of markets which tend to drive valuations to extremes for...
The lawsuit by Teresa Wagner against the former Dean of the University of Iowa's College of Law has received a lot of attention, a tortured procedural history (including a prior appeal) and confusing results. In the latest twist, a judge has denied Wagner's motion for a...
... and free condom distribution too!...
Starting with my post Elizabeth Warren’s law license problem last Monday and continuing through the week, I have laid out the facts and documents regarding Elizabeth Warren's practice of law from her Cambridge office over the course of a decade. I also have noted that Warren refuses...
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