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Constitution Requires Judge to Recuse When Her Campaign Ad Expressly Condemned Law Firm

From Daurbigney v. Liberty Personal Ins. Co. (La. Ct. App. May 9):

The recent race for a seat on the Louisiana Supreme Court between two sitting judges, Judge Marilyn Castle on the trial court and Judge Jimmy Genovese on the appellate court, was especially contentious. Campaign ads in the print and broadcast media funded by special interest groups escalated, costing the respective candidates’ campaigns large sums of money. Such a campaign ad is the focus of the case before us, only the ad was directed by a candidate not against her opponent and not even against the PAC supporting her opponent, but directed against specifically named lawyers who contributed to the PAC.

In the ad at issue, The Committee to Elect Judge Marilyn Castle, designed, authorized and ran an ad that specifically listed named lawyers who concentrate in the area of plaintiff personal injury litigation, claiming that her opponent’s judicial *impartiality had been compromised. The ad specifically named trial lawyers who “unethically” contributed large sums to his campaign, bypassing campaign finance limits on contributions by creating a special PAC to donate large sums to her opponent’s campaign over and above campaign finance limits. PAC contributions, however, are clearly authorized by the Citizens United case and are neither unlawful nor unethical. In fact, public records of campaign financial reports, of which we take judicial notice, show that both campaigns received PAC contributions and/or PACs ran ads on their behalf. The ad in question stated in pertinent part:

“SHOULD PERSONAL INJURY LAWYERS PICK OUR NEXT SUPREME COURT JUSTICE Or should you? Personal Injury Lawyers have contributed over $ 1,000,000 to Jimmy Genovese’s campaign. Then, when ethics laws prevented them from giving more, 18 of the wealthiest of them poured another $ 945,000 into a PAC (Restore Our Coast) created to promote Genovese’s campaign.”

It is significant to note that this particular campaign ad was run prominently in the Daily Advertiser, the Lafayette newspaper in Judge Castle’s “home base,” so to speak, on November 6, 2016, only two days before the election on November 8, 2016. As shown in the exhibit, the ad featured Judge Castle, pictured in color in her judicial robes, smiling and wearing a large cross, while it portrayed her opponent in dark tones, frowning with a sack of money symbol next to the names of the “wealthy” personal injury attorneys accused of trying to “Pick Our Next Supreme Court Justice.”

The law firm of Broussard & David, plaintiff/relator’s counsel, was the only Lafayette law firm specifically listed in the ad, although their contribution to the PAC in question had been made by a company they managed, 557 Jefferson Street, LLC, and not their law firm directly. It is also significant to note that the campaign ad was paid for directly by Judge Castle’s campaign, not a competing PAC. Thus, as the candidate, Judge Castle was personally responsible for the content of the ad.

Under these circumstances, the court said, Judge Castle had to recuse from cases involving Broussard & David:

Using the objective [Due Process Clause] test articulated by the U.S. Supreme Court, the question at issue now is: Does the tone and tenor of the ad, with Judge Castle’s color picture in her judicial robes and cross, and her direct involvement in this campaign ad naming specific plaintiff personal injury attorneys, including Broussard & David, lead the reasonable person to conclude that, “Recusal is required when, objectively speaking, ‘the probability of actual bias on the part of the judge or decisionmaker is too high to be constitutionally tolerable.'” …

The question really is not whether Judge Castle will tilt her ruling against the client because she still may be resentful of Broussard & David’s financial support of her opponent through a PAC. One would like to believe that Judge Castle, who is reputed to be an honest, hardworking and conscientious trial judge, would try to do her best to decide the issues in the Valencia Daurbigney case fairly and impartially. However, under the recent jurisprudential standards on recusals, no “actual bias” need be proven…. As the Supreme Court in Caperton states, “the question is whether, ‘under a realistic appraisal of psychological tendencies and human weakness,’ the interest ‘poses such a risk of actual bias or prejudgment that the practice must be forbidden if the guarantee of due process is to be adequately implemented.'” …

The gravamen of the recusal motion is not that Broussard & David contributed to a PAC supporting Judge Castle’s opponent and the defendant seeks recusal on that basis. Rather, the problem in this case is that the ad in question did not directly attack Judge Castle’s opponent, but instead singled out specific lawyers who concentrate in the area of plaintiff personal injury litigation, including Broussard & David, for allegedly unethically creating a PAC specifically for the purpose of bypassing campaign limits on contributions to a judicial campaign in an “unethical attempt” to “Pick Our Next Supreme Court Justice.” As previously noted, the contributions by PACs are neither illegal nor unethical. The ad in question chills and challenges the legal ability of lawyers or anyone to contribute to judicial campaigns through PACs under the First Amendment, contributions lawful since Citizens United and its progeny were decided….

Public trust and confidence in the judiciary is already suffering. Looking at this case objectively, given the optics, the tone, timing and wording of the ad, it is implausible that this client, or any reasonable client under the circumstances, could have trust and confidence in the impartiality of the trial judge when the sitting trial judge hearing her case has published such an ad directly naming and attacking her attorneys….

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Constitution Requires Judge to Recuse When Her Campaign Ad Expressly Condemned Law Firm

From Daurbigney v. Liberty Personal Ins. Co. (La. Ct. App. May 9):

The recent race for a seat on the Louisiana Supreme Court between two sitting judges, Judge Marilyn Castle on the trial court and Judge Jimmy Genovese on the appellate court, was especially contentious. Campaign ads in the print and broadcast media funded by special interest groups escalated, costing the respective candidates’ campaigns large sums of money. Such a campaign ad is the focus of the case before us, only the ad was directed by a candidate not against her opponent and not even against the PAC supporting her opponent, but directed against specifically named lawyers who contributed to the PAC.

In the ad at issue, The Committee to Elect Judge Marilyn Castle, designed, authorized and ran an ad that specifically listed named lawyers who concentrate in the area of plaintiff personal injury litigation, claiming that her opponent’s judicial *impartiality had been compromised. The ad specifically named trial lawyers who “unethically” contributed large sums to his campaign, bypassing campaign finance limits on contributions by creating a special PAC to donate large sums to her opponent’s campaign over and above campaign finance limits. PAC contributions, however, are clearly authorized by the Citizens United case and are neither unlawful nor unethical. In fact, public records of campaign financial reports, of which we take judicial notice, show that both campaigns received PAC contributions and/or PACs ran ads on their behalf. The ad in question stated in pertinent part:

“SHOULD PERSONAL INJURY LAWYERS PICK OUR NEXT SUPREME COURT JUSTICE Or should you? Personal Injury Lawyers have contributed over $ 1,000,000 to Jimmy Genovese’s campaign. Then, when ethics laws prevented them from giving more, 18 of the wealthiest of them poured another $ 945,000 into a PAC (Restore Our Coast) created to promote Genovese’s campaign.”

It is significant to note that this particular campaign ad was run prominently in the Daily Advertiser, the Lafayette newspaper in Judge Castle’s “home base,” so to speak, on November 6, 2016, only two days before the election on November 8, 2016. As shown in the exhibit, the ad featured Judge Castle, pictured in color in her judicial robes, smiling and wearing a large cross, while it portrayed her opponent in dark tones, frowning with a sack of money symbol next to the names of the “wealthy” personal injury attorneys accused of trying to “Pick Our Next Supreme Court Justice.”

The law firm of Broussard & David, plaintiff/relator’s counsel, was the only Lafayette law firm specifically listed in the ad, although their contribution to the PAC in question had been made by a company they managed, 557 Jefferson Street, LLC, and not their law firm directly. It is also significant to note that the campaign ad was paid for directly by Judge Castle’s campaign, not a competing PAC. Thus, as the candidate, Judge Castle was personally responsible for the content of the ad.

Under these circumstances, the court said, Judge Castle had to recuse from cases involving Broussard & David:

Using the objective [Due Process Clause] test articulated by the U.S. Supreme Court, the question at issue now is: Does the tone and tenor of the ad, with Judge Castle’s color picture in her judicial robes and cross, and her direct involvement in this campaign ad naming specific plaintiff personal injury attorneys, including Broussard & David, lead the reasonable person to conclude that, “Recusal is required when, objectively speaking, ‘the probability of actual bias on the part of the judge or decisionmaker is too high to be constitutionally tolerable.'” …

The question really is not whether Judge Castle will tilt her ruling against the client because she still may be resentful of Broussard & David’s financial support of her opponent through a PAC. One would like to believe that Judge Castle, who is reputed to be an honest, hardworking and conscientious trial judge, would try to do her best to decide the issues in the Valencia Daurbigney case fairly and impartially. However, under the recent jurisprudential standards on recusals, no “actual bias” need be proven…. As the Supreme Court in Caperton states, “the question is whether, ‘under a realistic appraisal of psychological tendencies and human weakness,’ the interest ‘poses such a risk of actual bias or prejudgment that the practice must be forbidden if the guarantee of due process is to be adequately implemented.'” …

The gravamen of the recusal motion is not that Broussard & David contributed to a PAC supporting Judge Castle’s opponent and the defendant seeks recusal on that basis. Rather, the problem in this case is that the ad in question did not directly attack Judge Castle’s opponent, but instead singled out specific lawyers who concentrate in the area of plaintiff personal injury litigation, including Broussard & David, for allegedly unethically creating a PAC specifically for the purpose of bypassing campaign limits on contributions to a judicial campaign in an “unethical attempt” to “Pick Our Next Supreme Court Justice.” As previously noted, the contributions by PACs are neither illegal nor unethical. The ad in question chills and challenges the legal ability of lawyers or anyone to contribute to judicial campaigns through PACs under the First Amendment, contributions lawful since Citizens United and its progeny were decided….

Public trust and confidence in the judiciary is already suffering. Looking at this case objectively, given the optics, the tone, timing and wording of the ad, it is implausible that this client, or any reasonable client under the circumstances, could have trust and confidence in the impartiality of the trial judge when the sitting trial judge hearing her case has published such an ad directly naming and attacking her attorneys….

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Now That I’m Younger, I’m Thinking About Becoming a Father

Before we got married way back in 2000, my wife and I decided we didn’t want children. As a transhumanist, I would sometimes quip, “We’ll have kids when we’re younger.” My nontranshumanist wife usually responded to this witticism with slightly exasperated eye rolling.

Now it’s the 2050s and I’m about to celebrate my 100th birthday. Forty-some years ago, Harvard geneticist George Church predicted that researchers would be able to reverse aging in humans sometime in the early 2020s. That was a bit optimistic, but he wasn’t too far off. As a result, millions of us survived into the modern era, in which rejuvenation researchers have achieved longevity “escape velocity”: Life expectancy now increases by more than one year for every additional year of anti-aging research that’s conducted.

Due to advances in anti-senescence and age reversal treatments, I’m now physically much younger—about age 30—and have the energy and focus to devote to rearing a child.

While my also-younger wife is still disinclined toward motherhood, she has recently agreed that it would be OK if I were to become a father. So I’m exploring the idea of becoming a monoparent. Happily, mid-21st century science makes this possible.

Reproductive technologies have evolved in much the way Stanford University bioethicist Henry Greely outlined back in 2016. In his book The End of Sex and the Future of Human Reproduction, Greely foresaw that most people would use gametes derived from their skin cells to create scores of in vitro-fertilized embryos. He accurately predicted that by the 2050s and ’60s, half of all American babies would be born through “easy pre-implantation genetic diagnosis,” or Easy PGD.

Why are more people choosing Easy PGD in 2050? Because parents can choose among embryos based on a preferred combination of genetic traits. Among other things, you can avoid having children afflicted with debilitating genetic diseases. And because the gametes can be derived from one or two people’s skin cells, you don’t even need a conventional partner! That allows monoparental reproduction but also makes it feasible for same-sex couples to have offspring genetically related to both parents.

Easy PGD is distinct from cloning, in which unchanged cellular nuclei from a single parent are installed in enucleated eggs to produce embryos. Of course, we also have cloning now. The genomes of the parent and the cloned child essentially make them age-separated identical twins.

Call me old-fashioned, but I’m more comfortable with Easy PGD. Gametes created from my skin cells would be much like those created via the natural process of meiosis: Bits of my chromosomes undergo recombination such that when a skin cell is transformed into gametes, the set of chromosomes in each daughter cell contains a mixture of my genetic traits but not necessarily the same mixture as in the other daughter cells. In other words, unlike clones, monoparental children are not genetically identical to their mother or father.

Once my skin-cell gametes are combined to produce embryos, their whole genomes will be sequenced to see exactly what combination of genetic traits they carry. Each one will then be analyzed to generate polygenic risk scores. That process assesses multiple genetic variants that together are used to predict the embryo’s chance of developing a disease, being taller than average, or doing well in school. Reproduction technicians can even feed the embryos’ genome sequences into a phenotype reader that will generate a picture of how each one would likely look at age 18.

It’s at this stage that my reproductionists and I would discuss how to use gene-editing to correct undesirable mutations and enhance the most promising embryos. I already know I carry gene variants that predispose me to conditions such as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, age-related macular degeneration, and substance abuse. Although modern medical treatments keep these problems under control, it would be better if my future daughter, through gene tweaks, could avoid them altogether.

Although much progress has been made, ectogenesis—growing embryos in artificial wombs—is still not possible. Fortunately, gestational surrogacy is widely practiced and well-compensated. The old legal confusions have been resolved, and it is now universally agreed that the genetic parents are legally responsible for the rearing of children born to surrogates.

I have not completely made up my mind to pursue monoparenthood, but there’s no particular hurry. Barring accidents, I’m likely to remain physically young and live many more decades yet.

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Now That I’m Younger, I’m Thinking About Becoming a Father

Before we got married way back in 2000, my wife and I decided we didn’t want children. As a transhumanist, I would sometimes quip, “We’ll have kids when we’re younger.” My nontranshumanist wife usually responded to this witticism with slightly exasperated eye rolling.

Now it’s the 2050s and I’m about to celebrate my 100th birthday. Forty-some years ago, Harvard geneticist George Church predicted that researchers would be able to reverse aging in humans sometime in the early 2020s. That was a bit optimistic, but he wasn’t too far off. As a result, millions of us survived into the modern era, in which rejuvenation researchers have achieved longevity “escape velocity”: Life expectancy now increases by more than one year for every additional year of anti-aging research that’s conducted.

Due to advances in anti-senescence and age reversal treatments, I’m now physically much younger—about age 30—and have the energy and focus to devote to rearing a child.

While my also-younger wife is still disinclined toward motherhood, she has recently agreed that it would be OK if I were to become a father. So I’m exploring the idea of becoming a monoparent. Happily, mid-21st century science makes this possible.

Reproductive technologies have evolved in much the way Stanford University bioethicist Henry Greely outlined back in 2016. In his book The End of Sex and the Future of Human Reproduction, Greely foresaw that most people would use gametes derived from their skin cells to create scores of in vitro-fertilized embryos. He accurately predicted that by the 2050s and ’60s, half of all American babies would be born through “easy pre-implantation genetic diagnosis,” or Easy PGD.

Why are more people choosing Easy PGD in 2050? Because parents can choose among embryos based on a preferred combination of genetic traits. Among other things, you can avoid having children afflicted with debilitating genetic diseases. And because the gametes can be derived from one or two people’s skin cells, you don’t even need a conventional partner! That allows monoparental reproduction but also makes it feasible for same-sex couples to have offspring genetically related to both parents.

Easy PGD is distinct from cloning, in which unchanged cellular nuclei from a single parent are installed in enucleated eggs to produce embryos. Of course, we also have cloning now. The genomes of the parent and the cloned child essentially make them age-separated identical twins.

Call me old-fashioned, but I’m more comfortable with Easy PGD. Gametes created from my skin cells would be much like those created via the natural process of meiosis: Bits of my chromosomes undergo recombination such that when a skin cell is transformed into gametes, the set of chromosomes in each daughter cell contains a mixture of my genetic traits but not necessarily the same mixture as in the other daughter cells. In other words, unlike clones, monoparental children are not genetically identical to their mother or father.

Once my skin-cell gametes are combined to produce embryos, their whole genomes will be sequenced to see exactly what combination of genetic traits they carry. Each one will then be analyzed to generate polygenic risk scores. That process assesses multiple genetic variants that together are used to predict the embryo’s chance of developing a disease, being taller than average, or doing well in school. Reproduction technicians can even feed the embryos’ genome sequences into a phenotype reader that will generate a picture of how each one would likely look at age 18.

It’s at this stage that my reproductionists and I would discuss how to use gene-editing to correct undesirable mutations and enhance the most promising embryos. I already know I carry gene variants that predispose me to conditions such as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, age-related macular degeneration, and substance abuse. Although modern medical treatments keep these problems under control, it would be better if my future daughter, through gene tweaks, could avoid them altogether.

Although much progress has been made, ectogenesis—growing embryos in artificial wombs—is still not possible. Fortunately, gestational surrogacy is widely practiced and well-compensated. The old legal confusions have been resolved, and it is now universally agreed that the genetic parents are legally responsible for the rearing of children born to surrogates.

I have not completely made up my mind to pursue monoparenthood, but there’s no particular hurry. Barring accidents, I’m likely to remain physically young and live many more decades yet.

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On Game of Thrones, Absolute Power Corrupts Daenerys Targaryen Absolutely

Daenerys “Stormborn” Targaryen, First of Her Name, Queen of the Andals and the First Men, Protector of the Seven Kingdoms, Conqueror of Mereen, the Unburnt, Breaker of Chains, Mother of Dragons… and Mass-Murderer of the Innocent.

On tonight’s penultimate episode of Game of Thrones, Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s favorite character stared relatively bloodless victory in the face and spat at it, preferring to burn King’s Landing to the ground. Man or woman, old or young, friend or enemy, innocent or evil—in the end, none of these distinctions mattered to the Dragon Queen.

Daenerys’s turn to the Westerosi equivalent of the Dark Side of the Force was far too rushed: The writers even had the nerve to edit-in a montage of various characters recalling Daeny’s capacity for cruelty during the “previously on” segment. But it wasn’t a complete surprise. Indeed, Daeny has always made good use of the Targaryen motto fire and blood: She burned the Dothraki chieftains, crucified Mereen’s nobility, and executed Westerosi lords who defied her. Despite her high-minded claims—all that breaking-the-wheel-nonsense—Daeny clearly practices a fiery form of collective punishment.

There’s a lesson here, buried somewhere in the rubble of King’s Landing: Power is a corrupting force, and when push comes to shove, well-intentioned leaders equipped with weapons of mass destruction are not so different from the tyrants they seek to topple. Daeny isn’t really an improvement over Cersei: Indeed, the latter’s act of explosive vengeance was surgical and restrained compared to what we just witnessed. Stripped of her power, Cersei was once again portrayed as sympathetic, trying desperately to succeed at the most noble goal: protecting her young. Here too, Thrones seemed to be saying that it was political power that poisoned Cersei. Vulnerable once again, she seemed almost human.

Farewell, Cersei—and Jaime, Sandor Clegane, Euron, Qyburn (RIP: Westeros’s Scientific Revolution), and, of course, Varys. Varys, who met his end trying to stop Daeny’s madness, once warned that Petyr Baelish was dangerous because he would gladly watch the world burn “so long as he could be king of the ashes.” A version of this fear has now come to pass: The ashes, it seems, will have a queen.

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On Game of Thrones, Absolute Power Corrupts Daenerys Targaryen Absolutely

Daenerys “Stormborn” Targaryen, First of Her Name, Queen of the Andals and the First Men, Protector of the Seven Kingdoms, Conqueror of Mereen, the Unburnt, Breaker of Chains, Mother of Dragons… and Mass-Murderer of the Innocent.

On tonight’s penultimate episode of Game of Thrones, Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s favorite character stared relatively bloodless victory in the face and spat at it, preferring to burn King’s Landing to the ground. Man or woman, old or young, friend or enemy, innocent or evil—in the end, none of these distinctions mattered to the Dragon Queen.

Daenerys’s turn to the Westerosi equivalent of the Dark Side of the Force was far too rushed: The writers even had the nerve to edit a montage of various characters recalling Daeny’s capacity for cruelty during the “previously on” segment. But it wasn’t a complete surprise. Indeed, Daeny has always made good use of the Targaryen motto fire and blood: She burned the Dothraki chieftains, crucified Mereen’s nobility, and executed Westerosi lords who defied her. Despite her high-minded claims—all that breaking-the-wheel-nonsense—Daeny clearly practices a fiery form of collective punishment.

There’s a lesson here, buried somewhere in the rubble of King’s Landing: Power is a corrupting force, and when push comes to shove, well-intentioned leaders equipped with weapons of mass destruction are not so different from the tyrants they seek to topple. Daeny isn’t really an improvement over Cersei: Indeed, the latter’s act of explosive vengeance was surgical and restrained compared to what we just witnessed. Stripped of her power, Cersei was once again portrayed as sympathetic, trying desperately to succeed at the most noble goal: protecting her young. Here too, Thrones seemed to be saying that it was political power that poisoned Cersei. Vulnerable once again, she seemed almost human.

Farewell, Cersei—and Jaime, Sandor Clegane, Euron, Qyburn (RIP: Westeros’s Scientific Revolution), and, of course, Varys. Varys, who met his end trying to stop Daeny’s madness, once warned that Petyr Baelish was dangerous because he would gladly watch the world burn “so long as he could be king of the ashes.” A version of this fear has now come to pass: The ashes, it seems, will have a queen.

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Harvard Caves to Student Mob, Fires Ronald Sullivan for Being Harvey Weinstein’s Lawyer

Harvard University’s administration has unilaterally surrendered to a mob of student-activists demanding the termination of Law Professor Ronald Sullivan as faculty dean of Winthrop House, an undergraduate residence, over his “trauma-inducing” decision to join Harvey Weinstein’s legal defense team.

“I am writing to let you know that Ronald Sullivan and Stephanie Robinson will not be continuing as your Faculty Deans when their term ends on June 30, 2019,” Harvard College Dean Rakesh Khurana wrote in an email to Winthrop House students on Saturday.

Robinson is Sullivan’s wife, and co-faculty dean of Winthrop House. They were the first African Americans to serve in this position.

Sullivan, who remains a Harvard law professor, is a man with quite a resume: He advised Sen. Barack Obama on criminal justice issues in 2008, represented the family of Michael Brown in their suit against the city of Ferguson, Missouri, and is responsible for the release of more than 6,000 wrongfully incarcerated people. His clients have included accused murderers and terrorists, consistent with the liberal principle that everyone accused of a crime deserves expert legal representation.

But in the wake of Sullivan’s decision to serve as legal counsel for Weinstein, Harvard student-activists have embraced a different view. Danu Mudannayake, one the students leading the campaign to remove Sullivan, described the professor’s representation of Weinstein as “not only upsetting, but deeply trauma-inducing” and evidence that he “does not value the safety of students he lives with in Winthrop House.” According to Mudannayake and her fellow radicals, Sullivan has made Harvard an unsafe and hostile educational environment.

These are absurd accusations, and Khurana foolishly gave credence to them when he agreed to investigate Sullivan a few weeks ago. This was bad enough, but the results of that investigation are worse: Sullivan and Robinson are out.

“This is a regrettable situation and a very hard decision to make,” wrote Khurana in his mealy-mouthed statement.

Their sudden firings evidently shocked Sullivan and Robinson.

“We are surprised and dismayed by the action Harvard announced today,” they said in a statement. “We believed the discussions we were having with high-level university representatives were progressing in a positive manner, but Harvard unilaterally ended those talks.”

Mudannayake was also caught by surprise, though the news has delighted her.

“My honest reaction is just completely gobsmacked, but in the best way,” she told The New York Times. “I’m very proud today of our college and our college’s administration for finally choosing to do the right thing.” She described the atmosphere as “celebratory.”

This is a disaster. The administration has endorsed the ridiculous notion that serving as legal counsel for a person accused of sexual misconduct is itself a form of sexual misconduct, or at the very least contributes to sexual harassment on campus. It is no exaggeration to say that Khurana has undermined one of the most important principles of modern, enlightened justice. He should be ashamed of himself.

By caving to the mob, Harvard has shown student-activists that it takes seriously their demands for a kind of broadly-defined safety that includes protection from ideas they don’t like. This outcome will undoubtedly embolden them.

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Harvard Caves to Student Mob, Fires Ronald Sullivan for Being Harvey Weinstein’s Lawyer

Harvard University’s administration has unilaterally surrendered to a mob of student-activists demanding the termination of Law Professor Ronald Sullivan as faculty dean of Winthrop House, an undergraduate residence, over his “trauma-inducing” decision to join Harvey Weinstein’s legal defense team.

“I am writing to let you know that Ronald Sullivan and Stephanie Robinson will not be continuing as your Faculty Deans when their term ends on June 30, 2019,” Harvard College Dean Rakesh Khurana wrote in an email to Winthrop House students on Saturday.

Robinson is Sullivan’s wife, and co-faculty dean of Winthrop House. They were the first African Americans to serve in this position.

Sullivan, who remains a Harvard law professor, is a man with quite a resume: He advised Sen. Barack Obama on criminal justice issues in 2008, represented the family of Michael Brown in their suit against the city of Ferguson, Missouri, and is responsible for the release of more than 6,000 wrongfully incarcerated people. His clients have included accused murderers and terrorists, consistent with the liberal principle that everyone accused of a crime deserves expert legal representation.

But in the wake of Sullivan’s decision to serve as legal counsel for Weinstein, Harvard student-activists have embraced a different view. Danu Mudannayake, one the students leading the campaign to remove Sullivan, described the professor’s representation of Weinstein as “not only upsetting, but deeply trauma-inducing” and evidence that he “does not value the safety of students he lives with in Winthrop House.” According to Mudannayake and her fellow radicals, Sullivan has made Harvard an unsafe and hostile educational environment.

These are absurd accusations, and Khurana foolishly gave credence to them when he agreed to investigate Sullivan a few weeks ago. This was bad enough, but the results of that investigation are worse: Sullivan and Robinson are out.

“This is a regrettable situation and a very hard decision to make,” wrote Khurana in his mealy-mouthed statement.

Their sudden firings evidently shocked Sullivan and Robinson.

“We are surprised and dismayed by the action Harvard announced today,” they said in a statement. “We believed the discussions we were having with high-level university representatives were progressing in a positive manner, but Harvard unilaterally ended those talks.”

Mudannayake was also caught by surprise, though the news has delighted her.

“My honest reaction is just completely gobsmacked, but in the best way,” she told The New York Times. “I’m very proud today of our college and our college’s administration for finally choosing to do the right thing.” She described the atmosphere as “celebratory.”

This is a disaster. The administration has endorsed the ridiculous notion that serving as legal counsel for a person accused of sexual misconduct is itself a form of sexual misconduct, or at the very least contributes to sexual harassment on campus. It is no exaggeration to say that Khurana has undermined one of the most important principles of modern, enlightened justice. He should be ashamed of himself.

By caving to the mob, Harvard has shown student-activists that it takes seriously their demands for a kind of broadly-defined safety that includes protection from ideas they don’t like. This outcome will undoubtedly embolden them.

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“William Barr vs. Eric Holder: A Tale of Two Attorneys General”

I haven’t followed the Barr subpoena controversy closely (and I didn’t follow the Holder controversy, back in the day), but I trust Prof. McConnell’s judgment a great deal, so I thought I’d pass along his National Review Online article:

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has declared it a “constitutional crisis” that Attorney General William Barr refuses to divulge the small parts of the Mueller report that contain grand-jury material. By a straight party-line vote, the House Judiciary Committee voted to hold Barr in contempt of Congress.

What did Pelosi think when Barr’s predecessor, Eric Holder, refused to divulge documents to a congressional committee and was held in contempt? “Ridiculous!” she said. What did Holder and Obama say? That the House subpoena was a violation of “separation of powers.” …

What is the legal or constitutional difference between Holder’s refusal to provide documents and Barr’s?

Here is the background of the Holder contempt. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE), a unit of Holder’s Department of Justice (DOJ), conducted an operation called “Fast & Furious,” intended to track illegal gun sales. In fact it put hundreds of weapons in the hands of Mexican criminal gangs, leading to the death of an American officer. On February 4, 2011, after news of the operation emerged, Holder’s assistant attorney general sent a letter to Congress declaring that the Obama administration had no knowledge of the operation. This letter was false, as Holder later admitted….

On June 19, 2012, President Obama invoked executive privilege, and on the same day, the House committee voted to hold Attorney General Holder in contempt of Congress. The committee vote was 23–17. The full House voted Holder in contempt by a lopsided vote of 255–67, with 17 Democrats voting for the contempt and many more staying home to avoid having to cast a vote.

How does this compare with the Barr contempt? Under regulations written by the Clinton administration, the special prosecutor is instructed to submit a “confidential” report to the attorney general at the end of an investigation. It is entirely the prerogative of the attorney general to decide whether to release any of the report to the public or to Congress. In his discretion, Attorney General Barr decided to release the Mueller report in its entirety, but for two categories of redactions, which were made in conjunction with the Mueller team.

One set of redactions protected innocent third parties, “peripheral to the investigation,” whose privacy would be compromised. Barr offered to let members of Congress see a version of the report without these redactions. Five Republicans have accepted the offer, but no Democrats.

The second set of redactions, amounting to an estimated 1.5 percent of the report, applied to grand-jury materials….

That’s just an excerpt—read the whole thing.

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“William Barr vs. Eric Holder: A Tale of Two Attorneys General”

I haven’t followed the Barr subpoena controversy closely (and I didn’t follow the Holder controversy, back in the day), but I trust Prof. McConnell’s judgment a great deal, so I thought I’d pass along his National Review Online article:

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has declared it a “constitutional crisis” that Attorney General William Barr refuses to divulge the small parts of the Mueller report that contain grand-jury material. By a straight party-line vote, the House Judiciary Committee voted to hold Barr in contempt of Congress.

What did Pelosi think when Barr’s predecessor, Eric Holder, refused to divulge documents to a congressional committee and was held in contempt? “Ridiculous!” she said. What did Holder and Obama say? That the House subpoena was a violation of “separation of powers.” …

What is the legal or constitutional difference between Holder’s refusal to provide documents and Barr’s?

Here is the background of the Holder contempt. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE), a unit of Holder’s Department of Justice (DOJ), conducted an operation called “Fast & Furious,” intended to track illegal gun sales. In fact it put hundreds of weapons in the hands of Mexican criminal gangs, leading to the death of an American officer. On February 4, 2011, after news of the operation emerged, Holder’s assistant attorney general sent a letter to Congress declaring that the Obama administration had no knowledge of the operation. This letter was false, as Holder later admitted….

On June 19, 2012, President Obama invoked executive privilege, and on the same day, the House committee voted to hold Attorney General Holder in contempt of Congress. The committee vote was 23–17. The full House voted Holder in contempt by a lopsided vote of 255–67, with 17 Democrats voting for the contempt and many more staying home to avoid having to cast a vote.

How does this compare with the Barr contempt? Under regulations written by the Clinton administration, the special prosecutor is instructed to submit a “confidential” report to the attorney general at the end of an investigation. It is entirely the prerogative of the attorney general to decide whether to release any of the report to the public or to Congress. In his discretion, Attorney General Barr decided to release the Mueller report in its entirety, but for two categories of redactions, which were made in conjunction with the Mueller team.

One set of redactions protected innocent third parties, “peripheral to the investigation,” whose privacy would be compromised. Barr offered to let members of Congress see a version of the report without these redactions. Five Republicans have accepted the offer, but no Democrats.

The second set of redactions, amounting to an estimated 1.5 percent of the report, applied to grand-jury materials….

That’s just an excerpt—read the whole thing.

from Latest – Reason.com http://bit.ly/2LMSEkO
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