The Faculty Lounge

Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)

My first post on Woody Guthrie's "Deportee" was in 2018. It was timely then and it is sadly even more timely now.

On January 28, 1948, a plane crashed in Los Gatos Canyon, California, killing 28 migrant farm workers who were being returned to Mexico, along with four crew members.  The New York Times carried a report of the accident the next day, but the story included only the names of the American crew members, while referring to the Mexicans only as "deportees." Deeply moved by what he considered racism, Woody Guthrie wrote a poem about the crash, in which he supplied names for some of the nameless farm workers. Some years later, the poem was set to music by a New York schoolteacher named Martin Hoffman.  The resulting song -- known as "Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos) -- has since been recorded by dozens of artists, although I found fewer videos than I'd hoped for.

Alas, there doesn't appear to be a recording of Woody himself singing the song. The Youtube clip claiming to be Woody is actually Arlo. The most well-known interpretation, I think, was by Cisco Houston, accompanied by Eric Weisberg.

(Alex: Don't miss the dulcimer instrumental at the bottom of the post.)

Arlo Guthrie

My first post on Woody Guthrie's "Deportee" was in 2018. It was timely then and it is sadly even more timely now.

On January 28, 1948, a plane crashed in Los Gatos Canyon, California, killing 28 migrant farm workers who were being returned to Mexico, along with four crew members.  The New York Times carried a report of the accident the next day, but the story included only the names of the American crew members, while referring to the Mexicans only as "deportees." Deeply moved by what he considered racism, Woody Guthrie wrote a poem about the crash, in which he supplied names for some of the nameless farm workers. Some years later, the poem was set to music by a New York schoolteacher named Martin Hoffman.  The resulting song -- known as "Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos) -- has since been recorded by dozens of artists, although I found fewer videos than I'd hoped for.

Alas, there doesn't appear to be a recording of Woody himself singing the song. The Youtube clip claiming to be Woody is actually Arlo. The most well-known interpretation, I think, was by Cisco Houston, accompanied by Eric Weisberg.

(Alex: Don't miss the dulcimer instrumental at the bottom of the post.)

Arlo Guthrie

The Fate of Early Stage Medical Trials in the US

Reuters spoke to 7 biotech executives, investors, & consultants who said that "the staff departures & policy changes at the FDA had prompted some firms to consider launching trials in other international markets - such as the European Union & Australia - & engaging with regulators in those regions." Full story here. 

 

"Reuters spoke to 7 biotech executives, investors, & consultants who said that the staff departures & policy changes at the FDA had prompted some firms to consider launching trials in other international markets - such as the European Union & Australia - & engaging with regulators in those regions"

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— Kim Krawiec (@kimkrawiec.bsky.social) May 14, 2025 at 9:10 AM

Conflict-related Sexual Violence Materials

David Eichert is collecting pedagogical material about conflict-related sexual violence. If you are willing to share, please send syllabi, lesson plans, etc to [email protected]. See the attached announcement for more information. 

 

 

🚨 Calling all politics & int'l law professors 🚨 Do you teach about conflict-related sexual violence? If so, I want to know about your approach! More info below -- please share with colleagues!

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— David Eichert (@davideichert.bsky.social) May 13, 2025 at 7:09 PM

Harvard's Magna Carta Bargain

By now many of you will have already seen the news that a Magna Carta "copy" owned by Harvard Law School is actually an original. But in case you didn't see the bargain price they bought it for . . . From the Harvard Law website:

British researchers have discovered that a ‘copy’ of Magna Carta owned by Harvard Law School is in fact an extraordinarily rare original from 1300.

The discovery by leading Magna Carta experts from King’s College London and the University of East Anglia (UEA) means the document, which Harvard Law School acquired in the 1940s, is just one of just seven from King Edward I’s 1300 issue of Magna Carta that still survive.

The Harvard Law School Library bought the document known as ‘HLS MS 172’ in 1946 for a sum of $27.50, according to the library’s accession register. The auction catalogue described the manuscript as a “copy … made in 1327 … somewhat rubbed and damp-stained.” It had been purchased a month or so earlier by the London bookdealers Sweet & Maxwell, via Sotheby’s, from a Royal Air Force war hero for a mere £42.

See also the interesting video below:

We age, but our students remain young

Over at Balkanization, Mark Tushnet recently had a lovely post about Justice Souter. The part that caught my eye, though, wasn't really the main point of his post, yet I think it resonates with all professors after a certain age (which IMHO comes earlier than we expect it to):

“Homer nodded” was part of Justice Souter’s store of cultural knowledge—but not, apparently, part of the store of such knowledge in the Reporter’s office. Justice Souter could write “Homer nodded” as easily as Justice Scalia could refer without citation to Broadway lyrics or Justice Kagan (with citation!) to Dr. Seuss. When I retired from classroom teaching I had just about played out my string on cultural allusions that my students could understand (“The Princess Bride” was hanging in there by a thread), and my guess is that that experience is near-universal (we age, the students we deal with in the classroom remain young).

Almost everyone I know who's been teaching more than a few years has a story to share about the point at which their cultural references stopped "landing" in the classroom. Although I'm saved somewhat by the sheer volume of movies and television that I'm willing to consume (without regard to quality), it sill happens and, of course, generational tastes often differ, so that the mere fact that a hit show or movie is new doesn't mean it's the type of thing our students watched or have even heard of. 

Anyway, read the whole thing here.

Jason J. Czarnezki Named Dean of Illinois Tech Chicago-Kent Law

Sometimes things slip by me - and this one sure did.  The Illinois Institute of Technology Chicago-Kent College of Law has announced that Jason Czarnezki will be its next dean.  He is currently associate dean of environmental law programs and strategic initiatives at Pace.  Czarnezki, who holds a JD from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D from Uppsala University, will take over on June 1.

More on "Joe Donor," Alleged "Father" of 180

The BBC has the story here:

An unregulated sperm donor, who claims to have fathered more than 180 children around the world, has been denied increased parental rights for a child he fathered as a donor through natural insemination. . . .

The judge questioned the donor's motives and asked: "Is he compelled to reproduce?
"Does he enjoy gratification from knowing that there are scores of his children on the earth?"
The judge also said Mr Albon, who is originally from the United States, had tried to control five of the six women in England and Wales who had his children, including using litigation.

You can hear more about Joe Donor and other "super donors" in two podcasts I did with the University of Chicago's Mary Anne Case on the Taboo Trades podcast. I've also written several papers on sperm markets including the motives (real or presumed) of donors, usually in comparison to the egg market, all posted to SSRN: 

Altruism and Intermediation in the Market for Babies, 66 Washington & Lee Law Review 203–258 (2009).

 

Sunny Samaritans and Egomaniacs: Price-Fixing in the Gamete Market, 72 Law and Contemporary Problems 59–90 (2009).

 

Lessons from Law About Incomplete Commodification in the Egg Market, 33 Journal of Applied Philosophy 160–177 (2016).

 

Markets, Morals, and Limits in the Exchange of Human Eggs, 13 Georgetown Journal of Law & Public Policy 349–366 (2015).