April 2017
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Kipnis on the undergraduate student’s case against Ludlow
A philosopher at a university with some experience firing tenured faculty sent me a useful summary of Kipnis's account of the initial case against Ludlow, the one that resulted in his being driven from the classroom by the mob: [T]he undergraduate who complained about Ludlow, "Eunice Cho," filed a lawsuit against him, and Kipnis quotes…
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Cultural revolution, Middlebury edition
But is the apology enough? Perhaps he should wear a hair shirt?
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How sustainable is elite law firms’ competitive advantage? (Michael Simkovic)
Elisabeth de Fontenay at Duke argues that elite law firms' expertise in sophisticated corporate transactions is self-sustaining and resistant to competition. This is in part because firms with that do the lions share of negotiation and drafting for specific kinds of transactions create, manage and retain private information about the current market for terms.
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9 questions for Martha Nussbaum
This is a fun read.
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Judge Gorsuch’s first corpse
No doubt more to follow.
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Great moments in obscure rock ‘n’ roll: Love, “You Set the Scene,” 1967
Love emerged from the Southern California folk-rock scene in the mid-1960s, though never achieved the fame of others in that milieu, such as the Byrds or Buffalo Springfield. This song comes from their splendid 1967 album Forever Changes:
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Bruce “country club” Rauner’s campaign to destroy public higher education in Illinois
He's doing a terrific job.
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The latest on the CEU’s battle for survival in Hungary
Philosopher Katalin Balog writes: Not much has changed in the situation concerning CEU. The anti-CEU law has passed and is in place. After some early signs that it is considering compromise, and in spite of near continuous street demonstrations, the government is back to issuing crazy statements about CEU (and Soros, who, according to them…
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Most important Western philosophers of all time?
MOVING TO FRONT ONE MORE TIME–ALMOST 700 VOTES NOW, PLEASE VOTE IF YOU HAVEN'T–THESE POLL RESULTS TEND TO BE OF SUBSTANTIAL INTEREST FOR YEARS AFTER THE FACT We haven't done one of these polls in nearly a decade, so here goes: 87 choices (you don't have to rank them all, and you can choose "no opinion"…
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Will the U.S. Supreme Court put an end to the partisan gerrymander?
This is a really, really, really important case. My law school colleague Nicholas Stephanopoulos is responsible for the theory that prevailed in the lower courts; if he succeeds at the super-legislature, this would be, as Dopey Donald Chump would say, "huge."
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Judge rejects Whittier faculty’s request for TRO on closure of law school
We'll see what comes next.
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Islamic terrorists for LePen
They cast their vote, early.
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U.S., China, North Korea
This is informative (as is the whole site).
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Silicon Valley’s flirtation with philosophy
This is curious, and clearly proof that these folks have money to burn! (The government should really confiscate more of it, and use it to meet human needs.) Embedded in the article is the bizarre claim that philosophy is the 89th most popular major, which presumably is based on counting majors at schools that don't…
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Funding of public higher education in 2016
Two-thirds of states saw increases in funding, one-third saw a decline, and Illinois was an outlier (massive decline) due to our noxious Governor Bruce "country club" Rauner.
I only just learned of Barry’s passing, and I’m enormously saddened at the news. I wrote my PhD on his…