The Faculty Lounge

Hiring Announcement: Ohio Northern University Pettit College of Law

From an email message that I recently received:

Ohio Northern University (located in northwestern Ohio) looks to hire three entry-level tenure-track faculty members to begin teaching in 2022. The first position is Tax; this person will be expected to teach a full load of Tax courses. The second position is Property; this person is expected to teach two semesters of Property, one semester of Trusts and Estates, and a fourth course to be negotiated with the Dean. The third position is Externship Coordinator / Family Law; this person will coordinate student externships and teach two courses per year, such as Family Law and Juvenile Law. Interested applicants should reach out to Rick Bales, Chair, Personnel Committee, r-bales@onu.edu.

Delay of British Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Guidelines Is Bad News

As I posted last week, it finally appeared that the British medical establishment was about to turn an important corner on ME/CFS, as the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) had drafted a new “guidance” that rescinded its previous, and harmful, recommendation for CBT and GET. The new document was scheduled for formal release last Wednesday. Then powerful, entrenched interests intervened and succeeded in obtaining an indefinite delay in publication of the final document. David Tuller and I have the full story in STAT. Here is the gist: 

Delay of British chronic fatigue syndrome guidelines is a setback for people with long Covid

Many in the ME/CFS community were eagerly awaiting the long-overdue update, which was developed by a carefully selected committee that included clinicians and patients. Instead, after protests from leading physicians organizations that prefer the status quo, NICE announced on Tuesday it was postponing publication of the new guidelines, which had been scheduled for Wednesday.

This move, which leaves in place the 2007 recommendations, represents a serious setback not only for people with ME/CFS but also for those experiencing what has been dubbed long Covid — the profound exhaustion, brain fog, dizziness and other symptoms that can continue for many months following a case of Covid-19.

The revision of the ME/CFS guidelines have been in the works since 2017, long before the Covid-19 pandemic, but it has taken on added significance because of the potential impact of the guidelines on clinical attitudes and approaches to the surge of people with long Covid, given the similarities of the two conditions. Many people with long Covid, like generations of those before them with ME/CFS, have reported that doctors, employers, insurers and others have wrongly dismissed their symptoms as psychosomatic.

 In an article published this past week in the journal PNAS, experts from Johns Hopkins, Harvard, and the Solve ME/CFS Initiative reviewed commonalities in the pathophysiological processes associated with ME/CFS and long Covid, noting that “understanding the molecular underpinnings of both PASC and ME/CFS may lead to the development of novel therapeutics.”

As the suspended revised guidelines make clear, the psychosomatic school is on the losing side of the scientific argument. Just as the new ME/CFS guidelines could help foster appropriate care for people with long Covid, the emerging wave of biomedical research into that condition may provide answers as well for the long-neglected community of people with ME/CFS.

In the meantime, it is essential that NICE publish its revised guideline with all deliberate speed.

You can read the full article here.

Hiring Announcement: University of South Dakota Knudson School of Law (Business Organizations)

From an email message that I received recently:

The University of South Dakota Knudson School of Law looks to hire an entry-level or lateral professor, dependent upon qualifications, with expertise in the field of Business Organizations. This position is on the tenure track and will start at the beginning of the 2022-2023 academic year.

The successful candidate will teach Business Organizations as well as select upper division drafting courses. The remainder of the course package will be subject to negotiation.

Individuals appointed to tenure-track positions are expected to fulfill the tripartite responsibilities of teaching, scholarship, and service. The successful applicant must be a licensed attorney in a United States jurisdiction (a state or the District of Columbia) or able to be licensed at the time appointment begins.

The University of South Dakota encourages diverse candidates to apply. EEO/AA.

Inquiries and applications may be directed to Eric W. Young, Assistant Dean, University of South Dakota Knudson School of Law, 414 East Clark Street, Vermilion, SD 57069 as well as by email to eric.young@usd.edu. You may also call at 605-658-3524.

Hiring Announcement: University of South Dakota Knudson School of Law (Legal Writing)

From an email message that I received recently:

The University of South Dakota Knudson School of Law looks to hire an entry-level or lateral professor, dependent upon qualifications, with expertise in the field of Legal Writing. This position is on the tenure track and will start at the beginning of the 2022-2023 academic year.

The successful candidate will teach in our 1L Legal Writing program as well as select upper-division writing courses. The remainder of the course package will be subject to negotiation.

Individuals appointed to tenure-track positions are expected to fulfill the tripartite responsibilities of teaching, scholarship, and service. The successful applicant must be a licensed attorney in a United States jurisdiction (a state or the District of Columbia) or able to be licensed at the time appointment begins.

The University of South Dakota encourages diverse candidates to apply. EEO/AA.

Inquiries and applications may be directed to Eric W. Young, Assistant Dean, University of South Dakota Knudson School of Law, 414 East Clark Street, Vermilion, SD 57069 as well as by email to eric.young@usd.edu. You may also call at 605-658-3524.

Railroads in the Dark

Anyone old enough to remember rail travel will also remember late-night trains that were timed for arrival in distant cities, and the songs they inspired.

"Midnight Train to Georgia" was written by Jim Weatherly (1943-2021) as "Midnight Plane to Houston, which he originally recorded as a Country song in 1970. It was reworked as "Midnight Train to Georgia" and recorded in 1973 by Cissy Houston (Whitney's mother), who said "my people didn't take planes." It was released again in 1974 by Gladys Night and the Pips. The latter version became a number one hit, and is remembered as the nearly definitive version. Other nighttime railroad songs follow.

Not capturing headlines of late...

The protests and human rights, or lack thereof, in Cuba is a matter that more academic should be addressing. It is an issue that typically follows political party lines--but not here. An op-ed published a few days ago assuredly annoyed democrats and republicans alike. Not an advisable thing for a so-called progressive to undertake. Perhaps others here can share their views on the matter? Here's the text:

"The island-wide protests that rocked Cuba on July 11 have left observers wondering about what happens next and what ought to be the role of the United States in the face of the people’s demands for freedom and the regime’s widespread repression. Not surprisingly, the controversial role of the U.S. economic embargo on Cuba is once again being debated. Should the embargo be tightened hoping that a few more turns of the screw will bring about the downfall of the Cuban communist regime? Or should the embargo be lifted, so that the Cuban regime can no longer use it as a pretext for its own economic failures?

            The “embargo” is not much of an embargo and hardly the “blockade” that for decades the Cuban regime has been proclaiming it to be. Cuba trades with the rest of the world and actively trades with the United States (under the strict rules of the embargo). Cuba’s economic woes are internal, not external, and largely a function of the failed system that is communism. The decrepit Cuban economy can barely produce goods to feed its people, much less to trade with other nations.

Tightening the embargo by one country, no matter how strong that country may be, will not bring about regime change in Cuba, for a number of reasons. First, as stated above, Cuba can always trade with the rest of the world and unless the regime unleashes a massacre against unarmed protestors, its European partners (mainly Spain) will not impose economic sanctions on the regime. Second, economic pressure by one actor is unlikely to bring the regime down. Cubans have endured economic deprivation for decades and the regime has learned to weaponize their resilience, asking for more sacrifices when it is politically feasible to do so (and blaming the U.S. “blockade” for their misery). Third, domestic espionage and repression are widespread and fairly effective within Cuba. Vocal opponents and other potential “subversives” are well known by the regime, routinely monitored, and quickly rounded up as threats emerge (as was the case during the July 11 protests). And fourth, domestic opposition to the Cuban regime up until recently, has largely been ineffective, atomized, and unorganized.

            For an embargo to work, it must be in the form of collective action. The prime example is the worldwide effort to end human rights abuses in South Africa to end apartheid. The Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986 imposed economic sanctions against the apartheid regime. The act isolated South Africa and highlighted its brutalization and oppression of its own people, and its aggression against neighboring states. This sort of collective action simply has never occurred against the Cuban regime. The so-called blockade does not prevent Cuba from trading with other countries. Thus, the embargo is simply not an embargo when Cuba has long-had trade partners other than the U.S.

Gary B. Nash (1933-2021)

Gary B. Nash was a historian of early America and a member of UCLA’s history department for more than 50 years. Born in July 27, 1933, Nash earned his undergraduate degree at Princeton University.  Upon completing his doctorate at Princeton in 1964, he taught to UCLA in 1966 to 1994, when he retired.

I thought his The Urban Crucible: Social Change, Political Consciousness, and the Origins of the American Revolution (1979) was the best work.  He was a finalist Pulitzer Prize for History for Urban Crucible. His others works includes Quakers and Politics, Pennsylvania, 1681-1726 (1968), Forging Freedom: The Formation of Philadelphia's Black Community, 1720-1840 (1988), and many others. He was a great historian.

Hiring Announcement: University of St. Thomas School of Law (Minneapolis)

From an email message that I received earlier today:

The University of St. Thomas School of Law (Minneapolis, MN) invites applications for two full-time faculty positions, beginning in Fall 2022. We will consider applicants in all subjects, but we have particular interests in business/corporate/commercial law, criminal law, and intellectual property. We will consider both entry-level and lateral candidates, and both tenure-track and tenured appointments.

We will review candidate materials posted in the AALS Faculty Appointments Register (FAR); but we also invite applications from candidates not participating in the FAR. All application materials must be submitted online at http://www.stthomas.edu/jobs/. Emailed application materials will not be accepted. To ensure full consideration of their application, candidates not participating in the FAR should apply by August 25, 2021.

For further questions, please contact the Appointments Co-Chairs, Professors Thomas Berg and Elizabeth Schiltz, at lawappointments@stthomas.edu. Other members of the appointments committee are Professors Mark Osler and Carl Warren.

Touro Seeks Assistant Dean for Student Services

Touro College Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center Seeks to Hire Assistant Dean for Student Services

Department:  Touro Law Center Office of Student Services

Reports To:  Dean of the Law Center

Supervises:  Administrative Assistant to the Office of Student Services, and Director of Student Services and Scholarship Aid

Status:   Full-time

FLSA:     Exempt

JOB SUMMARY:

The Assistant Dean oversees all aspects of the Office of Student Services including, but not limited to, student advising and counseling, exam administration, student records (including Satisfactory Academic Progress reports and application amendments and other admission-related documents), registration, student evaluations of faculty, ADA Compliance regarding students, and issues of student conduct and safety.  The Assistant Dean also facilitates communication between the students and the faculty and administration, collaborates closely with the Registrar, Admissions, Financial Aid, Bursar and Compliance offices, and has possible teaching opportunities.

JOB RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Student Advising & Counseling: Be available to students seeking counsel and advice on issues including, but not limited to, disability, mental health, family/personal, stress, course selections and other academic issues. In addition to scheduled appointments, the Assistant Dean is expected to maintain availability for “walk-in” appointments to answer questions, solve problems, and address student concerns. Working closely with the other Associate and Assistant Deans and the Registrar, the Assistant Dean helps to identify students with academic concerns.
• Exam Administration: Coordinate all aspects of Touro Law Center final examination administration, including scheduling of proctors, arranging for accommodations for students with disabilities and exam conflicts, and enforcing important exam-related student deadlines.
• Student Organizations & Activities: Supervise and work with the Director of Student Services and Scholarship Aid who serves as the administrative liaison for all law student organizations, including the Student Bar Association.
• Awards & Scholarships: Supervise and work with the Director of Student Services and Scholarship Aid, who collects and disseminates scholarship and fellowship information and other monetary opportunities for students (i.e., essay contests).
• Organize and supervise first year orientation.
• Assist the Director of the Honors Program with special enrichment programs for outstanding students.
• Assist in implementation of web-based student services delivery systems. Monitor Office of Student Services social media outlets (i.e. blog, Facebook account, Twitter account.)
• Coordinate with the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Associate Dean for Experiential Learning and Special Programs about class scheduling and implementation of academic policies.
• Enforce academic discipline (probation and dismissal) in coordination with the Associate Deans and the academic support faculty and other administrators. The Assistant Dean for Student Services serves as the Chief Academic Integrity Officer.
• Serve on faculty and staff committees necessary for outreach and communication with students and student groups.
• Supervise and train student services staff to assist with the duties and tasks above.
• Complete any other necessary tasks and duties, not specifically listed above.

Oregon Law Seeks Faculty for Non-Profit Clinic

This just in:

The University of Oregon School of Law invites applications for a career (non-tenure-track) assistant clinical professor to direct our Non-Profit Clinic, beginning in August 2022. Oregon’s Non-Profit Clinic is an innovative and interdisciplinary part of our nationally recognized Business Law Program.

To review our job posting and application instructions, please click here: https://careers.uoregon.edu/en-us/job/528031/nonprofit-clinic-director

The University of Oregon School of Law is a dynamic ABA-accredited law school and Oregon’s only public law school. Degrees offered include Juris Doctor (JD), Master of Laws (LLM), Master of Conflict and Dispute Resolution (CRES), and a minor in undergraduate legal studies. Oregon Law’s mission is to provide a world-class education. We prepare students through excellent classroom teaching paired with a multitude of practical experience opportunities and robust professional development. Our faculty produce exceptional research and scholarship. We accomplish our mission in a positive, inclusive environment where we strive to provide everyone opportunities to grow, contribute, and develop. Our aim is to learn, teach, and practice the principles of equity and justice as critical foundations for our overall effort to achieve excellence as a top-ranked law school. Success in this work requires a diverse group of people in various faculty and staff roles working in one of our two locations, Eugene and Portland. The University of Oregon is located within the traditional homelands of the Southern Kalapuya. Learn more about Oregon Law at law.uoregon.edu.

SCOTUS Recusals and New York Evictions

My daughter Sarah and I have a new essay up on The Hill, about the irony of the recent SCOTUS decision on New York’s eviction moratorium, compared to the standards the justices set for themselves.

Here is the gist:

The Hill 

The judicial black box of Supreme Court recusal 

BY SARAH LIPTON-LUBET AND STEVEN LUBET, OPINION CONTRIBUTORS —

The U.S. Supreme Court displayed a bit of hypocrisy last week, when a 6-3 majority blocked a key provision of New York State’s eviction moratorium law by invoking a principle that they have steadfastly refused to apply to themselves.

The Court’s unsigned opinion in Chrysafis v. Marks, issued as an emergency measure on what has come to be known at its “shadow docket,” held that the New York law violated landlords’ due process rights by allowing a renter to conclusively forestall eviction by submitting an affidavit that “self-certifies financial hardship.” In a one-sentence rationale for the ruling, SCOTUS explained that the truncated procedure, which a landlord could not contest, violates its “longstanding teaching that ordinarily ‘no man can be a judge in his own case.’” That stands in sharp contrast to the Court’s approach to recusal, in which each justice personally exercises exclusive and unreviewable discretion over requests for their own disqualification.

Unfortunately, SCOTUS has adopted the “historic practice” of deferring recusal decisions to the justice in question, with no review by the other members of the Court.

You can read the entire piece here.

SMU Law Seeks Chair in Corporate/Business Law

This just in:

Dr. Anne R. Bromberg of Dallas has committed $2 million to SMU for the creation of The Alan R. Bromberg Centennial Chair in Corporate, Partnership, Business and Securities Law in honor of her late husband, a renowned professor in the SMU Dedman School of Law. The new chair will support the Law School in strengthening research and coursework in corporate, partnership, business and securities law, honoring Professor Bromberg’s prolific scholarship and mentoring style of leadership. We anticipate appointment at the rank of full professor beginning in Fall 2022. J.D. degree required. To ensure full consideration for the position, the application should be submitted by October 1, 2021, but the committee will continue to accept applications until the position is filled.

Applications must be submitted electronically via Interfolio (https://apply.interfolio.com/91455). These materials should include a cover letter, resume, research agenda, writing sample(s) and a list of references. Reference Position No. and (Area of Law): 00053425 (Bromberg Chair).

SMU will not discriminate in any program or activity on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, age, disability, genetic information, veteran status, sexual orientation, or gender identity and expression. The Executive Director for Access and Equity/Title IX Coordinator is designated to handle inquiries regarding nondiscrimination policies and may be reached at the Perkins Administration Building, Room 204, 6425 Boaz Lane, Dallas, TX 75205, 214-768-3601, accessequity@smu.edu.

Cathy Cox Named Finalist in Georgia College President Search

Mercer Law dean Cathy Cox has been named as a the sole finalist in George College and State University's search for a new president.  Don't know the school?  Flannery O'Connor is an alum (back when it was Georgia State College for Women.)  Cox has been the dean of Mercer since 2017.  

Positive Development in ME/CFS Coming Soon: UPDATED

UPDATE:  NICE has announced a delay in issuing its revised guideline. I will have more on this in a few days.

 

Just after midnight on Wednesday in London (Tuesday afternoon CDT), the British National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) will release the final version of its new guideline for ME/CFS treatment. Based on the draft circulated earlier this year, it appears that NICE is finally going to rescind its 2007 recommendation for Graded Exercise Therapy and Cognitive Behavior Therapy, having found all of the studies supporting those treatments to be of either "low" or "very low" quality. This is a very big deal, as it repudiates the idea, long pushed by a school of British psychiatry,  that ME/CFS is caused by dysfunctional illness beliefs and irrational exercise avoidance, in favor of the biomedical model already adopted in the U.S. by the NIH, CDC, and other research and medical centers.

My friend and coauthor Brian Hughes, of the National University of Ireland, Galway, explains the significance of the new NICE guideline -- including its relevance to research on Long COVID -- in a ten-part post on his blog The Science Bit, which he has graciously allowed me to copy below. I will be publishing my own observations later this week, in a column with David Tuller, once we have seen the final report.

The new NICE Guideline for ME/CFS: Ten Questions Answered

1. What’s going on?

This week, in the United Kingdom, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is publishing a new guideline for the diagnosis and management of a set of conditions referred to as “myalgic encephalomyelitis (or encephalopathy)” or “chronic fatigue syndrome” (ME/CFS). “ME/CFS” is a broad acronym that is often used to refer to many conditions. It has been estimated that between 0.5% and 1% of the population may be diagnosable with ME/CFS, equating to more than 300,000 people in the UK. The new guideline is to be published on 18 August.

2. How is the new guideline different to the old one?

The most significant differences relate to treatment recommendations. The old guideline, published back in 2007, had suggested that ME/CFS could be treated using a combination of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and graded exercise therapy (GET). Essentially, the old UK guideline approached ME/CFS as if it were a psychological illness. By contrast, the World Health Organization defines ME/CFS as a neurological disease, listing it within the neurological disorders section of ICD-10, its illness classification system.

Based on the contents of the draft published last November, we now know that the new guideline moves firmly away from the old UK view. The new guideline states that neither GET nor CBT should be used as treatments for ME/CFS, and that clinicians should only consider CBT as a psychotherapy for patients who are in distress and who seek psychological support. In the new guideline, NICE has thoroughly revised the formal treatment standards for ME/CFS. It has done so based on a review of the relevant research, most of which was conducted after 2007.

3. Why is the new guideline being welcomed?

The new guideline is being welcomed by clinical experts, research scientists, and patient advocacy groups around the world.

The UK has been an outlier in treatment standards for ME/CFS. ME was first classified as a neurological disease by the World Health Organization back in 1969. In the United States, the relevant National Academy defines ME/CFS as a physiological condition requiring physiological (not behavioural) treatment. The health council in Belgium has concluded that CBT and GET are no longer supported by evidence, while that in the Netherlands has questioned whether many patients could benefit from CBT.

The scientific community has long come to view ME/CFS as a physical disease and not a psychiatric one, for which CBT and GET are likely to be ineffective treatments. While the exact physiology of ME/CFS remains unclear, it is the target of intensive medical research around the world.

Many patient groups have drawn attention to the ineffectiveness of CBT and GET as treatments. In particular, GET has been widely reported by patients as causing further damage to their health. However, because NICE had previously listed CBT and GET as approved treatments, ME/CFS patients in Britain were often unable to challenge clinicians who insisted these treatments be used. Patient advocacy groups have been vocal for decades on this issue, but have often found their views dismissed. Based on their objection to the old NICE guideline, ME/CFS patients have frequently been depicted in the wider media as contrarians, malingerers, or irrational malcontents.

Scott Brown Steps Down as Dean of New England Law

Add this one to the mix.  Former Massachusetts U.S. Senator, Scott Brown, who served as dean of New England Law School starting last January, has stepped down because, he says, his vision for the law school conflicted with the school's Board.  Allison Dussias (JD Georgetown) and Lisa Freudenheim (JD NYU) are the new acting co-deans.

CFP: Family and Vulnerability

This just in:

The International Academy for the Study of the Jurisprudence of the Family (IASJF) is pleased to announce that it will hold its thirteenth international Symposium on “Family and Vulnerability” on Wednesday and Thursday, October 27-28, 2021. The 2021 Symposium will be held online and hosted by the College of Law and Business in Ramat Gan, Israel. The Symposium will address the issues related to the topic from a juridical point of view; interdisciplinary presentations are also welcome. The IASJF is an independent, interdisciplinary scholarly society that seeks to promote thoughtful consideration and discussion of the foundations of the family, including marriage, parenting, extended and other family relations (please visit our website at http://www.iasjf.org/).

Persons wishing to present a scholarly paper at the symposium should submit a short abstract of the paper they propose (no more than 200 words) including a working title, name, institutional affiliation, and full contact information of the author(s), and a brief description of the proposed paper. Proposals should be sent to Professor Stefano Troiano (iasjf2021symposium@gmail.com) by September 20, 2021.

More details here. 

Heartaches by the Number

"Heartaches by the Number" was written by Harland Howard in 1959 and released that year by Guy Mitchell, for whom it charted for a couple of weeks as number one. It has since been covered by pretty much everyone in or adjacent to country music.