The draft report by Secretary of State Pompeo’s Commission on Unalienable Rights has the Kremlin dancing a collective Barynya of glee. The current US administration and President Putin already share the parochial view that rights are derived from and informed by God rather than a person’s inherent dignity. This fact alone should concern anyone committed [...]
This essay reflects on a Sunday spent in Montgomery, Alabama, when a city and a state honored Rep. John Lewis. Here also is a pdf version for anyone that might like to have a copy of this material for personal or educational use. In Montgomery last Sunday, many of those who attended the memorials for [...]
The three-year journey has ended. Clearing one more hurdle, you would join your chosen profession. But as you approached the hurdle, becoming a lawyer resembled joining a craft guild. Bar admission committees seemed intent on elevating custom over common sense. The infamous bar exam became a pandemic year proxy for antiquated legal industry rituals. What [...]
In Trump v. Mazars, the Supreme Court appeared to reject President Trump’s claim to an executive privilege protecting him from a subpoena seeking private financial information under United States v. Nixon, in keeping with its holding in Clinton v. Jones that no special privilege protects the President from private lawsuits. When executive privilege applies, the [...]
“The masses have followed the magicians again and again…Socrates and Plato were the first to take up the struggle against them in clear awareness of what was at stake.” – Karl Jaspers, Reason and Anti-Reason in our Time (1952) On absolutely all matters of existential survival, individual or collective, candor is indispensable. In connection with [...]
When President George H.W. Bush signed the historic Americans with Disabilities Act 30 years ago, he proudly declared, “Let the shameful wall of exclusion finally come tumbling down.” In a recent decision, the Supreme Court tossed another brick on the wall. The ADA was enacted to level the playing field for people with disabilities and [...]
Here we go again. Some men looking all virile in camo and wearing masks or in black outfits it seems are grabbing people off the street and hauling them into vans. In Portland and in Columbus, Ohio. And these camo men are apparently on their way to Chicago. Everyone is tight-lipped about who these people [...]
This essay describes a walk not taken with my students. Here is a pdf version for anyone that might like to have a copy of this material for personal or educational use. The purpose of the walk was to show one thing: a big monument cannot fix a small person or a bad idea. This [...]
I learned with sadness, but not surprise, that Rep. John Lewis lost his battle with pancreatic cancer yesterday. Congressman John Lewis lived courage. Courage takes the path less traveled. Others will write the details. I want to share with you one perspective. John Lewis was savagely beaten—his skull fractured—on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, [...]
One of the most devastating parts of the proposed regulations overhauling asylum law issued on June 15 is a new rule allowing immigration judges to deny asylum applications without an evidentiary hearing. The regulation states that the judge can “pretermit” legally insufficient applications, meaning deny them without even giving the asylum seeker a chance to [...]
