I got an email from a senior federal judge (not from Nebraska, so no, not the robed rider), which ended with something that scares the daylights out of me.

“…a dying profession.”

Is law dying? Are lawyers part of a dying profession? If so, then why am I wasting my time and energy trying to keep it from dying?

There are objective criteria that suggests the profession is dying. Bar exam pass rates are outrageous bad. Are we only getting the dumb kids going to law school?

The bastion of the old guard, the American Bar Association, has forsaken anything to do with the practice of law in favor of becoming a shining beacon of social justice.  Continue reading →

I had a daughter make it through college without getting raped. Not even sexually assaulted or harassed. She might have heard a dirty joke or two that would count as a microaggression or marginalize the vulnerable, but she laughed instead. Because it was funny and she wasn’t searching for excuses to be traumatized. Amazing, given that the rep being spread is that colleges are rape factories. And my daughter is very pretty, even if I’m her father.

I had a son make it through college without being charged with rape, or even compelled to have a sit down with the Title IX administrator. There was one time when it might have happened. His best friend was in a suite with an ex-girlfriend, and he would visit his friend regularly. His ex would see him, and complained to an RA that my son’s presence in the suite made her feel “uncomfortable.” The RA, knowing both of them, told her to grow up. She survived and both graduated.

That taps out my children.

I was asked by a deeply emotional activist why I wrote about Title IX, what happened in my life to make me a misogynistic rape apologist who didn’t care about the traumatic harm done to “survivors”? The assumption was that I had to have a horse in the race, an agenda to promote, a cause, just like her. After all, there could be no other reason for me to give a damn, and certainly no other reason for me to be on the “wrong side of history.” Continue reading →

While the non-lawyer narrators try to scam the unwary into believing that a campus adjudication is all about one trick or another, one problem and failure, at it’s close enough, the “real McCoy” criminal justice system goes on its merry way. Courts provide the fully array of due process protections. Guilt is determined under the “beyond a reasonable doubt standard.” If college trials are good enough, these must be so spectacularly fair that there is no chance anything could go wrong.

A major piece in the New York Times magazine by Emily Bazelon dissects the conviction of Noura Jackson for the murder of her mother. Jackson was 18 at the time and a bit of a ne’er do well, especially if the only things you knew about her were the bad things. But as with most murders that get on the radar, pressure mounted for the police to find her mother’s killer, mostly because people watch too much TV and think cops can actually investigate things, have magic CSI voodoo or a sixth sense that informs them that the butler did it in the library with a candelabra. But action was demanded, and something had to be done.

With concern about the case mounting — ‘‘Mystery Stabbing Death Unsolved,’’ local ABC news reported that August — the case went to Amy Weirich, who at 40 was a rising star in the Memphis prosecutor’s office. A long-­distance runner and the mother of four children, Weirich was a former chief of the gang-­and-­narcotics unit and the first woman to be named deputy district attorney in Shelby County. She was considered a highly skilled trial lawyer.

At 28 years of age, someone can be a “rising star.” At 40, one is a dinosaur in a district attorney’s office. But since Amy Weirich is the goat of the story, a little melodrama is needed to cast the villain. And Weirich, “highly skilled” or not, earned her castigation. Continue reading →

From the coastal view, where most admirals can be found, one might believe that the scorched cornhusk-strewn earth far below the airplanes wings is a chaste and desolate place. Not true. And not without its potential for some schadenfreude.

The Nebraska State Patrol has for years forced female recruits to submit to invasive, medically unnecessary pelvic exams performed by a male doctor before they can be hired, according to a new federal lawsuit that has prompted a criminal investigation.

State Trooper Brienne Splittgerber filed the lawsuit Tuesday against the patrol, the state of Nebraska, two former patrol heads and various other people, accusing them of creating a hostile work environment for women.

Apparently, lady-parts held a peculiar fascination for the State Patrol, requiring their wimmin-troopers to drop trou and submit to consensual genital inspection before being allowed to protect and serve. Not guys, mind you, but only women. Not that this has anything to do with the unpleasant transition of having females join the troops. Continue reading →

New York Times editor Bari Weiss learned the hard way that her religion would tolerate no heretics. It wasn’t the Jewish religion, but the social justice one that got her. The Chicago Dykes had no place for Jews in their march. It was the obvious and inevitable outcome of a “movement” based on identities rather than principles.

Well, in practice, intersectionality functions as kind of caste system, in which people are judged according to how much their particular caste has suffered throughout history. Victimhood, in the intersectional way of seeing the world, is akin to sainthood; power and privilege are profane.

Can one be lesbian and Jewish? Sure, provided you hide that you’re Jewish and accept the fact that your priestesses decided that Palestinians were good and Israelis, broadened to Jews because nuance is hard for the unduly emotional to grasp, were evil. So, the lesbian Jews were thrown out. Bari Weiss was forced to confront the reality of her social justice religion: she was the heretic.

This could have been the end of it, but that wasn’t possible. If there is anything the social justice warriors demand, it’s the final word. Continue reading →

An email arrived from my friendly neighborhood internet hosting service, A2Hosting, informing me (as well as, I suppose, everyone else paying them money) of changes to their Terms of Service. Having been as much of a slacker as every other relatively normal person on the internet, I had never bothered to read them before. But I had a moment and so…

B Certain content is prohibited…Use of our network to host content related to or to engage in the following activities is strictly prohibited.

Strictly prohibited? Sounds very serious.  So what content will the people I pay to host SJ not allow me to post?

Websites or links to websites advocating human violence and hate crimes;

Continue reading →

I am a supporter of affirmative action. The Supreme Court’s decision in Regents of the State of California v. Bakke properly held that racial diversity was a compelling interest that could be taken into account in college admissions. This was reiterated in the Supreme Court’s opinion in Fisher v. University of Texas II.

It’s certainly true that it means someone wins and someone loses, based on race, which understandably seems to offend Equal Protection. After all, if we shouldn’t discriminate on the basis of race, then we shouldn’t discriminate on the basis of race. Not against blacks. Not against whites. Not against anyone.

But there are greater variables involved below the surface of the tautology, where race is a proxy for diverse ideas and experiences that contribute to breadth of thought and understanding in higher education. You may not agree, and you’re allowed. The idea that a more diverse student body brings more diverse ideas to the mix and expands the minds and understanding of all students works for me.

New York Times reporter Charlie Savage “exposed” a leaked internal Department of Justice memo that the Office of Civil Rights would shift its attention toward eliminating racial discrimination in college admissions, the lede was that it was about reverse discrimination. Continue reading →

We traveled down to Atlanta to moot* Mark Bennett before his oral argument before the Georgia Supreme Court, where he was arguing a First Amendment case pro bono on behalf of a poor schmuck. Nobody famous. Nobody rich. Nobody anybody would think twice about. Except Bennett, which was why he was there, on his own dime, to help.

You know who wasn’t there? The ACLU.

This wasn’t an issue at the time. Nobody expected the ACLU to step up to aid Bennett’s defense of the First Amendment. It was, at that point, an organization that had to divvy up its scarce resources carefully, and it’s concerns about free speech were already deeply conflicted. Fair enough (not really, but that’s how it was).

Then a rich guy sued a couple of really rich, huge corporations and a funny and fabulously successful comedian in a ridiculous suit. It wasn’t only silly, but relatively inconsequential, as everyone involved could afford the best legal counsel available. Plus, the case was legally very clear cut. There was little no risk that it would have deleterious consequences for free speech. Continue reading →

Even though it was written in the dark ages (1955-56), if you have not read “Howl” by the poet Allen Ginsberg, it is way past time you do so. You can read the poem here or listen to Ginsberg read it here.[i]

The poem starts like this: “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix . . ..”

I recently heard twin echoes of “Howl” at a sentencing of a Native American who accidentally killed his African-American friend. And it is about that profound experience that I now write. Continue reading →

As a judge comes to the twilight of his career, his robe frayed and a tiny droplet of spittle dripping from the corner of his lips, knowing full well that he will never, but never, make it to the big time, what’s left to do? One thought is to be as outrageous as possible, lobbing hand grenades into the mix and watching people’s heads as they explode.

Hi, Judge Posner.

Posner — the most highly cited legal scholar of the 20th century, according to the Journal of Legal Studies — repeated his complaint that politicians are more concerned with appointing “tokens” such as women or Hispanic justices, and with would-be justices’ politics than they are with merit.

Merit is a hard metric. If you agree with Posner, it’s merit. Then again, Posner has, in his dottage, taken to eschewing precedent and such banal efforts as reason, and just throwing his feelz against the wall to see what sticks. He justifies this by claiming it’s what all judges do, but the rest of them are all liars so they hide it behind fancy words. Continue reading →