legal rhetoric

On this blog and elsewhere (see my 2009 NCA Card Call) I have consistently defended an "absolutist" view of freedom of speech. After this dreadful past week, as Andrew Breitbart and FOXNews trashed Shirley Sharrod's reputation, I'm leaning toward a British interpretation of our libel laws and the Free Press Clause.

I Can't Watch the Hearings Any More

Submitted by Jim Aune on June 29, 2010 - 3:00pm

I wonder who is writing the GOP talking points for the Kagan hearings. If judicial activism=Thurgood Marshall, is that a dog whistle about Brown v. Board as the prime case of judicial activism? And we all know what "Upper West Side" is code for.

CLS v. Martinez

legal rhetoric

Submitted by Jim Aune on June 28, 2010 - 11:13am

The Supreme Court held today (5-4, with Justice Kennedy as the swing vote) that UC-Hastings Law School does not need to recognize the Christian Legal Society as an official student group. CLS is rather ardently anti-gay, and thus ran afoul of Hastings' anti-discrimination policy. Hastings has been very careful to allow CLS to use meetings rooms on campus, but has refused the direct subsidy that official recognition would create--access to official student mailing lists, use of the school logo, etc.

I Heart David Souter

legal rhetoric

Submitted by Jim Aune on June 9, 2010 - 4:58pm

His commencement speech at Harvard. Not a bad speech, for a g-f-c-m. (NB: Erickson was just brought on to CNN to add "balance.")

"Perversion for Profit"

legal rhetoric

Submitted by Jim Aune on June 5, 2010 - 10:33pm

Wow. TCM showed this 1965 documentary last week. I vaguely remember seeing it when I was in junior high school. Seems like the sort of thing a savvy cultural studies scholar should write about. I always have trouble with the unit on pornography when I teach my First Amendment classes. I think I'll assign this, though. (Note how Jewish the "pornographer" looks in the opening section.) Oh, and the Charles Keating who funded it is the one who played a major role in the Savings and Loan scandal.

Judicial Sense-Making

legal rhetoric

Submitted by Jim Aune on May 19, 2010 - 11:58am

My recently-PHD'ed advisee Ryan Malphurs teaches us some important things about oral arguments before the Supremes here.