Tag: news

[1.] Late last month, Campus Reform (Michelle Weston) reported:

An Instagram post from the University of California, Irvine Law Admissions page sparked outrage because it spotlighted the Federalist Society, a campus organization that is “a group for people of all ideological backgrounds,” as stated in the post description. Comments under the post include students saying that the timing of the spotlight was “extremely tone-deaf” and “ill-timed” due to claims that the Federalist Society “stands with the establishment and the oppression of the marginalized.”

Commenters referred to the Federalist Society as “racist, sexist, white lawyering,” and “anti-Black, anti-LGBTQ, and fascist.”

The Federalist Society national organization describes itself as “a group of conservatives and libertarians interested in the current state of the legal order,” that “is founded on the principles that the state exists to preserve freedom, that the separation of governmental powers is central to our Constitution, and that it is emphatically the province and duty of the judiciary to say what the law is, not what it should be.”

After receiving online backlash, UCI Law Admissions issued an apology the following day in another Instagram post for “the timing of the post” and addressed concerns that the comments had been disabled at some point after its posting.

“In our desire to continue to highlight different student organizations each week, we highlighted UCI’s Federalist Society,” read the post. “We do not edit a student group’s self-description. We apologize both for the timing of the post and for disabling comments. We appreciate the members of our community who reached out to us, and welcome conversations with any student or groups of students. You spoke, we will continue to listen, and we will take affirmative steps to evaluate how best to manage this account, keeping your concerns in mind.”

Chapter leaders of the Federalist Society later received a letter from the Student Bar Association, offering an explanation for public condemnation of the post. The SBA wanted to ensure members that they did not mean to make the group “feel divided from our student body” or “to indicate that the Federalist Society should not have been featured on the UCI Law Admissions page” but that they only wanted to “call attention to the fact that admissions handled the timing of the post, and subsequent feedback, poorly.”

The SBA shared that it had “received ample comments from students who support you as an organization and feel that their voices have been minimized.”

This struck me as a bad sign about things at UC Irvine. A law school’s job is to train future lawyers. Lawyers need to be able to understand and respond to a wide range of opinions, and to do that they need to be exposed to those opinions, and participate in debating about those opinions thoughtfully and substantively. That is especially so when those opinions are mainstream views that are held by at least a substantial minority of people, and indeed sometimes by local or national majorities. Even when students are certain of their own views, and want to be advocates for what they see as righteous causes, how can they be good advocates if they’ve never had to squarely confront the views that are held by many judges, jurors, legislators, regulators, and voters?

Given the left-wing ideological skew of most top law schools, especially in California—and there is such a skew, whether you think it’s right or wrong—Federalist Society chapters are tremendously important to providing this sort of rich debate. Apologizing for including the Federalist Society’s mission statement and noting the Society’s presence on campus sends completely the wrong message, not just to Federalist Society members but to other students as well. And of course the explanation that it just has to do with “the timing of the post” doesn’t change matters: If the school is reacting to people’s claims that the Federalist Society is “racist, sexist, … and fascist,” then what, in the school’s view, would be the right “timing” to promote such a group?

I don’t think there’s any First Amendment violation here: I don’t think the school has an obligation to promote student groups on the school’s own Instagram account, and students are of course free to express their own views about other student groups. I just think it’s bad legal education.

[2.] This having been said, I was glad to hear that this week the law school’s dean (Song Richardson) spoke out about this (at an online Town Hall meeting Tuesday). She didn’t respond specifically to the admissions office’s apology, which is too bad in my view; but she wrote me to say,

Thank you for reaching out.  I was planning to reach out to you earlier, but didn’t want to do so until I had a student town hall, which just occurred.

My colleagues and I treated this as a teachable moment about the importance of maintaining an environment where we can have respectful debate on important and controversial subjects, and not ideological conformity.

I also made it clear to the students that I welcome the federalist society and that we must have a culture where its members feel free to express themselves and feel a part of our community as much as the members of any other student organization. I also stressed the importance of learning to listen to ideas that they disagree with and learning to persuade others who hold opinions and beliefs that are different from their own. This is an essential skill for lawyers to have, and fundamental to our liberty and democracy.

And a UCI Federalist Society member who listened in to the Town Hall had a similar account:

[H]ere is an update on the town hall Dean Richardson conducted moments ago. She disabled the public chat so she could give a statement uninterrupted, then concluded the meeting.

She gave an excellent statement about the situation on campus, condemning the “silencing,” “bullying,” “shaming,” and other “unprofessional behaviors” toward faculty and fellow students. She said, “Candidly, some of you have not lived up to UCI’s values.”

She spoke about the need for “dignity, courtesy, and respect” generally, and she brought up several “unprofessional” moments recently both related to the Federalist Society and other controversial situations at UCI Law. She said that “if you want the freedom to express your ideas but you seek to silence others’ views, that is the definition of hypocrisy.” She doubled down later, saying, “If you live your values only when it’s convenient, only when it’s easy, or only when it benefits you, then your commitment to those values is not real…. It is nothing more than shallow window dressing.”

Specifically addressing the reaction to the Federalist Society, she condemned the “bullying,” “shaming,” and “name-calling,” both on social media and in the town hall, committed “against students who have done nothing more than join a student organization.” She clarified that she made a deliberate choice to listen and not respond during her previous town hall so as to allow students to express their frustration and “let it out.” She said she was disappointed by the unprofessionalism exhibited by some students. She cautioned not to take her deliberate choice to listen and not respond as evidence that she condones the “unprofessional comments,” because, she said, “I do not.” She stated plainly, “I hope the Federalist Society continues to exist at UCI Law.”

She made no specific references to accusations of white supremacy or the like, but she generally reaffirmed the school’s commitment to and appreciation of opposing viewpoints, adding that bad ideas should be combated with debate and respectful dialogue, not shaming, silencing, or “wishing them away.” She encouraged us to treat each other with dignity, courtesy, and respect while also not avoiding hard conversations.

How all this will play out in the months and years to come is anybody’s guess. But I thought I’d pass along the details of the law school’s actions, both the bad and the good.

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A passenger is suing American Airlines after flight attendants accused her of kidnapping a 1-year-old child in her care. The California woman, Shannon Murphy—a black social worker with the Riverside County’s Children’s Services Division—was bringing a white male child to Arkansas for a court-ordered visit with the kid’s biological father.

On Murphy’s flight back to California, an American Airlines flight attendant approached her to say that another passenger had accused her of abducting the child she was traveling with, according to a lawsuit Murphy filed against the company in Los Angeles County’s Superior Court on June 18. Specifically, the person alleged that the blonde-haired toddler Murphy was traveling with was a five-year-old, black-haired Hispanic child who had gone missing from New York City.

According to the lawsuit, the airline staff made no attempt to corroborate, fact-check, or analyze the credibility of this claim before approaching Murphy. Nor would they check her identification, the child’s birth certificate, or a court order from Los Angeles explaining the circumstances. Rather, a flight attendant “explicitly demanded and implicitly threaten[ed]…that if she did not come with her physical force would be used to make [Murphy] comply,” the suit says. “The one year old Caucasian male dependent was then physically taken” from Murphy and they were detained for “approximately an hour” before being allowed to re-board the held plane.

The suit alleges that they were detained “unlawfully and without probable cause” and that “the acts and actions of [American Airlines] and its agents and security personnel were intentional, willful and maliciously done to injure and oppress Plaintiff and her court appointed ward,” causing Murphy “physical and emotional injury.” It accuses American Airlines of false imprisonment, negligence, and violating Murphy’s civil rights.

Sadly, this far from the first time airline staff have mistaken a multi-racial group of travelers for something sordid and criminal. (See here, here, or here for a few examples.) It is not unusual for interracial couples or parents of adopted or biracial children being questioned and detained at airports over spurious accusations of abduction and “human trafficking.”

This comes alongside state and federal training mandates that tell flight attendants and airport staff that people frequently use commercial flights to traffic women and children for sex (despite no documented evidence of any such thing) and that only vigilant bystanders can thwart these throngs of brazen evildoers.

With the help of Homeland Security and nonprofit groups like the McCain Institute—whose board chair, Cindy McCain, bragged about pointlessly calling the cops on a woman at the airport who was “a different ethnicity” than her child—and Airline Ambassadors International, airline and airport employees are taught to spot a litany of vague and dubious indicators, under the recycled War on Terror mantra of “see something, say something.”

Essentially, the feds are using apocryphal human-trafficking horror stories to encourage people to serve as nervous citizen-spies acting on their biased suspicions.

Obviously, individual employees and corporate policies deserve part of the blame here. (American Airlines is also facing a lawsuit from two black male passengers over alleged racial bias and another from a woman who says a flight attendant assaulted her.) But their actions aren’t happening in a vacuum. They’re happening in the context of a decades-long campaign to conflate sex work and sex trafficking, and a moral panic over the false idea that forced prostitution, especially of children, is widespread.

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From Al Saud v. New York & Presbyterian Hosp., decided by Judge Nancy M. Bannon on June 22 but just posted on Westlaw (2020 WL 3977907):

[T]he petitioner, Talal Bin Sultan Bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud, who is now 35 years old, alleges that he is the son of Sultan bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud (the decedent), who was Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia when he died in October 2011 at the New York Presbyterian hospital (NYPH). The decedent underwent surgery at NYPH, during which his tissue and blood samples were preserved pursuant to the business practices of NYPH. NYPH is the only source known to the petitioner having readily available tissue samples of the decedent. The petitioner seeks to test the tissue samples from NYPH in a U.S.-based DNA test to be used as evidence in a paternity action in Lebanon.

By the order dated June 15, 2018, the court denied the petition because no paternity proceeding had yet been commenced and no other action was pending in another jurisdiction and, as such, the petitioner failed to properly submit proof of his entitlement to pre-action disclosure pursuant to CPLR 3102(e). The petitioner appealed. Meanwhile, the petitioner also moved to renew and reargue, after he filed a filiation action in Lebanon. In support of that motion, the petitioner submitted proof and new evidence including two photographs of the petitioner and the decedent purporting to show a resemblance between the two, an affirmation of the petitioner’s mother, Hanaa Faek El Mghayzel, detailing her relationship with the decedent and averring that the petitioner was his son, and three affirmations from Lebanese attorneys averring, inter alia, that DNA evidence is acceptable proof in cases of lineage confirmation in Lebanese court….

And then it all goes downhill:

This court, in its July 15, 2019 order, granted the petitioner’s motion to renew and … granted the petition to the extent of ordering … production of the blood and/or tissue samples held by the respondent to an accredited testing laboratory, and for such laboratory to conduct a genetic marker testing to determine the petitioner’s paternity, subject to adequate confidentiality protections….

On August 7, 2019 the Lebanese action was dismissed on the jurisdictional ground that neither the petitioner, his mother, nor the decedent were Lebanese nationals. The petitioner appealed that determination in the Lebanese action to the Court of Appeal of Mount Lebanon ….

On August 19, 2019 the respondent filed the instant motion seeking leave to renew and reargue the court’s July 15, 2019 order, and dismissal of the petition or, alternatively, a stay of the court-ordered disclosure. The respondent argues that the Lebanese court’s dismissal of the filiation action means that there is no pending foreign proceeding, thereby vitiating any grounds for relief under CPLR 3102(e)….

The respondent does not dispute that the dismissal of the filiation proceeding is not final until the appeal is decided and that new evidence may be considered on appeal. Instead, it argues: 1) jurisdictional issues will prevent the Court of Appeal from reaching the merits of the filiation claim, 2) the petitioner has not explained how he would be able to submit the results of any genetic testing prior to the Court of Appeal hearing, and 3) there was no actual order or subpoena issued by the foreign court requiring production of the tissue samples.

Although the petitioner does not discuss how he intends to overcome the jurisdictional hurdles that led to the initial dismissal of the Lebanese proceeding, or how he intends to present the results of the genetic testing he seeks, this court cannot not speculate or opine on the likelihood of success of the petitioner’s appeal in the Lebanese courts. Nor would any such opinion be germane to the underlying issue here of whether there is currently an action pending within the meaning of CPLR 3102(e)…. [A]s an action is considered pending from its inception until the issuance of a final judgment, there has been no final judgment in the Lebanese action until there is proof submitted to this court in admissible form that the Lebanese action is finally determined and no longer pending….

Nor does the court find merit in the branch of respondent’s motion seeking, in the alternative, a stay of the petition pursuant to CPLR 2201 pending the disposition of the appeal in Lebanon…. “[I]t is only where the decision in one action will determine all the questions in the other action, and the judgment on one trial will dispose of the controversy in both actions that a case for a stay is presented… What is required is complete identity of parties, causes of action and judgment sought.” Here, no such identity exists. The respondent merely seeks a stay of the petition in the hopes that dismissal of the Lebanese action on jurisdictional grounds will moot the petition. Despite the respondent’s posture, even were the Lebanese action dismissed on jurisdictional grounds, the relief sought in the petition would not be moot, as the petition could still be granted under CPLR 3102(c).

In that regard, the court notes that on February 26, 2020 and March 6, 2020, the court received letters from counsel for the respondent purporting to attach a decision disposing of the appeal on jurisdictional grounds. According to the purported translation of the decision and unsworn letter from its counsel, on February 26, 2020, the Court of Appeal of Mount Lebanon denied the petitioner’s appeal entirely on jurisdictional grounds stating:

“Whereas regarding the current case, it appears there are no correlating elements pointing to the jurisdiction of the Lebanese courts, the relevant parties in the present case being all non-Lebanese, the subject of the case having no relation with Lebanon and not being associated to any interests existing in Lebanon, which means that the correlating elements to the jurisdiction of the Lebanese courts are totally inexistent in this case, since it relates to Saudi personal data of a person declaring he is a Saudi national and that his father is a Saudi national and his mother of the Syrian nationality, which means that the jurisdiction in this respect, is ipso jure interrelated to the Saudi courts.”

 

The respondent also attaches to his letter an affidavit from Alexandre Sakr, a senior partner of the ElKhoury Law Firm and professor of civil procedure and legal terminology at the Saint Joseph University Law School in Beirut. In his affidavit Sakr avers that following the Court of Appeals in Lebanon dismissing the petitioner’s filiation case, the judgment is final and enforceable, but is subject to a recourse proceeding before the Court of Cassation in Lebanon, which would review the legal basis for the determination of the Court of Appeals in Lebanon, and were it to quash the challenged judgment, would have the authority to examine the merits of the case and consider additional evidence that may be submitted.

However, a letter from the respondent’s counsel does not constitute a basis to deny the petition upon the granting of the renewal as it violates the court’s rules against both the submission of letters to the court in further support of motions and against supplemental submissions concerning motions without court approval. Thus, the respondent has not satisfied its burden to dissuade the court from adhering to its prior ruling granting the relief sought in the petition.

Additionally, ignoring these defects in the respondent’s unauthorized submission, the petitioner’s counsel submits its own letter in response stating that the petitioner intends to appeal the decision to the Lebanese Court of Cassation, within 60 days of the notice of judgment if the Court of Cassation permits it to do so. The petitioner’s letter further corroborates the Sakr affidavit inasmuch as it notes that the Court of Cassation likewise has the authority to consider evidence not submitted to the lower court in the same fashion as the prior Lebanese appeals court. Although the petitioner’s letter is also an impermissible submission, it further supports the granting of his petition. As discussed above, even if the decision of the lower courts in Lebanon are on appeal, it appears to this court that they are still pending within the meaning of CPLR 3102(e).

 

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