California questions corporations’ religious rights

Kristin Luker and Jesse Choper quoted in San Francisco Chronicle, November 10, 2013

Access to contraception is also part of “the politics of marriage,” said Kristin Luker…. An employer’s refusal to allow birth-control coverage for female employees amounts to “a symbolic statement (promoting) the idea that women should properly be at home with their families, that motherhood is the most important job for women,” Luker said.

What’s more, said Jesse Choper, a constitutional law professor at Berkeley and a former Supreme Court clerk, the court ruled in 1990 that the government can enforce a neutrally drafted, generally applicable law “even though it interferes with religious beliefs”—in that case, an American Indian’s belief in the ritual use of peyote.

Advertisers scared as Internet giants look to cut cookies out of their diets

Christopher Hoofnagle interviewed by Marketplace, November 8, 2013

“What’s happening is the privacy risk is changing from 100s of trackers to just a handful of them,” Hoofnagle said. The word is that tech giants just might start tracking our devices. Hoofnagle says right now, consumers can set their browsers to block cookies. But if your device is being tracked? “People will not be able to block collection,” he said. “So you have to trust that they’ll use it responsibly.”

Are public banks something we should consider?

Prasad Krishnamurthy writes for Los Angeles Daily Journal, November 7, 2013 (registration required)

The recent financial crisis and its aftermath have led some observers to ask whether we would be better off with a mix of public and private banks. Advocates of public banking have taken this issue a step further and are calling for state governments to establish their own banks.

The breaking of bodies and minds: task force report confirms complicity of US

Alexa Koenig writes for The Huffington Post, November 7, 2013

My research into detainee experiences confirms the task force’s finding that the Department of Defense and CIA improperly demanded that U.S. military and intelligence health professionals collaborate in intelligence gathering and security practices in a way that inflicted severe harm on detainees at Guantánamo and other U.S. military detention facilities.

Disgraced ex-journo fights for Calif. law license

Carol Langford quoted in Associated Press, November 6, 2013

Carol Langford, who teaches legal ethics at the University of California, Berkeley law school, says the State Bar lawyers who oppose Glass’ application make a strong case. “He would be in a far better place if he was more active in his rehabilitation,” Langford said. “He should have donated all proceeds from his book deal to setting up a journalism ethics class, for instance.”

A room of one’s own

Mary Ann Mason quoted in Inside Higher Education, November 5, 2013

“Colleges and universities do not provide much support for pregnant graduate students,” she says. “Of the 62 members of the Association of American Universities (the top research institutions in the country), only 23 percent guarantee a minimum of six weeks’ paid leave for working postdocs, and only 13 percent promised the same to employed graduate students compared to 58 percent for women faculty. Many universities have no maternity policy at all for graduate students and postdocs who are teaching or working in laboratories.”

In decades-long prison litigation, Brown’s defiant stance raises eyebrows

Barry Krisberg quoted in Daily Journal, November 4, 2013 (registration required)

But instead of pursuing repeated legal challenges, said Barry Krisberg, a senior fellow at UC Berkeley School of Law who studies prison issues, the state could have focused its efforts on complying with the court order. That strategy could have made for a quicker resolution and saved taxpayer money, Krisberg explained.