The Faculty Lounge

As a Supreme Court Justice, Does Sexism Go Away?

That's essentially what George Stephanapoulos asked Justice Sotomayor on today's This Week.  Here is a partial transcript:

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: You also write in your book about some of the sexism you faced even as a prosecutor. Any as a Supreme Court justice or does it go away? 

SONIA SOTOMAYOR: It hasn't happened in awhile where someone called me honey. But you know people did when I was on the federal bench below. 

STEPHANOPOULOS: On the federal bench? 

SOTOMAYOR: Oh, yeah. And I'm sure that the marshall who called me honey thought it was a term of endearment. But I'm equally sure that he would not find a term of endearment or using  for a male judge.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And on a Supreme Court dominated for generations by men, she's now one of three female justices. We talked about the difference a woman judge makes, justice makes. Do you think a woman president would make a big difference? 

SOTOMAYOR: Oh, probably at least in some little girl's perceptions of herself. And that is important enough. 

STEPHANOPOULOS: And you have seen that as a justice? 

SOTOMAYOR: I’ve seen it as a justice. I can't tell you the letters I have gotten from children talking about the impression that having me on the court has made on them.

YouTube clip here.

 

 

Memorials in Times of Transition

I see that Susanne Buckley-Zistel of the Center for Conflict Studies and Stefanie Schaefer, a research fellow at the Irmgard Coninx Foundation, have the introduction to their book Memorials in Times of Transition up on ssrn.  Cribbing now from their abstract: 

Since the 1960-70s, we can see a worldwide upsurge of memorial projects that address the violent histories of recent wars, genocides and systematic human rights abuses. Such interventions often employ a common architectural language and are informed by a set of political and ethical claims in regard to what role commemoration can and/or should play aft er large-scale violence: providing public sites of mourning, putting past wrongs right, holding perpetrators accountable, vindicating the dignity of victims-survivors and contributing to reconciliation.

Dealing with the legacy of the past is subject to transitional justice. Conventionally, it incorporates a number of mechanisms such as truth commissions, tribunals, lustrations, reparations and more recently also memory work – including memorials – in order to deal with past injustices. It is based on the assumption that any form of transition from violence to peaceful coexistence requires the disclosure of past events and the establishment of some form of justice for the victims in particular and the society in general.

Despite this general reliance on memorialisation within transitional justice, practitioners as well as scholars often share a rather skeptical outlook on the allegedly beneficial impact of such interventions: ranging from fears that an open display of contested memories reignites dormant animosities to the defeatist beliefs that symbolic politics of far-away state institutions make little difference in war-torn communities. Overall, a comprehensive answer to this complex problem is amiss and will remain so unless analysis aims at a more nuanced understanding of the complex ways in which memorials are employed by and function within transitional society. With this volume, we seek to make a contribution towards closing this research gap.

Though the memorials put up in the wake of Civil War are earlier than their project, the issues they discuss have obvious parallels.  I've thought for a long time that the excellent work that's been done on transitional justice could be enriched by looking at the south in the wake of Civil War.  There were shattered lives struggling to be put back together -- the formerly enslaved people who had little resources and whose government often abandoned them, as well as members of the formerly ruling class whose wealth had been largely lost, who were struggling to regain political power.  The efforts at addressing past injustices was missing -- it was, to turn Eric Posner and Adrian Vermeule's phrase on its side, "transitional justice as ordinary injustice."  And running alongside all of this were efforts at memorialization by white southern women.  I've spoken before about my skepticism of the importance of public monuments to those who defended the slave-owning south.  But I do have to say that I think this is an area of work that deserves more attention  from legal scholars than it's received.  Soon I hope to turn to this, but first I need to finish my paper on Richmond's Washington Equine Statue and its relationship to slavery and the charitable corporation.

The illustration is a family cemetery at Appomattox.

Hyperpatriotic Japanese Americans (Again) in the New York Times

Michael Beschloss recycles the Japanese American hyperpatriotism/baseball narrative in today's New York Times.

The historiography has moved far beyond this tedious story.  It was understandable, in the context of the war and the suspicions that lingered after it ended, that a big segment of the Japanese American community would put this simplistic story front and center.  But that was six decades ago.

Michael Beschloss needs to do a little reading.

Civil War Prison

I didn't realize until recently that there were any Civil War era prisons still standing; I guess I have to say that I hadn't given that a lot of thought one way or the other.  What I have here is a photograph of a Confederate prison (that is a prison that housed United States soldiers).  From what I've read it was really awful.  Guess that's no surprise.  It was modified heavily after the War, so I have a difficult time figuring out just how much of what's visible here was part of the prison.  And believe me I puzzled a bunch over this as I was taking the picture.  Anyway, where is it?  I don't think I'm making this too easy by saying that this building is within sight of  where a major civil rights demonstration took place in 1963.

(Here is a somewhat better view of this building.  As best as I can tell, the prison ended after the loading dock that's visible near the bottom right of the picture, even though the building now extends for the better part of a city block.)

Update: Now that Brian Clarke has identified the location, here's a link to a plaque in front of the building that gives some more details on "Confederetate Prison No. 6."  Danville's quite a place -- and I hope to talk some more about it later this summer.

Self-Delusion Spreads from Professional to Graduate Education; Consternation Curiously Absent

I want to be clear at the outset:  I love literature.  I was an English major, and I’ve never regretted it for a moment.  I seriously considered pursuing a Ph.D. in English.  I could not have a deeper faith in the liberal arts as a path to the betterment of all mankind.

So imagine my dismay at some recent reportage in the Chronicle of Higher Education.  Graduate programs in languages and literature are suffering troubles all too familiar to the readers of these pages:  In these straitened times, the tenure-track academic appointments for which a doctoral degree is the traditional and necessary preparation are available for only about 60% of the recipients of doctorates in language or literature (a number chillingly reminiscent of the 56%-57% of the last two law-school graduating classes who managed to find a full-time, long-term job requiring a law license within 9-10 months of graduation, though when you exclude school-funded and self-employed positions as well as a few other confounders and irrelevancies, that number is closer to 53%).  The Modern Language Association (a trade group for college and graduate educators and scholars in language and literature analogous to AALS) recently released a report conceding “[w]e are faced with an unsustainable reality.”

The solution?  Simple—dismiss the “reality” as “wrong”:

"The discourse of Ph.D. overproduction is wrong," said Russell A. Berman, who led the task force that wrote the report and is a professor of comparative literature and German studies at Stanford University. "What we need instead is a broadened understanding of career paths.” 

As the Chronicle explains, the MLA believes that language and literature departments should urge upon students considering graduate degrees

what else they could do with a language or literature Ph.D.  Career options off the tenure track . . . include teaching at community colleges and high schools, working at cultural institutions such as heritage museums and libraries, and putting skills to use in the private sector.  "The subject matter may, in fact, be far from literature," Mr. Berman said, "but the rich professional formation acquired during the course of doctoral study can be put to good use.”

The Chronicle also reports that the MLA “is taking a stance similar to the American Historical Association, whose executive director has said that history Ph.D.’s are not being overproduced but underused.”

If you’re feeling a certain frisson of déjà vu, you don’t need a doctorate in French to understand why.  The MLA appears to be arguing that you should pursue a doctorate in language or literature (median time to completion nine years, by the way) because it will make you a better high school teacher.  If you think this is silly, you’re right.  If you think this is silly, but still believe that people unsure of their desire to practice law or do something clearly and directly law-related should attend law school because (as comp lit Prof. Berman put it to the Chronicle) “the rich professional formation acquired during the course of [law] study” is (as I lampooned it in a past post) “ideal preparation for any line of work, a thoughtful life, the vicissitudes of holy matrimony, Monty Python’s Argument Clinic, or the searching examination that can be expected from St. Peter when the matriculant finally reaches the pearly gates,” you are engaging in the kind of wishful thinking that would earn your contempt if you observed it in a colleague or a student.

We need to get a few things straight.  You can get a doctorate in English because you love English and have the time and money to devote yourself to what you love, regardless of what comes after your studies are done.  But once we start talking about education as preparation for a career, the argument changes:  Specialized professional and graduate education is supposed to prepare you for specialized lines of work.  There is no honest or sustainable basis for a view of specialized professional or graduate education as proper (let alone cost-justified) preparation for whatever job the market may eventually offer you.  The fact that a doctorate in English, or a law degree, will provide its holders with thoughts or perspectives on unrelated work uncommon for others without their benefit does not mean that someone would rationally pursue either (or both, given that they’re apparently both ideal preparation for everything) in order to secure work unrelated to the discipline studied. 

This is classic post-hoc fallacy:  If you want to consider whether education X is good preparation for job Y, imagine yourself planning a path to job Y, and think about whether you’d consider education X an essential, or at least a very important, step on that path.  The fact that you previously went to law school, and now have a nonpracticing position that many people would consider a good job (say as a high-school civics teacher, or as a paralegal), does not mean that the former was the cause of the latter.  Nor does it mean that the latter justifies the former in any meaningful sense.  Nor does it mean that whatever perceptual or perspectival advantages the former course of study lends to the later  work justifies the education as a sensible preparation for the job if you were thinking about it ex ante.

Put slightly differently, the fact that you get a job not requiring a law degree after you graduate from law school does not, without a great deal more, make that job “JD Advantaged.”  Law schools that are silently indulging that fallacy in their employment reporting should cut it out.  If the Section 509 compliance audits that the ABA announced last year to test the accuracy of law-school disclosures are to be worth a damn, they will focus relentlessly on this issue.

And how do we explain this spreading contagion of laughable illogic among America’s best-educated and most thoughtful?  I’m afraid we need look no further than Upton Sinclair’s well-worn observation that “it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

Bernie

Laplante on Just Repair

I've been talking a lot of late about the resurgence of literature on reparations.  And next week I hope to have a working draft of a paper on North Carolina's eugenics program and the legislature's compensation statute that I'm writing with Elizabeth Troutman.  One of the best developoments has been the literature that looks pretty seriously at designing a reparations program.  Lisa Laplante's new article, "Just Repair" is a prime example of this literature, which tries to assess what reparations might actually look like.  Here is Laplante's abstract:

“Just Repair” offers, for the first time, a theory of administrative reparation programs for redressing atrocities. Under this new theory, a government could satisfy its international obligation to guarantee just repair for victims who suffered a violation of their fundamental rights if it adopts a plural approach to designing its reparation policy. The Article responds to the challenges that governments face when trying to repair the harm suffered by hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of victims of political violence, repression and armed conflict. Governments often opt for an administrative solution when it is not feasible for every victim to use civil suits to litigate their claims. These administrative regimes often draw upon the concept of reparative justice, adopting a “legalistic” approach that calculates damages and awards lump sums or annuities. These payments technically fulfill the international obligation to protect the recognized right to reparation enjoyed by all victims of human rights violations. Yet recent scholarship questions whether administrative programs respond adequately and appropriately to the needs of victims, especially when governments implement reparation programming without consulting victims and thus fail to meet the victims’ expectations and demands. This misaligned policy results in victim dissatisfaction with, and even rejection of, reparation programs. Yet, in exposing this problem, few scholars offer a theoretical framework for a broader analysis of why this policy failure occurs. This Article responds by suggesting that the rift between theory and practice arises in part due to the lack of a coherent theoretical framework to explain the justice aims of reparations that can not only guide the planning and implementation of reparation programs but also third-party evaluations of these projects. Additionally, there is a still minimal international law guidance of what constitutes an effective, adequate and appropriate reparation program. Thus this Article presents a model of plural justice called the ‘justice continuum of repair’ that draws from classic legal and political theories to describe the overarching justice aims of reparations in transitional justice settings. This account better accommodates the multilayered justice aims held by victims, especially in light of the great diversity of human rights violations they suffer in addition to the variance in demographic characteristics like gender, class, age, location, among other factors. Their ‘postionality’ will influence what victims perceive to be necessary to feel repaired. This Article proposes that a government should adopt a participatory approach to planning and implementing their reparation programs to better accommodate and manage the multiple justice aims and expectations of victims, and thus help to enhance the effectiveness and legitimacy of a national reparation policy. Moreover, this framework will contribute to the development of evolving international standards for assuring fair and just reparation programs. Ultimately, a pluralist theory offers a more coherent understanding of the justice aims of reparation programs while still promoting the universalistic concept of the right of reparations.

Public Employee Speech: The Fine Line Between Garcetti and Lane v. Franks

Today, in Lane v. Franks the Supreme Court held that sworn testimony by a public employee on matters that occurred in the course of the employee's official duties is shielded by the First Amendment.  Lane performed an audit of his public agency, which uncovered financial misconduct by another employee, Schmitz.  In the subsequent prosecution of Schmitz Lane testified concerning the circumstances of his audit and its findings.  Later, Franks fired Lane, ostensibly for budgetary reasons.  Lane sued, contending that the dismissal was retaliation for his speech.  The Court held that because Lane's testimony occurred in performing an independent obligation as a citizen -- to give truthful sworn testimony -- his speech was that of a citizen rather than in the course of his official duties. The substance of Lane's testimony -- public corruption and misuse of government funds -- was undeniably of public concern.  

Recall Garcetti v. Ceballos, in which Ceballos, assistant DA, first wrote a memo to his superiors contending that a search warrant had been obtained by a false affidavit and recommending dismissal of the prosecution.  After Ceballos's superiors heatedly disagreed and proceeded with the prosecution Ceballos testified for the defense in a hearing challenging the warrant.  The Court said that Ceballos's speech was unprotected because it was made in the ordinary course and scope of his official duties. 

In each case sworn testimony in a judicial proceeding was delivered by a public employee, and that speech related to the performance of the employee's official duties.  So, what's the difference? Lane was obliged to testify, as his appearance was compelled by subpoena.  Ceballos testified voluntarily.  Perhaps that is not all.  Ceballos's testimony was a perpetuation of his feud with his superiors, but it was prompted by Ceballos's honest belief that the search warrant had been illegally obtained.  Nothing in Lane suggests that Lane's testimony was prompted by disagreement with his colleagues about the performance of his official duties.  If there is a moral here, perhaps it is wise to insist on being subpoened if you are a public employee in possession of information of public concern gathered in the course of your official duties that would be germane to a collateral judicial proceeding. 

Penn State Law Splits Apart & Rebrands Carlisle Campus

The American Bar Association has officially approved Penn State's application to split its law school into two schools.  The State College campus will continue to use the Penn State name.  The Carlisle campus will lose the Penn State name, and revert to the original name of the whole operation: the Dickinson School of Law.  The split will formally begin with students admitted in Fall, 2015.  Apparently, students from both schools will  receive degrees with the title "The Dickinson School of Law of the Pennsylvania State University", but the now-separate institutions will be marketed under distinct brand names.  

We'll be watching to see if the schools develop very differently.  We don't know how these institutions inter-relate for budgetary or administrative purposes.  Will one school - say, Dickinson - be permitted to subsidize the other?  I could imagine Penn State deciding to keep its massive subsidy of State College Law, and thus maintain a very strong entering cohort.  At the same time, it might provide  little or no subsidy of Dickinson Law which might result in a far weaker entering class in Carlisle.  (It's fair to assume that, having lost the patina of the Penn State name, both students and US News voters may revert to prior perceptions of Dickinson Law.)  The success or failure of Dickinson to retain both reputation and tuition subsidies will have a big effect on Widener-Harrisburg, its local competitor. 

And the State College story isn't simple either.  Penn State Law - at least one in which Carlisle has no part - has precious few alumni and no signficant local employment market.  I wonder how supportive Carlisle alumni will be of State College grads when they can again hire Dickson alumni.  

Ranking Law Schools Based on LSAT, Employment Outcome, and Citations

Given all the talk about the U.S. News law school rankings I've been thinking for a while that I wanted to look at how a ranking of law schools based on a few of the factors that prospective students might care about (and that I certainly care about) would look.  I have put together a quick look at schools based on an average of ranks of the median LSAT score of students entering in fall 2013, the rank of schools based on the percentage of their 2013 graduates who had full-time, permanent JD-required jobs, and the rank of their main law review based on the number of citations it received from 2006 to 2012.  There's a lot one could argue about with regard to the selection (and weighting) of those three variables -- and if I do anything else with this paper I may very well refine the weight assigned to each variable (or even change the variables).  But I do think this is a nice start in the direction of ranking schools based on the factors that matter in quality of an institution. 

One of the things that I found of particular interest is how highly correlated a lot of the variables are.  For instance, correlations between each of the three variables and the overall U.S. News rank are also high, though the U.S. News rank and LSAT median rank are correlated most highly of the three (.93).  The correlation between U.S. News rank and full time, permanent JD required jobs rank is .76 and the correlation between U.S. News rank and law review citations rank is .87. 

Cribbing now from my abstract on ssrn:

This paper returns to the perennially favorite topic of ranking law schools.  Where U.S. News & World Report includes a wide variety of factors – some of which are criticized as irrelevant to what prospective students care about (or should care about) – this paper looks to three variables.  They are median LSAT score of entering students, which seeks to capture the quality of the student body; the percentage of the graduating students who are employed at 9 months following graduation at full-time, permanent JD required jobs; and the number of citations to each school’s main law review.  This paper rank orders each of those variables, averages those ranks to obtain a new ranking, and then compares those new rankings to the U.S. News & World Report rankings.

If you're interested in this, you can find the full paper here, along with tables that list the schools that are the biggest winners in this new ranking and those that decline the most.  Down the road I'd like to extend this ranking to all ABA-accredited law schools.  The image is a series of scatter plots of ranks on U.S. News, LSAT medians for students entering fall 2013, percentage of class employed at JD-required long-term, full time jobs,  and citations to law reviews, 2006-13.

Update: Over at taxprof Paul Caron has some discussion of this paper and there are a lot of comments on what should be counted in a ranking system.  One of the things that I hoped this initial post would do is help me refine the factors to use and I appreciate the comments there and here -- and I'm particularly interested in the range of responses to the use of citations to schools' law reviews.

Michael Smith is also talking about the new ranking method at his blog -- especially the virtue of avoiding the peer assessment scores.

Duke Renaming Aycock Dormitory

This morning's Washington Post brings news that Duke University has  renamed a dormitory on its campus that was named for North Carolina Governor Charles Aycock.  Cribbing now from the Post article:

Aycock, who served as governor from 1901 to 1905, has had his name affixed to the building for more than 100 years. But that is coming to an end after the university’s Board of Trustees voted to revert the building to its original name, East Residence Hall, after petitions from the student body urged the school to re-evaluate the former governor’s legacy.

Long-time readers of faculty lounge may recall that I'm not generally a fan of renaming,  But I do think this alters the environment in which my own institution, the University of North Carolina, will judge buildings on our campus named for noted white supremacists (in the case of Saunders Hall or actually the Aycock Dormitory on UNC's campus) or proslavery zealots (in the case of Ruffin Hall).  I suppose I need to add here that while this was completely unintentional on his part, Justice Thomas Ruffin was one of the most important people in our country in bringing about an end to slavery -- because his 1830 opinion in State v. Mann inspired abolitionists and held up the brutality of the system of slavery to ridicule.

And I guess we'll be hearing soon what the adminstration has decided about the Confederate flags in the Lee Chapel on Washington and Lee's campus.

Update: Here is the Duke Chronicle article on the renaming.

Update 2: My colleague Harry Watson -- who is a distinguished historian of nineteenth century America -- has a letter to the editor of the Chapel Hill News about the controversy over Saunders Hall on UNC's campus.  Here's part of it: 

The fundamental question is not about the past, however, but about the future and how the university should present itself to coming generations. Even if we interpret Saunders in the most positive light possible, a building named for him will always need a footnote to explain why UNC doesn’t really endorse racial terrorism. Why should the university shoulder that awkward and self-defeating chore, when there are far more effective ways to teach historical complexity? Far better to put this endless controversy behind us with a name that accurately represents the Carolina of today and unifies the campus and its friends.

As for Saunders personally, his name will always be inseparable from the Colonial Records series that Dr. Price mentioned. That should be monument enough for anybody.

My guess is that Harry's letter will be a turning point in the discussion of Saunders Hall.  When someone as distinguished as Harry, who works in the field related to the honoree, and who is as generally moderate (or in Chapel Hill terms conservative) as Harry says it's time for a name change, it's probably time for a name change.

(H/T Bill Turnier).

Intellectual Manhood

I'm very much looking forward to reading Tim Williams' Intellectual Manhood: University, Self, and Society in the Antebellum South, which will appear from UNC Press this November.  Cribbing now a little from the book's website:

This in-depth and detailed history ... reveals that antebellum southern higher education did more than train future secessionists and proslavery ideologues. It also fostered a growing world of intellectualism flexible enough to marry the era’s middle-class value system to the honor-bound worldview of the southern gentry. By focusing on the students’ perspective and drawing from a rich trove of their letters, diaries, essays, speeches, and memoirs, Williams narrates the under examined story of education and manhood at the University of North Carolina, the nation’s first public university.

Every aspect of student life is considered, from the formal classroom and the vibrant curriculum of private literary societies to students’ personal relationships with each other, their families, young women, and college slaves. In each of these areas, Williams sheds new light on the cultural and intellectual history of young southern men, and in the process dispels commonly held misunderstandings of southern history. Williams's fresh perspective reveals that students of this era produced a distinctly southern form of intellectual masculinity and maturity that laid the foundation for the formulation of the post–Civil War South.

I'm deeply interested in Tim's insight on students' ideas at UNC -- and how this relates to the legal and constitutional ideas of lecturers to southern college literary societies and at graduations.  I'm going to write a lot more about this when the book comes out -- I imagine I'll be illustrating those posts with pictures of the UNC Literary Society buildings and their plots in the old Chapel Hill Cemetery.

Dean Search, University Of Toronto Faculty Of Law

The University of Toronto Faculty of Law is conducting an international search for its new dean.  Given that Canada seems to be supplying many of our new law school deans here in the States, it seems the perfect time to export an American to our northern neighbor.

Details of the search are here.

Whom Have I Defrauded?

That's the question that Reuben Seay's gravestone in the Greenboro, Alabama cemetery asks.  While it might fit very well with the era of the market revolution, I suspect it's more a reference to 1 Samuel 12:3 (thanks to Kindra for getting me pointed on the right track).  Now, whether that was a text made popular by the market revolution....

The latter hypothesis is particularly supported by the inscription: All the law is fulfilled in one word even in this, Thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself.  (Galatians 5:14)

A while back I posted about a grave monument put up by a business partner in Richmond's Shockoe Hill Cemetery.  This summer I think I want to post a few other gravestones I've come across over the years, including one that I am curious if it hints at a same-sex relationship in the late 19th and early 20th century.

CFP: The New Civil War—State Nullification of Federal Law 150 Years After Appomattox

In recognition of the 150th anniversary of the end of the Civil War, the editorial board of the Saint Louis University Public Law Review (PLR) is soliciting articles for a special issue on the recent resurgences of state opposition to federal power.  The publication will consider articles on current federal/state tensions, as well as articles linking current events to the history of nullification in the United States.  Possible topics include but are not limited to:

* State efforts to nullify Federal Marijuana Laws

* State efforts to nullify Federal Gun Laws

* State resistance to Federally Mandated Health Care

* State efforts to constitutionalize bans on Same-Sex Marriage

Interested authors should submit an abstract of no more than 1,000 words to Managing Editor Dan Rankin (drankin3@slu.edu) by July 1, 2014.  Publication offers will be made based on an editorial board review of the submitted abstracts.  Accepted offers will receive a publication contract from PLR that will require finished articles by October 15, 2014.  All inquiries should be directed to drankin3@slu.edu.

IRS Loses Thousands of Subpoenaed Emails

The IRS has lost thousands of Lois Lerner’s emails—all under a subpoena request—because of a hard drive crash.  For those of us that stopped following the IRS scandal story some time ago, this is a moment for reflection.  Hard drives crash and data is lost.  Not everyone chooses to testify before Congress, even when threatened with contempt.  Congressional committees are often stymied in their quest for the truth, or at least the truth they are looking for.  Taken together, these events are very likely coincidental.  A few years ago I was at an event and was seated at a table with a number of older lawyers.  One of them mentioned that as a young man he worked for a Congressional committee when the Watergate break-in news came out.  As this group of Democrats talked about it the day after the break-in, someone suggested that Nixon might be involved.  They all quickly dismissed the idea, with someone saying that even Nixon wasn’t that stupid.  Though time proved them wrong, I hope that this time it is merely a coincidence.

Bill Adams Named New ABA Deputy For Legal Education

The American Bar Association has named William E. Adams Jr. as the new Deputy Managing Director of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar.  Adams takes over for Scott Norberg who is returning to the faculty at Florida International.  Adams is the Dean and Vice-chancellor for Western State College of Law.  He has a JD from Indiana University.  The position - which has also been known as the Deputy Consultant - is described thusly at the ABA website:

Supports the officers and Council of the Section of Legal Education and many volunteer committees and projects. Identifies, recruits and inspires volunteers to participate in the accreditation process and ensures that site evaluation teams are properly trained to conduct effective site visits and prepare inspection reports in accordance with established standards.

AALS Call For Papers: The Voting Rights Act At 50

The brand-new AALS Section on Election Law is calling for two papers for its January 2015 panel at the annual Association of American Law Schools conference in DC.  The panel, The Voting Rights Act At 50,  will be held January 4, 2015 from 2-3:45.   Other panelists will be Pam Karlan, Chris Elmendorf, and Kareem Crayton.  Here's what we've got:

On August 6, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law. During the signing ceremony, President Johnson referred to the Act as “one of the most monumental laws in the entire history of American freedom.” Over the past fifty years, the Supreme Court has issued numerous decisions on various aspects of the Voting Rights Act, Congress has amended it several times, and it remains an important component of public debate. This panel  will explore the many facets of that debate. The panel will analyze the current issues regarding voting rights, from the Supreme Court’s recent invalidation of the Section 4 coverage formula in its Shelby County decision – essentially rendering Section 5 inoperable – to Congress’s consideration of a Voting Rights Act Amendment, to the report of the bipartisan Presidential Commission on Election Administration. Part of this inquiry will include a discussion of whether we have reached the ideals President Johnson aspired to 50 years ago when he signed this Act, and where we should go from here in protecting and effectuating the right to vote. 

Selected papers will be published in the Election Law Journal. The deadline to submit is Friday, September 5. Finished papers or substantially completed drafts are preferred, although you may submit an abstract so long as you will be able to complete the paper in time for the Meeting.

To submit, or if you have any questions, please email Josh Douglas at joshuadouglas@uky.edu.

Speaking of Mid-Century Modern Architecture....

Where is this one?  (Once we get this figured out, I want to talk a little bit about the architect.)

Mid-Century Modern Building Trivia

Stephen Clowney will know this -- we've had a meal in this building.  But I'm guessing most other faculty lounge readers will say, "what the heck is this?"  Where is it?  What is it?

What Makes Funding for Legal Scholarship ‘External’? (Part 1)

Following up on two previous posts of mine on this topic (here and here), I want to explore some potential different meanings of ‘external’ when that term is used in relation to funding for scholarship produced by law professors.  For the purposes of this post, I’ll assume that scholarship is an integral part of a law professor’s job, and one that may actually become more important—rather than less—in the current situation of declining law school enrollments.  As I see it, law schools are likely to become more dependent on and more integrated with mothership universities as a result of declines in enrollments and resources.  And given that scholarship tends to be more tightly policed (for better or for worse) within larger universities than within law schools, we may see higher expectations (quantity or quality) of law faculty on the scholarship front in coming years.  These assumptions are (of course) open to debate, but not here:  comments will (as always) be monitored for their responsiveness to the substantive focus of this post (now starting).

One concern (though not the only one) of actors who advocate external funding for legal scholarship, is that this scholarship not be funded by law students’ tuition dollars.  There are potential complications even to this position—for example, to the extent that student tuition dollars are actually derived from taxpayer-supported loans, these tuition dollars could be considered as coming from ‘external’ sources—but the impetus commonly behind such a position seems to be to find a source for the ‘research portion’ of law professors’ salaries that is not directly taken from the pot of tuition that law schools collect each year from their students.  (NB:  In many cases, universities themselves take in this tuition money, and then allocate it to law school accounts; even here then there are traces of ‘external-ness’).

 

Given this concern about law students’ tuition dollars, one way of making funding ‘external’ then is to set up a research fund supported by the donations of law school alumni.  There are many different ways of administering such a fund, but the important point (here) is that the money is seen to come from alumni rather than students.  Is such funding really ‘external’ though?  As I see it, ‘yes’ in some ways, but in many other ways ‘no.’  For one, alumni are by definition former students, so in many ways this could be considered just a delayed tuition bill.  This is, of course, my description of the situation, but donors to academic institutions often refer to ‘repaying a debt’ (real or figurative) when making their donations.  Additionally, it would be hard to characterize many donations to academic institutions as truly ‘voluntary’—or ‘unsolicited’—in the way that, for example, Joan Kroc’s many donations (some posthumous) several years ago could be characterized.