Did Shiva Ayyadurai invent email in 1978? Who cares? Not me, but Dr. Ayyadurai does.  So too does Techdirt’s Mike Masnick, because that’s the sort of stuff that interests him. All of which is fine, because there’s no reason in the world for Mike to not be interested in whatever he’s interested in, and no reason for Mike to give a damn whether or not it interests me.

But what does interest me is that he, and Techdirt, and others involve with Techdirt, are being sued to Charles Harder, the lawyer funded by Peter Thiel to “get” Gawker in the Hulk Hogan case. For what? For disputing Ayyadurai’s claim of having invented email. Or at least, the email we use today.

41. On or about March 8, 2016, Defendants published on their website, Techdirt.com, an article authored by Defendant Masnick with the headline: “Guy Who Pretends He Invented Email Whines At Every Journalist For Writing Obit Of Guy Who Actually Helped Create Email,” a true and correct copy of which is attached hereto as Exhibit N (the “March 8, 2016 Article”). This article contains multiple false statements of fact about Dr. Ayyadurai which Defendants knew to be false at the time the article was printed and published, or had reckless disregard for the truth, including, among others: Continue reading →

Every lawyer is, by definition, an expert. If you wanted to call a lawyer to the witness stand to ask her legal opinion, the only qualification required would be bar admission. But, of course, every lawyer is not an expert in the non-legal definition. More significantly, put ten lawyers on the stand and you’ll get ten different opinions, a few of which may be totally batshit crazy.

The point isn’t that the ten lawyers who disagree are wrong, but that “expertise” does not assure a “correct” opinion. Indeed, there often isn’t a correct opinion, but there are incorrect opinions. And this is just as to law. There are an infinite number of issues upon which opinions can be formed. Some require no expertise (which tastes better, chocolate or vanilla?) and every opinion is just as valid as every other (yes, there will be that person without taste buds. Just stop). Other areas of inquiry require a foundation of base knowledge before a person can have a legitimate opinion at all, after which valid opinions can be formed and debated.

But at the Federalist, Tom Nichols (@radiofreetom*) raises the populist attack, the death of expertise.

I am (or at least think I am) an expert. Not on everything, but in a particular area of human knowledge, specifically social science and public policy. When I say something on those subjects, I expect that my opinion holds more weight than that of most other people. Continue reading →

Remember all that speech is violence stuff? Turns out that it’s a double-edged sword for University of Connecticut soccer player Noriana Radwan, who “flipped the bird” after a win that ended up costing her a scholarship.

Giving the middle finger after winning a soccer game was all it took for Noriana Radwan to lose her full athletic scholarship at the University of Connecticut.

Now she is suing the university for violating Title IX by punishing her more severely than a male athlete would have been.

The lawsuit, filed in the District of Connecticut, raises far more than just an allegation of discrimination on the basis of sex, that guys who did something “wrong” weren’t punished as harshly as Radwan. The indictment of UConn’s treatment of Radwan raises the full panoply of due process failures that have become the hallmark of college treatment of students. Continue reading →

After the revelation of the video of the horrific treatment of a special needs white man by four black men and women, spinners spun to characterize the beating, knifing, toilet-water-drinking, and abuse in a way that somehow would distinguish it from the hypocritical rush to vilify others. The tables turned, the races reversed. Neither gender nor race fit the paradigm, and an intellectually challenged 18-year-old just to make everything worse.

But the day before all of this hit the fan, Paul Caron posted an “op-ed” by Daryl Jones, interim Dean of Florida A&M Law School, entitled “The Racial Rules That Keep Us Apart.” Timing can be a bitch.

Jones’ post was about Oregon Lawprof Nancy Shurtz’s boneheaded decision to wear blackface to a Halloween Party. But it wasn’t a post from the perspective of an academic. Nor a scholar. Not even a dean. In fact, Jones’ post had nothing to do with law at all. Rather, Jones wrote as a black person because, he explained, the racial barrier can never be broken.

Somehow, I am made to feel defensive by calls for her punishment.  It just makes me very uncomfortable and I don’t want her stoned in the public square for my vindication.  If I were on the faculty at Oregon I would feel compelled to protest the crowd’s outrage ostensibly expressed in recognition of my heritage and feelings.  But I might just sit, quietly grinding my teeth and hoping that the whole thing would just die down.  It is the punishment, the demand for this poor woman’s head on a platter that makes me uncomfortable.  There are clear dangers in an African American saying so.  I imagine that some colleagues might shake their heads in disgust at my own lack of outrage.  There is always the danger of being labeled an “uncle tom” or an apologist for racists if one doesn’t adopt the hot tone of indignation.  Or just plain ignorant.

Continue reading →

In the waning hours of his second term, the President of the United States of America was faced with an awful decision. Should he spend what remained of his time and capital accomplishing the criminal reforms he believed to be critical to the nation, or write a 53-page article for Harvard Law Review?

President Obama opted for the second choice.* The first three paragraphs of his introduction will not only give you the flavor of what’s to come (footnotes omitted, as they cite back to his own words).

Presidencies can exert substantial influence over the direction of the U.S. criminal justice system. Those privileged to serve as President and in senior roles in the executive branch have an obligation to use that influence to enhance the fairness and effectiveness of the justice system at all phases. How we treat citizens who make mistakes (even serious mistakes), pay their debt to society, and deserve a second chance reflects who we are as a people and reveals a lot about our character and commitment to our founding principles. And how we police our communities and the kinds of problems we ask our criminal justice system to solve can have a profound impact on the extent of trust in law enforcement and significant implications for public safety. Continue reading →

It’ s impossible to tell from the New York Times article whether a rape occurred, as its substantive description is limited to the conclusory allegations:

The case involved a woman, a sophomore, who had met a player on Stanford’s powerhouse football team at a fraternity party one Saturday night. They went back to her room where, she said, he raped her. He said they had consensual sex.

For the unwitting, the word “rape” carries horrific connotations. For anyone following the devolution of definition, the word means nothing. In criminal law, rape is a crime, and crimes are comprised of elements, specific conduct usually combined with a mental state of the accused.*

On campus, it means whatever the accuser feels it means, at the time, the next day, a year later. This doesn’t mean that the accuser wasn’t raped. It doesn’t mean she was, either. It only means that we lack sufficient information to have a clue. Continue reading →

William Felkner wanted to be a social worker, so he attended Rhode Island College to get his graduate degree. The course of study didn’t turn out quite as expected.

More than 12 years after William Felkner was forced to choose between staying in his graduate program and obeying his conscience, the former student has a chance to protect the First Amendment rights of students nationwide.

That’s according to a friend-of-the-court brief filed last month by the Cato Institute, Foundation for Individual Rights in Education and National Association of Scholars in Felkner’s lawsuit against Rhode Island College, a public institution.

Part of the curriculum, it turned out, involved lobbying for causes. Not Felkner’s causes. Not causes Felkner believe in or agreed with. Not that his professor gave a damn. Continue reading →

There’s a great saying, “I love humanity; it’s people I can’t stand.” New York’s governor, Andy Cuomo, is the walking, talking political version of this, gushing progressive when it suits him while putting his veto pen to use to kill any law that might actually accomplish his professed goals. It’s not that he doesn’t love the ideas, but he can’t tolerate them in practice.

Like what? Well, he vetoed statewide funding for indigent defense.  This has been a battle raging for more than a decade, to normalize funding across the state, to create a statewide office to oversee the function to assure quality and competence, and finally, finally, the Legislature passed a law. And Cuomo vetoed it. His spokesman explained:

“Unfortunately, an agreement was unable to be reached and the Legislature was committed to a flawed bill that placed an $800 million burden on taxpayers — $600 million of which was unnecessary — with no way to pay for it and no plan to make one.”

Continue reading →

As advocacy groups go, The FIRE, Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, is a good one. Its work on freedom of speech on campus has accomplished a great deal, which is really quite amazing given the flip-flop of academia from free speech to outright censorship. But when it comes to Title IX, it’s given away half the battle.

An advocacy group called the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education has argued for years that the Education Department guidance violates students’ due process rights. By reducing the burden of proof for sexual assault cases, the guidance by definition reduced the amount of certainty needed to issue punishment, said legislative and policy director Joe Cohn. “It is uncontroversial that there are both people who get away with things that they have done and there are innocent people who are getting expelled,” Cohn said. In response to the department’s guidance, campuses are “actively reducing due process protections, which is increasing the margin of error.”

Campus sexual assault adjudications, discussed here ad nauseam, certainly raise monumental due process problems, together with the question of whether the standard of proof, preponderance of the evidence, as dictated by the “Dear Colleague” letter from the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, is grossly inadequate. Continue reading →

When some hated miscreant is convicted for a heinous crime, his angry, contorted, young face snarling out at you from the image in your newspaper, on your screen, it’s so easy to scream that he must be locked up for decades, centuries, until the day he dies, because it’s all so scary and he can’t hurt someone if he’s behind bars. What about the children? What about you?

So the answer has been easy, and one that’s rewarded politicians consistently: increasing the length of imprisonment, punishment, isolation, because, well, who really gives a damn if this person who has demonstrated an unwillingness to live amongst others according to the rules of acceptable behavior ever breathes free air again? It’s a simple solution to a complex problem, but it’s good enough and makes complete sense. Most importantly, you just don’t care enough to risk a headache thinking any more about it. Problem solved.

But years pass, and young men become old men, even older than they would normally age, because prison life isn’t nearly as much fun as you would think.  Three years out, there’s a vague recollection of the harm done. Five years, barely a twinkle. Ten, twenty, fifty, they’re mostly forgotten. Continue reading →