Mr. President: Next debate, make moral choice clear

Jennifer Granholm writes for The Huffington Post, October 8, 2012

With respect, Mr. President, when you walk on stage in the next debate I would like to hear you say that the choice is not just about whose tax plan you like or who has the better health care strategy. It’s much more fundamental than that. This is a choice about our national character.

The patent, used as a sword

Jason Schultz quoted in The New York Times, October 7, 2012

Law school faculty at the University of California, Berkeley, have proposed a “Defensive Patent License” in which companies would contribute patents to a common pool that shielded participants from litigious aggressors. Companies would be allowed to participate as long as they did not become first-strike plaintiffs. The benefit is that “you don’t have to worry about your patent being weaponized” and used to attack competitors, said Jason M. Schultz, an assistant professor who helped design the license.

Elizabeth Warren, Scott Brown and the myth of race

Ian Haney-Lopez quoted in TIME, October 5, 2012

“There are no genetic characteristics possessed by all blacks but not by non-blacks,” wrote University of California at Berkeley law professor Ian Haney Lopez in the landmark 1993 essay The Social Construction of Race. Lopez concludes: “Race is a social construction.”

Immigrant advocates blast Brown vetoes in Calif.

Aarti Kohli quoted in Associated Press, October 2, 2012

“It is disappointing that Jerry Brown doesn’t want to be the anti-Jan Brewer,” said Aarti Kohli, senior fellow at the Warren Institute on Law and Social Policy at University of California, Berkeley School of Law. “The advocates feel very betrayed. They feel like the immigrant and particularly the Latino community have been behind the governor … and that he hasn’t really shown a deep understanding of these really serious issues.”

More debate questions we’d ask

Jennifer Granholm writes for POLITICO, October 1, 2012

Inspired by my Current TV colleague Eliot Spitzer’s four debate questions in a column for Slate, here are 10 additional questions for both candidates…Bonus questions for Romney: 1) If you had $50 to last for an entire week, which would you buy: a) groceries; b) gasoline so you could get to work; c) prescriptions for your child’s illness?

UC Online strives to compete in an era of free courses

Christopher Edley quoted in The Chronicle of Higher Education, October 1, 2012

The “terrible shape” of the economy combined with potential donors’ perceptions of the UC system made securing the money difficult, Mr. Edley said in an interview. “Many donors felt that with the size of the UC, we should be able to finance these investments internally,” he said. “They apparently weren’t sensitive to the serious effects of state budget cuts.”

Prison reforms’ results mixed after year

Barry Krisberg quoted in San Francisco Chronicle, September 30, 2012

UC Berkeley criminal justice expert Barry Krisberg said county probation departments are “probably doing as good or better” of a job supervising offenders than did the state. “The first myth is that we had an effective parole system before—we didn’t,” said Krisberg. “Remember Jaycee Duggard, the woman held hostage for 20 years” by a state parolee?

Mexican Mitt

Ian Haney-Lopez writes for Salon.com, September 29, 2012

Would a hypothetical Mitt Romero have an easier chance of being elected president than a Mitt Romney? The real Romney seemed to suggest that the answer would be yes. This claim came to light with the video that parted the curtain on Romney’s speech to high-end donors at a fundraiser in Boca Raton, Fla. While most focused on Romney’s disparaging comments about 47 percent of the country, in another part Romney lamented that he lacks Mexican heritage.