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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President Joe Biden had a point to make, and he made it in a way that will resonate with those who agree with him.

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— Bad Legal Takes (@BadLegalTakes) April 29, 2021

Yes, he obviously misquoted Schenk and, to add insult to injury, missed the point. Or did he? Continue reading →

Julia Sherwin is the lawyer representing the family of Mario Gonzalez, a 26-year-old man who died in police custody in Alameda County, California.

“His death was completely avoidable and unnecessary,” she said, adding, “Drunk guy in a park doesn’t equal a capital sentence.”

She’s quite right that his death was completely avoidable and unnecessary. If no one called the police, they wouldn’t have come. If the police ignored the two 911 calls, they would never have encountered Gonzalez. If there were an alternative to the police, such as mental health professionals, and they were dispatched instead, maybe this wouldn’t have happened. Or maybe it would have. Or maybe Gonzalez would have harmed the mental health people, Or maybe not. But there were two 911 calls. Continue reading →

There is probably no agency of the government that does more to help and harm than Child Protective Services. It is simultaneously a bureaucratic nightmare, a functional cesspool of dangerous callousness, and the savior of last resort for abused and neglected children. And on top of its untenable mission to make snap decisions about kids brought on their radar by mandatory reporters, nosy neighbors and well-intended if hyper-sensitive scolds, California CPS is now saddled with a new criticism.

“It’s racist. It’s sexist. It’s ableist. It’s classist.”

Why? Mother Jones explains. Continue reading →

Toledo Law’s John W. Stoepler Professor of Law & Values Lee Strang won an award. Normally, that would raise at worst a yawn, at best an eyebrow. But not this time. The award Strang won is called the Inclusive Excellence Award, and he won it “overwhelmingly.”

UToledo College of Law Professor Lee Strang received an overwhelming number of faculty nominations focused on his presence in the classroom where he “enjoys and respects a good healthy debate,” as one nominator wrote. The individuals who nominated Strang for the award recognized his conservative point of view as a minority in academia and a benefit to legal debate. Continue reading →

There’s a really good reason why I never mention Tucker Carlson. He can’t sing. He can’t dance. He can’t tell a joke or throw a ball with great velocity. Yet, there he is on Fox News entertaining the masses by providing the right wing version of a whiny traumatized scold for the downtrodden . . . maskless.

Tucker Carlson is now telling his audience to harass people who wear face masks outside.

If they see children wearing masks, Tucker says the response should be no different than when you see a kid being abused — "call the police immediately, contact child protective services" pic.twitter.com/4svVH0JY3s

— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) April 27, 2021

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I never had a problem with Batson, per se. Of course the prosecution shouldn’t discriminate against potential jurors on the basis of race. But its rationale concerned me, creating a right on the part of individuals, potential jurors, to be free from discrimination. The right to a fair and impartial jury of one’s peers belonged to the accused, not the public.

And then the other shoe fell, as it obviously would, that the same right could be infringed by the defense, since the right no longer was limited to the defendant, but was now a public right. Reverse Batson was born, and the defendant’s ability to strike jurors was, like the prosecution’s, subject to the invented right of someone who wouldn’t go to prison. Continue reading →