The Faculty Lounge

Judge pricks finger, sticks it to plaintiff

The New York Law Journal reports on a case derailed by an apparently small detail:

In a case of first impression -- no pun intended -- a Queens, N.Y., judge has thrown out a tort action because, in part, the plaintiffs attorneys stapled the complaint in what he said was a dangerously negligent manner.

"[T]he poor stapling of the papers was so negligent as to inflict, and did inflict repeatedly, physical injury to the court personnel handling them," Supreme Court Justice Charles J. Markey wrote in Jones v. Fuentes, 29865/2008. "Such negligence on the part of counsel shows a lack of consideration."

The story goes on to note that slipshop stapling was not the only defect. The attorney also neglected to sign a notice of motion, and failed to attach an affidavit from the plaintiff attesting to her injuries. For anyone who teaches Civil Procedure, trial practice, or related subjects, the case is a nice illustration for students of the importance of following even the most seemingly nitpicky rules. 

The story reminded me of the Dickensian world of the Pennsylvania state courts, where I practiced for several years. Though ostensibly a unified judicial system, the Pennsylvania courts remain highly localized in practice, with many counties imposing arcane and picayune rules for everything down to the binding of papers. I actually heard tales of lawyers having papers rejected by the prothonotary¹ in Allegheny County for failure to comply with the requirement of binding across the top with two evenly spaced staples, covered by 3/4" black cloth tape. It became a standing joke in my office, when filing papers in certain counties, to tell the paralegal, "Don't forget to include a polecat on a stick, as required under the Schmegegge County Local Rules".  

¹A further Dickensian element of the Pennsylvania state courts is their adherence to 19th century terminology, such as "prothonotary" and "praecipe". I sometimes felt, when appearing in some of the more remote counties, that I would not have been out of place wearing Joe Pesci's "ridiculous outfit" from My Cousin Vinnie. 

More Embryo Errors

I’ve blogged a few times in the last couple of weeks about sperm and embryo mix-ups, as well as egg misappropriation.  Two more cases were in the news this past week.

In Louisiana:

Ochsner Hospital Elmwood has indefinitely suspended operations at its in vitro fertilization center in Elmwood because of a mix-up in the labeling of frozen embryos.

Despite the errors, Ochsner Chief Executive Officer Pat Quinlan assured that no embryos had been implanted in the wrong mother.

According to Quinlan, "we have reason to believe the IVF center has been compromised due to what appears to be a significant labeling issues which makes us unable to account for all of the frozen embryos in our IVF center."

The hospital is conducting an audit of the entire in vitro fertilization program, which has been in operation since 2003.  Approximately 100 couples may be affected by the labeling errors.  According to news reports, two class action lawsuits have been filed against Ochsner so far.

The Ochsner motto is pictured above: "Healthcare With Peace Of Mind."  Hmmm . . .  

(HT: Adam Feibelman)

In Ohio:

Carolyn Savage gave birth to a baby boy on Friday, after the fertility clinic where she underwent in vitro fertilization transferred another couple's embryos into her uterus.  According to CNN, the Savages were informed of the mistake in February, 10 days after undergoing in vitro fertilization, and determined to voluntarily relinquish the child at birth to the genetic parents, rather than terminate the pregnancy.

The five embryos the Savages had cryogenically preserved at the clinic in Ohio (the Savages are not releasing the name of the clinic) are still unused and have been moved to another clinic in Atlanta, Georgia.  Because Carolyn has been advised by doctors against future pregnancies, the Savages are reportedly in talks with a potential gestational surrogate.

The American Fertility Association (AFA) has issued several statements regarding the matter:

In 2007, there were 132,262 IVF cycles performed in the United States (Fresh, Frozen and Donor Egg, per the CDC) in which more than 300,000 embryos were placed into the intended recipients. Embryology laboratories have extremely rigorous procedures to maximally ensure public safety and the health of our patients and their children born of IVF.

The Ohio case is rarer than 1 in a million and I speculate that human error, not malintent, will prove to be the root cause.

In a similar 1999 case in New York, custody was granted to the biological parents and visitation rights denied to the birth mother. (Perry-Rogers v. Fasano, 276 A.D.2d 67, 715 N.Y.S.2d 19, 2000 N.Y. Slip Op. 09070 (N.Y.A.D. 1 Dept. Oct 26, 2000) (NO. 1605, 1606).  There’s a large secondary literature on Perry-Rogers and related issues and, no doubt, some Lounge readers have followed the case and surrounding legal issues with interest.  As always, feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments section.

Antebellum Literary Societies: UGA Version

Time for some fun and photographs.  Following up on the occasional series from last spring on pictures of antebellum law schools -- Princeton (yes! they once had a law school) and Litchfield -- it's time for some photos of antebellum literary societies.

Close followers of this blog may recall that one of my areas of interest is intellectual history of the old South, particularly as it relates to legal thought.  One piece of this is how libraries helped propagate culture. 

I am particularly interested in college literary societies.  They had libraries, often quite large ones; we have some printed library catalogs, and sometimes we even have records of what students borrowed.  But we can bring some precision to what students were talking about.  For students, as well as prominent members of the community (like judges, politicians, and lawyers) often gave addresses to the societies.  In those addresses, many of which have been published (others of which remain in manuscript form), we can sometimes see how these people fit their world together: how they understood the role of the intellectual in society, how they thought about history, morality, economy, and of course slavery.  We can also trace changes in those ideas over time -- the University of Alabama addresses change rather dramatically from the early 1830s to the eve of Civil War.  (I tell that story in an article in Law and Literature, "The Law of the Descent of Thought.")  I wish I had a photograph of the building where the UA literary societies met.  Alas, that building, and the university's library, went up in flames in the closing days of the Civil War -- yet another casualty of the war.

But the University of Georgia's buildings that house its two antebellum literary societies are still standing.  I took pictures of both of them last month when I was in Athens for the Thomas Cobb conference.  The Phi Kappa is above.  It looks like a secret society, doesn't it -- no windows and all that.  The Demosthenian is at right.  Interesting in reading a little bit of one of the antebellum addresses?  Here's a link to Alexander Meek's 1845 address on "Americanism in Literature."

Next up in this series? Why the UNC campus, of course.

McAmerica

Via Felix Salmon (created by Stephen Von Worley) a map of the contiguous USA by how far any given point is from the nearest McDonald’s.  “The McFarthest Spot, somewhere in South Dakota, is 107 miles, as the crow flies, from a Golden Arch.”

Things We Take for Granted

It used to be that when you wanted to find a law review article, you looked it up in the Index to Legal Periodicals, and then you went to the shelf, found the volume, and read or photo-copied it. Today, you might first Google it, to see if there is a free version online, and if not, if you have LEXIS/Westlaw/HeinOnline/JSTOR access, you might go and search there. If I don't know what article I want (ie, if I need to search by keyword or title), I'll use Lexis or Westlaw first (as they I find their search interfaces to be more efficient), but then if I find an article I want to assign to my students, I'll link to the JSTOR or HeinOnline version because I like the layout better than the text based versions found in Lexis or Westlaw.

This morning I was looking for an additional piece to assign to my Property Theory class on anticommons theory. I wanted something that not only allowed me to further explore anticommons theory, but that would also introduce a new theoretical construct to the students (in this case, the explicit notion of private ordering). I chose Kieff and Parades, Engineering a Deal: Toward a Private Ordering Solution to the Anticommons Problem. I found it in my search results on Lexis (though I had read it before, it didn't come to mind when I was trying to decide what to add as the final piece of reading for this section).

The Lexis page looked like this (click on it to increase the size):

Citation: 47 B.C. L. Rev. 111, January 2007. I went to HeinOnline and looked up Boston College Law Review volume 47. There was no article that started on page 111. I looked again. The HeinOnline database shows that volume 47 is for years 2005-2006, and that volume 48 is for years 2006-2007. I checked volume 48, and there it was, properly listed for page 111 (click image for larger version):

Citation: 48 B.C.L. Rev. 111 (2007).

So, which is it? What is the "authoritative" way to find the citation? I went to the Boston College Law Review page and found this (click for larger version):

For those who dislike Roman numerals, XLVIII translates to 48. What I would then think of as the definitive source, the publication itself, tells us that 48 is the right number (I was pretty convinced of this from the HeinOnline site, which uses page scans, but wanted to check just to be sure).

If this had been for research and not for class, I might not have used the scanned version from JSTOR or  HeinOnline, especially if I wasn't going to print the piece in question. Format doesn't matter to me as much in that case, I just need quick access to the data. I might have used the wrong citation for this piece, and if the law review where my piece was going to be published also used Lexis to check cites, then it would have gone into print that way. And none of us would have had reason to doubt the citation. That is, until someone called it into question because they couldn't find the publication as listed.

I'm not sure what the upshot of this is; I was surprised more than anything else (not shocked, mind you, just surprised). It's an error, for sure, and a clear one at that, but not one that would have caused any loss of life, so I don't want to dramatize it. Do we just overlook it? Do we now need to use both Lexis and Westlaw, or go to the actual volume of a law review, to check on citations? Thoughts or responses much appreciated.

Weekend Links

From the SEC Historical Society: Audio Webcast on New World of Financial Regulation, moderated by Theresa Gabaldon, The George Washington University Law School, and with presenters Jesse Eisinger, ProPublica; Roberta S. Karmel, Brooklyn Law School; and Joseph E. Stiglitz, Columbia University Graduate Business School.

(HT: Felix Salmon)

Richard Posner, How I Became a Keynesian: Second Thoughts in the Middle of a Crisis at The New Republic.  (HT: Greg Mankiw)

From the FT, IMF defends securitization markets, arguing that restarting securitization markets is “critical” to a wider economic recovery, and that new regulatory proposals – including the US and European proposals to force banks that originated loans to hold on to the first 5 per cent of losses in all securitizations -- might kill the market.

Dahlia Lithwick on Americans' continued love affair with the John Roberts Court.

TPM, via Andrew Sullivan, a “birthermercial” running on a CBS affiliate in Texas and elsewhere.

Via Michelle Leder at Footnoted.org, the employment contract for Freddie Mac’s newly named CFO, Ross J. Kari.  Leder provides a few key bullets:

-annual compensation of $3.5 million (this includes $675K in salary, $1.6 million in something called “additional annual salary” and $1.1 million in a target incentive

-a $1.95 million signing bonus

-immediate buyout of Kari’s house (or perhaps houses)

-reimbursement for travel between Washington D.C. and Kari’s residences in Ohio, Washington and Oregon [The compensation memorandum states that, “Each member of your immediate family may make a single trip every three weeks during the temporary living period to/from the Washington D.C. area and your current residences for which you will be reimbursed.”  KDK]

(HT: Calculated Risk)

Tyler Cowen: Does the average quality of a spam comment exceed the average quality of a non-spam comment?  (Not here at The Lounge, of course!)

Michael Heise at Empirical Legal Studies: "Empirical Holy War" -- Eisenberg v. US Chamber of Commerce

Patrick O’Donnell at Ratio Juris on Political & Legal Obligation: An Introduction, Parts 1, 2, and 3.

Top 10 law schools for Constitutional Law & Theory

On his Law School Reports Blog, Brian Leiter ranks, or perhaps more accurately lets readers rank, the top 10 law school faculties for Constitutional Law & Theory. He uses condorcet internet voting to discern who has the top faculties in this area of the law. A similar method is currently being employed  to create a top list of law faculties in Law &  Economics here. But for now, below are the top 5 law faculties in Constitutional Law & Theory (you'll have to go to his link to get the rest):

1. Harvard

2. Yale

3. NYU

4. University of Chicago

5. Columbia University

Crazy Bike Skills

From women.  Video here.  (HT: Chris Bodenner at The Daily Dish)

And to think that I still struggle with a simple “look ma, no hands” move.  Of course, I’m not the only one:

Are Online Networks Company Towns, Shopping Malls, or Neither?

The Southern District of California District Court held last week that the First Amendment does not apply to stop Sony from removing people from its "Playstation 3 Network" based on their speech. Erik Estavillo sued  Sony seeking $55,000 in damages, alleging that (among other claims) the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech precluded Sony from kicking him off of the Network. The District Court held that because Sony was not the government (and thus was not a state actor for First Amendment purposes), nor a "company town" (an exception to the state action requirement of the

First Amendment), nor maintained a sufficient structural or functional nexus to the government (a second "exception" to the state action requirement of the first amendment), the plaintiff could not maintain an action against Sony based on a claim of infringement of free speech rights. [note: the case is Estavillo v. Sony Computer Entm't Am. Inc., 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 86821; as of this writing I cannot locate either a Westlaw version or a free online version; it seems the Southern District of California does not publish its opinions online]

The result really isn't too surprising, as the "company town" exception to a private property owner's ability to control speech unhindered by the First Amendment relies on the notion that the company not only owns the land in question, but takes over the responsibilities usually associated with a municipality (according to the U.S. Supreme Court in Marsh v. Alabama, 326 U.S. 501 (1945)). The Supreme Court has refused to extend the doctrine to cover shopping malls in many situations, for example, though some state courts and legislatures have done just this (and it is consistent with Supreme Court precedent in the area).

Even given its rather brief rejection by the District Court, however, the argument is not entirely without merit. It has also been made (though not in this precise context) in a 2004 law review article [pdf] by Yale Law Professor (and Balkinization blogger) Jack Balkin:

“Although [the online community owner] does not take over “the full spectrum of municipal powers” in real space, it does exercise all of those functions in the virtual world. If any private entity could be regarded as a company town, it would be a virtual world. This is especially so because the whole point of the virtual world is to create community (or communities), and action in the virtual world occurs through the exchange of ideas.”

Balkin points out that not every attempt at creating an online "space" (my word, not his) will end up creating a space to which the First Amendment should apply. Rather, those where the space is created "to form communities or create channels for general public communication" could be subject to the First Amendment's requirements. Whether Sony's Playstation 3 Network meets this criteria would involve much more discussion about how it functions and what its purpose is (knowing what I do about it I doubt it does), but I see another problem that isn't explicitly addressed in the case or in Balkin's article.

Merrill Peterson (1921 - 2009)

From H-Law comes the news that this year has seen the close of the life of another great American historian, Merrill Peterson.  He was an emeritus professor at the University of Virginia.  You may recall we've already spoken about the passing of John Hope Franklin (and his memorial service), Kenneth Stampp, David Donald, and Ernest May this year.

Among my more favorite of Peterson's books are The Jeffersonian Image in the American Mind (his first book, which was based on his Ph.D. dissertation in the History of American Civilization program at Harvard), Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation, The Great Triumvirate, and Lincoln in American Memory,  I think I have copies of all of them -- or used to, anyway.  May have lost TJ and the New Nation in one of my many moves.  At least I can't find it on my shelf right now.

The Amazing Race

Season 15 of The Amazing Race gets underway Sunday night.  As fans of the show may recall, last season's winners of the $1 million prize were siblings Victor and Tammy.  Victor is a partner at O'Melveny & Myers, and sister Tammy is an associate at Quinn Emanuel.  This season only one contestant is a lawyer:  "Lance" (of "Lance and Keri").  But other contestants include a team of professional poker players ("Maria and Tiffany"), a pair of Harlem Globetrotters ("Herbert and Nathaniel"), a former Miss America ("Ericka" from team "Brian and Ericka"), married yoga teachers ("Eric and Lisa"), and a professional songwriter ("Canaan" of "Mika and Canaan").

Hey, when will we see a team of bloggers?  Who's ready to partner-up with me for Amazing Race 16?  Al?  Kim?  Calvin?  Jacqui?  Here's the application!

 

Securities Regulation and the Global Economic Crisis: Conference at Seton Hall Law School

On behalf of the editors of the Seton Hall Law Review:

"The Seton Hall Law Review will be hosting its annual Symposium on October 30, 2009, to address the impact of securities regulation on the current global financial crisis.  Specifically, this event will examine the origins and genesis of the crisis, address the future of securities regulation both domestically and internationally, and attempt to anticipate the role of government agencies and private market participants in shaping and effectuating regulation. Some of the brightest minds from the legal, financial, and academic communities, state and federal governments, and self-regulatory organizations will be on hand to assess and debate the challenges and opportunities presented by the prospective landscape of global securities regulation, as well as discuss what may be to come in the areas of corporate governance and risk management."

One of our popular guest bloggers, Eric Chaffee, will be presenting at the symposium along with a distinguished lineup of speakers.  Details available here.

Inquiries about the symposium may be directed to:

Laura M. Fant
Symposium Editor, Seton Hall Law Review, Vol. 40
617-480-7428 (cell)
[email protected] / [email protected]

Faces in the Crowd

Tomorrow marks the 49^th anniversary of the famous (or infamous) debate between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, which is widely credited as the catalyst for giving rise to the importance of television in politics. The BBC offers an interesting summary. On a similar note, fans of Andy Griffith may recall that the actor is also known for an outstanding performance in A Face in the Crowd, an amazing and insightful film about “spin” and the power and influence of television – especially its ability to shape messages, messengers, and audiences. Griffith’s portrayal of Lonesome Rhodes is quite a departure from his Mayberry days, and it shows incredible range that was rarely exercised later in his career. When watching this film, it’s hard to believe it was released in 1957. But times were different then, and television was the newest kid on the block. People watched because it was new, and because they could – and there were minimal channels. Now that television is one of many available media and there are myriad programming choices, what would it take to develop a modern-day Lonesome Rhodes? Is it even a possibility?

Cupcake Law

For some students, law school can be a piece of cake.  For others, it is difficult.  And for some very, very specific others, graduating from law school is a cupcake.

Recent New York Law School graduate Lev Ekster, eschewed the legal world for the baking world by opening a food truck (web: cupcakestop.com ) in midtown Manhattan specializing in cupcakes.  As New York is already the self-proclaimed cupcake capital, Ekster capitalized on the current sweets wave by making his business mobile, to "Serve New Yorkers delicious cupcakes on THEIR terms."  

Food trucks are very popular in many cities, and offer great food at low prices.  Cupcake Stop, along with a other well-known trucks (BigGayIceCreamTruck and Schnitzel&Things) have been named finalists of the 2009 Vendy Awards.  The Vendys are "an intense cook-off between the best sidewalks chefs in New York City," so he can legally say that he has some of the best desserts in all of New York.

More on The Decline of Print Journals: Northwestern's TriQuarterly

We've been talking for a long time about the declining fortunes of academic presses (OUP and CUP had layoffs at the beginning of the year; YUP laid off  staff later in the year; HUP shut its display room this summer; LSU Press had a near death experience this summer) and the shift to e-publishing (such as the University of Michigan Press' shift towards e-publishing).  Post-crash, things aren't looking good for the academy.  Of course, that was true even before the crash.

Now comes news that Northwestern's pretigious literary magazine TriQuarterly will cease print publication next year.   Here's more about the TriQuarterly, from its blog:

Founded in 1958 as a faculty and student magazine, TriQuarterly was reshaped in 1964 as an innovative national publication aimed at a sophisticated and diverse literary readership. The physical aspect of many literary journals today derives from the creation of the TriQuarterly design in 1964. The New York Times called TriQuarterly “perhaps the preeminent journal for literary fiction” in America, and the Times Literary Supplement (London) has said that TriQuarterly “fulfilled the classic function of the literary magazine in the twentieth century.” Library Journal called TriQuarterly “the premier literary review currently being published,” and Publishers Weekly noted that the twentieth-anniversary issue’s “table of contents is a roster of some of the leading writers of our era.”

This raises a really important question: how many other print journals will follow this route? I'm guessing a lot.  My second question: how quickly will other major journals shift to e-publishing?

As a close follower of the history of the book literature, it seems to me that one important lesson is that print confers status.  But then again, one of the reasons print confers status is that print is expensive.  And in this new world of significantly tighter budgets, I'm not sure that we can afford luxury.

Mercer Law Dean Daisy Hurst Floyd Stepping Down

It's that time of year when deanship transitions begin in earnest.  Now we learn that Mercer's dean, Daisy Hurst Floyd, will be stepping down and returning to the faculty this summer.   She has been dean since 2004.  Her six year tenure seems pretty average in the legal academy.  This should be a pretty attractive deanship; Macon, Georgia is only about 75 miles from Atlanta and is thus ripe for dual professional couples. 

For those of you who follow these the deanship market systematically, our current law dean search list is here.  The 2008-09  list is here.

Charting Law Schools Over Time

Gary Rosin has a new post, "Do We Need More Law Schools," up at Law by the Numbers, which charts the growth in the number of law schools from the early twentieth century to today.  There are now 199 law schools with ABA accreditation or provisional accreditation.

One thing that's a little hidden here is the number of law schools in operation; I'd be interested in knowing how many law schools there were in 1925, for instance.  My guess is that only a small percentage of the schools in 1925 were ABA accredited.  So the growth in schools may look a little more dramatic over time than it actually was.  However, there's no denying that a lot of law schools have opened up recently.  And, as Rosin points out, more are on the way.

A Good Week For Justice Brandeis

Pantheon Books (a division of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, itself part of Random House, Inc.) is releasing a new biography of Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis this week.  The book is titled Louis D. Brandeis:  A Life and is authored by Melvin Urofsky, a professor of law and public policy and a professor emeritus of history at Virginia Commonwealth University.   Here's  a synopsis:

The first full-scale biography in twenty-five years of one of the most important and distinguished justices to sit on the Supreme Court—a book that reveals not only Louis D. Brandeis the reformer, lawyer, and jurist, but also Brandeis the man, in all of his complexity, passion, and wit.

Adam Liptak's review for The New York Times is here.

Mary Dudziak has a post on the book at the Legal History Blog here.

Other information is available here (amazon.com) and here (Barnes & Noble).

In addition to being the topic of a just-released biography, Justice Brandeis also is one of four members of the United States Supreme Court being honored this week by the U.S. Postal Service (the other three being Joseph Story, Felix Frankfurter, and William Brennan, Jr.).  See story here.  This brings to thirteen the number of justices so honored by the U.S.P.S. with a stamp.  How many can you name?  Click here for the list.

One final question:  How many Brandeis stamps will it take for me to mail a copy of the Brandeis biography to Al Brophy, if the book has 976 pages, dimensions of 9.3 x 6.4 x 2.0 inches, and a shipping weight of 2.9 pounds?

The Jurisprudence of Second Life

My colleague Richard Myers will be serving as a judge in the first trial ever conducted  one of the first trials ever conducted (thanks to comments for setting the record straight) in Second Life on September 25.  The trial is based loosely on the Michael Vick criminal case.

"Just like a regular mock trial, they will put witnesses on in front of a jury, follow rules of evidence, conduct examinations and present opening and closing arguments to jury," says assistant professor Richard Myers, who coordinates mock court programs at the school and will serve as a judge for the Second Life mock trial. "The difference is that it will all be done in a computer-based simulated environment. No one has conducted a mock trial before in Second Life, so we're excited to see how it will work."

Here's a story about the trial.   It looks like the trial will be an exciting proof of concept -- that we can conduct trials in Second Life.  Next up, the virtual law school?  Oh, wait, we've got those already. (h/t Law and More).

Stripping the Student Body? UC Walkout Goes Naked

(Thank goodness it’s the students and not the faculty)

As we reported earlier, the UC faculty walkout is planned for tomorrow, September 24 – the first day of class for eight of the ten UC campuses.  Many events, including teach-ins, rallies, and the like are planned for tomorrow, and a number of other protest events have marked the lead in (most notably a protest that temporarily delayed Wednesday's regents meeting at which approximately 15 people – including university employees protesting furloughs and other cuts – were arrested).  But the most blog-worthy protest to my mind has to be this naked protest by UC Davis students. (Photo, courtesy the Sacramento Bee, at right).

The lack of clothing (the protesters wore bathing suits, but held signs across their fronts that made them appear naked) “was designed to symbolize that students are ‘being stripped’ of their right to accessible, quality public education,” after University of California President Mark Yudof proposed to raise fees 30 percent over the next year.

One of the signs read: "Yudof is stripping the student body," while protesters chanted "Higher tuition, we can't make it. Three more grand, we'll get naked," and "Oppose Yudof. Take it off, take it off."

The protesters also urged students to participate in Thursday’s walkout, which is expected to include students, labor unions and faculty across the UC system.  As of Monday, more than 1,000 UC faculty and 1,200 graduate students had signed online petitions in support of the walkout.

But according to Scott Saul, associate professor of English, many junior faculty will cancel their classes and join the walkout, though they did not sign letters or petitions, because they felt "structurally vulnerable."

Meanwhile, plans for a strike by the local chapter of the University Professional and Technical Employees union received a boost this week by the Coalition of University Employees.

The coalition has promised solidarity with the union and is currently seeking authorization to strike on Thursday from the state Public Employment Relations Board, said Amatullah Alaji-Sabrie, the chief negotiator for the Coalition of University Employees.

According to the Daily Californian:

Walkout activities will begin Wednesday with a teach-in featuring faculty speakers at 7 p.m. in Wheeler Auditorium. In addition, some faculty will conduct their own activities on Thursday, but a rally scheduled for noon on Upper Sproul Plaza will bring supporters together for one large event. The assembly is aimed at publicizing the impact of state budget cuts and the resolve of faculty, students and staff to continue efforts into the coming months. The Daily Californian will be providing real-time coverage of Wednesday's teach-in and Thursday's events.

I assume that other campuses are hosting similar events.  Luckily for us, organizers say this is only the beginning of organized efforts to reverse the impacts of state budget cuts to the 10-campus system.  And you know what that means – more protests, more drama, perhaps more naked people, and certainly more news from us here at the Lounge.  Because we’re true to our motto: wherever academics are fighting, complaining, or misbehaving in a public setting, we’ll be there to follow it.

Prior Lounge coverage:
The Drama Returns: UC Prof Walkouts Planned
Student Reaction to UC Faculty Walkout: Not Good
We Know Drama, And Its Name Is The University of California
UC Civil War Expands to Law School
Are All UC Schools Created Equal?
Are Fish Tacos The New Latte?

Recent news coverage:
Campuses Plan Variety Of Walkout Activities (Daily Californian, Sept. 22)
Why a Faculty Walkout Is Needed Now (Daily Californian, Sept. 22)
Campus Community Readies for Walkout (Daily Californian, Sept. 23)
Walk the Talk (Daily Californian, Sept 22)
Money problems sowing discontent in University of California system (Bay Area News Group, Sept. 21)
Dozen UC Davis students flash flesh to protest fee hikes (Sacramento Bee, Sept. 22)
Massive fee hikes planned at University of California (Sacramento Bee, Sept. 17)