When Eugene Volokh took his conspiracy behind enemy lines, I called it a “seismic shift” in the blawgosphere.

Eugene Volokh explained that his blawg, The Volokh Conspiracy, has “partnered” with the Washington Post.  Some took the news with a quiet, abiding shrug.

I did not. I lamented what would become of the new, monetized, officialized, once-gold standard of the blawgosphere.

Which means, for those of us who do not have a .edu or .gov email, were regular readers of both posts and comments, and don’t plan to pay the Washington Post, the Volokh Conspiracy is gone.

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Appellate Squawk raised the first alarm.

James Levine is one of the greatest living conductors and musicians of our time. We know this because the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, which usually gets up and leaves as soon as they’ve played the last note, would stay in the pit to join in the applause when Maestro Levine was the conductor, even back in the days before he had to conduct from a wheelchair.

You may not have heard of James Levine. He’s no Meghan Trainor or Chance the Rapper.

Now he’s been destroyed by accusations from four middle-aged males claiming that he ruined their lives by masturbating them decades ago when they were 16 and 17 years old. The Met responded by summarily canceling all his scheduled appearances.

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Did Trump call New York’s junior senator a whore?

Lightweight Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a total flunky for Chuck Schumer and someone who would come to my office “begging” for campaign contributions not so long ago (and would do anything for them), is now in the ring fighting against Trump. Very disloyal to Bill & Crooked-USED!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 12, 2017

I saw the words, “would do anything for them.” It wasn’t outside the pale that this could be a snide sexual insinuation, but then, Kirsten Gillibrand was a politician. New York politicians have always gone hat in hand to Manhattan’s wealthy begging for bucks, seeking their benevolence. In return, some give up their virtue. Oops, I did it again. Continue reading →

Give Brown University credit. It’s putting its alumni money where its feelz are.

Amid America’s colossal student debt problem, an Ivy League school is providing an example of how institutions can help.

Beginning next school year, Brown University will eliminate all student loans in its undergraduate financial aid packages, replacing them with scholarships. Following a $30 million fundraising effort launched in September, Brown administrators announced this week that 2,087 donors contributed toward the goal, and that the school—located in Providence, Rhode Island—plans to raise $90 million more to sustain the scholarship giving.

Mind you, the student debt problem arises, in large part, because the cost of education is out of control, The cost of attending Brown for the 2017-18 school year is calculated at $71,050. There may be a lot of parents of Brown students who would like to pay that, if only they made that much money in any year of their life. It’s not as if the hand of God reached down and etched the tuition number in stone. That’s what Brown decided was the right amount to charge. Continue reading →

There are two things that judges and jurors absolutely adore: cool names for pedestrian things and the reduction of complex, difficult scientific and mathematical concepts into something so simple even a third-grader could get it. Meet the “likelihood ratio,” coming to a courtroom near you.

Two experts at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) are calling into question a method of presenting evidence in courtrooms, arguing that it risks allowing personal preference to creep into expert testimony and potentially distorts evidence for a jury.

The method involves the use of Likelihood Ratio (LR), a statistical tool that gives experts a shorthand way to communicate their assessment of how strongly forensic evidence, such as a fingerprint or DNA sample, can be tied to a suspect. In essence, LR allows a forensics expert to boil down a potentially complicated set of circumstances into a number—providing a pathway for experts to concisely express their conclusions based on a logical and coherent framework. LR’s proponents say it is appropriate for courtroom use; some even argue that it is the only appropriate method by which an expert should explain evidence to jurors or attorneys.

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The brave voices who now admit they knew all about Judge Kozinski’s porn peccadilloes, but only spoke out after Heidi Bond was brave enough to take the lead and they could follow behind her in safety, talk about the whisper network. There were whispers of risk and impropriety, so those who sought and obtained clerkships with Koz knew what they were getting into.

Penn State lawprof Dara Purvis says the Legal Academy should not allow the women who took the risk to do so again. Rather, they should blackball judges who are reputed to be a danger to students.

If there are credible reports that a judge’s chambers are not safe for our graduates, professors should band together, refuse to send our students to that judge and publicly explain why.

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When Al Franken finally made the announcement that his wokiosity compelled him to plan to resign in the future, after the 328th woman came forward to allege they were inappropriately touched by this former TV-star-cum-senator they so desperately sought to be near, he was smart enough to leave himself a gap. He could have resigned. He didn’t.

When the news broke, I misunderstood and thought he had, in fact, announced his resignation. In response, I twitted:

Regardless of my views toward @alfranken as senator, he should not have resigned. His conduct did not rise to that level of impropriety.

In response came a twit that reflected the times as clearly as possible. Continue reading →

What would happen if proponents of “believe the victim” married the truest social justice belivers on the interwebs? The New Yorker would fire Ryan Lizza, the very progressive and valued writer. Erik Wemple details the curious path it took within nanoseconds.

“The New Yorker recently learned that Ryan Lizza engaged in what we believe was improper sexual conduct. We have reviewed the matter and, as a result, have severed ties with Lizza. Due to a request for privacy, we are not commenting further.”

Lizza responded. Continue reading →

With women empowered to reveal those matters from their past by the many who have dredged up the offenses, large and small, real, perceived or imagined, provable or not, names are being dragged through the mud without opportunity to challenge. And condemnation flows regardless of proof.

In a weird way, the fact that these accusations aren’t made through official channels, which would be a good thing, serves as a detriment. There’s no way to oppose or challenge the accusations. The ruin of reputation is swift and merciless. There is no forum to vindicate one’s conduct. There is no place to prove one’s innocence. Or is there?

Victims of sexual harassment and assault are saying “Me Too” as the country goes through a culture shift following revelations about Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, and other major celebrities accused of everything from crude comments to rape. On college campuses, that shift has been playing out for years, due in part to student activism and to increased attention to campus sexual violence from the Obama administration. Continue reading →

The idea was still somewhat novel when Garrett Morris popularized it on national TV, but it was well past time when hearing people realized that with one remarkably easy addition, hearing-impaired people could enjoy news and public participation: the sign language interpreter. It remains a spotty accommodation, for many reasons, but it’s the sort of thing that should be ubiquitous for government actions, at the very least.

When Tampa police spokesman Stephen Hegarty was told the sign language interpreter had arrived for his press conference, he was somewhat confused but not displeased.

“As we were getting ready to start, I was told that a sign language interpreter was outside,” Hegarty told the Miami Herald. “My reaction was: ‘I didn’t call an interpreter, but great that someone did.’ It appeared that she was very well known in Tampa, but I just didn’t ask enough questions. There was a lot going on but it was my responsibility, so shame on me.”

The press conference was about the arrest of a serial killer. Continue reading →