A spectre is haunting the American legal profession – the spectre of diploma privilege. Facing the psychological and physical trauma of COVID-19, and buoyed by growing calls for diversity and equity in the wake of centuries of racial and social injustice blithely and sometimes viciously perpetuated by lawyers in positions of power, a new generation [...]
Multiple jurisdictions have made the decision to switch to remote bar exams in October, in lieu of in-person exams in July and September. This is a laudable interim decision because it eliminates for so many the primary concern with this year’s bar exam cycle: exposure to COVID-19. For countless examinees, the stress of their own [...]
The diploma privilege movement is beginning to pick up steam around the country as the risks become clear and the harm to graduates comes home to roost. The movement has eloquent and intelligent defenses popping up all across the country. I won’t pretend that I can offer a better defense than some of the tightly [...]
I know. You are thinking what on earth is this guy talking about and why is he not buried in preparation for the bar. Well, the former will be explained shortly, and in regard to the latter…it is my lunch break. When I first moved to Lexington for undergrad, I had yet to receive my [...]
“Are we not human that we have been left to die like this?” This was implored by one of the estimated 3 million sex workers in India whose existence is consistently disdained by the government. Historically, social inequality has been an indisputable part of sex workers’ lives. In India, the prohibitionist approach of criminalizing sex work [...]
On Friday, June 26, 2020, the Supreme Court of the United States decided a Suspension Clause challenge to expedited immigration proceedings. In the widely anticipated judgment, the Court determined that no habeas could be brought as the original habeas petitioner was not in fact asking for the habeas relief of release. In so many words, [...]
No less than Columbus’ namesake founded U.S. legal education. Christopher Columbus Langdell devised the “case method”—the formalistic “science” of “discovering” law from appellate court opinions through the process of “legal reasoning.” As dean of Harvard Law School in the late nineteenth century, Langdell institutionalized the case method during the eras of Reconstruction, Redemption, and Jim [...]
With a view to ensure that classes are not scheduled online, this week, the Trump administration is considering a policy targeting nonimmigrant F-1 and M-1 students. The policy position is that students on these visas attending schools that operate entirely online may not take a full online course load and remain in the United States. [...]
“The enemy is the unphilosophical spirit which knows nothing and wants to know nothing of truth.” – Karl Jaspers, Reason and Anti-Reason in our Time (1952) Even in this grievously faltering United States, presidential elections are praised as essential evidence of a law-based democracy. This ritualized practice continues although “We the People” are suffering at [...]
US President Donald Trump on Monday, June 22, suspended new applications for a number of foreign worker visas until the end of 2020 with the “Proclamation Suspending Entry of Aliens Who Present a Risk to the US Labor Market Following the Coronavirus Outbreak.” This includes the H-1B limited-term work visa sought by tens of thousands of [...]
