The Faculty Lounge

Playing With Cards: Bringing It All Together

When I write about issues of discrimination and identity, I try when feasible to use a mix of racism, sexism, and anti-Semitism examples to illustrate my point. So, for example, in Playing with Cards I discuss the bad faith "card" retort to discrimination claims by looking at how Gamergaters responded to Anita Sarkeesian's contentions of sexism in the video game community (to talk of sexism is an "I-win button") and how Caryl Churchill dismissed objections that her play Seven Jewish Children was anti-Semitic ("It's the usual tactic."). It's the same move, just applied to different people.

And sometimes, the world reciprocates. Breitbart News has been engulfed in scandal (well, a new scandal anyway) recently after it published David Horowitz calling Bill Kristol a "renegade Jew" (stemming from the latter's rejection of Donald Trump). The fallout has led to alarms being raised about the rise of anti-Jewish sentiment in the conservative movement (not that this should really surprise us given the basis of Trump's appeal-- anti-Muslim sentiments and anti-Semitic sentiments are in fact excellent predictors of one another), including by one-time conservative wunderkind Ben Shapiro. And to Sharpiro's concerns, well, Breitbart published this yesterday:

Playing with Cards: Malia Bouattia and the Double Down

Perhaps the single most ubiquitous response to a claim of discrimination or other biased treatment is to allege that the claimant is proceeding in bad faith. "You're just playing the race card!" "Stop hiding behind your gender!" "Yet another case of Jews crying anti-Semitism to stifle criticism!" This retort is notable because it does not listen to the claim and then provide a substantive, on-the-merits response -- "I actually don't think you were discriminated against for X, Y, and Z reasons". Rather, the response is a statement that one will not even entertain the claim in question. It is so transparently ludicrous, or so obviously made with illicit, instrumental motives, that it is not even worth considering.

Earlier this spring I published my first peer-reviewed article, Playing with Cards: Discrimination Claims and the Charge of Bad Faith, on this topic. I argued that the "bad faith" response is problematic for a host of reasons: For one, it disrespects the discrimination claimant by presenting them as presumptively untrustworthy and not worth engaging with, often implicitly or explicitly because of their group membership (those people are always crying discrimination). For two, it evinces far too much faith in our prediscursive intuitions regarding what does and does not constitute "discrimination" (or "bias", or "oppression"), particularly when dealing with marginalized outgroups. And for three, it is far too tempting of a well to draw upon for persons with strong psychological or ideological motives to think of discrimination as rare, aberrant, or uncommon. If we want to believe that racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia (or what have you) is not a major problem in our community or does not implicate our own commitments, one way of protecting that belief is to preemptively write off such claims as bad faith hogwash. The "bad faith" response, after all, is typically the retort of first resort -- it does not come after we have fully and charitably explored the allegation and ultimately found it lacking, it comes as an initial gambit designed to delegitimize the claim as one worth thinking about at all. And so I conclude that we should not dismiss discrimination claims by arguing that they're leveled in bad faith. We should instead give them full and fair investigation. The conclusion of that investigation, of course, might still be that the argument was wrong, even bogus. But there is a marked difference between reaching that conclusion at the end of an inquiry versus at its beginning.

Last month brought an interesting permutation and difficult test case for my theory, when the UK's National Union of Students elected Malia Bouattia as its new president.

Call For Residency Proposals: Female Interpreters Of Religious Law: Women's Leadership As Clergy, Educators, Advisors and Judges

This just in:

Scholars working in any religious tradition whose work explores developments in women's religious leadership are invited to apply for this semester long residency. This program will be directed by Lisa Fishbayn Joffe, director of the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute (HBI)  Project on Gender, Culture, Religion and Law at Brandeis University.

Participants will meet twice monthly for luncheon seminars in which they discuss their ongoing work. Participants will: (1) present one public lecture, which may consist of a presentation to an appropriate Brandeis class; (2) present one "teach in" session for HBI staff; (3) present a lecture or participate in a round-table at a 1-day conference that will be organized during the last week of the SIR Program.

The accepted program recipient(s) will receive a monthly stipend to support her/his research. In addition, recipients will receive (shared) office space at the Women’s Studies Research Center at Brandeis University and access to all available Brandeis University resources.

SIRs may also contribute to the HBI’s Donna Sudarsky Memorial Working Paper Series, or write for the HBI blog, Fresh Ideas from HBI.

Interpreting Fiorina's Comments on Vaccination Law

I've started writing for Forbes as a regular contributor. My first piece, Carly Fiorina Says Her Views On Vaccines Are Unremarkable; For Better Or Worse, She's Right, analyzes GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina's recent ad hoc remarks on the relative rights of parents and schools with respect to vaccinations and to some of the hyperbolic reactions to those remarks. Fiorina's remarks are ambiguous, in ways that I discuss. But, as the title of the article suggests, and for better or worse, I think that the best interpretation of them places her stance squarely in the mainstream of current U.S. vaccination law. I end with a call for minimally charitable interpretations of others' views, especially on contentious issues like vaccination.

Muslims in the Antebellum South

I've been enjoying reading Khaled A. Beydoun's new article on Muslims in the Pre-Civil War south and in particular their relationship to law. It is called "Antebellum Islam."  Cribbing now from his abstract:

America’s first Muslims were slaves. Social scientists estimate that 15 to 30 percent of the Africans enslaved in the Antebellum South practiced Islam. Research indicates that the Muslim slave population could have been as high as 1.2 million. Despite their considerable presence in the Antebellum South, the history of Muslim slaves has been largely neglected within legal scholarship.

This Article argues that the omission of Muslim slaves from legal scholarship is a consequence of the legal segregation of Black and Muslim identity during the Antebellum Era. Two factors brought about this segregation. First, the law remade Africans into Black slaves, and state slave codes criminalized their religious activity and stripped slaves of their religious identities. Second, the state adopted a political conception of Muslim identity that converted it from a religious into a racial identity in the narrow profile of “Arabs” and “Turks” – a non-white class that racially restrictive naturalization laws barred from accessing citizenship. Muslim slaves lived at the intersection of these two irreconcilable racial configurations.

There is a lot to talk about here. First off I want to note Khaled's emphasis on the southern state laws that limited the religious rights of enslaved people. While he is obviously correct that the legal system -- statues and police practices -- sought to limit meetings of enslaved people for worship when they were unsupervised by white people, there was also great emphasis in the white community on encouraging African Americans to participate in Christian churches under the supervision of white people.  Thus, I see the story as the wiping out of prior religious ideas and the substitution of Christianity for those ideas.  (I've written some about the ways that church meetings were used to supervise and how white ministers attempted to control free and enslaved people in the context of the Nat Turner rebellion.)

Second, the article begins with a vignette about an enslaved man, Omar ibn Said, who wrote an autobiography, which begins with his life in Africa and then carries through to his life here in North Carolina.  A lot of people use the autobiography because it is such an amazing story and because there are so few other sources like it. But what I'm really excited about is that a story about Said (also known as Uncle Moreau) was published in the University of North Carolina's student literary magazine, the North Carolina University Magazine in the 1854. The magazine introduced the autobiography with a short biographical statement, which spoke of his conversion to Christianity (though that is now in doubt).  Though, of course, it has been reprinted many times since then.  One thing that I think might also worth looking at is the treatment of Muslims in the fictional literature of the old south. I'm now not remembering where I saw this, but I recall a novel that had a paragraph written in Arabic in it, I think that was supposed to have been written by a slave.  I need to look through my notes on this one; I want to say it might have been in George Tucker's Valley of the Shenandoah. And I think southern proslavery Christian literature also will convey the sense that the religious ideas of enslaved people was one marker that justified (in the minds of the slaveowners) the subordination of enslaved people. That is, I think there may have been more realization among the leaders of southern society than we now know realize about enslaved people's religious background -- even though they did not respect such ideas.

Third, there is a growing fictional literature that places enslaved people in the context of Islam.  For instance, Sharon Ewell Foster's The Resurrection of Nat Turner deals with Turner's ancestors and their religious beliefs in Africa.  And fourth, as I've thought about this some more, one of the few books that remains from the University of Alabama's pre-Civil War library (most of it was burned during the War, but a few books that were checked out have survived), is a copy of the Koran.  Perhaps that's an indicator that there was more interest -- perahaps inspired by the religious of ideas of slaves? -- than we have previously appreciated.  Along those lines, I think that it's worth looking again at the writings of proslavery academics like Thomas R. Dew of William and Mary to see what they saw about Islam and then ask how those views might be related to the cultural exchanges they had with enslaved people.

Anyway, take a look at Khaled's paper. I think you'll really find this exciting in a lot of ways.

The image is of one of the literary society buildings here on the UNC campus, which was built before the Civil War.  Thus, it is a building in existence when the students here were reading about Said in the North Carolina University Magazine.

H/t Rob Luther.

New Worlds of Faith

Today and tomorrow there is an exciting conference, "New World(s) of Faith," at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.  It will explore the ways that religion and law have functioned in the Americas, from colonial periods through 2000.  The conference focuses on showcasing the work primarily of junior scholars, including both graduate students and nontenured faculty, although there are some senior scholars presenting as well.  This conference, one of a series begun in 2007, is co-sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania Law School and History Department, the University of Minnesota, University of Illinois, and University of Michigan Law Schools, and the University of Chicago History Department.

The full program, which looks terrific, is below the fold.  I'm sorry I'm not in the land of Wawas and hoagies (as I refer to my hometown of Philadelphia) this week, because I'd very much like to see these papers.

Early Childhood Intervention and Consumer Debt

Over the course of the past month Professor Lauren Willis from Loyola-Los Angeles (who will be visiting at Harvard 2013-2014) has been blogging up a storm at Credit Slips about consumer financial education--not much value in it, she concludes. Mediocre financial education may make folks overconfident and even good financial education can quickly become dated in the fast-moving world consumer financial products and their savvy marketers. Nor do "nudges" have the welfare enhancing impact their designers had hoped to see.

I had the opportunity to interview Lauren as part of my ABI Resident Scholar gig. You can listen to the podcast here. It's rather long even after editing but I think it's worth the time to listen to an insightful run-down on the problems of consumer financial education and non-regulatory actions that can help folks from getting into a never-ending cycle of debt. A bit of a surprise to me--social investments in pre-natal care and early childhood education help develop  "executive function" may have more long-term bang for the buck than regulation. These sorts of programs can do more than a perfunctory high school class and better disclosures to develop the ability to defer gratification in the face of financial need and incessent (and misleading) advertising for expensive financial products.

And given the recent VAP discussions, I'd also like to point folks to an earlier interview I did with Pamela Foohey, a VAP at the University of Illinois College of Law. Pamela and I discussed her soon-to-be-published piece on Chapter 11's of religious organizations. Turns out that such organizations have effectively used used Chapter 11 both to preseve equity in their real estate and continue to provide a community-center(ed)(ing) place of worship. Foohey concludes that the "placedness" of some entities makes a purely economic analysis of the application of bankruptcy law incomplete.

Hobby Lobby and the Corporate "Soul"

That the old saying that a corporation has "no body to kick, no soul to damn" may have to be revised. While it still has no body to kick (or, for that matter, to send to jail -  BP pleads guilty to manslaughter), recent lawsuits filed on behalf of corporations challenge the ACA on the grounds that its mandatory coverage for contraception and some other post-intercourse medications intended to prevent pregnancy, violates the plaintiffs' rights to free exercise of their religion under the First Amendment and is in conflict with RFRA (The Religious Freedom Restoration Act, 42 U.S.C. sec. 2000bb et seq.)  So perhaps a corporation has a "soul" after all, or at least a religion it wants to exercise. Hobby Lobby is only one of several of these cases. Hobby Lobby complaint.

To quote the Hobby Lobby complaint, while neither Hobby Lobby nor Mardel (another plaintiff in the case) are religious orders, churches, or other exempt organizations but instead are "privately held, "for-profit" corporations organized under Oklahoma law, the owners aver they (the owners) are "Christian and, from the beginning, ...sought to run Hobby Lobby in harmnoy with God's laws and in a manner which brings glory to God." Complaint at para 18- 24.  (As a pleading aside, imagine how, if you are the defendant, you respond to this allegation: "admit"? "deny" "insufficient information"? And if you are the plaintiff, how do you prove that it is true? ). The ACA, the suit alleges, makes this impossible in that the company must pay for insurance coverage which includes medications and devices which, in their view, their religion forbids.

The Hobby Lobby case is actually one of many cases brought on behalf of many companies and individuals seeking to undermine the Health Care Act on religious grounds. The ones brought on behalf of corporations open up a new front - the free exercise clause - on what I have described in my book Brandishing the First Amendment, as an agressive use of the First Amendment to repel legislation aimed at regulating business. However, with this new free exercise claim, proponents may have  have exceeded the bounds of what the public thinks is reasonable when it comes to anthropomorphizing the corporate "person."

The issue is complicated further because these various lawsuits often have slightly different facts, some of which may make a difference. Hobby Lobby is a closely held private company and so the notion that there is some sort of greater identity between the owners and the company has, at least at first glance, some appeal. But then consider Martha Stewart: if suits like this are successful, how should publicly traded companies be treated? And what of the views of the shareholders? Should the corporation be able to claim it is exercising their religious beliefs as well? 

Another complication is that not all these suits raise precisely the same objection. Rejection of coverage for contraception is probably what gets the most press and which would be the most widespread public pushback since contraception generally is very popular. However, despite some claims in the press to the contrary, the Hobby Lobby suit does not raise an objection to what the plaintiffs call "non-abortion-causing contraception drugs and devices" (complaint at para. 57), but rather only to those drugs or devices which constitute (in their view, and this is contested by some in the medical community) "abortifacients." 

Other law suits, such as the one filed by Annex Medical, Inc. in the 8th Circuit, do  object to providing contraception coverage. And the ferocity of the objection is fairly intense because in the Annex case, Annex Medical has fewer than 50 employees, so it is  exempt from the mandate in any event. Yet, according to the plaintiff in that case, the owner's religion requires him to pay for medical coverage for his employees, and because there are no options which do not include coverage for contraception the exemption is not sufficient.  Annex Medical - Order issuing preliminary injunction. Positions like these suggest that the Administration's recent announcement that it would provide a further exemption Exemption will not satisfy many because it will not extend to fully for-profit businesses like Hobby Lobby.

The circuits are split on these suits, (the 10th Circuit denied Hobby Lobby's request for an injunction, a denial which was upheld by Justice Sotomayor acting in her capacity as the Circuit Justice for the 10th Circuit).  Hobby Lobby - Supreme Court Order Although their different facts may suffice to reconcile apparently contradictory results, these various claims seem destined to make their way to the Supreme Court.

Whatever one thinks about the sincerity of the objections raised in these law suits, one thing that is notable is that they seek to elevate the free exercise claim of the corporate entity over constitutional and statutory rights of employees, many, if not most of whom may not share their employers' interpretation of what their faith requires of them.

Indeed, it is clear that not even all those who identify themselves as a part of the same faith community as Hobby Lobby's founders agree that their faith precludes accepting the insurance mandate. For example,  one commenter quoted in the Christian Post noted: "I'm still not seeing a cause for alarm here. The majority of the U.S. thinks women's healthcare needs should be included in insurance plans […] I'm a Christian, and if I start a business then I expect I'll have to comply with all the government regulations that come with incorporation. I wouldn't expect special treatment for my personal religious beliefs. "  (emphasis added)  Christians Question Hobby Lobby's Defense, Biblical Stance Against Obamacare

"Others question why Hobby Lobby has chosen to address the contraceptive mandate but not other morally questionable issues within government, such as the funding of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan" Id. And some have raised the issue that "many of Hobby Lobby's products are made in China," a country with laws which violate many of the precepts the Hobby Lobby founders say they attempt to observe in the running of their business. Id.

There are several strands that are interesting here and they all probably deserve separate posts. One is the resistance to women's full exercise of constitutionally and statutory rights. Another is the framing of this issue as one that purports to put those of faith at odds with the government, (although that obscures that the First Amendment not only promises free exercise but also freedom from religion). But for me the most interesting aspect  is this attempt to raise the free exercise claim on behalf of the corporate entity.

If we take the Hobby Lobby pleading at face value then it would seem that what its owners are attempting to do is to create some sort of hybrid for-profit religious corporation that doesn't exist under current law, at least not as they would like it to exist. And the Greens (Hobby Lobby's founders) would seem to be trying to engage in what might be called "selective piercing" or the corporate veil:  that is, they wish to pierce it for purposes of their religious beliefs, beliefs which they would like to exercise by denying even those employees of other faiths a benefit the law would otherwise provide, but presumably they would like the corporate shield to remain intact for other purposes, like protection against individual liability.

I wonder if those pursuing these lawsuits have thought fully through the possibilities that might arise if they are successful with these suits. If they succeed, why should such companies not also receive special tax treatment? (I think there is a movement afoot with the social benefit corporation model to do something like a hybrid). And if they do not receive special tax treatment, perhaps, no organization should if all organizations have potentially equal capacity to exist as moral, not just business entities. These may be questions for tax scholars and theologians, but it looks like a bumpy road ahead.

Subversion At The Margin

After teaching Contracts for nearly 15 years I've gradually come more to question the extent of its place in contemporary American life. Regardless of our theoretical justification for contract law--vindication of personal autonomy or increasing net social welfare--the increasing depth of penetration of contract into our lives leads me to be more easily convinced of the warrant for doctrines like unconscionability that, so to speak, upset the apple cart.

You can read a review of a book that gets where I'm heading here. Arlie Russell Hochschild's The Outsourced Self: Intimate Life in Market Times (2012) observes that we've moved from being objects of contract to its subjects. Contract is less a tool by which the self achieves its aims than a substitute for the self. "The more the market is the main game in town, the more hooked we get on what it sells, and the more convinced that paid expertise is what we lack and an even larger service mall is the only way to go.” From needs, to desires, to the most intimate decisions of our lives, our decisions are no longer found within the self formed as part of a community. Or, as the reviewer puts it, "Choices that used to be made based on communities of family, neighborhood or work are now being outsourced to 'consultants' in everything from clothes and style to baby names."

What has this to do with teaching Contracts? With the luxury of two three-credit semesters I've always taken the opportunity to explore the the why of contract law. Where does it fit and where should it fit in society? This is a fertile field of class discussion perhaps in part because of Regent's religious mission. Over the years, American Evangelicals, who make up a substantial portion of Regent's students, appear to have become slightly more skeptical of identifying market economics with the Christian gospel. Am I
starting to sound like Wendell Berry?

I hope no one misunderstands my expressions of discontent with the place of my field of teaching in American society as a suggestion that we replace contract law with central planning. Things could be worse. Far worse. Yet to the extent we permit limited subversions of the regime of private ordering, the law can show that values in addition to autonomy and welfare are important.

World's Hardest Antebellum Building Trivia Question

It's the end of the year -- and you all have been fantastic at picking off the trivia questions.  Over time I guess the accomplishments of Owen, Richard Paschal, Jason Mazzone, Calvin Massey, Alissa Ardito, Joan Vogel, Bob Steinfeld, Joel Eisen, Robert Folsom, Brando Starkey, and anyone else who picked off a trivia question this year whom I've failed to list will live in myth and memory.  And over time the memory and the myth will converge.  That's how this memory business works, after all.

So I guess it's time to have a really tough test.  Even if the heading of this post is an exaggeration (which it may not be), this is certainly very, very difficult.   This is the hardest antebellum trivia question I've asked and it's the kind pf question I don't think is fair, really -- it's in a very obscure place.  Where is it and what is it?  And why is it important?  Good luck.  Even with the writing on the front it's an absurdly difficult  question.  Go ahead, google it.  See if that helps.  When you're ready for a hint let me know.

RALS Conference

In this previous post, we mentioned that our friends at Touro are hosting the 2012 conference of Religiously Affiliated Law Schools.  This year's theme is "The Place of Religion in the Law School, the University, and the Practice of Law."  You can find program details, including a list of confirmed speakers, by clicking here.  The conference dates are May 2-4.

The Law of Contracts: A Place to Start

Regent law professor Scott Pryor (pictured) has posted a short article entitled The Law of Contracts:  A Place to Start.   Here's the abstract, in part, from SSRN:

This short piece, in some ways more of an essay, considers the law of contracts from a distinctively if not purely theologically perspective. It should be of interest to both those who might be interested in as well as those who are suspicious of the place of religion in the private law square.

I begin by suggesting that three presuppositions underlie contract law: the virtues of love and justice as well as the reality of sin and its deforming effects. These presuppositions work themselves out in history but not history understood as a chronology of social causes and effects. Rather, I utilize history from the dynamic perspective of creation, fall, redemption and, ultimately, consummation. Next I draw on four commonplace doctrines of Christian theology to frame discussion of contract law: the creator-creature distinction, the covenantal structure of understanding, the law of God, and sin (again). Finally, I suggest that we should employ three theological perspectives -- normative, situational, and existential (which loosely correspond to the contemporary articulations of corrective justice, law and economics, and autonomy) -- to balance consideration of any particular legal doctrine.

The article will be published electronically in the Journal of Christian Legal Thought (Winter 2011).

Hiring Announcement: Religious Liberty Litigation Clinic

From an email that I received earlier today:

The Becket Fund is assisting with a search to fill a clinical teaching position at a prestigious west-coast law school.  The person selected will head up a privately-funded religious liberty litigation clinic for law students.  The main qualifications for the position are (1) experience teaching or litigating constitutional law issues and (2) interest in religious liberty issues.  The salary for the position will be $161,000.   It is a two-year position with potential for tenure.  Anyone interested in the position can contact Eric Baxter at the Becket Fund, [email protected] .  Please contact the Becket Fund for additional information at (202) 349-7221.

Here's a link to the Becket Fund's home page.

AALS FRC: Reception Announcement/Reminder

The Religiously Affiliated Law Schools (RALS) group has, for several years now, hosted a small reception at the annual AALS Faculty Recruitment Conference.  This reception has, historically, been formally sponsored by the AALS Section on Law and Religion and the task of taking care of the organizational and logistical details have been passed along from one religiously affiliated law school to another.  Our friends at Touro Law School are organizing this year's reception, which will take place on Thursday evening, from 7:30 to 9:00 p.m., at the Hoover Room on the mezzanine level of the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel.  Faculty candidates (and members of hiring committees) who have an interest in learning more about member schools are encouraged to drop by!

P.S.  Touro Law School also will be hosting the RALS Conference on May 2-4, 2012. 

Conference Announcement: The Competing Claims of Law & Religion

Pepperdine law professor Bob Cochran announced this week that Pepperdine law school will host the third Religious Legal Theory conference in Malibu on February 23-25, 2012.  The conference is titled "The Competing Claims of Law & Religion: Who Should Influence Whom?"  Paper and panel proposals on any law and religion topic are welcome and should be submitted by September 15 to [email protected].  Additional details will be forthcoming here.

Journal of Christian Legal Thought

The Institute for Christian Legal Studies, a cooperative ministry sponsored by The Christian Legal Society and Regent University School of Law, has just published the inaugural issue of its Journal of Christian Legal Thought.  Several law professors serve on the editorial board, including William Brewbaker (Alabama), Zachary Calo (Valparaiso), Kevin Lee (Campbell), Scott Pryor (Regent), Michael Scaperlanda (Oklahoma), Michael Schutt (Regent), and Robert Vischer (St. Thomas).  You can find a mission statement, statement of purpose, and editorial policy on page 2 of the issue.

Fourth Circuit Issues Opinion in Legislative Prayer Case

Yesterday, in a 2-1 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled in favor of citizen plaintiffs, and against a county board of commissioners, in a challenge to the board's pre-meeting prayers.  The case is Joyner v. Forsyth County.  The 49-page opinion (which includes a dissent of approximately 20 pages) can be found here (Wilkinson writing the majority opinion and joined by Keenan; Niemeyer dissenting).  Perhaps one of our con law experts will blog on the case.

From the opinion I note that James Michael Johnson (Alliance Defense Fund) argued the case on behalf of the board.  Johnson is the founding dean of the Pressler School of Law of Louisiana College.

The Ten Commandments and Public Schools

Al's colleague at North Carolina, Gene Nichol (pictured), has a thoughtful editorial in today's local Raleigh newspaper, addressing a state law that permits public school administrators to display "documents and objects of historical significance that have formed and influenced the United States legal or governmental system and that exemplify the development of the rule of law, such as the Magna Carta, the Mecklenburg Declaration, the Ten Commandments, [and] the Justinian Code ...."

And if, like me, you need a refresher on the "Mecklenburg Declaration," click here for background information.

Good Friday

Original post date:  April 2, 2010

Today is Good Friday, a day that commemorates the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.  Readers wishing to expand their knowledge (beyond the four gospel accounts and various Hollywood depictions) of this horrific practice may find interesting the information (including medical details and diagrams) available here.  Additional information (e.g., Biblical accounts and religious and secular customs, practices, and traditions) can be found here.

Pictured:  The Crucified Christ with the Virgin Mary, Saints and Angels, painted by Raphael around 1502-03 and currently located in The National Gallery (London).

Catching Up with Michael McConnell

The Deseret News recently printed this story on former law professor and former federal appellate judge Michael McConnell (now directing Stanford's Constitutional Law Center), including a few paragraphs devoted to McConnell's first encounter with a certain law review editor who would one day occupy the White House.

In reading Professor McConnell's bio at the Stanford website, I note this sentence:  "He is the only full-time professor of law in the nation who has previously served as a federal judge."  That's quite an interesting piece of trivia (and, I assume, a claim that excludes law deans [such as Duke's David Levi, a former federal district judge]).