Faculty in the News: April 1-15, 2017
Columbia Law School Clip Report, April 1-15, 2017
Radio New Zealand—April 1, 2017
Professor Carol Sanger, About Abortion
Her most recent work is About Abortion: Terminating Pregnancy in the 21st Century, and looks at the regulation of abortion, the regulation of maternal conduct, surrogacy, and what the connection is between these laws and current US culture, including new laws the force women wanting abortions to have ultrasounds, which Sanger calls "exploiting the emotional power of fetal imagery."
The Des Moines Register—April 3, 2017
How Iowa has recalled landmark same-sex marriage ruling
Suzanne Goldberg, director, Center for Gender and Sexuality Law at Columbia University Law School: My sense is that the targeting and ouster of judges who ruled in favor of marriage equality was a serious, and perhaps embarrassing, loss for Iowa. Outside the state, the recall effort reinforced marriage equality advocates' commitment to justice, even knowing that justice sometimes comes at a high cost.
Los Angeles Times—April 3, 2017
'Not So Silver Screen' panel will explore erasure of black women in entertainment
Panelists included actresses Carroll ("Dynasty"), Tonya Pinkins ("All My Children") and Lisa Gay Hamilton ("The Practice"), casting director Twinkie Byrd, culture critic April Reign (who started the "OscarsSoWhite" campaign last year), professor Kristen Warner of the University of Alabama, with Kimberle Crenshaw, a law professor at Columbia University and UCLA, serving as moderator. The Times caught up with Crenshaw to discuss the gains made by black actresses and creators in recent years and the work left to do to make the silver screen a more inclusive place for black women.
Concurring Opinions—April 2, 2017
The Abortion Closet, by DAVID POZEN
An enormous amount of information and insight is packed into Carol Sanger’s About Abortion: Terminating Pregnancy in Twenty-First Century America. The book is anchored in post-1973 American case law. Yet it repeatedly incorporates examples and ideas from popular culture, prior historical periods, moral philosophy, feminist theory, medicine, literature and the visual arts, and more.
The Washington Times—April 5, 2017
A CHEER FOR THE THINKERS
Receiving a Bradley Prize: Peter Berkowitz, a political scientist at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution; Christopher DeMuth, a Hudson Institute fellow; Philip Hamburger, a Columbia Law School professor; and Walter E. Williams, an economics professor at George Mason University.
Huffington Post—April 5, 2017
Everyone Says Neil Gorsuch Would Be ‘Just Like Scalia,’ And For Women, That’s The Problem
By Nan Aron, Prof. Kimberlé Crenshaw, Kierra Johnson, and Tracy Sturdivant
In Judge Neil M. Gorsuch, President Trump has chosen a Supreme Court successor who’s such a close replica of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, some analysts call him Scalia 2.0. On the campaign trail, candidate Trump said that ideally, his first Court nominee “would be Scalia reincarnated,” and he didn’t miss his mark.
Pacific Island Report—April 5, 2017
U.S. Human Rights Group Calls on Canadian Miner To Condemn Violent Evictions Of PNG Villagers
The company has denied any involvement but Columbia Law School Human Rights Clinic Director Sarah Knuckey said it must go further.
"The company Barrick Gold must immediately make a statement condemning the violent evictions and especially the practice of burning down homes and the alleged assaults. And then it should suspend its support for the police units involved," said Sarah Knuckey.
New York Law Journal—April 5, 2017
Shkreli and Ex-Counsel Seek Separate Trial Paths
Columbia Law School professor John Coffee, an expert in white-collar crime and securities regulation who is not retained by any of parties in the case, said granting severance of the two defendants is "desperately" needed in Greebel's case, as Shkreli "could take down a boatload of co-defendants with him when his ship sinks."
Ms. Blog—April 5, 2017
What Neil Gorsuch’s Confirmation Could Mean for Women
“The interpretive approach that Judge Gorsuch brings has very often resulted in individuals losing discrimination claims and claims for access to reproductive health care and other protections,” said Suzanne B. Goldberg, a professor at Columbia Law School. “What we can say from a broad view of Judge Gorsuch’s opinions is that he takes a consistently narrow view of the law’s protections for civil rights and other issues of great importance to women,” she added.
U.S. News—April 6, 2017
Kill the Filibuster, Kill Trust in the Court
By Jamal Greene
Try, if you can, to put Neil Gorsuch out of your mind. Forget about what happened to Merrick Garland, or Miguel Estrada, or Robert Bork. Forget who started it or which political party you think needs a backbone or a spanking.
Fox Business News—April 6, 2017
Gorsuch Supreme Court Nuclear Showdown: Financial Cases Hang in Balance
The issue at stake: “Can you be held liable for an omission when there was no prior faulty statement that had to be corrected?” John, head of Columbia Law School's Center for Corporate Governance, told FOX Business. Coffee bets on a 4-4 split along ideological lines based on the current composition of the Court.
Religion Dispatches—April 6, 2017
Is Religion the Only Tool Left for Legal Discrimination?
That stunning decision is an outlier among current case law, and is likely to be overturned on appeal, says Elizabeth Platt, director of Columbia University School of Law’s Public Rights/Private Conscience Project. Similarly, she points out, a sweeping Mississippi “religious freedom” law that protected certain beliefs about appropriate sexual activity, legal marriage, and gender identity, has been smacked down in federal court, and was handed a full injunction one day before the law was set to take effect.
The Guardian—April 7, 2017
Are Donald Trump's missile strikes in Syria legal?
Matthew Waxman, a law professor at Columbia University and former national security official in the George W Bush administration also said that the causal relationship between Assad’s strikes, Trump’s retaliatory strikes, and threats to American forces “is a pretty stretched one”.
Jezebel—April 7, 2017
Who Gets to Own 'Black Girl Magic'?
“A trademark isn’t a patent or a copyright. You don’t acquire trademark rights simply by inventing a word or a phrase or a design,” Jane Ginsburg, an author and professor of literary and artistic property law at Columbia Law School, explained to me. “You have to use it or intend to use it in connection with some kind of business.
Newsweek—April 7, 2017
Was the attack on Assad’s airbase legal?
By Philip Bobbitt
In the abiding novel, Gilead, a departing grandfather leaves a note: It begins,
No good has come, no evil is ended.
That is your peace.
It could have been a note left by the departing U.S. president in 2017 about his policy in Syria. Now the U.S. has been compelled to redeem the promises of that administration in the face of new chemical attacks that violate the assurances given the U.S. in 2013.
Newsweek—April 7, 2017
UNDER TRUMP, U.S. IS NO LONGER A CHAMPION OF HUMAN RIGHTS
For those keeping score, the list of things the Trump administration has done in its first few months in office to threaten human rights at home and abroad is a long one. Check out Columbia Law School’s Trump Human Rights tracker for more.
Las Vegas Review Journal—April 8, 2017
For gambling advocates, Raiders’ relocation offers opportunity
“The question is whether the presence of a franchise in a place where gambling has been legal makes it more likely there will be match fixing,” said Jennifer Rodgers, a Columbia University law professor who teaches a class on corruption in sports and serves as the executive director of the university’s Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity.“That, I think, has been the NFL’s reason for staying away — they didn’t want to be associated with that, and they didn’t want to open their players up for contamination.”
Radio New Zealand—April 8, 2017
Your attention - the capture and sale
Columbia University professor Tim Wu charts the history of how our time and attention has been harvested and sold in his book The Attention Merchants.
Richmond Times-Dispatch—April 9, 2017
Chesterfield creates new hub for revitalization of neighborhoods, and residents' responses vary
Columbia Law School professor Bernard Harcourt also has criticized the broken-window theory for advancing “zero-tolerance” policies that discriminated against disadvantaged communities.
New Jersey Law Journal—April 10, 2017
EDITORIAL
Externs Can Make a Difference
Although the majority opinion is interesting for its analysis, the case is also noteworthy because of the work of two Columbia Law School students—one of whom will begin work as a public defender in New Jersey—analyzing the results of requests for certificates of appealability, and other matters in the Fifth and Eleventh Circuits between 2011 and 2015. Their externship project showed that requests were denied in the Fifth Circuit 60 percent of the time; the neighboring Eleventh Circuit denied such requests 6 percent of the time. As a check, it was learned that the Fourth Circuit granted all such capital sentencing requests.
The New York Times-—April 10, 2017
A Polarized Supreme Court, Growing More So
Not only would Justice Kennedy have been ousted from his central role, but Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. would have been thrust into the ideological minority. That would have put the Roberts court’s least popular precedent in immediate peril, said Jamal Greene, a law professor at Columbia. “The biggest substantive change would probably have been in the area of campaign finance,” he said. “Citizens United would almost immediately have been on the chopping block with a liberal majority.”
Mother Jones—April 10, 2017
These Are the States Fighting to Save the Earth
That said, pushing the federal government for increased climate mitigation efforts is one more way states can make a difference under the Trump administration, according to Michael Burger, executive director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School. "Litigation will play an essential role during the Trump administration, both in holding the line against federal deregulation and in pushing the federal and state governments to take action," Burger said in an email.
SCOTUS Blog—April 10, 2017
Argument Preview: Rules for timely filing of securities class actions before the court next week
By Ronald Mann
California Public Employees’ Retirement System v. ANZ Securities presents such a basic question about class actions that it is astonishing the answer is not already settled: If a plaintiff files a class-action complaint that includes your claims, does that count as your complaint for purposes of filing your action in time? Or do you have to file your own complaint before the deadline for filing expires?
Washington Times—April 10, 2017
Falling Down on the Legislative Job
According to distinguished professor of law and expert on the administrative state Philip Hamburger and other legal scholars, Congress had no constitutional authority for such delegation.
WKCR.com—April 11,2017
Was United’s PR Disaster Caused by a Mega Merger?
Now, the hashtag "United forcibly removes passenger from plane" is the most popular topic on China's equivalent of Twitter. Public relations experts have expressed shock at United's response to the disaster. One person who may not be shocked is Columbia law professor Tim Wu, who wrote about United's customer service problems back in 2014 for the New Yorker.
Rewire—April 13, 2017
'About Abortion' Unpacks Shame Narrative to End Silence, Stigma
In About Abortion, Carol Sanger examines post-Roe laws and court cases that have had implications for abortion restrictions directly or indirectly to make her case that normalizing abortion could end this compulsory silence.
WBUR—April 13, 2017
Cognoscenti: Thinking That Matters
By Carol Sanger
Secrecy Isn't The Same As Privacy: Why Some Women Don't Talk About Their Abortions
Not talking about abortion, writes Carol Sanger, distorts the public debate, which influences the legislative process.
The Brian Lehrer Show | WNYC—April 13, 2017
Abortion in the 21st Century with Carol Sanger
In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed in Roe v. Wade that a woman’s right to an abortion is protected by the 14th Amendment. Carol Sanger, professor of law at Columbia Law School and author of About Abortion: Terminating Pregnancy in Twenty-First-Century America (Harvard University Press, 2017), explores why the issue of abortion still remains a hotly contested political and moral issue.
ScotusBlog—April 14, 2017
Scotus Map: March and April 2017
On April 13, Justice Stephen Breyer gave the keynote address at the 43rd Annual Wolfgang Friedmann Conference at Columbia Law School. Breyer talked about his latest book, “The Court and the World.”
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