June 2009
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A note on “post only once” in comment threads
When I say "post only once," I mean submit your comment only once, not that you may not submit more than one comment. But since comments are moderated, when you submit the comment it won't appear right away. If you submit more than once, it just clutters up my in-box. But someone who has substantive…
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The Illinois Legislature’s Higher Education Scholarship Boondoggle
A colleague at the University of Illinois writes: An aspect of the admissions ruckus at UI that is not getting nearly enough attention is that each member of the legislature has two 4 year full scholarships to state schools to hand out with no criteria whatsoever (and can even do them in 8 one year…
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Right-Wing Crazies Go Crazy About Sunstein!
Senator Chambliss of Georgia has placed a "hold" on his nomination, and this site gives an indication of what's driving these folks wild. The ironies here are immense: Sunstein is a 'moderate' (by US standards) on a whole host of central economic and regulatory issues, but his relatively 'liberal' positions on animal rights and gay marriage clearly…
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Reader feedback sought
What are you favorite features/topics/subject on the blog? Please vote! This will help me, perhaps, in knowing where to focus my efforts. Thanks.
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DePaul Deanship Fiasco Update–More on Provost Epp’s Heavy-Handed Tactics
(Start here for earlier coverage.) Trouble between former DePaul Law Dean Weissenberger and DePaul Provost Epp goes back to at least January of this year, when Provost Epp gave Weissenberger 24 hours to rescind several offers to faculty, senior and junior, even though the offers had been made in accordance with university procedures. Weissenberger declined,…
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Is “Secular Moral Theory” Really Relatively Young?
It is sometimes said (e.g., by Parfit, by Brink, and others) that "secular moral theory" is a relative new field compared to systematic theorizing in the natural sciences, so it is not surprising that there is more disagreement about ethical matters since we haven't had as much time (or made as much effort) to make systematic…
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The Chicago Tribune Series on Political Muscle and U of Illinois Admissions
The Chicago Tribune has run a series of articles (start here and follow the links) on the use of political clout to get sub-par students admitted to the University of Illinois (including the law school), but appears to have missed the actual story (they are journalists, after all): the University of Illinois is hostage to the public purse for…
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University of North Texas to Open New Public Law School in Dallas
It's now official. SMU has a niche in the Dallas market that will be unaffected by this development, I imagine; the bigger risk is for Texas Wesleyan, which is also private, but not as old or established in the legal community as SMU. Of course, this is on the assumption that UNT will have significantly…
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Sinnott-Armstrong from Dartmouth to Duke
Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, well-known for his work in a variety of areas (epistemology, ethics, moral psychology, among others), and a longtime faculty member at Dartmouth College has accepted a senior offer from the Department of Philosophy at Duke University, where he will start in Spring 2010. Duke has made a substantial investment in value theory over…
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More Unethical Behavior by Elsevier
First this, now this. Elsevier will soon be known as the Bush Administration of academic publishers! (Thanks to Tim O'Keefe for the pointer.)
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Illinois Appellate Judge Warren Wolfson Named Interim Dean at DePaul
The DePaul press release is here. His academic experience is, not surprisingly, very minimal (he has been an adjunct at Chicago-Kent and a trial advocacy instructor at the University of Chicago); he is primarily a practitioner and a jurist and, I'm told, a well-regarded one. But one suspects he doesn't know what he's walked into…
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This is horrible: the murder of philosophy student Neda Soltani in Iran
Many readers have sent me links about the murder of Neda Soltani, an Iranian philosophy student shot dead by the theocracy's stormtroopers doing what all lethal agents of the state do, ending life indiscriminately. Some links here, here, and here. She was attending a protest against the fraudulent elections with her philosophy professor and some fellow students. …
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A new look for the blog
There are still some kinks to be worked out, including the fact that a very old post about Illinois admissions has showed up at the top. Patience please! Thanks.
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Post Named Dean at Yale Law School
Robert C. Post, a constitutional law scholar, who taught for many years at Berkeley before moving to Yale in 2003, has been named the new Dean, effective July 1.
David J. Gunkel «Person, Thing, Robot: A Moral and Legal Ontology for the 21st Century and Beyond» (MIT, 2023) Link:…