Affirmative action: Why now and what’s next?

Mark Yudof co-writes for The Chronicle of Higher Education, Aug. 3, 2017

Confronted with the prospect of adversarial proceedings, colleges will spend more time and resources on admissions and less on programs that capitalize on diversity in their student bodies. There will be fewer opportunities to develop and refine small classroom seminars that promote the exchange of ideas, campus activities that build cross-racial understanding, or programs that cultivate leadership skills in a multi­racial society. Yet these are the very initiatives to maximize diversity’s benefits that the court very likely had expected to emerge in a more stable legal climate for affirmative action.

Legal scholars dispute whether monuments are permanent

John Yoo cited by High Country News, Aug. 2, 2017

Yoo and Gaziano offer advice for how Trump should proceed: “We think the courts are more likely to uphold significant reductions if the president could credibly include in his determination that the original designation was inappropriately large relative to the object to be protected or has become so with changed circumstances,” they write in a report.

Local butcher shop hangs animal-rights sign under duress to stop protests

Christopher Kutz quoted by Berkeleyside, Aug. 2, 2017

“Is it extortion? Morally, of course, if you think this is pressure that shouldn’t be brought to bear,” said Christopher Kutz, who specializes in moral, political and legal philosophy. But “it’s not enforceable as criminal extortion,” he said. Extortion also requires a demand of money or property.

Cases against oil giants over climate change ‘credible’

Daniel Farber interviewed by Capital Public Radio, July 31, 2017

Daniel Farber says companies will try to get the cases thrown out for lack of jurisdiction. But if they move forward, it could open up new claims. “If the plaintiffs can just get to the point of discovery, that is the point where they’re entitled to get documents and to interview oil company officials, that is really a huge victory,” Farber said.

What the Trump administration needs to tell its supporters about China

John Yoo quoted by The Washington Post, July 31, 2017

“Hisense is a Chinese manufacturer of television screens, a competitor to Samsung or Sony or Vizio, which you might see at a Costco or a Best Buy,” John Yoo, law professor at the University of California at Berkeley, said on my radio show this month. “The thing is, Hisense is completely owned by a Chinese city, by a subdivision of the Chinese government.”

Trump White house plans to revive privacy board

James Dempsey quoted by US News & World Report, July 26, 2017

“I think the business interests and the civil liberties interests have become almost inextricably intertwined,” says Dempsey. … “The Privacy Shield is a very complicated set of agreements,” he says, “but one of the assurances was that there was a robust oversight system in the U.S. for government access to data, including data on Europeans.”

The question isn’t whether Trump fires Sessions. It’s what happens next.

Erwin Chemerinsky writes for The Sacramento Bee, July 26, 2017

The president clearly has the legal authority to fire Jeff Sessions, or for that matter any member of his Cabinet. But whether Sessions stays or goes is incidental to the much more important question: Will the president fire Mueller? It is Mueller, not Sessions, who is investigating whether Trump and top campaign officials broke the law.