When news broke of Worth County, Georgia Sheriff Jeff Hobby’s execution of a mass frisk of 900 high school students, I was asked whether there was any conceivable lawful justification for this mass search. While the law allows for a search of students in school upon reasonable and articulable suspicion, rather than probable cause as would be required any other time, it seemed inconceivable that there could be reasonable suspicion of 900 students.

And, of course, there was not.

When asked about the pat down of students, and the notion of probable cause, Hobby said that as long as a school administrator was present, the personal search of the children was legal.

Maybe Hobby got his legal advice from a twitter lawyer. Maybe he just heard voices in his head. Regardless, this isn’t the law. Not even a little bit. One might question whether Hobby, a sheriff rather than a lawyer, should be expected to know the law, to adhere to the law. After all, he was protecting students from drugs and, to many, that’s an important goal. So maybe he misunderstood the limits of his authority. Stercus accidit. Continue reading →

Everyone knows women start out made of “sugar and spice, and everything nice.” But some change over time and end up committing crimes. Not real crimes, according to Professor Mirko Bagaric, Director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Sentencing at Deakin University, Melbourne, at the Guardian, but girl crimes.

Women almost never scare us; commit random acts of serious violence; violate our sexual integrity; or form organised crime networks and yet their prisons numbers are now the highest in recorded history.

The homogeneity of the human species breaks down when it comes to criminal behaviour. Women, who constitute slightly more than 50% of population, commit only about 20% of all crime. They commit even a lower portion of all serious crime.

And, indeed, women commit fewer crimes than men. So much for gender being merely a social construct. And the crimes they commit tend to be different as well. Continue reading →

Frank Bruni tries desperately to salvage the Utopian dream of Evergreen State College following the videos revealing the flies trying to feed on the carcass of Bret Weinstein.

Racism pervades our country. Students who have roiled college campuses from coast to coast have that exactly right.

But we’re never going to make the progress that we need to if they hurl the word “racist” as reflexively and indiscriminately as some of them do, in a frenzy of righteousness aimed at gagging speakers and strangling debate.

That’s a mechanism for shaming, not a strategy for change. It mesmerizes all. It converts none.

The argument begins with a facile premise. It’s not facile because it’s necessarily false, but because it’s necessarily unilluminating. It’s unhelpful to call something “exactly right” before defining what it is. And Bruni’s post achieves circularity by condemning the use of hurling the word “racist…reflexively and indiscriminately” as a “mechanism for shaming.” Continue reading →

As an assistant prof at Princeton in African-American studies, it was probably a big deal that Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor was asked to give the commencement address at Hampshire College. She used the opportunity to condemn President Trump.

That she did so isn’t exactly novel. Some may think it inappropriate for a graduation speech. Some may be offended at the disrespect shown the president. Fair enough, though she doesn’t need your permission or approval to speak her mind. Disagree with her all you want. That’s what the marketplace of ideas is all about.

But some couldn’t stand it, and so they did what vile people do.

I argued that Donald Trump, the most powerful politician in the world, is “a racist and sexist megalomaniac,” who poses a threat to their future. Shortly after the Fox story and video were published, my work email was inundated with vile and violent statements. I have been repeatedly called “nigger,” “bitch,” “cunt,” “dyke,” “she-male,” and “coon” — a clear reminder that racial violence is closely aligned with gender and sexual violence. I have been threatened with lynching and having the bullet from a .44 Magnum put in my head.

Continue reading →

These are not the times to be caught in the middle of a dumpster fire unless you’re ready to get burned. That Bill Maher lit the fire isn’t surprising, though his courting outrage is his bread and butter. That he put Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse in the middle of his fire was, well, one of the possibilities that Sasse should have anticipated. After all, Sasse knew Maher was Maher before he went on the show.

Shortly after 10 p.m., Mr. Maher, the comedian and host of HBO’s “Real Time,” was talking to Mr. Sasse on his program about the boundaries between adolescence and maturity, and how adults in California still dress up for Halloween.

When Mr. Sasse said this did not happen in his state, Mr. Maher said, “I’ve got to get to Nebraska more.”

Mr. Sasse replied: “You’re welcome. We’d love to have you work in the fields with us.”

Mr. Maher said: “Work in the fields? Senator, I’m a house nigger. No, it’s a joke.”

Maybe it was a joke to Maher, because he’s so edgy, but saying “no, it’s a joke,” doesn’t make it funny. Continue reading →

In the scheme of historical novelists, Dame Hilary Mantel is kind of a big deal, so when she says something, people listen. And what she has to say isn’t going to endear her to those who prefer to rewrite history.

Women writers must stop rewriting history to make their female characters falsely “empowered”, Dame Hilary Mantel has said.

Mantel, the Man Booker Prize-winning novelist, said writing about women in history was a “persistent difficulties” for her contemporaries, who “can’t resist” retrospectively making them strong and independent.

The genre of historical novels is a fascinating one, the intersection of historical accuracy and an interesting, if wholly fictional, story. Continue reading →

When news broke that Evergreen State College was shut down by police because of a “direct threat,” obvious questions went unanswered. A direct threat of what? By whom? Why? Surely there would be answers coming soon enough. The media reports said nothing. A day later and they still say nothing.

Evergreen State College, which has been in the national spotlight after protests over race boiled over last week, closed Thursday after receiving a direct threat.

The school of about 4,500 students in Washington state posted this warning: “College closing immediately. In response to a direct threat to campus safety, the college is closing immediately for the day. All are asked to leave campus or return to residence halls for instructions.”

A spokeswoman for the school wrote in a text message Thursday afternoon that a threat had been called in to local law enforcement and that the president decided to close the school temporarily out of an abundance of caution.

Continue reading →

There was once a time when these two things could be true:

1. You could disagree with a policy
2. You were unwilling to lie about the law to achieve your goal

Good times, but they are gone, as the newly formed law prof anti-Trump blog takes a dive down the rabbit hole to counter those academics who, while disagreeing with policies, refuse to use their scholarly cred to achieve their goal at the expense of academic integrity.

Interestingly, the few academics willing to call out intellectual dishonesty, compared to the many empowered to spew whatever nonsense serves their ends, appear to be making significant headway. Not because they appeal to an audience of Trump fans and supporters, but because those people who refuse to forfeit their integrity for the cause appreciate their honesty. This is apparently driving the intellectually dishonest to abstraction. Continue reading →

One of the most intriguing headlines ever launches Mark Osler‘s commentary at the Messiah who shall not be named:

The Problem with the
Justice Department

It’s a building full of prosecutors.

Come on. You’ve got to love that. But why is that a problem?

Imagine an incoming president of the United States announcing that he or she would take advice on criminal justice matters exclusively from a Federal Defender’s office. Moreover, the new chief executive intends to put the defenders in charge of federal prisons, forensic science, and the clemency process. After all, the president might argue, the defenders understand federal criminal law from the ground up, have a rich understanding of the social conditions that lead to criminal behavior, and are the federal attorneys most responsible for ensuring individual Constitutional protections. Continue reading →

Beyond the diehards who believe that there is no limit to what must be done to stop Trump from being Trump, the question of undermining legal doctrine for this purpose at the risk of creating new legal doctrine that will prove disastrous to future presidents and their ability to exercise the authority of their office looms huge. For the shallow, this is easily misunderstood as not hating Trump enough. But it has nothing to do with Trump and everything to do with law.

Are we prepared for forsake the legitimacy of law and precedent to get this guy?

In the New York Times, Cardozo lawprof Kate Shaw seeks to create the “conceptual ledge,” that rational stopping point that prevents the slide down the slippery slope into oblivion.

What weight, if any, should the words of a United States president have in court? It’s not a question the Supreme Court has ever answered. But if the Trump administration asks the court to hear this case, and the court agrees to do so, the outcome will almost certainly turn on this issue.

The Fourth Circuit’s travel ban ruling does something never before done: it goes behind the facially lawful exercise of authority by a president and condemns it as unconstitutionally motivated based on the statements of a candidate and his “surrogates.” There was no denial that the president has the authority to do as Trump did: Continue reading →