Richard W. Painter
-
Academic freedom abolished at Penn
IF YOU ARE COMING HERE VIA THE DISHONEST RICHARD PAINTER, SCROLL DOWN TO THE 6/12/2025 UPDATE. The University of Pennsylvania has sanctioned Amy Wax for her offensive extramural speech, even though it is clearly protected under the applicable AAUP standards governing extramural speech (earlier coverage). (The sanction does not involve revocation of tenure, but rather…
-
Richard Painter’s racism problem
(Apologies to readers bored with this saga, but I know many others find this train wreck fascinating–in any case, I haven't remarked on his displays in over six months.) One of the mysteries of Twitter's most unhinged law professor is why he feels the need to falsely accuse others of racism so often. He did…
-
“Operant conditioning” via Twitter (or “Twitter poisoning”)
I thought this was interesting and perceptive: Behavioral changes occur as a side effect of something called operant conditioning, which is the underlying mechanism of social media addiction. This is the core mechanism analogous to the role alcohol plays in alcoholism. In early operant conditioning, pioneered by famous behaviorists like B.F. Skinner, animals were…
-
Richard Painter, still pathologically dishonest
Readers are no doubt grateful that I've said nothing about the unhinged Richard Painter for many months now. Alas, he remains the same: still completely dishonest and vindictive. Amusingly, he's now running a carpetbagger campaign for Congress in a special election in a Minnesota district he doesn't even live in (God help those folks!). I…
-
Political pressure is mounting on Penn to fire Amy Wax… (UPDATED)
FOR THOSE COMING HERE BY WAY OF RICHARD PAINTER, PLEASE SEE THIS AND THIS. …despite the fact that she can't legally be fired for her offensive speech, as we noted previously: Under the AAUP definition of academic freedom, "extramural" speech by faculty is protected speech that cannot be sanctioned by a university employer. Yet even…
-
Richard Painter, the man “without a moral compass”
A brief follow-up on this post earlier in the week, about Richard Painter's harassment of an innocent third party, Sarah Braasch, based on falsehoods (Richard lies a lot)–below the fold, for anyone interested.
-
Richard Painter (Minnesota) now attacking Sarah Braasch, a vulnerable and traumatized young woman, and only because I had defended her
Apologies to readers bored with this malevolent buffoon, but Richard Painter's latest stunt is even more despicable than trying to smear some of my colleagues as racists based on nothing. It, at least, presents an opportunity to air the actual facts about the target of Richard's harassment, Sarah Braasch (a lawyer who is now a…
-
U of Minnesota law professor calls out Richard Painter’s misrepresentations
A brief follow-up on yesterday's post about Richard Painter's serial dishonesty. In typical Trumpian fashion, Richard simply doubled-down on his lies yesterday. But now his Minnesota colleague, Professor Daniel Schwarcz–with whom I had the original discussion about academic freedom that Richard has misrepresented in dozens of posts over the last seven weeks–has weighed in. While…
-
Richard Painter: “either dishonest or blinded by righteousness” (updated)
That was Penn lawprof Jonathan Klick's apt assessment (noted earlier this week) based on his own experience of having Painter "Twitter shit" on him and his work. Based on recent events, I will go with "dishonest." Fear not, dear readers, I do not plan on regularly reporting on the unhinged Twitter behavior of this character,…
-
Do academic norms and politics mix? The case of Richard W. Painter (UPDATED AGAIN, 7/30)
Prior to last week, I'd never had (to my recollection) any interaction with Professor Richard Painter of the University of Minnesota, a moderately well-known expert on corporate law and legal ethics. As some readers will recall, Professor Painter had the dubious distinction of agreeing to serve as the White House ethics lawyer for George W.…
-
Harvard Law professor writes article about Japanese “comfort women”…
…which is generating quite a bit of controversy in South Korea as well as back home (see also). The article at issue is here and a more popular summary here (and here is an online resource about the general topic). Fortunately, no one is calling for Professor Ramseyer, a leading expert on Japanese law, to…
I first met Professor Hoy when I returned to UC Santa Cruz in Fall of ’92 to finish my undergraduate…