The Faculty Lounge

Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons

Tommy DeVito, the original baritone and lead guitarist of the Four Seasons, died on September 21, at age 92, of Covid-19. According to his obituary on the site Best Classic Bands,

DeVito first teamed with Frankie Valli in a New Jersey-based group that ultimately chose the name the Four Lovers in the mid-1950s. With Bob Gaudio and Nick Massi, they changed their name to the Four Seasons and scored their first hit with “Sherry,” a #1 single in 1962. . . . DeVito left in 1970, selling his share of the group’s rights to Valli and Gaudio. The four reunited at their 1990 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Important Article on Proposal for So-Called “Health Freedom” Legislation

Once again, the invaluable Science Based Medicine blog has news of an alarming trend in state legislatures. This time, in an article by Florida attorney Jann Bellamy, the subject is so-called “Health Freedom” legislation proposed by a group called National Health Freedom Action. If enacted, the statutes would make it effectively impossible for states to enforce any mandatory public health measures, even during epidemics and pandemics. Here is the gist:

An organization calling itself “National Health Freedom Action” (NHFA) is promoting state legislation that would block public health measures designed to prevent the spread of communicable diseases like COVID-19. If enacted, the legislation would prevent both government and private businesses from instituting public health measures, like mask requirements and social distancing, by making compliance with those measures voluntary.

The “Right to Refuse” model act gives all individuals the “right” to refuse health-related “countermeasures” including, “but not limited to”, refusing

1. 1. medical treatments or procedures;
   2. testing;
   3. physical or mental examination;
   4. vaccination;
   5. experimental procedures and protocols;
   6. collection of specimens;
   7. participation in tracking or tracing programs;
   8. the wearing of masks;
   9. the maintaining of measured distance from other humans and animals that is not otherwise unlawful;
   10. the involuntary sharing of personal data or medical information; and
   11. other recommended or mandated countermeasures.

All existing laws, regulations, and orders addressing outbreaks or potential outbreaks of contagious, infectious, or communicable diseases, to the extent they impose the disease countermeasures listed above, are overridden. More broadly, if a law, regulation, or order was created in response to an emergency, whether it relates to disease spread or not, including national security emergencies and “any peacetime emergency”, provisions conflicting with the “Right to Refuse” are also overridden.

The article also includes information on NHFA supported “’Quack Protection Acts’ passed in 11 states.”

You can read the entire post here.

Taboo Trades Podcast, featuring Nicola Lacetera and Mario Macis

I’ve uploaded a new and very special episode of the Taboo Trades podcast, featuring Mario Macis and Nicola Lacetera.

Mario Macis is a Professor of Economics at Johns Hopkins Carey Business School. Nico Lacetera is a Professor of Strategic Management at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto.

They joined me this week to discuss their empirical and experimental work on incentives for blood donation, as well as their recent surveys of public attitudes toward a variety of taboo trades, including payments to living kidney donors. It’s a fun and informative episode (thanks to the guests, not the host :-)

You can listen on Apple and spotify, as well as below.

 

 

American University Law Seeks Dean

This just in:

American University (AU) seeks a strategic, entrepreneurial, and energetic leader to serve as Dean of the Washington College of Law (WCL), commencing no later than July 1, 2021. This is an exceptional opportunity to lead a large, vibrant, creative, and forward-looking law school in the nation’s capital. WCL’s global preeminence and distinctive brand are anchored in the quality of its academic programs, the scholarly achievements of its faculty, the diversity of its community, and its impact on the challenges facing the legal professions and society today.

AU is a private doctoral university chartered by Congress in 1893. Today, AU enrolls about 14,000 students from every U.S. state and more than 140 countries. Among the university’s more than 900 full-time faculty and 700 adjunct faculty are policy makers, diplomats, journalists, artists, scientists, and business leaders. AU offers a rich array of undergraduate and undergraduate programs through eight colleges and schools.

Categorizing Justices

Jack Balkin, in conversation with Sandy Levinson, has proposed dividing SCOTUS justices into two categories. The first is those whose "primary achievement was that they sat on the court," and who would not otherwise be much remembered. The second group comprises those who "led noteworthy lives before they became Supreme Court Justices," and who would be biography-worthy had they never been appointed to the Court. The late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg obviously belongs in the second category, as her accomplishments as a pioneer women's rights litigator would alone establish her greatness.

The shortcoming I see in the Balkin/Levinson approach is that there are so few justices other than Ginsburg who belong in the second category. Balkin's post names no others. Writing on Prawfs, Howard Wasserman adds the obvious names Thurgood Marshall and William Howard Taft, to which I would add Louis Brandeis. But that's about it. Many other justices had notable pre-judicial careers -- Robert Jackson was attorney general; Roger Taney held three cabinet posts; Hugo Black was a U.S. senator -- but nothing that would likely be called personal greatness. Perhaps Salmon P. Chase qualifies. He was Secretary of the Treasury during the Civil War, and before that he was known for his abolitionist law practice as the "attorney general of fugitive slaves," but that still brings us only to five. John Jay and Joseph Story would make seven, out of 114. That is not so much a categorization as the identification of an elite few.

In a book review for The New Rambler, I proposed a different, and potentially more even, division between justices whose lives had been interesting in various ways, and those who were just basically high-achievers. I called them "way-makers" and "path-takers." The review compared recent biographies of Sandra Day O'Connor, a classic way-maker whose determination and initiative took her from an Arizona ranch childhood to the Supreme Court, overcoming obstacles all the way, and John Roberts, who essentially succeeded at everything he attempted on a consistent upward path. The categories don't break down by ideology. Clarence Thomas is an exceptional way-maker, while Stephen Breyer is a classic path-taker. Nor does the distinction say anything about the quality of their judging once on the Court. Rather, it is simply a readers' guide to potential judicial biographies.

Where the Balkin/Levinson classification is meant to determine whether someone would hypothetically merit a biography other than as a justice, I think my proposal describes whether a post-judicial biography, however much merited, would be fascinating to read. For Sandra Day O'Connor the answer was a resounding yes; for John Roberts, let's face it, the answer was not so much.

 

Peking University School of Transnational Law Seeks Faculty

Peking University School of Transnational Law (“STL”) invites applications for tenure track positions.  STL also invites inquiries from established scholars interested in a joint appointment or in a two or three-year residential appointment during a leave of absence from your home university.

Peking University is one of the world's leading research universities, ranked 23^rd worldwide in the Times Higher Education rankings.  STL is the only law school in the world to offer an integrated dual degree program that includes an American Law J.D., taught in English, and a China law Juris Master (J.M.), taught largely in Chinese.  STL is located on Peking University's Shenzhen Campus, minutes from Hong Kong.   Shenzhen is renowned as China’s leading center of technological innovation, advanced financial services, and internationalization, home to such innovative giants as Tencent, Huawei, BGI, Ping An, BYD, and DJI Drones.  Together, Shenzhen and Hong Kong form the hub of the world’s most populous metropolitan area, China’s Pearl River Delta, where Chinese and Western legal and commercial traditions meet and merge in ways likely to preview future legal and commercial developments throughout China and the rest of the world. 

STL values diversity and inclusion and is committed to both in appointing, mentoring and retaining faculty.

Inquiries should be addressed to Professor Nitzan Shilon, Chair, Faculty Appointments Committee, at nshilon@sjd.law.harvard.edu. 

Hiring Announcement: Louisiana State University, Paul M. Hebert Law Center

From an email I received recently:

LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY, PAUL M. HEBERT LAW CENTER seeks to hire a tenure-track faculty member in commercial law, including, but not limited to, bankruptcy. Applicants should have a J.D. from an ABA-accredited law school, superior academic credentials and publications or promise of productivity in legal scholarship, as well as a commitment to outstanding teaching.

We additionally seek to hire a full-time faculty member with security of position to direct the Immigration Law Clinic as part of LSU Law’s Experiential Education Program. The Immigration Law Clinic is a fully in-house, one-semester, 5 credit clinic in which students represent non-citizens in their defensive proceedings before the Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR) and affirmative applications with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Applicants must have a J.D. from an ABA-accredited law school, superior academic credentials, substantial experience in Immigration practice and be admitted and in good standing in a U.S. jurisdiction. Prior clinical teaching experience and fluency in Spanish is preferred. We may consider applications from persons who specialize in other areas as additional needs arise.

We also seek to hire a full-time Assistant Professor of Professional Practice to teach legal analysis and writing. A successful candidate will teach the fundamentals of legal reasoning and writing by way of predictive and objective memoranda in the fall semester and advance those skills by teaching persuasive writing of an appellate brief and appellate oral advocacy in the spring semester. The legal writing faculty collaboratively develop the course materials that are used across the 1L curriculum. Applicants must have a J.D. from an ABA-accredited law school, superior academic credentials, and should have at least two to three years of post-J.D. experience in a position or positions requiring substantial legal writing.

UNT Law Seeks Faculty/Senior Administrator

This just in:

The UNT Dallas College of Law welcomes applications for a full time, senior administrator, with significant experience in academic success and bar readiness in legal education, with the ability to oversee the operations of a law school academic success and bar readiness department. This administrator will also teach bar readiness courses, and substantive courses, depending on interest and needs of the College of Law, and hold faculty rank as a tenured or tenure-track Professor of Law. This administrator will serve as advisor to the Dean and to the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in matters relating to student success and the Academic Success Bar Readiness Program.

Further information is available here: http://jobs.untsystem.edu/postings/39602

Driving Dixie Down

As a historian of slavery and abolitionism, I have never considered using “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” for one of my Saturday music posts. It’s a beautiful song, with haunting vocal renditions by Levon Helm and Joan Baez, among others, but nostalgia for the Confederacy ruins it for me. The idealization of the “Lost Cause” has done tremendous harm in American politics. Although the song is not as offensive as Confederate flag waving, or veneration of Nathan Bedford Forrest and Jefferson Davis, it still serves to soften the image of the Confederacy as something other than what it was – treason in defense of slavery.

Recently, however, I have slightly reconsidered. A couple of weeks ago, the Alabama singer-songwriter Early James performed “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” in a tribute show to The Band’s Last Waltz. Well aware that the song has been regarded as a Confederate anthem, ill-suited in the current anti-racist moment, Early re-wrote the lyrics to eliminate reverence for the Confederacy.

“I hope we piss off the right people by changing these words,” he said when he introduced the number on a Nashville stage. Instead of “a time I remember Oh so well,” Early substituted “a time to bid farewell.” And he changed the very title, and chorus, to “tonight, we drive old Dixie down.” The most important change was in the closing verse:

Unlike my father before me, who I will never understand
Unlike the others below me, who took a rebel stand
Depraved and powered to enslave
I think it’s time we laid hate in its grave
I swear by the mud below my feet
That monument won’t stand, no matter how much concrete.

Friendly Reminder....

many law reviews have either closed or are soon closing their submission seasons. For instance, I understand the Yale Law Journal closes its season this Wednesday--the self-interested part of me was almost tempted to say it closes on Thursday. But that would be so not nice. :P

Thus, get your submissions in ASAP, and if you have a piece for the Yale folks, please get it in by Wednesday.