The Faculty Lounge

Roger Williams Law Seeks Dean

This just in:

Roger Williams University invites nominations and applications for the position of Dean, School of Law.

Founded in 1919, Roger Williams University is a private institution that places high importance on teaching and scholarship in both the liberal arts and sciences and numerous professional fields of study. With a combined enrollment of more than 4,500 undergraduate and graduate students, and more than 275 full-time faculty, the School is positioned to become one of the finest comprehensive universities in the country. With campuses on the coast of Bristol and in the heart of Providence, RI, Roger Williams University is committed to strengthening society through engaged teaching and learning so that students graduate with the ability to think critically and to apply the practical skills that today’s employers demand. Roger Williams offers a wide array of academic programs through six schools of study, including the School of Law (RWU Law).

Established in 1993, RWU Law has approximately 450 students (75 percent of whom come from out of state) and 24 full-time faculty. A leader in experiential education, RWU Law delivers an innovative, high-quality legal education that is also affordable and inclusive. As Rhode Island’s only law school, RWU Law has the undivided attention of the state bench and bar, a world-class faculty dedicated to both teaching and research, exceptional clinical and externship programs, and a broad and accomplished alumni base. Last year, RWU Law celebrated its 25th anniversary.

Reporting directly to President Ioannis Miaoulis, PhD, and working closely with the Law School’s Board of Directors, the Dean will inspire a diverse constituency around the School’s vision and mission, which focus on preparing students not only for careers in law but also to become forces for positive change. As the only law dean in Rhode Island, RWU Law’s leader holds elevated prominence within the state’s legal system. The Dean will ensure that RWU Law remains student-centered; promotes diversity, equity, and inclusion; continues the University’s commitment to serving the public interest; and prepares graduates for challenging legal careers. Promoting faculty excellence in scholarship, teaching, and public service and supporting students and alumni in their journeys to become capable professionals and engaged citizens, the Dean will continue to prioritize academic rigor and will improve shared governance, transparent leadership, and collaborative decision-making. In addition to being passionate about legal education and its access, the next leader of RWU Law will also demonstrate financial acumen and possess a proven record of fundraising. A J.D. or its equivalent is required.

The Trump Executive Order on Anti-Semitism Has Been Badly Misrepresented

Contrary to considerable alarmism -- much of it stoked by misleading coverage in the New York Times and Washington Post -- President Trump's Executive Order on anti-Semitism does not classify Jews as a separate nationality, nor does it directly threaten free speech on campus. In fact, it pretty much extends the previous policies of the Obama and Bush II administrations by taking reasonable steps to ensure that Jewish students a provided protection from discrimination under Title VI -- which covers race, color, and national origin, but not to religion. My friend David Schraub (a reader and occasional commenter on this blog) has done an exceptionally good job of explaining the EO in an article in The Atlantic. Here is the gist, but you really need to read the entire essay:

So if Jews are deemed “just” a religious group, then they are not covered by Title VI. Publicly funded programs, under this view, could discriminate against Jews with impunity.

But the federal government—starting in the George W. Bush administration, and more formally during the Obama administration—began to settle on a more tailored answer. Title VI does not cover religion-based discrimination. But when discrimination against Jews—or Muslims or Sikhs, for that matter—is based on “the group’s actual or perceived ancestry or ethnic characteristics,” or “actual or perceived citizenship or residency in a country whose residents share a dominant religion or a distinct religious identity,” the government found, then that discrimination falls under Title VI’s purview. Anti-Semitic discrimination is unlawful under Title VI to the extent that it targets Jews as a racial or national group.

Brian Gallini Named Dean of Willamette

Willamette University College of Law has announced that Professor Brian Gallini will take over as dean this summer.  Gallini is currently on the faculty at the University of Arkansas school of Law and, in addition to serving in the law school administration, spent nine years as head coach of the Arkansas hockey team.  He holds a JD from the University of Michigan and an LLM from Temple.

Maine Law Seeks Dean

This just in:

The University of Maine School of Law, the State of Maine’s public and only law school, invites inquiries, nominations, and applications for the position of Dean, with an anticipated start date of July 1, 2020 or sooner.

The University of Maine School of Law seeks a Dean with a successful track record of administrative and fiscal leadership experience and one who possesses the vision, energy, and determination to lead the school in developing a 21st century legal education environment that requires innovation and a willingness to challenge the status quo.

About the University of Maine School of Law

Founded in 1962, the University of Maine School of Law is a vital resource serving our local, regional, national, and global community. The Law School is an institutional public servant committed to providing an accessible and affordable student-focused program of legal education and achieving the highest standards of ethical behavior. It has a culture of excellence and public service and our intentionally small size (approximately 260 students) allows for extensive faculty-student contact and fostering a strong sense of community.

The Law School provides students with a rigorous and innovative curriculum that blends traditional theory with diverse opportunities for experiential learning. Students work closely with talented, collegial faculty who are engaged locally and nationally in both public service and high-level scholarship. The Law School will have opportunities for recruiting new faculty in the next two years, which will serve to further advance the school’s academic program and reputation.

Maine Law’s engaged and supportive alumni base make up a large percentage of the licensed attorneys, judges, political, business, and civic leaders in Maine. The Law School enjoys a close connection to and excellent reputation within the Maine bench, bar and community-at-large, and the right candidate will recognize, appreciate and work to further nurture the strong sense of community that is Maine Law’s greatest strength.

Jeremy Corbyn's Anti-Semitism Is a Feature Not a Flaw

On the eve of the UK election, it seems appropriate to post Anthony Julius's open letter on the subject of Labor Party anti-Semitism. For those who do not know him, Anthony Julius is among the UK's preeminent attorneys as well as an outstanding historian. He is most well-known for representing Princess Diana in her divorce and defending Deborah Lipstadt against the Holocaust denier David Irving.

Here is his open letter:

An open letter to Sir Richard Evans: Labour’s anti-Semitism cannot be disregarded

In 1996, Anthony Julius and Richard Evans defended the author Deborah Lipstadt against libel accusations by the Holocaust denier David Irving. Here, Julius responds to Evans’s expression of support for the Labour leadership.

By Anthony Julius

Dear Richard,

I see that you made an intervention yesterday [25 November] in the election. You tweeted your support for Labour. You will vote for the party notwithstanding the “cancer of anti-Semitism that has infected” it. Later in the day, you tweeted that responses have prompted you to ask your Labour candidate “for her views on the controversy about anti-Semitism in the party”. You have not asked me for my views, but in the spirit of the exchanges we had when you were an expert in the Lipstadt case, let me give them to you anyway. Please think again about how you cast your vote.

Let me remind you, on the subject of the Jews, the party has become cruel, malicious, stupid and dishonest. The cruelty has been persistent and extreme – death threats, shouted abuse at branch meetings, online trolling. The malice has been patent, incontinent and pervasive. As with Trump, we are inured to party (and Corbyn) outrages, because they are so frequent. But recall Corbyn's disparagement of  “Zionists who, having lived in this country for a very long time, probably all their lives, they don’t understand English irony”. My friend David Hirsh got it right: Corbyn was enjoying the old, sneery English view of Jews, and he was doing it to humiliate the Jews he was talking about. They live among us but they’re not really one of us. This wasn’t Corbyn’s usual political anti-Semitism, it was a spillover into ordinary old-fashioned English anti-Semitism. It was as if the political requirement to humiliate the “Zionists” found its words in the anti-Semitic subconscious of an English middle-class man. This, from the “lifelong campaigner against anti-Semitism”, as a Labour spokesperson described him, following the Chief Rabbi’s recent intervention.

Anti-Semitism is stupid. It makes people stupid. It is not a coincidence that the least accomplished leader of the Labour Party is also its only anti-Semitic one. If you live in a world of conspiracies, if you think the world is divided into the blamelessly good, the victims, and the unqualifiedly evil, the oppressors, then anti-Semitism is for you. It is the commonest outcome of just such conspiratorialist, Manichaean thinking. As for the dishonesty, look at party equivocations on the number of disciplinary cases against members. The unapologetic Corbyn says that there are none left to resolve (“we’ve investigated every single case”); by contrast, a spokesperson is only able to quibble over the precise number outstanding. Corbyn’s ignominious career in relation to Jews has been recast by a party spokesperson as the career of a “lifelong campaign against anti-Semitism”. Is anybody really fooled by this? Is there anything more threadbare – indeed, Trumpian – in the insouciance of the party’s response to its own anti-Semitism? This is not a party that cares about the concerns of the Jewish community, save insofar as those concerns might have a damaging impact on its electoral fortunes.

In response to your second tweet, about individual candidates: Anti-Semitism, long a fugitive, has acquired institutional authority in today’s Labour Party. Within the party itself, compelling evidence exists of extensive spoken and online abuse of Jewish party members; exclusion of Jewish members from participating in party activity; signalling by the party leader that anti-Semitic views are acceptable; the failure to implement processes to protect Jewish members from anti-Semitism; hostile responses to those calling out anti-Semitism; and appointment of anti-Semites to positions of power (indeed, as the Panorama investigation exposed, interfering in disciplinary processes “to let off their mates”, reported a whistle-blower). This anti-Semitism taints the passive enablers in the party – to start with, the whole front bench. This is how the Corbyn period will be remembered. This is his legacy to the party.

This anti-Semitism concerns us all, Jews and non-Jews. A party that cannot be trusted in relation to Jews cannot be trusted at all. No party of reform and justice can be trusted if it makes exceptions of a minority community. British Jews have heard for some weeks now the argument that the anti-Semitism is all very unfortunate; it is limited (to the leader, to a small fraction in the party enabled by him); there are bigger issues (Brexit, austerity, etc). There is even an implication that it is a little parochial – perhaps even, selfish – of Jews to insist on their own special suffering, their own local fears, in these times of national crisis. So what if the party is contaminated by Jew hatred if it is also the party that will save the country? Of course, formulating the question in this way does more than justice to the capabilities of the Labour Party. But the point goes deeper. Anti-Semites cannot be social reformers. Their anti-Semitism incapacitates them. As a result, anti-Semitism does not just injure Jews. It encourages misconceptions about the causes of social conflicts – of human suffering and social deprivation – and therefore prolongs their existence, to everyone’s loss. By denying Jews the opportunity of making contributions to society, anti-Semites injure all of us. Anti-Semitism corrupts political discourse; it taints political life; its injustices towards Jews are precedent-establishing – people who start with the Jews, do not end with the Jews. Anti-Semitism even injures anti-Semites, because it degrades them.

To purge the party of anti-Semitism will be the work of a generation. The evidence that the political will exists to undertake this task is not compelling: members are not yet ashamed enough of their party’s anti-Semitism. The driving out of leading Jewish (and non-Jewish) politicians from the party, who cited its anti-Semitism, did not have a substantial impact on party morale, still less commit its officials and elected members to decisive action. We cannot leave the work to the party itself. Supporters have to lend a hand. Depriving the party of a vote is a start.

James Kirchek's further observations are here.

And more here on women who are leading the fight against anti-Semitism in the UK.

How Big Is a Capybara?

A recent article in the New York Times, reporting on a newly discovered fossil site in Colorado, included drawings of two extinct mammals. One was described as the “wolf-size Eoconodons” and the other as the “capybara-size Taeniolabis.” I have a pretty good mental image of a typical wolf, but how many NYTimes readers know offhand the size of a capybara?

Upon looking it up, I learned that the capybara is the world’s largest living rodent, found only in South America. The adults weigh 75-140 pounds and stand about 24 inches at the withers. That is pretty much the size of a Bernese mountain dog or a bloodhound – or a panda or a harbor seal – any of which would have made a far more understandable reference point for the long-gone Taeniolabis.

You can see some live capybara videos after the jump.

Plumbing

h/t Jeff Rice

Mr. Tambourine Man

Bob Dylan has always denied that "Mr. Tambourine Man" has anything to do with drugs, so never mind the "trip upon your magic swirling ship" or "disappearing through the smoke rings of my mind." Instead, he has explained that the title is a reference to his frequent session guitarist Bruce Langhorne, who also played a giant tambourine on some tracks.

Don't Mess with Nancy

 

 

NEW AALS SECTION on Community Economic Development

New AALS section on Community Economic Development 

If you’re at the AALS meeting, don’t miss the inaugural meeting of the new Provisional Section on Community Economic Development (CED) on Saturday, January 4 from 5:15 to 6:15 p.m. at the Marriott Wardman Park (room tba). We’ll discuss the section’s activities in the coming year, and we would love to hear from you about your interests, emerging needs, or perceived gaps that we can work to fill with section programming. Refreshments will be provided.  

The CED Section is designed to be a dynamic, collaborative space to enhance the scholarship, activism, and direct legal work of CED-focused faculty and staff. Community Economic Development focuses on community-driven strategies designed to provide meaningful economic opportunities for communities that have been economically oppressed, subordinated, or marginalized.  

If you can’t make the meeting but want to connect with the CED Section, please email Camille Pannu at cpannu@law.uci.edu.

Ken Port (1960-2019)

Professor Kenneth L. Port was Mitchell Hamline Law School.  He taught intellectual property. He was 58.  

The Assassination of Fred Hampton

Fred Hampton, the leader of the Illinois Black Panthers, was killed on this day in 1969 -- shot in his bed by Chicago police officers under the command of Cook County States Attorney Edward Hanrahan.  Here are some excerpts from an article in today's Chicago Tribune:

For the public at large, it was as police officials described: a dramatic gunfight launched against police by violent black nationalists that left two dead and four wounded.

But for others, particularly socially conscious African Americans, the Dec. 4 raid on the two-flat at 2337 W. Monroe St. was a cold-blooded execution of Black Panthers leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark, ordered by federal authorities eager to snuff out burgeoning black leadership.

Survivors described a far more frightening scene: Officers armed with shotguns and rifles opening fire on sleeping Black Panther members inside, among them Hampton’s pregnant fiancee. A special federal grand jury determined that police sprayed 82 to 99 gunshots through doors, walls and windows while just one shot appeared to have been fired by someone inside.