It was 2017 when K.C. Johnson made the request under the Freedom of Information Act for documents and emails relating to the origin of the 2011 Dear Colleague Letter that created the foundation for the campus peer-to-peer sex adjudication that has thus far launched more than 500 federal suits. It took five years, but K.C. finally received a response.

In 2017 I filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act seeking various OCR documents regarding the Dear Colleague letter’s origins. And finally — this August — the Education Department complied. I received 838 highly redacted pages. The department, for instance, redacted all contemporaneous talking points for the media blitz that Russlynn Ali, head of OCR at the time, undertook to promote the letter. It also redacted all draft versions of the guidance document and, incredibly, even a PDF of the Dear Colleague letter itself from OCR’s website. Nonetheless, significant chunks of material remained, and they enhance our understanding of this transformative policy change.

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According to reports, one-time lawyer Rudy Giuliani had issues with affording to fund his criminal defense in Georgia, assuming he can find a lawyer willing to represent him. It’s tough times for the former United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York who went on to be mayor of New York City.

In court on Monday, the former New York City mayor said the legal quagmires have left him effectively out of cash. He even appears to have responded to some of the money crunch by listing for sale a 3-bedroom Manhattan apartment he owns for $6.5 million. Continue reading →

While the Third Circuit, in an opinion by Senior Judge Anthony Scirica, didn’t come out and hold that the district court erred in holding Pennsylvania’s adoption of a variation of ABA Model Rule 8.4(g) was constitutional, it all but sloughed off the complaints of FIRE’s Zach Greenberg when it held he lacked standing to challenge the nefarious rule.

In a facile decision of stunning naïveté, the court held that the ramifications of a lawyer speech code prohibiting knowing harassment, defined in such vague terms as to cover pretty much anything, in any aspect of the practice of law based on “race, sex, religion, national origin, ethnicity, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, and socioeconomic status” had yet to be sufficiently established. Zach pre-emptively sought to enjoin the rule, arguing that it would form the basis for discipline, or chill his speech, when he taught continuing legal education courses. Continue reading →

Georgia criminal defense lawyer and former Fault Lines colleague, Andrew Fleischman, explains in a New York Times op-ed some of the legal and tactical problem arising from the scope and breadth of the Georgia indictment against Trump and his 18 co-defendants.

By assembling a sprawling, 19-defendant RICO indictment with 41 counts, District Attorney Fani Willis of Fulton County has brought the sort of charging instrument that has typically led to monthslong trials, complicated appeals and exhaustion for the participating attorneys. Now, as some co-defendants seek federal removal while others demand speedy trials in state court, we are starting to see the costs of complexity. Continue reading →

Trump’s response to the Georgia indictment was to call it a travesty of justice as he did nothing wrong, but was just “challenging an election.” The accuracy of his claim aside, he’s been indicted, meaning that a grand jury found that there was probable cause to believe that he committed enumerated crimes. An indictment is merely an accusation, and when the accusation is that crimes have been committed, the mechanism by which our society determines guilt is a trial.

There being almost no chance that these accusations won’t end with a jury trial, unless dismissed before trial, Trump’s fate will be determined by twelve good citizens and true. This, Jesse Wegman contends, is the legitimate means by which guilt is decided. Continue reading →

Aside from the question of whether the six sisters could sue pseudonymously, the substantive issue raised in Westenbroek v. Kappa Kappa Gamma Fraternity was whether it violated the rights of sorority sisters when the University of Wyoming chapter admitted a transgender woman as a member.

District Judge Alan Johnson disposed of the case swiftly.

Embittered by their chapter’s admission of Artemis Langford, a transgender woman, six KKG sisters at the University of Wyoming sue their national sorority and its president. Plaintiffs, framing the case as one of first impression, ask the Court to, inter alia, void their sorority sister’s admission, find that KKG’s President violated her fiduciary obligations by betraying KKG’s bylaws, and prevent other transgender women from joining KKG nationwide. A “woman”, say Plaintiffs, is not a transgender woman. Continue reading →

Public education is compulsory, and schools are required to provide students with a free and appropriate public education. But what’s taught is a matter of what the local school board decides. Montgomery County, Maryland, has made its decision, and if you want their FAPE, then your children are going to be taught about gender orientation and identity.

In this lawsuit, parents whose elementary-aged children attend Montgomery County Public Schools (“MCPS”) seek the ability to opt their children out of reading and discussion of books with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer characters because the books’ messages contradict their sincerely held religious beliefs about marriage, human sexuality, and gender. Last school year, MCPS incorporated into its English language arts curriculum a collection of storybooks featuring LGBTQ characters (the “storybooks” or “books”) in an effort to reflect the diversity of the school community.

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Professional wrestling is a business full of people who call themselves “icons” and “legends.” The terms are basically throwaway marketing terms guys use to make themselves sound bigger than they actually are.

Conversely, Terry Funk, who passed this week at 79 following a protracted battle with dementia, was the very definition of an icon and legend.

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One of the proudest reforms instituted by progressive prosecutors is the willingness to review old convictions with an eye toward either innocence or denial of due process. And they deserve  appreciation and approbation for doing so, or to be more accurate, for undoing the errors of the past that put innocent men in prison, or at least put men in prison whose convictions were obtained improperly.

But then, what if a progressive district attorney doesn’t conclude that a man was wrongfully convicted, but that for reasons unstated, he’s doesn’t deserve the sentence imposed? What if that sentence was death, but the prosecutor doesn’t support capital punishment? What if he just decides to confess error? Continue reading →

It’s not as if Samuel Kerson forced his mural commemorating Vermont’s role in the Underground Railroad upon Vermont Law School. He proposed it and they were all on board. But that was then, 1993, before art was subject to the potential of hurt feelings and offense should any observer disapprove. Then again, back in 1993, one would have confidently expected the ACLU to support art, and the right of artists not merely to express themselves but to not have their art permanently removed from sight.

But that was then, 1993. Today, that’s no longer the case. Continue reading →