A law student at Rutgers did something law students do. The student quoted a passage from a 1993 New Jersey Supreme Court decision, State v. Bridges (1993), that included the N-word. That word, together with some of the other worst epithets, can be found in over 10,000 decisions. It can be found in the New York Times. It can be found pretty much everywhere. But does it need to be said?

Black students at Rutgers Law School are petitioning for a policy against the use of racial slurs after an incident in which a white student quoted a racial slur directly from a 1993 legal opinion during a professor’s virtual office hours, The New York Times reported.

The petition also calls for apologies from the student, who has not been identified, and the professor, Vera Bergelson, who told the Times she did not hear the word spoken and would have corrected the student if she had. Continue reading →

Roads and bridges need to be maintained or they fail. This is an uncontroversial point, and it includes all manner of physical plant necessary to maintain a functioning society. But it is, by definition, limited to our durable physical plant, an investment in the structures, things, that will be there for us in the future. So what’s the big deal about including daycare as part of our infrastructure?

Like many progressives, I like the Biden administration’s plan to invest in infrastructure, but really love its plans to invest more in people. There’s a good case for doing more to improve physical assets like roads, water supplies and broadband networks. There’s an overwhelming case for doing more to help families with children.

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Daniel Humm has a three Michelin Star restaurant in Manhattan called Eleven Madison Park. It’s kind of a big deal restaurant, and diners pay dearly for the privilege of eating there. Dinner for two can easily cost $500. More if you get wine. Humm announced that when he reopens, it will be meatless, fishless, animalless food. He will forego the ingredients upon which his fame and fortune were established in favor of veggies, and he needs to let his future patrons know why.

It is time to redefine luxury as an experience that serves a higher purpose and maintains a genuine connection to the community. A restaurant experience is about more than what’s on the plate. We are thrilled to share the incredible possibilities of plant-based cuisine while deepening our connection to our homes: both our city and our planet.

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Ed. Note: Following is a post by the inimitable Skink, who’s sandwiched between 27 trials and a newly appointed kid federal judge who had never been inside a courtroom before. 

The Food and Drug Administration, them that brings us vaccines, medicines, medical devices and even says what pet food is okay, found themselves a demon a few days ago, and it sort-of rhymes with “alcohol.” You probably guessed:

“Banning menthol—the last allowable flavor*—in cigarettes and banning all flavors in cigars will help save lives, particularly among those disproportionately affected by these deadly products. With these actions, the FDA will help significantly reduce youth initiation, increase the chances of smoking cessation among current smokers, and address health disparities experienced by communities of color, low-income populations, and LGBTQ+ individuals, all of whom are far more likely to use these tobacco products,” said Acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock, M.D. “Together, these actions represent powerful, science-based approaches that will have an extraordinary public health impact. Armed with strong scientific evidence, and with full support from the Administration, we believe these actions will launch us on a trajectory toward ending tobacco-related disease and death in the U.S.”

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I’m bad with names. I’m so bad with names that for a year in college, I only dated women named “Sue” so I wouldn’t get in trouble. I can remember faces, people, things we did and things that happened, but I just can’t pull a name out of the mush in my head when I need to. It can be very embarrassing when someone I know comes over and I need to introduce them, but can’t recall their name. My practice has become to just admit my failing and ask for help. Most people laugh at me for my inability to remember names and life goes on.

There seems to be a lot more people with unusual names these days. By unusual, I mean not the typical popular names that all the kids had when I was growing up. John and Mary are still around, of course, as are Jordan and Tiffany, but the other day I wrote about a woman with an apostrophe in the middle of her name. I have no idea what it was doing there, but there it was.* Continue reading →

The Texas Tornado, Mark Bennett, poses a question that probably won’t be popular with many youngish lawyers, not because he doesn’t have a point, but because they’ve never given it much thought and instead cling to the dogma that’s been drilled into their noggins.

We have to prove democracy still works.

—President Joe Biden, in an Address to a Joint Session of Congress, April 28, 2021.

When did democracy ever work?

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It was only a life in being ago that a bachelors degree in liberal arts was the key to the American Dream. It was a rigorous course of study, deeply steeped in classical literature and philosophy, that provided a student with the best thought of the past to be applied to the world they would soon enter.

It was about thinking. It was also an opportunity, not an entitlement, and it was commonplace for the dean to give an opening talk to students: Look to your left. Look to your right. One of you will not be here to graduate. Failure was not merely an option, but a guarantee. Some of you would not be up to the task. Some would fail. Don’t let it be you. Continue reading →

Like many wayward youth, I loved the video game “Mortal Kombat.” I poured endless quarters into the violent arcade game, practicing combos and learning the ways to finish opponents with the ridiculous “Fatalities” each character utilized.

When I learned a movie was coming out in 1995, I was naturally excited. There was no reason to be. It stunk to high hell, with Christopher Lambert hamming up the screen as Lord Raiden and Linden Ashby’s cornball delivery of lines like “This is where you fall down.” Continue reading →

Sexual assault accusations, not to mention sending olds to die in nursing homes, against Andrew Cuomo came fast and furious, but he’s still in office. He had an advantage. He was already governor, even if every other New York Democratic pol called for his resignation. He could just shrug, ignore them and his own stunning hypocrisy, and wait until the public’s eight second attention span lapsed.

That’s not likely to work for Scott Stringer, currently the NYC comptroller and mayoral candidate. He’s not flashy, but he’s been grooming himself for the job for decades.

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They’re angry. And they’re protesting, because they’re angry. The Chronicle of Higher Ed explains why.

Amid a fresh wave of national attention on campus sexual assault, accusations are swirling at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, where the official responsible for handling those matters has resigned, and student leaders say the administration has repeatedly failed to support victims.

Campus outrage reached a peak last week when Gillian Gullett, a 2020 graduate, found out — from a reporter, not the university — that Arkansas had paid a $20,000 settlement to the now-former student she accused of sexual assault in 2017.

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