The “firestorm” around Trump’s Executive Order to cover antisemitism under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was lit by the match of incompetent legal reporting at the New York Times. In advance of the release of the EO, it was characterized as redefining Judaism as a nationality. Title VI prohibits discrimination on the basis of “race, color and national origin.” It could have included religion. It didn’t.

The order will effectively interpret Judaism as a race or nationality, not just a religion, to prompt a federal law penalizing colleges and universities deemed to be shirking their responsibility to foster an open climate for minority students. In recent years, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions — or B.D.S. — movement against Israel has roiled some campuses, leaving some Jewish students feeling unwelcome or attacked. Continue reading →

Jazmine Headly did well. Her cause of action was solid, and there is no question that she suffered in the hands of New York City police, as it was the subject of a viral video. Just about a year ago, video of cops yanking her 1-year-old child from her arms as they arrested her for sitting on the floor poor evoked outrage, as well it should. After prosecution was declined, she sued.

The episode, in December 2018, touched a nerve, capturing what New Yorkers who rely on public benefits say is the uncaring and even hostile treatment they often get from city workers who themselves feel pressure to follow rules.

The charges against Ms. Headley were ultimately dropped. Her public benefits, which had been stripped, were restored, and Mayor Bill de Blasio apologized to her publicly. Nonetheless, saying she was standing up for herself and others in similar circumstances, she filed a federal lawsuit against the city.

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Prefatory Note: the following was written almost two years ago in honor of “National Dr. Seuss Day” as a tribute to the beloved children’s author. As many of you may not have seen the original post, I’ve decided to bring it back this week.—CLS

I am an inmate in a prison near you.

I am Oaf
Oaf I am

That Oaf-I-Am!
That Oaf-I-Am!
I do not like that Oaf-I-Am!

Do you like
Nutraloaf? Continue reading →

Not only is Roger Ailes dead, but there is no one who recognizes the name who is unaware of what he did to Gretchen Carlson. There’s a movie and series about it. It was in the funny papers. And then there’s the pervasive reporting of the settlement between Carlson and Fox over Ailes’ sexual harassment and antics against Carlson. Or to put this another way, everyone knows.

So why is there an op-ed by Carlson in the New York Times calling on Fox to give her “voice back”?

“Winning” my complaint with a settlement and a non-disclosure agreement meant I was, essentially, forced into silence. NDAs were originally designed to safeguard the sharing of proprietary corporate information (think the formula for Coca-Cola), not to protect predatory behavior. Although NDAs usually prohibit employers from disparaging victims, whisper campaigns often follow women for years. As I documented in my book “Be Fierce,” the vast majority of survivors never work in their chosen professions again. American industry has lost many talented women to harassment, while allowing predators to continue climbing the professional ladder (where they have the potential to victimize even more women).

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You might have read about the Supreme Court’s decision in Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education. It’s been discussed here numerous times. But it’s never mentioned in anything written by a Title IX activist group or article about “survivors” or the rape epidemic on campus. No college dean ever refers to it, although the lawyers for universities know it very well when their school is sued by an alleged victim.

The reason for this is plain: the law from which the Title IX campus sex industry was born fails to support its existence and, by its explicit words, contradicts the existence of the unlawful scheme forced upon colleges by the bureaucrats in control of the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights in their “Dear Colleague Letters.” Continue reading →

The student’s name remains a mystery, as does the reason for his initial suspension. But his expulsion came after a blaze of glory so remarkably idiotic as to leave no doubt that it was for the best that this kid was saved any further tuition payments at Oklahoma City Law School. And it’s not entirely unfortunate that the legal profession will be spared someone who would almost certainly bring it into disrepute.

A student has been expelled from the Oklahoma City University School of Law after posting flyers that said “IT’S OKAY TO BE WHITE.”

OCU Police Director Bill Citty said the male student was already on suspension from the law school, 800 N Harvey, and was not allowed to be on school property. The student violated the terms of his suspension when he posted the flyers on the door and exterior of the law school building the night of Oct. 31, Citty said.

To characterize this as “posting flyers” fails to provide the full spectrum of idiocy on display. Continue reading →

Maligned as they so often are these days, the duty of a prosecutor is to secure “justice,” whatever that means. Justice Robert Jackson said so, and who am I to disagree? But then, the question isn’t what their duty is, but whether and how they perform that duty. As the Supreme Court famously said in Berger v. United States:

The [prosecutor] is the representative not of an ordinary party to a controversy, but of a sovereignty whose obligation to govern impartially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at all; and whose interest, therefore, in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done. As such, he is in a peculiar and very definite sense the servant of the law, the twofold aim of which is that guilt shall not escape or innocence suffer. He may prosecute with earnestness and vigor—indeed, he should do so. But, while he may strike hard blows, he is not at liberty to strike foul ones.

On the other hand, the defense lawyer represents one, and only one, party, the defendant, to whom he owes a duty of zealous representation. He works for no cause. He doesn’t serve justice. There is no greater truth in the courtroom for a defense lawyer than the provide the defendant with effective assistance of counsel within the bounds of the law. Continue reading →

There are four general reactions to the Articles of Impeachment against President Trump. The first two come from those who favor Trump.

• He’s innocent and did nothing wrong.
• I don’t care if he did anything wrong, he’s still better than the alternative.

On the other side, there are also two reactions.

• Two articles of impeachment focusing on his clear and certain improprieties narrow the focus and get the job done now.
• Two articles of impeachment are grossly inadequate, and the House should investigate everything he’s ever done, take as long as necessary, and impeach him for each and every wrong.

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If the false accuser were a jailhouse snitch, it’s highly unlikely anyone would come to his defense and manufacture a narrative where he was merely the victim of an oppressive system. It’s not that a credible argument couldn’t be made. It could quite easily, but there is no constituency for “Believe the Snitch” outside of the prosecutors’ office, and only then when the snitch is useful.

The same can’t be said for false rape accusers.

But Tricia Bushnell, director of the Midwest Innocence Project, said very few wrongful convictions come from false reporting. They are more likely to come from inaccurate eyewitness accounts.

“If the concern is that a false report could lead to a false conviction, that’s just wrong,” she said.

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Imagine if you were to start a blog, a media site, dedicated to a cause about which you were deeply passionate, that allowed you to write every day about such critical issues as menstruation without anyone pointing out you were suffering from delusions, wore out any possible interest in the subject or were boring? How cool would that be?

Soon after Anna Holmes took on the job of building the website Jezebel, in 2007, she set it apart from established publications like Vogue and Elle with a post offering $10,000 to anyone who would send in the best unretouched version of a women’s magazine cover photo. And with that, Jezebel had marked its territory: feminist cultural criticism, with an edge.

“It seems quaint now, because there are tons of media outlets influenced by Jezebel,” Ms. Holmes said. “But at the time, there was no proof that it was marketable.”

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