He said it was consensual. She said she was too drunk to consent, and it wasn’t. But unlike most accusations at college, Yale in this case, the matter was tried in real court.

Mr. Khan’s lawyers worked relentlessly to discredit the account of the woman, who was not identified by name in the arrest warrant application. They asked repeatedly how much she had to drink, and how she could claim not to remember certain details, such as how she arrived back at her dorm room, but remembered others, such as the alleged assault itself. They parsed her text messages with Mr. Khan, asking if she had not been flirting with him in the days before the incident. They showed off her Halloween costume, a black cat outfit, and asked her why she had not chosen a more modest one, such as “Cinderella in a long flowing gown.”

This quote, from a news article about the trial, curiously reflects the writer’s view. Was the victim discredited or was the truth revealed by confrontation, the way the system is supposed to work? Continue reading →

The first time I heard someone take issue with the absence of any fictional character who “looks like me” was on the twitters, when someone (forgive me, I can’t remember who it was anymore [Edit: Remembered! It was Anil Dash]) complained that there was no one in Harry Potter who “looked like” his child. My reaction was, “so write your own Harry Potter and make your child happy.” It struck me as an infinitely silly complaint.

At the time, I didn’t have any idea where this point of contention came from. I never thought any characters looked like me, and it didn’t trouble me in the least. But the call continued, and appears to have resonated with many who complain about the lack of black or transgenders or Aleuts in films, television and books.

My initial reaction was that this was a rallying cry that people latched on to because it served their purpose, but that they didn’t really care and weren’t really “hurt” by it. Obviously, every story can’t involve every identity group. Is the absence of an Hispanic cast member a cause of pain, of outrage? Does having the same skin color or genitalia make you feel like Denzel Washington or Meryl Streep? It doesn’t make me feel like Robert Redford, though we’ve been confused on occasion. Continue reading →

Despite all evidence to the contrary, getting admitted to Yale remains the goal of students who want to grasp the gold ring. And assuming they’re reasonably intelligent, they would be expected to pick up on the message Yale is sending to students about what it will be looking for. Walter Olson explains.

“For those students who come to Yale, we expect them to be versed in issues of social justice,” Ms. Mendlowitz writes. “I have the pleasure of reading applications from San Francisco, where activism is very much a part of the culture. Essays ring of social justice issues.” Even if applicants from less-fortunate areas of the country cannot be expected to meet the Bay Area standard, the message is clear. The post is titled “In Support of Student Protests.”

This endorsement of activism raises a few questions. Would Yale really turn away a brilliant young flutist, chemist or poet who, while solidly educated in history, religion and government, is not specifically “versed in issues of social justice”? What about students who have pursued courses based on great works of the past? Must they be versed in contemporary views of social justice too? Besides, which causes constitute social justice?

Continue reading →

It’s “secret” in the sense that it’s not public, but it’s hardly a secret in the sense that everybody involved in criminal law didn’t know about it. Section 50-a of the New York Civil Rights Law expressly says so.

All personnel records used to evaluate performance toward continued employment or promotion, under the control of any police agency…shall be considered confidential and not subject to inspection or review without the express written consent of such police officer, firefighter, firefighter/paramedic, correction officer or peace officer within the department of corrections and community supervision or probation department except as may be mandated by lawful court order.

There are ways to get a specific officer’s personnel records, but there is no means by which to get the personnel records of all cops who have been subject to discipline. Unless, of course, someone leaks them to you. Continue reading →

Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Thaddeus Owens used to do a shtick from the bench. He would put on his best Amos ‘n Andy voice and lecture black defendants about their irresponsible conduct. When I was a baby lawyer and had my case called before my client showed, a judge (who shall remain nameless) explained to me that it wasn’t my fault, as my client was on “CP time.”

Both of these judges had one thing in common. They were black.

My good friend, Mark Herrmann, offers a post to suggest that judges bring their life experiences to the bench, and so we should anticipate that movements like #MeToo will be reflected in their approach to cases and their rulings.

Bear with me for a minute: Continue reading →

The right to contract is fundamental, but one can only contract for things that are lawful. You can include a provision for no brown M&Ms, but not for an ample supply of heroin. In concluding her speech at the Academy Awards, Frances McDormand offered this tip:

I have two words to leave with you tonight, ladies and gentlemen: inclusion rider.

As a general idea, that Oscar winning celebrities use their good offices to push producers to be more inclusive in their casting, this may be excellent advice, although some might counter that casting be done based on the characters needed for the story rather than diversity. Still, there’s much to be said about crowd scenes in New York City that appear as if they were cast in Scandinavia.

People rushed to Google after hearing those two words to find out what she was talking about, because inclusion riders aren’t yet a serious thing. Continue reading →

If it’s her, and it certainly appears to be her, one has to wonder how it could be that nobody at Crystal River Middle School saw a problem.

Dayanna Volitich, a 25-year-old social studies teacher at Crystal River Middle School in Florida, has been secretly hosting the white nationalist podcast “Unapologetic” under the pseudonym “Tiana Dalichov” and bragging about teaching her views in a public school, HuffPost has discovered.

A HuffPo investigation determined that Volitich was Dlichov, resulting in the school district removing her from her classroom.

HuffPost found a website promoting the writing of “Tiana Dalichov” that had a bio section listing the author’s home as Crystal City, Florida. Volitich is listed in public records as residing in Crystal City. She is also listed as being 25 years old. This year, when a fan tweeted at “Tiana Dalichov” asking how old she is, she responded that she was 25. Continue reading →

It’s neither new nor a big deal that Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam, is anti-Semitic, misogynist, homophobic and transphobic. Not in the fashionable social justice way, but the old school way.

“Jews were responsible for all of this filth and degenerate behavior that Hollywood is putting out, turning men into women and women into men,” Farrakhan said in his keynote speech.

“White folks are going down. And Satan is going down. And Farrakhan, by God’s grace, has pulled a cover off of that Satanic Jew, and I’m here to say your time is up, your world is through,” Farrakhan said towards the end of his speech.

In fairness, he’s a religious leader and these are his beliefs. Nobody said religion had to be woke, and, indeed, most religion isn’t. And what of his flock, his friends, his admirers? Continue reading →

The Oscar watching at SJ World Headquarters is usually limited to the opening, often a hilariously funny affair with some film montage and a comic monologue to set the tone of the evening. The awards don’t particularly interest me, and if anything crazy happens, the next day is soon enough for me to find out.

Jimmy Kimmel’s 2018 Academy Awards opening broke the mold.

As virtuous as it gets, amirite? One can only hope that the movies to come will similarly reflect the brave new world of correctness. Continue reading →

Helen Pluckrose was an excellent addition to the panel at Portland State University on the subject of diversity of thought. But as she explains, she wasn’t asked to be on the panel at first. Or at second. Or because she was an excellent choice at all, really.

At first it was to be a frank discussion between Damore and Boghossian but the immediate criticism — mostly from students and on social media — was that diversity could not be discussed by two white men. It mattered not at all that one was the author of the memo at the center of the debate and the other a Socratic philosopher who focuses on epistemology and liberal ethics and is therefore well-qualified to probe both motivation and empirical justification.

The problem was that both of the people had penises, those penises were white and, as far as anyone knows, responsive to those of the opposite gender. They were hegemonic penises and this was problematic.

Not that all people with penises are men, but these two were. Continue reading →