ACA Open Thread

I am diligently producing billable work eagerly awaiting the airing of today's oral arguments on the ACA.  The C-SPAN link is here and of course SCOTUSBlog has extensive coverage.  This is the open forum that all you Anti-Injunction Act junkies have been waiting for.  Thoughts, rants, comments, links to other coverage of note...have at it.

UPDATE 1:  Five minutes into the coverage on C-SPAN3 and already a caller is complaining about the "New World Order" and "making us servants."  Noted media personality, Kent Brockman, captures the mood perfectly:



UPDATE 2: I remain mesmerized by callers to C-SPAN, sort of like people who watch daytime talk shows, I suppose. One caller, professing opposition to the law, proceeded to make all the arguments in the law's favor.

"First of all, no one is dying without health insurance, you can go to the hospital and get treatment."

Hmmm. You mean by adding to the overall cost of healthcare?

"Also, this law would affect Medicare and seniors."

You don't want the government to touch your government mandated health insurance?

Another caller, "I also think this will implicate euthanasia as panels will decide who receives care and who doesn't."

Currently, that's done by for-profit insurance companies (unless you're in Minnesota). In fact, anyone who has clerked or even externed for a judge has dealt with sometimes heart-wrenching ERISA claims against plan administrators who routinely deny coverage.

UPDATE 3: Lyle Denniston's recap of today's argument captures the heart of the circularity I was thinking about on my morning drive: If the ACA is so complicated that striking the minimum coverage provision would require killing the whole thing, then why is the minimum care provision not a valid exercise of Congress's necessary and proper clause?

Who Is to Blame for Siri's Abortion Incompetence?

You may have heard of the recent kerfuffle surrounding the apparent reluctance of Apple's new voice recognition application, "Siri," to locate an abortion clinic. Over the last week, groups like the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League and the American Civil Liberties Union have spoken out against Apple because of the broader implications of the software glitch. In the preamble to a recent online petition by the ACLU to Apple: "[I]f Siri can tell us about Viagra, it should not provide bad or no information about contraceptives or abortion care. Send a message to Apple: Fix Siri."

But what exactly is causing the problem? A friend's gChat status sums it up nicely:

"I’m standing in front of a Planned Parenthood,” the CNN reporter says, “And Siri can’t find it when I search for abortion clinic.” No, it can’t. It’s not because Apple is pro-life. It’s because Planned Parenthood doesn’t call itself an abortion clinic.

Sigh. A pretty good rule of life is to never blame on malice what can be attributed to incompetence. Just because Siri talks to you doesn't mean she is anything other than a basic search engine.

SOTU Drinking Game

Most SOTU drinking games involve the contents of the speech itself.  I personally like to drown the inanity of cable news coverage with alcohol.  So, for this year's SOTU, here are my proposals, and please feel free to add to this:

TAKE ONE SHOT AT...


Any mention of "gearing up for 2012" or like language
Any mention of "jobs killing"
Any mention of "business friendly"
Any mention of Paul Ryan as a "policy wonk."
Any mention of Ryan vs. Bachman as voice of the Republican response
Any mention of the absence of Justice Alito
Any mention of economic turnaround
Any definition of bipartisanship that is essentially doing what Republicans want
Any mention of "shakeup of President Obama's inner circle."

TAKE TWO SHOTS AT...

Any mention of the First Lady's attire
Any mention of Rahm Emmanuel
Any mention of approval ratings
Any mention of Sarah Palin
Any mention of Ronald Reagan

TAKE THREE SHOTS AT..

Any mention of the seating arrangement

DOWN THE BOTTLE IF...

There's actual substantive commentary beyond the vapid, superficial soundbites from the likes of David Gergen.


CNN sets the curve. 

Loose Lips Sink Ships

I am somewhat torn concerning Wikileaks. On one hand, I am an advocate of the free flow of information and the elucidation it provides. But on the other hand, I am a stickler for loyalty, and releasing thousands of confidential documents to an international audience is deplorable.

Just a brief background on the issue: Wikileaks is an organization which serves as an outlet to government insiders to release documents which would otherwise never see the light of day. Earlier this year, Wikileaks released almost 92,000 pages of classified documents concerning the Afghanistan War. More recently, Wikileaks leaked 250,000 classified diplomatic cables between various U.S. embassies and Washington, D.C. Recently (and seemingly* coincidentally) the editor in chief of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, was arrested in the United Kingdom pursuant to a warrant for extradition to Sweden on charges of sexual offenses. Assange refused to consent to the extradition, and a court in the U.K. denied bail. In response, other people affiliated with Wikileaks threatened to release all of the remaining diplomatic cables, which have thus far only slowly been made public after editors redact the names of persons who could come to harm if their names were released.

It would be one thing if the leaked documents uncovered some sort of deception of the American people, like the pentagon papers did, but these documents seem to be leaked merely for the sake of leaking documents. For example, one document reveals a list of potential terrorist targets around the world which could impact the United States. Revealing such information does not show impropriety on the part of the Government, but rather simply undermines its effort to keep our country safe.

I am curious about people’s thoughts on this issue. Specifically, how harshly should the persons who leaked the documents to Wikileaks be punished (if at all)? Does this rise to the level of treason (18 U.S.C. § 2381)? Or, conversely, do you think that the people leaking these documents are heroes?

But What About the Proletariat?

I think that this letter is pretty silly. With that out of the way, here is the open letter from Berkeley Law Organizing Committee (BLOC) to Dean Edley:

No More Futile Discussion With Administrators. Action. Disruption. Reclamation.

Dear Dean Edley,

We sincerely hope that in the moments leading up to tomorrow's UC Regents meeting, you took time to pause and consider the real human impact of the Law School's privatization program. Before we came to Boalt, we considered ourselves to be human beings and were attracted to this school in our capacity as such. Now we know that everything we were told about Boalt is an empty promise and that we are in fact nothing more than biological collateral for federal loan dollars being spilled into ill-conceived expansion projects that have little to do with the quality of our or anyone else's education.

As you write to invite us to another Student Town Hall, we submit that our participation within this institution is now, just as it has been, barely a courteous formality. The one hour meeting offered by the law-school administration, we are told, provides “an opportunity for the community to discuss the overall state of the law school as well as student fees.” At least you are honest enough to concede that nothing we say at the Town Hall will have any effect on how the law school is actually run.

There is nothing to ‘discuss’. If privatization is a certainty, then so is insurmountable student debt, the evisceration of workers’ rights, the subordination of human need to the logic of the market. This is a future we will not accept. Privatization in an economy with rapidly decreasing real wages and insurmountable loan debt is guaranteed student death. We refuse to die. Since the administration has already implemented its project of privatization, our only choice is to halt its progress and work to destroy the process itself. So on November 16 and 17, 2010 we will.

We do appreciate that you are taking the time to tell us ‘how it has to be.’ Yes, we are told, fees have to go up, workers are going to be laid off, and financial aid, a full 50% of it in most cases, must be reduced to fund Capital Projects, the bloated salaries of the rapidly-expanding administrative class, and all the other expenses associated with transforming public education into a branded commodity. Privatization, you never forget to tell us, is not a choice but a certainty.

As you pressure the Regents to approve ever more draconian wealth-extraction policies to fund pet capital projects, please remember that the party will not last forever and that the financial numbers along with public policy are most assuredly going to catch up with public university administrators everywhere. While we know that your lofty salary will permit you to retire well before you have to face any real accountability, our only hope is that your legacy reflects as much as you deserve. We will be sure to think of Boalt every time we make a monthly student loan payment on a public interest salary that we fully expect will only decrease in real terms over the coming decades. For a little background on why we think what we do, please consider two things: 1) that the LRAP program produces the highest benefits for those with the least amount of debt (thus those with the most means) and is increasingly relying on speculative federal subsidies despite gargantuan increases in law school revenue, and 2) this informative letter by Prof. Bob Meister: http://www.cucfa.org/news/2010_nov15.php.

Regardless, our fates as current students are sealed and no platitudes about a “public mission” or “public interest” will dissolve the ridiculous debt that the vast majority of us will labor under for the next 25 years. When state capitalism collapses, we would dance on the ashes of this inane privatization project, but there is every indication that we will be taken down along with the rest.

Students! Stop the fee increases by shutting down the administration and the Regents! Enough is enough! We will see you at California Hall -- Tuesday, 6:30AM; & Noon Rally. We will see you at the Regents’ meeting; Wednesday 8:00AM, UCSF Mission Bay Campus.

Berkeley Law Organizing Committee (BLOC)

This letter employs quite a bit of inflammatory rhetoric. I guess the biggest gap I see in BLOC's reasoning is that it makes sense that law school fees would increase due to the over saturation of the legal market with lawyers. In a normal world, that price increase would reduce demand for legal education, and then go on to remedy the overproduction of lawyers.

I am sure you denizens of Nuts & Boalts have your own opinions an analysis; post them in the comments!

Proposition 19: What Will it Actually Do?

Question for you federal conflict preemption buffs out there: If Proposition 19 passes, will the Controlled Substances Act preempt it?

I have seen in a number of places people arguing that Proposition 19 removes some state-side enforcement concerning Marijuana, and as such does not conflict with federal law since the States do not need to have laws which enforce federal crimes (e.g. piracy). My question is: What about the fact that Proposition 19 affirmatively says that someone can possess up to one ounce of Marijuana, and federal law says someone cannot possess Marijuana. Is there a distinction between passing an act which says someone can do something versus abolishing an act which says they cannot do something?

My initial reaction is that Federal Law would preempt Proposition 19, and even if it did not, federal enforcement of Marijuana related matters would increase substantially. That would mean the salutary neglect that the Obama administration has shown California's medical marijuana dispensaries may come to an end. But as I said, that is my initial reaction, and I would love to hear from someone who has studied the relevant issues.

Toilet Paper Prank Video Reveals Perpetrator

The commenters have been really getting on our asses to write something about the Yoo Toilet Paper prank. I wanted to sit it out for at least a few hours so someone could do the hard work and get to the bottom of it for me.

Well, Gawker points to the video below posted by an artist from LA. Some might brand this form of prank as asinine, but I couldn't wipe the smile off my face after seeing the video.

A Major Victory for JY

After four years, the report on JY and JB by the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility has finally been released. As Patrick noted, we already had a post on a Newsweek report that the DOJ was not planning on referring JY and JB to their respective bar associations for professional misconduct.

But the released documents go much farther and are, quite frankly, astounding. The OPR Report finds that both JY and JB commited professional misconduct (JY, it claims, purposefully), and promises to notify the bar associations of the states in which they practice.

But the Report is accompanied by a 69-page memorandum by Associate Deputy Attorney General David Margolis, who writes,

For the reasons stated below, I do not adopt OPR's finding of misconduct. . . . OPR's own analytic framework defines "professional misconduct" such that a finding of misconduct depends on application of a known, unambiguous obligation or standard to the attorney's conduct. I am unpersuaded that OPR has identified such a standard. For this reason and based on the additional analysis below, I cannot adopt OPR's finding of misconduct, and I will not authorize OPR to refer its findings to the state bar disciplinary authorities in the jurisdictions where [JY] and [JB] are licensed.

Margolis's criticisms of the report are partly conveyed in the following segment:

In a departure from standard practice and without explanation, OPR in its initial two drafts analyzed the conduct of the attorneys without application of OPR's own standard analytic framework. See http://www.usdoj.gov/opr/framework.pdf/. This departure was not insignificant. I have held my current position within the Department for nearly seventeen years. During that time, I have reviewed almost every OPR report of investigation. OPR developed its framework over a decade ago and to the best of my recollection has applied it virtually without exception since that time.

That's not all. The memo notes that OPR provided then-AG Michael Mukasey and then-Deputy AG Mark Filip with a 191-page draft on December 23, 2008, only 20 days before it intended to release the report publicly. While agreeing that the JY/JB memos contained errors, Mukasey and Filip so strongly criticized the substance and conclusions of the draft that they requested that their letter conveying these criticisms be made public if the OPR Report was ever publicly released.

The reason why this is a big deal is that Margolis, Mukasey, and Filip are hugely respected "lions" in the legal profession. Margolis was described by by Legal Times as "one of the Justice Department's most respected officials, a lawyer with sterling reputation earned over 42 years of service at the department." (For that quote and a countervailing view by Harpers, see here.) Before becoming Attorney General (in 2007), Mukasey was one of the most respected District Judges in the Southern District of New York. (I've recently seen a hearing in which a N.Y. State trial judge gave greater deference to a Mukasey opinion on a point of N.Y. law than it did to the theoretically binding opinion of N.Y.'s highest court.) Filip, too, was formerly a District Judge in the Chicago. According to the AP, "he was ranked first among federal judges in terms of integrity and professionalism in a 2006 poll of Chicago-area attorneys."

It's important to note here that none of these three are defending the judgement of either JY or JB. But their criticisms of the OPR Report are pretty striking. I hope to read both documents over the weekend and have some more substantive comments. In the meantime, loonies on all sides of the debate can vent their rantings here.

Is UC Berkeley Violating Student Rights in Handing Out Suspensions Over Protests?

A statement made by anonymous Boalt students takes a look at a number of disciplinary measures handed down by UCB to Andrea Miller - one of the protesters who was present when the Chancellor's house was attacked.

If Miller was engaged in non-violent protest then it's unacceptable for UCB to go after her (and from what I've read, it seems like they're systematically targeting the students who were at the Chancellor's house when it was attacked, regardless of whether or not the students can be shown to have participated in the attack). It's also worth noting that none of the students present are being criminally prosecuted for their alleged misconduct.

In the statement there's a focus on how Miller's rights have been violated by the UCB disciplinary process, which from my rudimentary understanding of the subject seems to be true, but the piece also uses a lot of empty phrases including "Stalinist procedure" and "Gestapo-like." The attack on the Chancellor's house was also downplayed heavily. I understand that the statement is intended to be read from a radical viewpoint, but there has to be some benefit in appealing to those of us who agree that the UCB acted poorly in response to the protests, but no better than to be taken in by needlessly inflammatory language.

A few more thoughts:

1. The action against the student seems improper if the facts of this statement or true, but it'd be a stronger statement without the hyperbole and with some good cites backing up the legal positions.
2. Who wrote it? Why are there no names attached?
3. There's also another post on the site advocating violence as a means to an end when protesting, which is a position that some consider theoretically and ideologically sound, but often comes with consequences attached (like getting suspended from UCB).

"We're Going to Take a Commercial Break, and I'm Going to Put My Head in Ice Water"

Open thread for discussion on Professor JY's appearance on the Daily Show With John Stewart:

• Part One
• Part Two
• Extended, Part One
• Extended, Part Two
• Extended, Part Three

I guess my thoughts on this have been replayed over and over and over . . . With respect to tonight, I thought JY was commendably calm, collected, and intelligent. So was Stewart -- I really appreciated that at those times it became clear that Stewart wasn't following, he stopped and listened.

Anyway, without getting further into it, I'll limit this post to a few memorable quotes (not necessarily from the JY segment), links to the online interviews when they are available, and open the forum for comments.

• [After Stewart asked how it felt to be infamous] Well, the same thing must happen to you. As soon as they heard I was coming on here, my students started emailing me, asking how tall you are, how much you weigh, etc.
• We're going to take a commercial break, and I'm going to put my head in ice water.
• That is an established fact of conventional thought.
• It's the republicans who will keep you warm and safe, to enjoy the hell-scape the world will become.
• I hope that someday in the future, you'll get a chance to, uh, write humane, um, briefs.

And another comment, not from the show, but overheard in the room while I watched:

• [About Rod Blagojevich]: His poor, poor publicity team. This last year must have been so hard!

A Tip to Aspiring Arsonists

Just pull a bunch of fire alarms across campus, then start a real fire and laugh while everyone ignores it!

E-mail below:

In case you had not already heard, our recent fire alarm was a deliberate pull of one of the alarms near an exit door. Similar alarm incidents have been occurring across campus this morning. We have been instructed by UCPD that we do not have to vacate the building. However, it may take PPCS a while to respond to shut off the alarms and the alarms are extremely loud. So you may want to leave the building anyway, or to use ear plugs to protect your hearing if this occurs again. Obviously it is not possible to teach or to conduct normal business until the alarms have been turned off.

BHSA Rep Proposes Edley No Confidence Vote

In a week filled with good ideas, this might be the best one yet.

You might know Dean Edley as the guy behind Boalt's rise in the rankings, the Summer Fellowship Program or the architect of the best LRAP program in the country. I guess one of the 1L BHSA reps was too busy reading memos because the representative in question apparently suggested the BHSA hold a vote of "no confidence" on Edley at last night's meeting. The idea, also apparently, didn't go over well.

Seems like someone caught strike fever.

Anyone want to defend this position? This makes me wonder what other bullshit goes on at BHSA meetings.

My Notes From the Strike

Hi. I'm new. You'll get used to me, I promise.

I wanted to give you my notes from the strike:

9:17am - Finally here. Seventeen minutes late, but that's ok, justice always waits. Other four protestors outside of Sproul Hall seem happy to see me. They're all students. Where are the workers we're saving? Where is the support?

9:23am - Coffee run. A little depressing as I'm forced to think about the workers in Guatemala who I'm in solidarity with over unfair work practices they're forced to endure while harvesting coffee. It's good coffee, though.

9:27am - One student walks through. We don't heckle. We politely ask, "Aren't you in solidarity with the workers?" She says yes and walks right in. Scab.

9:35am - WORKERS ARRIVE. We thank them for their sacrifice. There are two of them. They look like the salt of the earth.

9:38am - Workers leave. They said they had to "go check on how the strike was going over....there somewhere." Now it's just students, holding the torch of freedom.

9:39am - Vigorous debate ensues over whether or not we should heckle students. Miss the opportunity to heckle several students because we're involved in debate.

9:42am - WE TURNED AWAY THE ELECTRICAL WORKERS. VICTORY! Although, I'm faced with the nagging thought that maybe the electrical workers were going to finally fix Airbears. WHAT HAVE I DONE?

9:50am - Two more students cross the picket line. Scabs. They're both dressed preppy. Figures. We try to emotionally blackmail them into picketing with us instead of addressing the issues. We fail and they cross the line because they are corporate BigLaw scabs, LIKE EVERYONE ELSE IN CLASS TODAY.

10am - My shift is over. What a success this strike has been. I leave my four compatriots and BLOW OFF CLASS FOR THE REST OF THE DAY! (Of course, this is not why some of my fellow students have not shown up for class or for the pickets. They're choosing to show their valid solidarity from their couches UNLIKE PEOPLE IN CLASS).

Strike! (Or, Three Strikes? You're Out)

Update 11/18 (Patrick): Someone has kindly forwarded on an open letter purporting to set forth the reasoning behind the strike — complete with an entire section explaining why this strike is "not ironic." Given the ATL coverage, I have redacted names (if you read that as my attempt to protect the strikers from a future when they realize how silly this is, you are correct) and uploaded a pdf here.

__________________________

Someone in the comments on a thread below (9:44) assures us with regard to today's student/staff/faculty/ground squirrel strike that "these things aren't complicated." But if it is simple, it sure isn't making a hell of a lot of sense to me, or to anyone else with whom I have spoken.

So if you are a student who knows what this business is all about, consider politely addressing and rebutting this email from a fellow liberal, kind, caring, thoughtful classmate:

Ok there needs to be a nuts and boalts post about the strike and how stupid it is.

1. Students are "striking" because they don't want their fees increased while workers are striking because they aren't getting paid. Seems to me that those two groups are each others enemies, not comrades.
2. Students, as consumers of a service, cannot "strike." They could boycott or withdraw, but they can't strike. That would be like me claiming I'm on strike from Best Buy when I don't buy something from there.
3. They are protesting in Berkeley; the decisions are made in Sacramento. Wrong forum.
4. They are protesting at construction sites around campus. Why? Because they want the university to breach contracts and instead pay out for work without having it completed.
5. The state is many billions of dollars in debt. Does no one think that might have something to do with the financial situation surrounding the UC system?

I concede that the compensation for the UC Regents is exorbitant and should be cut. But saving those few tens of thousands of dollars can help save some workers' jobs, not affect the fees for students. I'm constantly frustrated by how cheap Berkeley (undergrad) is for the quality of professor, yet the students here act as if they are being asked for their first born.

Those are good points. Add to that the fact that, as another commentator points out, few people seem to understand exactly who is striking and you can see why this grizzled survivor of countless Berkeley protestors might be tempted to roll his eyes.

Ugh. Pride.

______________________________

Update: Armen points out that this isn't new. At first skim, it looks like one could just apply the entire older post to this topic, part and parcel. People, I love Berkeley, but this isn't why.

"Right" Idea, Wrong Place, Wrong Time, Wrong Price

Calvin Massey at the Faculty Lounge summarizes an NPR story about how peers and supervisors at Walter Reed Medical Center perceived Major Hasan in years, months, and weeks before he massacred 13 American soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas. At least some officials expressed concern that should Hasan be deployed, he might "engage in precisely the murderous behavior he exhibited at Fort Hood."

The reasons nothing was done? There are three, according to NPR:

First, Walter Reed and most medical institutions have a cumbersome and lengthy process for expelling doctors, involving hearings and potential legal battles. As a result, sources say, key decision-makers decided it would be too difficult, if not unfeasible, to put Hasan on probation and possibly expel him from the program.

Second, some of Hasan's supervisors and instructors had told colleagues that they repeatedly bent over backward to support and encourage him, because they didn't have clear evidence that he was unstable, and they worried they might be "discriminating" against Hasan because of his seemingly extremist Islamic beliefs.

Third, the officials involved in deliberations [official meetings about what to do with respect to the "Hasan problem"] this year reportedly were not aware, as some top Walter Reed officials were, that intelligence analysts had been tracking Hasan's e-mails with at least one suspected Islamic extremist since December 2008.

Let's do some analysis here. Number one is neither an excuse nor a justification; all number one means is that officials knew the system required revision. This hardly exonerates their failure to question its results.

Number three is irrelevant under any reasonable conception of how the world works: knowledge that an authority is conducting an investigation should make one less likely to reach a final conclusion, not more. Put another way, absent knowledge that others were examining and perhaps handling the problem, officials at Walter Reed were under a duty to act.

That leaves number two. Loathsome, shameful, guilty number two.

It's Time to Talk About the John Y*o "Prank"

Many of you have probably seen the video of a "prank" an Australian comedy show pulled on Professor Y*o in a Boalt classroom. I'm not going to link it here, but it was on abovethelaw recently, and I'm sure you can google it. Knock yourself out.

Obviously, how you feel about this video is inextricably tied to the way you feel about the whole "academic freedom vs. possible ethical violations and general horribleness of torture" debate that we have waged in the comments ad nauseum. I'm not really interested in talking about that. I want to know how it made you feel as a student or alumnus of Boalt and someone who has encountered Professor Y*o in real life.

When I watched the video, I felt sick. It struck me as a heinous violation of the sanctity of a classroom and a hostile invasion of a place I consider home. It felt more like an attack than a joke. More than that, I felt bad for Y*o. I don't agree with his opinions on executive authority, but all he was trying to do that day was teach. I could sense his shame at being forced to end the course over something that had so little to do with his job at Boalt. It seemed like his sins were being visited upon his students, which strikes me as unfair no matter how terrible the sin. For lack of a more eloquent term, the whole thing just seemed gross.

This video hit the same week as Bruno, which I found pretty hilarious. Sure, it also left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth initially, but I laughed it off with a shrug. I figured those people deserve it! This discrepancy got me thinking about the cost of relevant comedy. I loved Borat and The Ali G Show. I love the correspondent segments on The Daily Show and Stephen Colbert's interviews with congresspeople. Comedy involving real people mixes humor with comeuppance, and it's a potent combination. Laughing feels twice as great when mixed with smug self-righteousness. But Y*o is the first person I've seen in one of these videos who I actually know. This is the first time the comedy has invaded my world, and it completely changed the way I felt. If it had been Dick Cheney on his ranch instead of John Y*o in my school, I would have laughed my ass off.

Is that natural, or am I a hypocrite? Do I need to completely rethink the way I view comedy, or are these Australian guys just not funny? I don't know the answers to these questions, but the video has forced me to consider whether harmless fun ever is, and if not, whether harmful fun can ever be worth it. How'd it make you feel?

UPDATE: Apparently this incident occurred at Chapman, not Boalt. I was wondering why he was teaching in such a small classroom!

UPDATE: News of a new film by the "Yes Men" along similar lines, but with large corporations as the targets. I guess this will be the first test of my newfound skepticism of guerrilla comedy. Then again, it sounds pretty damn funny.

Graduation Protests

It is only fitting, I suppose. But recent reports seem to indicate this year will be like any other. Prepare for more graduation protests.

Religion & Torture Trends

In what is sure to be my most controversial post of the year, I thought it was interesting and ironic that a recent Pew Research poll showed a correlation between religious service attendance and the tendency to support torture against suspected terrorists. White evangelical protestants clocked in at the highest approval rate (62% said torture was "often" or "sometimes" justified), while those not affiliated with a religious institution had a 40% approval rate.

Anyone want to crank out the correlation coefficient on this? I suspect (by eyeballing it), that it's around .3, but I'm about to sit down and crank out a final, so I'll have to drag out my statistics textbook later.

That Empty Berkeley Tradition Strikes Again

From the tread immediately below:

Anonymous said...

On a different note. Can we get a post on the silly petition being circulated re: Yoo's civ pro II class.

Posted by Anonymous to Nuts & Boalts at 4/15/2009 4:18 PM

I don't know about the petition, but if it is a demand to replace Yoo with someone else, I know what I think (comments).

[Update 04/16/09, Patrick: as a commentator notes, it's only a matter of time until this thread pops up elsewhere. So, maybe I should say what I think instead of just assuming I'm such a loudmouth that everyone knows.

What I think is this: we should let the University do its job. No one is using the Torture Memos anymore nor are the Memos part of the curriculum at Boalt, so there is no need to head off an emergency. It's downright disturbing to me that the very same people who are angry at Yoo for bending and breaking the law are also willing to sidestep the University rules in their quest for vengeance. I'd like to sit the petition writers down for a basic Q&A on topics like "explain with precision the legal flaws in the Memos, and cite the Memo that contains them," spell "Abu Ghraib" or "locate Iraq on a map." The results of that session would reveal the petition for what it is: an expression of political animus, heavy on passion but light on principles, and hastily conceived as the Torture Memos themselves.

Finally, this may be petty of me but as a factual matter I'd like to flag a hurried revision to the petition (HT, again, to a commentator). It used to be called the catchy, "Reconsider John Yoo for Civ Pro II." Now it is the much more benign,"More Options for Civ Pro II." The new title gestures toward free choice and expression, but not enough to carry the day: you'd like to see him fired. Fine. I get that. But if you love this country and its laws, may I politely submit that this is a fantastic opportunity to embrace them. Wait for a conviction, and then can him by the book.]

Guest Feature: Commentator Reacts to 3L Survey Questions

3Ls received a survey yesterday with the stated goal of understanding "post-graduate plans and how well [we] think Boalt addressed and influenced [our] career interests/aspirations."

Questions included:

• What motivated you to attend law school?
  
• If you took take advantage of the Edley Grant Program, what did you like about it, and what aspects of the program do you think could be improved?
  
• To what extent did your debt burden influence your post-grad job choice?
  

Guest commenter Laura left a comment in the thread below and has graciously responded to a request by N&B regulars to produce the following post expanding upon her earlier comment.

--------------------------------------------

[From Laura:]

I was excited about the 3L survey email (with justifiable procrastination time written all over it). But as I started filling it out, I found that a couple of the questions just had a “gotcha” quality that rubbed me the wrong way.

Among the offending questions: How do I rank the prestige of various legal jobs? And how do I and others “value” public interest work?

I don’t think you can rank different career options in any sensible manner and I don’t think people can express value for something in the abstract (How much do I value world peace? A lot. But ask me how much I value finding my favorite cereal on sale and you’ll get the same answer).

But I think the more fundamental problem I have with these survey questions is that the term “public interest” – like its even more irksome sister “social justice” – is treated like it has one (super duper earth saving) definition. That’s not really the fault of the survey authors; people at Boalt talk about “public interest” in this generic way all the time.

And I think that’s a problem. Treating “public interest" as an amorphous blob is actually incredibly polarizing. In a black and white public interest vs private sector world, you are either (a) saving the world or (b) being a selfish prick. Or, on the other hand, you are either (a) a lunatic hippie who may one day stage a protest by living in a tree or (b) a rational human being who wants to pay their bills and live in a house. Needless to say, these dichotomies are unfair.

Specific issues resulting from this linguistic set up include:

• Suggesting that people must fall into one camp or the other. In practice, many people may bounce between various legal fields (ie time in the public and private sectors). I worry people are discouraged from thinking like that and fully considering their options, however, because we tend to approach the career question by asking people which camp they fall into (implying that you pick just one).
• Losing sight of government work. Working for the government may technically fall under public interest, but it doesn't get the same granola street cred as some of the other public interest-y options).
• Losing sight of the many options available within the "public interest" and "private sector" categories. I think law school would be an infinitely more valuable experience if professors and others spent more time talking about various career paths and options in specific terms rather than just public/private.
• Losing sight of the fact that “public interest” work does not have an inherent value based on that tagline alone. Depending on the causes you support (and don’t), some of this work will see helpful and effective, other avenues perhaps wasteful or harmful.
  

These are my thoughts, what are yours?