Harvard – Overlawyered

Higher education roundup

Walter Olson — Mon, 21 Oct 2019 10:01:13 +0000

Federal judge upholds Harvard’s admissions policy against charges of discrimination against Asian Americans, appeal likely [Anemona Hartocollis, New York Times; Roger Clegg/Martin Center; Neal McCluskey, Hechinger Report (“private institutions should be free to have affirmative action, but it should be prohibited at public institutions”); Ilya Shapiro, WSJ last year]
In Florida, following an initiative from Gov. Ron DeSantis, state universities expected to adopt versions of “Chicago Statement” committing to freedom of expression [Mary Zoeller, FIRE]
Under antitrust pressure from the U.S. Department of Justice, college association drops guidelines discouraging “poaching” students and other competition for enrollment. Could mean big changes in admissions process [Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed]
In case you missed this angle in the astounding Bruce Hay story earlier: Hay “has already run afoul of [Harvard] investigators for reaching out to journalists (namely me), which they view as an act of retaliation” under Title IX [Kera Bolonik]
“The Galling Push for a Student Debt Bailout” [Cato Daily Podcast with Christian Barnard and Caleb Brown] If more of the same is what you want, you’re in luck with the House majority’s new College Affordability Act [Neal McCluskey, Cato]
The story of Oberlin College’s town-gown legal debacle in the Gibson case [Abraham Socher, Commentary] Return of the loyalty oath, cont’d: update on University of California requirement that all faculty candidates “submit an equity, diversity and inclusion statement as part of their application” [Nora McNulty, Daily Bruin; Stephen Bainbridge; earlier] Professor at the New School exonerated after quoting James Baldwin [FIRE] Students at University of Tennessee, Knoxville, have a lot of sensitivity training in their futures. Coming to 4-H too? [Hans Bader]

Tags: antitrust, California, colleges and universities, Florida, Harvard, racial preferences, retaliation, Tennessee

Higher education roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Four Harvard lawprofs who stood on principle

Walter Olson — Sun, 11 Aug 2019 16:01:46 +0000

Worth a close reading: Wesley Yang profiles four feminist Harvard Law School professors (Jeannie Suk Gersen, Elizabeth Bartholet, Nancy Gertner, Janet Halley) who have taken a strong stand in favor of due process in Title IX proceedings, in the face of the sorts of pressures you can imagine. [Chronicle of Higher Education; earlier here (letter with 28 signers), here and here (Suk), here (Bartholet), here (Halley), and here]

It’s a long overdue profile in the national press for these four brilliant women, and let’s hope the first of many. Their courage and principle should stand as an inspiration and challenge to others in academic life.

Tags: Harvard, Title IX

Four Harvard lawprofs who stood on principle is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

June 5 roundup

Walter Olson — Wed, 05 Jun 2019 09:55:06 +0000

Why New York City can’t build new infrastructure at reasonable cost (“Every factor you look at is flawed the way the MTA does business, from the first step to the end.”) [Josh Barro]
“‘He’s finally getting his due.’ Serial ADA filer faces charges as store owners rejoice” [Sam Stanton, Sacramento Bee on tax charges against Scott Johnson, whose doings are often chronicled in this space] Flashback: vintage Sacramento billiards parlor Jointed Cue closes after being named in one of Johnson’s 1,000+ accessibility suits [Kellen Browning, Sacramento Bee last year]
“Four-Year Court Battle Between Deaf Advocates and Harvard Over Closed Captioning of Videos Proceeds to Discovery With Some Limitations” [Kristina M. Launey & Minh N. Vu, Seyfarth Shaw; earlier on takedown of Berkeley online courses]
More on copyright battle between state of Georgia and Carl Malamud over whether he can publish online the laws of Georgia with annotations commissioned and approved by the state under agreement with private publishers [Adam Liptak, New York Times; earlier]
Reviewing the harms of rent control: a view from Seattle [Kevin Schofield, SCC Insight]
California Voting Rights Act (CVRA) “imposes liability on cities that elect their representatives through an at-large system and have racially polarized voting.” Generous attorneys’ fee provisions have encouraged assembly-line filing of complaints [Federalist Society forum with J. Michael Connolly; Mark Plummer, LAist; Carolyn Schuk, Silicon Valley Voice (Sunnyvale); Robert Haugh, Santa Clara News Online]

Tags: California, disabled rights, election law, Harvard, landlord tenant law, NYC, Seattle, transit

June 5 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Higher education roundup

Walter Olson — Fri, 24 May 2019 10:01:23 +0000

Harvard lawprof Ronald Sullivan Jr. driven from post as faculty dean of a residential house at the university after student protests of his representation of Harvey Weinstein [Jeannie Suk Gersen, New Yorker; Dianna Bell, WBUR; and for a different perspective Tyler Cowen] Stuart Taylor, Jr. has some questions about Harvard’s investigation, on charges of sexual misconduct, of noted economist Roland G. Fryer Jr. [Real Clear Investigations] 30 protesters rush the stage, ending Harvard President Lawrence Bacow’s speech: “The heckler’s veto has no place” [Robby Soave, Reason]
Rules mandating gender quotas in hiring committees at French universities may have backfired, as “committees affected by the quota were significantly less likely to hire women” [Chris Woolston, Nature]
Maryland lawmaker proposes collective bargaining for student athletes [Bruce DePuyt, Maryland Matters]
“…and suggested that Plaintiff obtain an expensive genetic test to see if she could qualify as Native American or American Indian to garner better chances of being accepted to” the professional school [John S. Rosenberg, Minding the Campus] Families of wealth and standing have special reason to dislike standardized testing. But they’re quite good at dressing up their resentments as progressive [Daniel Friedman, Quillette]
“Does Yale Law School’s Antidiscrimination Policy on Subsidies for Student Employment Discriminate on the Basis of Religion? [Ilya Somin, who concludes that it doesn’t]
This year, as every year, checking the line-up of commencement speakers provides a handy way to size up the Forces of Unanimity on the American campus [Keith Whittington]

Tags: colleges and universities, Harvard, racial preferences, sex discrimination, sports, Yale

Higher education roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Harvard sued over slave daguerreotypes

Walter Olson — Sat, 23 Mar 2019 15:58:55 +0000

Meritless lawsuits should not be welcome in our legal system: a woman who says she is descended from a slave photographed on the 1850 orders of scientist Louis Agassiz is suing Harvard for recovery of the early photo and for unspecified damages. [Joey Garrison, USA Today]

Tags: Harvard, photography, reparations, statutes of limitations

Harvard sued over slave daguerreotypes is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Higher education roundup

Walter Olson — Mon, 18 Mar 2019 09:58:36 +0000

Oops! “Tulane sophomore unknowingly named as plaintiff in lawsuit over college bribery scandal” [John Simerman, New Orleans Advocate] “Admissions scandal class action is ‘fascinating’ but likely doomed – experts” [Alison Frankel, Reuters] Plus advice from Ken at Popehat;
Some problems with the idea of a sweeping presidential order to decree free speech on campus — and a promising if more modest step the White House could take instead [Donald Downs, Cato] Two more views on how universities can “fend off outside intervention and, more importantly, be true to their own mission… [by] nurturing a better free speech culture” [Keith Whittington, parts one and two; John McGinnis]
“‘If racial preference [in college admissions] is unjust, then it doesn’t magically become just because people notice some other injustice that has different beneficiaries,’ Olson said. ‘Two things can be unjust at the same time, and two injustices do not add up to one justice.'” [John Blake, CNN, quoting me on the argument that the admissions scandal somehow proves preference advocates’ case]
Harvard lawprof and residential dean Ronald Sullivan under fire for defending unpopular figures facing MeToo charges
[Randall Kennedy, Chronicle of Higher Education; Conor Friedersdorf (quoting HLS prof Janet Halley: “Finally, the ‘climate survey’ technique is a dangerous precedent as a matter of employment rights and as a threat to academic freedom. It’s a thinly veiled version of the heckler’s veto.”)]
The Snuggle is real: very long list of demands by Sarah Lawrence students occupying campus building includes consistent access to detergent and fabric softener [Sarah Lawrence Phoenix; Pamela Paresky, Psychology Today] Rather more seriously, the students demand the college reconsider the tenure status of a professor who published a mildly conservative op-ed in the NYT [Colleen Flaherty, Inside Higher Ed]
Even if occasionally subverted by dishonest actors, standardized tests remain the gold standard among transparent, objective ways to improve the accuracy of college success prediction [Jenna A. Robinson, Martin Center]

Tags: class actions, colleges and universities, Harvard, racial preferences, scandals

Higher education roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Campus speech roundup

Walter Olson — Mon, 31 Dec 2018 11:01:47 +0000

Fourth Circuit: Title IX may oblige universities to take action against outside social media sites whose content is said to create hostile environment. By blocking student access to them? [Samantha Harris, FIRE, Eugene Volokh, Robby Soave on University of Mary Washington ruling]
Return of the loyalty oath? Some senior academics speak out against required faculty diversity statements and pledges, at the University of California [Stephen Bainbridge, Nick Wolfinger, John McGinnis, Law and Liberty] and Harvard [Colleen Flaherty, Inside Higher Ed, Jeffrey Flier, Times Higher Education]
Speech codes and “The Coddling of the American Mind”: Greg Lukianoff and Adam Goldstein guestblog at Volokh Conspiracy [series: first, second, third, fourth, fifth]
“OCR’s use of overly broad anti-Semitism definition threatens student and faculty speech” [Zach Greenberg, FIRE] University of Washington lecturer publishes article on sex differences in pursuit of computer careers, it’s cited as gender harassment as part of successful push for training and curriculum review [Stuart Reges, Quillette] Update on “Fourth floor, ladies’ lingerie” joke episode [Katherine Mangan, Chronicle of Higher Education, earlier]
Bias response teams are benign-sounding way to police speech [Dan E. Way, Martin Center] Prescribed first-year programs do much to bend the assumptions surrounding what can be safely said [John Tierney, City Journal] Artists’ intent was to challenge Confederate imagery, but some students were offended, so down it went [Inside Higher Ed: Scott Jaschik and Emily Chamlee-Wright and Sarah Skwire]
Speech First, recently formed nonprofit group, sues University of Texas over speech policies [Phil Prazan, KXAN, Washington Examiner: Lauren Cooley and Grant Addison]

Tags: art and artists, colleges and universities, diversity oaths, free speech, Harvard, hostile environment, Title IX

Campus speech roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Harvard’s magical way of applying thumbs to scales

Walter Olson — Sat, 27 Oct 2018 15:56:56 +0000

This sentence deserves an award: “Harvard has testified that race, when considered in admissions, can only help, not hurt, a student’s chances of getting in.” [Anemona Hartocollis, New York Times, via Ramesh Ponnuru, National Review]

Tags: Harvard, racial preferences

Harvard’s magical way of applying thumbs to scales is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Campus climate roundup

Walter Olson — Mon, 10 Sep 2018 10:06:54 +0000

In separate incidents, public universities (Rutgers and the University of New Mexico, respectively) discipline a professor and a med student over vulgar and inflammatory political postings on their personal Facebook pages. First Amendment trouble [FIRE on Rutgers case; Eugene Volokh: Rutgers, UNM cases]
Defend someone who’s facing Title IX charges, and you just might yourself find yourself facing Title IX charges too along with the withholding of your degree [ABA Journal on Yogesh Patil case; Drew Musto, Cornell Sun (19 Cornell law profs write to president to criticize withholding of Ph.D.); Scott Greenfield]
Social justice bureaucracy within University of Texas might be bigger than some whole universities [Mark Pulliam] “Ohio State employs 88 diversity-related staffers at a cost of $7.3M annually” [Derek Draplin, The College Fix]
“Male, pale and stale university professors are to be given ‘reverse mentors’ to teach them about unconscious bias, under a new [U.K.] Government funded scheme” [Camilla Turner, Telegraph]
“Wow, this is truly astounding. A *published* paper [on gender differences in trait variability] was deleted and an imposter paper of same length and page numbers substituted to appease a mob.” [Theodore P. Hill, Quillette, as summarized by Alex Tabarrok] Reception of James Damore episode on campus: “[T]hose of us working in tech have been trying to figure out what we can and cannot say on the subject of diversity. You might imagine that a university would be more open to discussing his ideas, but my experience suggests otherwise.” [Stuart Reges, Quillette]
Speak not of oaths: Cal Poly San Luis Obispo is latest public institution to require diversity statements of all faculty, staff applicants [Rita Loffredo, The College Fix] Harvard students “will be required to complete a Title IX training module to enroll in fall 2018 classes” [Jamie D. Halper, Harvard Crimson]

Tags: colleges and universities, diversity oaths, Harvard, Ohio, political correctness, science and scientists, Texas, Title IX

Campus climate roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Labor and employment roundup

Walter Olson — Fri, 27 Apr 2018 10:02:56 +0000

“Three Bad Arguments for Government Paid Leave” [Vanessa Brown Calder, Cato]
So much wrong with Bernie Sanders scheme of a guaranteed government job for everyone [Ryan Bourne, Cato] “This old socialist standby deserves to stay exactly where we left it — on the ash heap of history.” [Megan McArdle]
NYC legislates “dues checkoff” payable to activist groups [Ruth McCambridge, Nonprofit Quarterly]
“Ralph Lauren interns get next to nothing after winning lawsuit” [Julia Marsh, New York Post]
Uh-oh: Ford Foundation funding Harvard Law School project to redesign U.S. labor law from ground up [Benjamin Sachs, On Labor]
The federal law that forbids employers from ceasing to participate in union (multiemployer) pension plans unless they pay massive “withdrawal liability” including obligations of other employers is unjust and destructive. Now it’s playing havoc with the makers of Peeps confections [Damien Paletta, Washington Post/Lehigh Valley Live, related earlier]

Tags: Ford Foundation, Harvard, labor unions, NYC, workplace

Labor and employment roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system