The Faculty Lounge

LSA Announcment on Now-Defunct USNWR Legal Scholarship Rankings

Readers might be interested in the recent announcement by the Law and Society Association about the now-defunct USNWR legal scholarship ranking plans. Although no one can know precisely what caused Bob Morse's turn-around, LSA's efforts on this issue were valuable.

Here is an excerpt from LSA's announcement:

The Law and Society Association is pleased to report that the U.S. News and World Report has decided not to proceed with its proposal to add a measure of “scholarly impact” to its law school rankings. This report summarizes the Association’s concerns and actions taken while the metric was under consideration.

The proposed metric for measuring scholarly impact was to be drawn from citations in the Hein database which is comprised primarily of law review articles. The Law & Society Association was concerned with the implications for our members, many of whom write books, book chapters and peer-reviewed articles that appear in and are frequently cited in publications other than law reviews. For that reason, the scholarly impact of our members’ scholarship would not have been accurately represented in the proposed metric. In addition, non-doctrinal and data- driven sociolegal scholarship ordinarily does not amass as many citations as constitutional or purely doctrinal articles do. Moreover, if law schools attempted to game the system to improve their rankings, as has happened with other U.S. News metrics, the intellectual, interdisciplinary, and racial diversity of law school faculties and the range of topics they choose to write on might have been negatively affected.... LSA was not alone in our effort to ensure the unbiasedness and soundness of the U.S. News rankings or to see the project cancelled if obstacles were too big to overcome. The Association is grateful for the extensive work of U.S. law librarians who were deeply engaged with U.S. News and Hein about the difficulties they discovered with the various proposed approaches to a legal scholarship ranking.

The full announcement is here.

H/T Elizabeth Mertz

I Call Your Name [UPDATED with the Mamas and the Papas]

"I Call Your Name" was written by John Lennon before forming the Beatles, and it was originally recorded by Billy J. Kramer with the Dakotas, also managed by Brian Epstein and produced by George Martin. I found surprisingly few covers of this great song.

CFP-"Sex as Crime: Addressing the Intersection of the Legal World and the Sex Industry" Wisconsin Journal of Law, Gender & Society

Wisconsin Journal of Law, Gender & Society
March 26th, 2022

We are pleased to announce the 2022 Wisconsin Journal of Law, Gender & Society symposium on “Sex as Crime: Addressing the Intersection of the Legal World and the Sex Industry.” Sex work is one of the most divisive professions in the United States. Traditionally, the United States has used a criminalization model for sex work, making the consensual buying and selling of sexual services illegal. While the sex work industry is diverse in practice and experience, this approach to the industry endangers all sex workers with higher rates of sexual, physical, and economic violence. Violence towards sex workers recently came to the public’s attention on March 16, 2021, after the Atlanta spa shooting, when a racially and sexually motivated man shot and killed massage parlor workers and customers. This tragedy, along with changing social attitudes towards sex work, has reinvigorated the conversation about the legal implications of criminalization and the proper regulation of sex work in the United States.

The virtual symposium will feature research and papers comparing a variety of legal issues and pitfalls and the implications of different legal models as possible solutions. The symposium seeks scholarship on sex workers and sex trafficking victims within the criminal justice system and broader legal context. The journal will prioritize articles that discuss the intersections of sex work with race and ethnicity, gender or gender identity, sexuality, social class, disability, and citizenship status, as well as any other diverse aspect of our society. This symposium seeks to foster a broad discussion about effective solutions for legal issues within the sex work industry.

Proposals should be submitted to Sarah Jones at [email protected] and Tanja Skiljevic at [email protected] no later than October 17, 2021. Submissions may be sent after that deadline but are not guaranteed review or consideration. Submissions may be a finished work or a proposed outline. The Wisconsin Journal of Law, Gender & Society will likely publish accepted unpublished submissions. The organizers will communicate their decisions no later than November 14, 2021. If chosen, authors of accepted submissions must commit to submitting a final rough draft of their work no later than February 1, 2022. Authors of accepted submissions must virtually attend and present their work at the symposium on March 26, 2022.

Additionally, the Journal is seeking individuals who are interested in speaking at the symposium about their legal or scholastic work without a publication agreement. The above deadlines apply similarly to speakers’ proposals. The Wisconsin Journal of Law, Gender, & Society welcomes individuals from all backgrounds to submit their research or scholastic work to be fairly and equitably considered. Please direct any inquiries to Sarah Jones, Symposium Editor ([email protected]).

Comment Policy Update

It has been a couple of years since I last posted my comment policy, so here it is again:

Comment Policy

This blog allows both pseudonymous comments (accompanied by real emails, which will not appear on the blog) and fully anonymous comments (with obviously dummy emails). I may respond to the former from time to time, but I will not engage with the latter.

I will delete comments in the following circumstances:

• When they include personal attacks or insults;
• When they are irrelevant or intemperate;
• When they are whiny; 
• When they are repetitive;
• When they manifest fixations or obsessions;
• When they include lengthy rants, or even short ones;
• When they devolve into tedious exchanges;
• When they include questionable links that were not caught by the spam filter.

The deletion of comments is within my sole and unreviewable discretion, which I will attempt to exercise reasonably and sparingly (though with no guarantee that any individual reader will agree with my decisions). Please do not complain about "unfairness," as there will be no way to know which or how many other comments I have deleted.

Comments may be closed, also in my unreviewable discretion, when they have become tiresome, pointless, or otherwise counterproductive. 

Most comments with hyperlinks will be caught in the spam filter. I try to check the spam folder every few hours after a new post, so that I can release the valid ones. That is not always possible, however, so please have patience.

Finally, please remember that this is a private blog. It is neither a public forum nor an educational institution. There is no right to post comments under the First Amendment, academic freedom, or any other principle. 

This blog allows both pseudonymous comments (accompanied by real emails, which will not appear on the blog) and fully anonymous comments (with obviously dummy emails). I may respond to the former from time to time, but I will not engage with the latter.

I will delete comments in the following circumstances:

• When they include personal attacks or insults;
• When they are irrelevant or intemperate;
• When they are whiny; 
• When they are repetitive;
• When they manifest fixations or obsessions;
• When they include lengthy rants, or even short ones;
• When they devolve into tedious exchanges;
• When they include questionable links that were not caught by the spam filter.

The deletion of comments is within my sole and unreviewable discretion, which I will attempt to exercise reasonably and sparingly (though with no guarantee that any individual reader will agree with my decisions). Please do not complain about "unfairness," as there will be no way to know which or how many other comments I have deleted.

Comments may be closed, also in my unreviewable discretion, when they have become tiresome, pointless, or otherwise counterproductive. 

Most comments with hyperlinks will be caught in the spam filter. I try to check the spam folder every few hours after a new post, so that I can release the valid ones. That is not always possible, however, so please have patience.

Finally, please remember that this is a private blog. It is neither a public forum nor an educational institution. There is no right to post comments under the First Amendment, academic freedom, or any other principle. 

Hiring Announcement: University of San Francisco School of Law

From an email message that I received earlier today:

The University of San Francisco School of Law is located in one of the world’s most dynamic and progressive cities, which affords our community a global perspective and access to premier arts, culture, and centers of innovation. Part of a historic Jesuit institution, the Law School has a proud 109-year history of preparing its diverse graduates to be excellent and ethical attorneys who serve their clients and communities with integrity and in a socially responsible manner.

We are a diverse, socially responsible learning community centered on high-quality scholarship and academic rigor while sustained by a faith that works for justice. We are committed to recruiting and retaining BIPOC faculty to reflect our mission and practice.

The Law school is seeking entry-level and lateral applicants for one or more positions on our full-time faculty to begin in the fall of 2022. USF Law welcomes outstanding candidates in all fields and is particularly interested in candidates who expand the school’s expertise in the fields of critical race theory, intersectionality, race and the law. Other areas of particular interest include criminal procedure, criminal law, contracts, property, international law, tax, intellectual property, and commercial law. Applicants should demonstrate a record of professional excellence, strong classroom teaching skills, a commitment to service, and potential for success as a scholar and contributing member of a dynamic and diverse community.

Applications from traditionally underrepresented groups in the legal field and individuals whose background or interests will enhance our diversity are highly encouraged. Contact: Julia Dunbar, Sr. Director of Faculty & Academic Services, USF School of Law, 2130 Fulton Street, San Francisco, CA 94117. Email: [email protected].

Irony Alert, BDS Edition

Although you have to look for it in the small print, today's "We Will Not Be Silenced" teach-in at SF State is sponsored by the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel.

Their version of academic freedom is pretty cramped, however, as it does not exactly extend to everyone. For example, taken from the USACBI website,

PACBI urges academics, academic associations/unions, and academic — as well as other — institutions around the world, where possible and as relevant, to boycott and/or work towards the cancellation or annulment of events, activities, agreements, or projects involving Israeli academic institutions. . . .

In addition, USACBI "calls on all US faculty, administrators, students and staff to uphold the academic boycott of Israel by refusing participation in Study Abroad programs in Israel."

It is one thing to call upon students to refrain from studying in Israel, which is a bad and counterproductive idea, but not a violation of anyone's academic freedom. The call to faculty, administrators, and staff, however, is obviously aimed at depriving non-boycotting students of an opportunity to pursue the studies of their choice (without administrators and staff, there could be no study-abroad programs).

I support the right to engage in a misguided boycott of Israel, but it is rank hypocrisy to claim the mantle of academic freedom while so boldly attempting to deny it to others on the basis of nationality.

 

They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South

Stephanie E. Jones-Roger "makes a bold argument about the role of white women in American slavery.... Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers draws on a variety of sources to show that slave-owning women were sophisticated economic actors who directly engaged in and benefited from the South’s slave market. ... [E]nslaved people were often their primary source of wealth. Not only did white women often refuse to cede ownership of their slaves to their husbands, they employed management techniques that were as effective and brutal as those used by slave-owning men. White women actively participated in the slave market, profited from it, and used it for economic and social empowerment. By examining the economically entangled lives of enslaved people and slave-owning women, Jones-Rogers presents a narrative that forces us to rethink the economics and social conventions of slaveholding America." (Yale University Press.)

This is an important book. A very important book. A couple of thoughts. First, a few white women Southerners were disgusted by slavery. Stephanie Jones-Rogers recognizes this; Angelina and Sarah Grimke sisters were very against slavery. (212 n.40.) Second, Southern slave-owner females were (for the most part) proslavery. Third, Southern white slave-owners males were worse than Southern white women slave-owners mostly (e.g., 8-10, Martin v. Georgia, 25 Georgia 494 (1858)).

POSITION ANNOUNCEMENT: Professor and Director of the Center for Negotiation and Dispute Resolution

The University of California Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco is conducting an open-rank search to hire one lateral tenured or tenure-track faculty member to begin July 1, 2022. The ideal candidate will be a productive scholar in the field of alternative dispute resolution, a successful teacher, and a visionary programmatic administrator capable of leading the nationally esteemed Center for Negotiation & Dispute Resolution (“CNDR”).

Applicants should have a serious interest in UC Hastings and living in the San Francisco Bay Area. Salary and rank will be commensurate with qualifications and experience.

Applicants should email a CV and a statement of interest to Professor Scott Dodson, Chair of the CNDR Search Committee, at [email protected], by October 14, 2021.

CNDR was founded in 2003 to develop the ADR curriculum and to contribute to UC Hastings Law’s public-service mission through ADR-related programs. UC Hastings Law offers a concentration in Civil Litigation and Dispute Resolution and nearly twenty different ADR course offerings, including the Mediation Clinic, the ADR Externship Program, and the #1 ranked Negotiation and Dispute Resolution Team. CNDR hosts international conferences and trainings, drawing practitioners and judges from across the globe. At home, CNDR collaborates on projects and events with non-profits such as The Mediation Society, commercial providers such as JAMS, and government agencies such as the California Public Utilities Commission.

CNDR won the Ninth Circuit’s Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) Education Award in 2007 and 2018 and the International Competition for Mediation Advocacy’s prestigious Louise Otis Award for Excellence in Mediation Education in 2011 and 2013. Under CNDR’s leadership, US News & World Report has consistently ranked UC Hastings Law as having one of the Top ADR Programs in the country (currently #8 this year).

UC Hastings Law prohibits discrimination based on race, color, national origin, religion, age, sex, gender, sexual orientation, gender expression, gender identity, gender transition status, sex- or gender-stereotyping, pregnancy, physical or mental disability, medical condition (cancer-related or genetic characteristics), genetic information (including family medical history), ancestry, marital status, citizenship, or service in the uniformed services, including protected veterans. This policy applies to all employment practices, including recruitment, selection, promotion, transfer, merit increase, salary, training and development, demotion, and separation.

Textualism, Purposivism, and Intentionalism for a Dime

This is a true story about an event around five years ago, which I offer for potential insight on statutory construction.

On my way home from the law school one afternoon, I stopped at a local Whole Foods market for a few items for dinner preparation. I found what I needed pretty quickly and headed for the checkout line. The cashier rang up the sale and started to put my groceries in a paper bag. "No need for that," I said. "Just hand them to me and I will carry them." The cashier complied and I tucked a couple of items under my left arm while holding onto another. "Don't forget the ten cent rebate," I said, "as I began to swipe my credit card.

"I'm sorry," said the cashier, pointing to a nearby sign, "but the rebate only applies if you bring your own bag." Sure enough, the sign plainly read:

Ten cent rebate if you use your own bag

"Sure," I replied, "but the point of the rebate is that I am saving Whole Foods from using a bag."

"That's not the policy," was the answer. "The rebate is for bringing your own bag."

"What difference does it make?" I asked. "The benefit to the environment is the same, whether I have a bag or just carry my stuff by hand."

"You have to bring a bag if you want the rebate."

And that was the end of that. I'd already taken too much of the clerk's time, and we were only talking about a dime, so I just took my goods and left. But I kept thinking about it on the drive home, and now and then ever since. What was the correct way to construe the sign? 

The text was seemingly unambiguous: ten cents off if you have your own bag. But the intention behind it was equally obvious: to save paper bags and thus impose less waste on the environment. The purpose of posting the policy likewise appeared clear: to motivate customers to forego using Whole Foods's bags, and it had the desired effect on me.  (No, I didn't take a paper bag just because I was entitled to one at no additional cost.)

I therefore offer this vignette without comment, illustrating three equally plausible methods of interpreting the same provision, only one of which cost me a dime.