Fordham mourns Prof. Joel Reidenberg - Fr. Joseph McShane, S.J.

Dear Members of the Fordham Family,

I am saddened to tell you that Joel Reidenberg, professor of law, died yesterday after a long struggle with leukemia. He was the Stanley D. and Nikki Waxberg Chair in Law, and the founder of the Center on Law and Information Policy (CLIP).
In Professor Reidenberg we have lost a great teacher, a great thinker, and a great colleague. 
In his 30 years at Fordham he has been a far-seeing and thoughtful voice on the law, on issues of student privacy, and on University governance. He was a towering figure in his field, a dear friend, and man of principle, grit, and a devilish sense of humor. He ennobled everyone who knew him.

Today we grieve with Joel’s wife, Pascale; his two sons, Jeremy and David; his daughter-in-law, Caitlin; his grandchildren, Luca and Sophie; and his mother, June. We will share information about a memorial for him in the coming weeks.
I know the Fordham family joins me in mourning Professor Reidenberg’s loss, and in remembering his many and varied contributions to the University community.
Prayers and blessings.

Sincerely,

Joseph M. McShane, S.J.
President
Fordham University

China - NPC Observer : COVID-19 Responses, Copyright, Armed Police Reform & Silence on 2020 NPC – NPC Observer

The Council of Chairpersons decided on Friday, April 17 to convene the 17th session of the 13th National People's Congress NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) from April 26 to 29. This is a regular bi-monthly meeting, not the entire NPC.
h/t Susan Finder
NPCSC Session Watch: COVID-19 Responses, Copyright, Armed Police Reform & Silence on 2020 NPC – NPC Observer: 

COVID-19 Responses

After the COVID-19 epidemic broke out, Xi Jinping chaired a meeting where he emphasized the need to “improve the relevant legislation on epidemic prevention and control.” In accordance with his directive, the legislature has recently established task forces to draft new bills and expedited the relevant bills already in progress. The agenda of this upcoming session thus features several such items.

First, the Biosecurity Law [生物安全法] returns for its second review. While its first draft (reviewed last October) has not been released for public comment, state media reported that the Law would “prevent and control major emerging infectious diseases” as well as “safeguard laboratory biosecurity.” The bill is likely to pass at this month’s session, although we would not rule out the possibility of a third and final review later this year.

Second, the NPC Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee has submitted a draft revision to the Animal Epidemic Prevention Law [动物防疫法]. This bill has been expedited in response to COVID-19 pandemic; it is the first Category II project in 13th NPCSC’s five-year legislative plan to come before the NPCSC. We should know more about the contents of the draft revision once the NPCSC is in session. We expect it to pass after two or three reviews.

Lastly, the NPCSC Legislative Affairs Commission will report to the NPCSC on a work plan to improve public health–related legislation. The plan will likely lay down legislative timetables to update laws including the Wild Animals Protection Law [野生动物保护法], Law on the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases [传染病防治法], Frontier Health and Quarantine Law [国境卫生检疫法], and Emergency Response Law [突发事件应对法]. The NPCSC generally does not release internal work documents to the public; it is unclear whether it will do so this time.

The problem isn’t a lack of information. It’s Trump. - The Washington Post

The problem isn’t a lack of information. It’s Trump. - The Washington Post: 
by Dana Millbank
As President Trump, his advisers and his allies in Congress continue to try to frame the World Health Organization for Trump’s failure to prepare for the pandemic, new evidence shows that U.S. and WHO officials in China were in constant contact with each other in the crucial days of January, as the virus spread. U.S. personnel working in the U.S. Embassy in Beijing met extensively with WHO officials there in the month of January, the time when Trump accuses the WHO of conspiring with China to hide the true danger of the novel coronavirus. 

According to people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity, U.S. officials in Beijing had at least 10 telephonic or in-person meetings — and likely more — with WHO officials in the month of January. 

Trump administration officials from the Department of Health and Human Services, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health were among those conferring regularly in Beijing with WHO officials, twice in the week of Jan. 6, three times in the week of Jan. 13, three times in the week of Jan. 20 and twice in the week of Jan. 27. 
These were in addition to informal calls between U.S. and WHO officials in Beijing. The meetings, which continued in February and March, were with WHO officials ranging from those based in China to WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus; Michael Ryan, head of the WHO’s emergencies program; and Bruce Aylward, who led a WHO mission to Wuhan, China, in February.

Truckload of white guys with AR-15s at PA capital. - No problem

This is white skin privilege.  The cops know it's OK - it's not like seeing a liefe threatening 12 y.o. Black kid with a toy gun in a park .  Not at all.
Why is it legal for an unregulated militia to assemble at the State Capital in Harrisburg, PA?

Contingent of heavily armed individuals in back of an old military vehicle just showed up. They said they’re all independent. No affiliation. pic.twitter.com/Y8GMcN12eG

— Miguel Marquez (@miguelmarquez) April 20, 2020

Opinion | The America We Need - The New York Times

The pandemic has exposed two deep truths: the fifty year Republican assault on the public sector has left us unprepared for this crisis, and the moral deficiency which that drive expressed has left us in the hands of an incompetent President incapable of empathy.

The New York Time Editorial Board begins today a long series of essays by addressing the roots of our failure. 

If you click through to the Times story you will find a 24 minute audio.

- GWC
Opinion | The America We Need - The New York Times: '

by The Editorial Board

The pandemic has shown Americans how far apart they are. But out of this crisis there’s a chance to build a better nation.

****since the late 1960s, the federal government has largely abandoned the attempt. The defining trend in American public policy has been to diminish government’s role as a guarantor of personal liberty.


Advocates of a minimalist conception of government claim they too are defenders of liberty. But theirs is a narrow and negative definition of freedom: the freedom from civic duty, from mutual obligation, from taxation. This impoverished view of freedom has in practice protected wealth and privilege. It has perpetuated the nation’s defining racial inequalities and kept the poor trapped in poverty, and their children, and their children’s children.

One of the most important aspects of this retreat was the government’s role in constructing a new residential landscape of economically and racially segregated communities. The government built highways that carried white families to new suburban neighborhoods where minorities often were not allowed to live; it provided mortgage loans that minorities were not allowed to obtain; and even after explicit discrimination was declared illegal, single-family zoning laws continued to exclude low-income families, particularly minorities.

Policymakers tied funding for public services to the prosperity of the new communities, and the Supreme Court blessed the practice in a 1973 ruling, San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, that allowed differences in school funding based on differences in local property values. The effect was to substitute economic segregation for explicitly racial segregation.
The government similarly enabled growing divisions in the workplace. As the economy shifted from manufacturing to services, corporations — with the help of Congress and local lawmakers — successfully resisted the unionization of new jobs. And the government declined to replace organized labor as the protector of workers in burgeoning sectors like retail and health care.

Companies were not required to provide employees with basic benefits like paid leave, and they were given free rein to claim that many of their full-time workers were actually contractors. The purchasing power of the federal minimum wage has been falling since 1968.

A shift in corporate behavior also harmed workers. Many business leaders rallied around a narrow conception of corporate responsibility, arguing the sole obligation of a corporation was to maximize shareholder returns. Policymakers backed the shift, notably by writing that narrow definition into the laws of Delaware, where many large companies maintain official homes.

The results are clear enough: Executive pay has skyrocketed, and shareholders have enjoyed rising stock prices, at least until recently, while most workers are falling behind. If individual income had kept pace with overall economic growth since 1970, Americans in the bottom 90 percent of the income distribution would be making an extra $12,000 per year, on average. In effect, the extreme increase in inequality means every worker in the bottom 90 percent of the income distribution is sending an annual check for $12,000 to a worker in the top 10 percent.

The idealization of individual action in an open marketplace has had its mirror image in the denigration of collective action through government.

The United States does not guarantee the availability of affordable housing to its citizens, as do most developed nations. It does not guarantee reliable access to health care, as does virtually every other developed nation. The cost of a college education in the United States is among the highest in the developed world. And beyond the threadbare nature of the American safety net, the government has pulled back from investment in infrastructure, education and basic scientific research, the building blocks of future prosperity. It is not surprising many Americans have lost confidence in the government as a vehicle for achieving the things that we cannot achieve alone.

Opinion | The America We Need - The New York Times

The pandemic has exposed two deep truths: the fifty year Republican assault on the public sector has left us unprepared for this crisis, and the moral deficiency which that drive expressed has left us in the hands of an incompetent President incapable of empathy.

The New York Time Editorial Board begins today a long series of essays by addressing the roots of our failure. 

If you click through to the Times story you will find a 24 minute audio.

- GWC
Opinion | The America We Need - The New York Times: '

by The Editorial Board

The pandemic has shown Americans how far apart they are. But out of this crisis there’s a chance to build a better nation.




****since the late 1960s, the federal government has largely abandoned the attempt. The defining trend in American public policy has been to diminish government’s role as a guarantor of personal liberty.


Advocates of a minimalist conception of government claim they too are defenders of liberty. But theirs is a narrow and negative definition of freedom: the freedom from civic duty, from mutual obligation, from taxation. This impoverished view of freedom has in practice protected wealth and privilege. It has perpetuated the nation’s defining racial inequalities and kept the poor trapped in poverty, and their children, and their children’s children.

One of the most important aspects of this retreat was the government’s role in constructing a new residential landscape of economically and racially segregated communities. The government built highways that carried white families to new suburban neighborhoods where minorities often were not allowed to live; it provided mortgage loans that minorities were not allowed to obtain; and even after explicit discrimination was declared illegal, single-family zoning laws continued to exclude low-income families, particularly minorities.

Policymakers tied funding for public services to the prosperity of the new communities, and the Supreme Court blessed the practice in a 1973 ruling, San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, that allowed differences in school funding based on differences in local property values. The effect was to substitute economic segregation for explicitly racial segregation.
The government similarly enabled growing divisions in the workplace. As the economy shifted from manufacturing to services, corporations — with the help of Congress and local lawmakers — successfully resisted the unionization of new jobs. And the government declined to replace organized labor as the protector of workers in burgeoning sectors like retail and health care.

Companies were not required to provide employees with basic benefits like paid leave, and they were given free rein to claim that many of their full-time workers were actually contractors. The purchasing power of the federal minimum wage has been falling since 1968.

A shift in corporate behavior also harmed workers. Many business leaders rallied around a narrow conception of corporate responsibility, arguing the sole obligation of a corporation was to maximize shareholder returns. Policymakers backed the shift, notably by writing that narrow definition into the laws of Delaware, where many large companies maintain official homes.

The results are clear enough: Executive pay has skyrocketed, and shareholders have enjoyed rising stock prices, at least until recently, while most workers are falling behind. If individual income had kept pace with overall economic growth since 1970, Americans in the bottom 90 percent of the income distribution would be making an extra $12,000 per year, on average. In effect, the extreme increase in inequality means every worker in the bottom 90 percent of the income distribution is sending an annual check for $12,000 to a worker in the top 10 percent.

The idealization of individual action in an open marketplace has had its mirror image in the denigration of collective action through government.

The United States does not guarantee the availability of affordable housing to its citizens, as do most developed nations. It does not guarantee reliable access to health care, as does virtually every other developed nation. The cost of a college education in the United States is among the highest in the developed world. And beyond the threadbare nature of the American safety net, the government has pulled back from investment in infrastructure, education and basic scientific research, the building blocks of future prosperity. It is not surprising many Americans have lost confidence in the government as a vehicle for achieving the things that we cannot achieve alone.

Coronavirus Live Updates: Officials Say C.D.C. Errors Caused Testing Delays - The New York Times

Coronavirus Live Updates: Officials Say C.D.C. Errors Caused Testing Delays - The New York Times: Democratic lawmakers and the Trump administration seek to break an impasse over a small-business loan program. Hospitals struggle to provide dialysis amid an unforeseen surge in patients with kidney failure.

Coronavirus Live Updates: Officials Say C.D.C. Errors Caused Testing Delays - The New York Times

Coronavirus Live Updates: Officials Say C.D.C. Errors Caused Testing Delays - The New York Times: Democratic lawmakers and the Trump administration seek to break an impasse over a small-business loan program. Hospitals struggle to provide dialysis amid an unforeseen surge in patients with kidney failure.

China tests thousands to calculate true spread of coronavirus - The Boston Globe

Now, amid accusations that China has under-reported its virus data, the nation is embarking upon a program that could capture the true scale of their outbreak. If undertaken globally, it could find millions more infections than the 2.1 million currently detected.
China tests thousands to calculate true spread of coronavirus - The Boston Globe: 

by Bloomberg News

When Tiger Ye caught the coronavirus in January, his mother and grandmother nursed him back to health. Later that month, both women developed fevers, but with Wuhan’s hospitals overflowing they chose instead to bear it out at home. 

 Months later, with China’s epidemic appearing under control, the pair took a blood test that confirmed they had in fact contracted and fought off the virus. But they were never counted in the country’s official tally of more than 82,000 infected and nearly 5,000 dead. “They are lucky to have recovered all by themselves,” said Ye. 

 Now, amid accusations that China has under-reported its virus data, the nation is embarking upon a program that could capture the true scale of their outbreak. If undertaken globally, it could find millions more infections than the 2.1 million currently detected.  

I’m an E.R. Doctor in New York. None of Us Will Ever Be the Same. - The New York Times

I’m an E.R. Doctor in New York. None of Us Will Ever Be the Same. - The New York Times: A Covid diary: This is what I saw as the pandemic engulfed our hospitals.

I’m an E.R. Doctor in New York. None of Us Will Ever Be the Same. - The New York Times

I’m an E.R. Doctor in New York. None of Us Will Ever Be the Same. - The New York Times: A Covid diary: This is what I saw as the pandemic engulfed our hospitals.

Biden Ad: Trump hid the truth

This @JoeBiden ad is one of the very best I've ever seen. pic.twitter.com/3VGUSjjXJC

— Matt Rogers (@Politidope) April 18, 2020

Message to SCOTUS: Maximize voting and public health - Wisconsin teaches us

Message to SCOTUS from Wisconsin: Maximize voting and public health

by GeorgeW. Conk

When the United States Supreme Court, split along the familiar lines, reversing the courts below, ordered “Per Curiam” that Wisconsin voters who chose mail ballots must have them post-marked by midnight of election day, Tuesday, April 7, the usual alarms rang.  Defenders saw a ruling to maintain regular order and ballot integrity; critics saw a partisan effort to reduce voting and aid a Republican seeking to retain a state Supreme Court seat. Of course, neither an effort to save or gain a court seat should motivate the decision on how to conduct an election.

The Wisconsin legislature refused to move its election to June as Governor Tony Evers had asked.  Wisconsin had directed people to stay home to avoid spreading the corona virus.  A million voters requested absentee ballots.  On the Thursday before the scheduled election day the overwhelmed election board had yet to mail over 150,000 absentee ballots.  Voters and the Democratic National Committee persuaded the United States District Court to extend the last day for receipt of ballots by a week.  And ordered results not be released until then.

Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines, Ralph Waldo Emerson famously observed. That’s a challenge because we as lawyers believe that treating like cases alike is of prime importance. Predictability of adjudication guides conduct. But the United States Supreme Court on Monday April 6 - election eve - confronted a District Court order that was certainly out of the ordinary and challenged the norm.

The Supreme Court majority of five made the postmarked date – midnight on the 7^{th -} the deadline for ballots that would be counted. This was a creative step because there was no law or order that made the postmark a determinative marker, as Justice Ruth Ginsburg pointed out in dissent.  But the solution had a reassuring feel for those who feared election manipulation.  Postmarks back in the day carried a lot of weight – as millions got their tax returns in the mail to meet that April 15 deadline.  So that bit of creativity surely struck the high court judges as modest and regularizing.  The important thing, they wrote, was that the District Court order “would fundamentally alter the nature of the election by allowing voting for six additional days after the election.”

But the phrase “the election” is reductive.  Mail and absentee ballots have made election day a deadline more than a day.  “The election” is not a day but a process.   The integrity of the process is of course important in creating confidence in the result.  So the Court understandably turned to its oft cited 2006 maxim in Purcell v. Gonzalez “lower federal courts should ordinarily not alter the election rules on the eve of an election.”

We agree.  But “ordinarily” is doing more work than it can bear.  These are certainly not ordinary times – they are emergent times – which require adjustment to an extraordinary circumstance. In Wisconsin as elsewhere people had been commanded not to leave their homes except for essential functions.   Another of the not ordinary circumstances is that thousands had not received requested mail ballots by the day before “the election” when the Supreme Court acted to declare the next day’s postmark the end date.  Further the semi-quarantine dictated by the corona virus compelled the City of Milwaukee - where one sixth of voters in Wisconsin live – to reduce the number of polling places from 180 to five because poll watchers were confined to home.

Tuesday - the day after the Supreme Court’s order - saw long lines of masked voters snaking on sidewalks on a rainy day.  The image of brave voters risking lethal disease to cast a ballot suggested a triumph of democracy.  But bravery at the ballot box is not what we should be encouraging. The importance of easy access to the ballot is what the majority slighted in its concern for ballot security and integrity.

Many saw in the Legislature’s refusal, and the Supreme Court’s order, the intention to suppress the big city Democratic vote.  We are not ready to attribute such a motive to the Justices in the majority.  Following “ordinary” procedures, is, as we noted, usually the proper course to assure public confidence in the outcome of an election.  We have our own experience of that. Nor are we ready to say that higher turnout favors one party over another.

When the results were counted a Democratic surge was the unexpected result.  Was the rainy day turnout a reaction against the Supreme Court ruling?  Do mail ballots produce a neutral partisan effect as a recent study by the Stanford Democracy & Polarization Lab showed?  Whichever may be the case or neither the Supreme Court, judges, governors, and legislators nationwide should affirm as we approach the nationwide elections: voter participation and the public health should both be maximized.  Court rulings, laws, and executive decrees guided by those principles will best serve democracy and law.

-       George Conk

April 17, 2020

Trump tells a damnable and murderous lie - The Washington Post

Trump tells a damnable and murderous lie - The Washington Post:
by Dana Millbank
  “It would have been so easy to be truthful.” Thus spake President Trump this week on the very day he surpassed the milestone of uttering 18,000 falsehoods during his presidency, as tallied by the Post’s Fact Checker. 
 But on this day, Trump was not admitting to losing his own struggle with the truth. He was accusing the World Health Organization of “covering up the spread of the coronavirus” and failing to “share information in a timely and transparent fashion.” He declared he was cutting off funding for the world’s public health body in the middle of a pandemic.
The next day he called the WHO a “tool of China” and floated the vile conspiracy theory that the WHO deliberately concealed the danger of the virus: “There’s something going on” at the WHO “that’s very bad,” and "I have a feeling they knew exactly what was going on.” AD This is not merely a falsehood. 
This is a damnable and murderous lie. As Trump surely knows, and as I have learned from people with knowledge of the situation who spoke to me on the condition of confidentiality, 15 officials from his administration were embedded with the WHO in Geneva, working full time, hand-in-glove with the organization on the virus from the very first day China disclosed the outbreak to the world, Dec. 31. 
At least six other U.S. officials at WHO headquarters dedicated most of their time to the virus, and two others worked remotely with the WHO on covid-19 full time. In the weeks that followed, they and other U.S. government scientists engaged in all major deliberations and decisions at the WHO on the novel coronavirus, had access to all information, and contributed significantly to the world body’s conclusions and recommendations.
 Everything that the WHO knew, the Trump administration knew — in real time. As congressional investigators who requested WHO documents and communications are now learning, senior Trump administration officials — Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Robert R. Redfield Jr., Anne Schuchat, Ray R. Arthur and Jeffrey McFarland; the National Institutes of Health’s Anthony S. Fauci and H. Clifford Lane, and many others — consulted with the WHO throughout the crisis.

Opinion | On the Wisconsin Primary, the Supreme Court Failed Us - The New York Times

Opinion | On the Wisconsin Primary, the Supreme Court Failed Us - The New York Times: The five conservative justices refused to extend the deadline for absentee ballots in Wisconsin in the middle of the pandemic.

Eric Topol, MD - Taking responsibility for the disaster

My suggested transcript for the next @POTUS press conference pic.twitter.com/TJFrGPEc0o

— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) April 16, 2020

We’ve never backed a Democrat for president. But Trump must be defeated. - The Washington Post

We’ve never backed a Democrat for president. But Trump must be defeated. - The Washington Post: 
By 

George T. Conway III,  

Reed Galen, Steve Schmidt, John Weaver and Rick Wilson This November, Americans will cast their most consequential votes since Abraham Lincoln’s reelection in 1864. We confront a constellation of crises: a public health emergency not seen in a century, an economic collapse set to rival the Great Depression, and a world where American leadership is absent and dangers rise in the vacuum.  Today, the United States is beset with a president who was unprepared for the burden of the presidency and who has made plain his deficits in leadership, management, intelligence and morality.  
When we founded the Lincoln Project, we did so with a clear mission: to defeat President Trump in November. Publicly supporting a Democratic nominee for president is a first for all of us. We are in extraordinary times, and we have chosen to put country over party — and former vice president Joe Biden is the candidate who we believe will do the same. AD Biden is now the presumptive Democratic nominee and he has our support. Biden has the experience, the attributes and the character to defeat Trump this fall. Unlike Trump, for whom the presidency is just one more opportunity to perfect his narcissism and self-aggrandizement, Biden sees public service as an opportunity to do right by the American people and a privilege to do so.

Stacey Abrams on Being Vice President: "I Am Prepared and Excited to Serve"

Stacey Abrams on Being Vice President: "I Am Prepared and Excited to Serve": Former Georgia gubernatorial candidate turned voting rights activist on the Census, Covid-19, and Being Chosen as Joe Biden's running mate.

Opinion | ‘Woe Is You,’ White People Keep Telling Us - The New York Times

Opinion | ‘Woe Is You,’ White People Keep Telling Us - The New York Times
by Jeremiah Ellison - City Council - Minneapolis

Torts Today: Legal Malpractice Claims Against Public Defenders Subject to Tort Claims Act, Justices Rule | New Jersey Law Journal

Torts Today: Legal Malpractice Claims Against Public Defenders Subject to Tort Claims Act, Justices Rule | New Jersey Law Journal: A man wrongly imprisoned for twelve years in a New Jersey sexual assault case was denied recovery in his legal malpractice action against a...

Vote by mail - New study shows no partisan effects

What are the effects of vote-by-mail on partisan outcomes and participation? Our new paper is available now (@danmthomp @jesselyoder @imjenwu): https://t.co/cPZI2HZios pic.twitter.com/fKyzTykTYG

— Andy Hall (@andrewbhall) April 14, 2020

Timeline of the Coronavirus Pandemic and U.S. Response

Timeline of the Coronavirus Pandemic and U.S. Response:
by Ryan Goodman and Danielle Schulkin
What follows is a comprehensive timeline of major U.S. policy events related to the novel coronavirus pandemic. We’ve focused on the U.S. government’s preparation for a pandemic, tracking warning signals of COVID-19, and public and internal responses when the outbreak hit inside the United States. 
 In our view, the timeline is clear: Like previous administrations, the Trump administration knew for years that a pandemic of this gravity was possible and imminently plausible. Several Trump administration officials raised strong concerns prior to the emergence of COVID-19 and raised alarms once the virus appeared within the United States. 
While some measures were put in place to prepare the United States for pandemic readiness, many more were dismantled since 2017. In response to COVID-19, the United States was slow to act at a time when each day of inaction mattered most–in terms of both the eventual public health harms as well as the severe economic costs. 
The President and some of his closest senior officials also disseminated misinformation that left the public less safe and more vulnerable to discounting the severity of the pandemic. When it came time to minimize the loss of life and economic damage, the United States was unnecessarily underprepared, had sacrificed valuable time, and confronted the pandemic with a more mild response than public health experts recommended. 
These lapses meant that the United States was ultimately forced to make more drastic economic sacrifices to catch up to the severity of the pandemic than would have otherwise been necessary. Readers can reach their own conclusions based on these publicly available facts. If we have missed any key information, please notify us by sending an email to lte@justsecurity.org. 
 TIMELINE

Project MUSE - African Americans and the Southern Homestead Act

Project MUSE - African Americans and the Southern Homestead Act:
Abstract Most Black people who homesteaded in the Great Plains did so against the background of their bitter Black experience in the South. The Southern Homestead Act, passed in 1866, promised recently freed slaves and others the opportunity to homestead on public lands in five southern states. For freedpeople who were defeated in their efforts to gain ownership of plantation lands, the Southern Homestead Act seemed to be a possible avenue to Black landownership. Although some African Americans succeeded in gaining homesteaded land, most were unable to take advantage of the Southern Homestead Act because of their extreme poverty; the unsuitability of the lands available and difficulty of finding them; and the extreme hostility and violence that whites directed against them. The Southern Homestead Act was repealed in 1876, and Blacks turned their eyes toward homesteading in the Great Plains.

Project MUSE - African Americans and the Southern Homestead Act

Project MUSE - African Americans and the Southern Homestead Act:
Abstract Most Black people who homesteaded in the Great Plains did so against the background of their bitter Black experience in the South. The Southern Homestead Act, passed in 1866, promised recently freed slaves and others the opportunity to homestead on public lands in five southern states. For freedpeople who were defeated in their efforts to gain ownership of plantation lands, the Southern Homestead Act seemed to be a possible avenue to Black landownership. Although some African Americans succeeded in gaining homesteaded land, most were unable to take advantage of the Southern Homestead Act because of their extreme poverty; the unsuitability of the lands available and difficulty of finding them; and the extreme hostility and violence that whites directed against them. The Southern Homestead Act was repealed in 1876, and Blacks turned their eyes toward homesteading in the Great Plains.

Why Did the U.S. Supreme Court Endanger the Lives of Wisconsin Voters? | Michael C. Dorf | Verdict | Legal Analysis and Commentary from Justia

Wisconsin voters in the plague year.
What motivated the Justices of the United States Supreme Court to intervene in the Wisconsin state elections?  And the dissenters?Does ideology determine results? Clan-like loyalties that blind?  Simple partisan advantage?  - gwc
Why Did the U.S. Supreme Court Endanger the Lives of Wisconsin Voters? | Michael C. Dorf | Verdict | Legal Analysis and Commentary from Justia:
by Michael C. Dorf [Cornell Law]
On Tuesday, April 7, Wisconsin held a primary election despite the fact that state residents were under an order of the governor to stay home in order to slow the spread of COVID-19. As a likely result, more people will become infected and die than would have if the state had delayed the primary (as other states have) or had done more to facilitate voting by mail.
As with so many other aspects of the catastrophically bungled U.S. response to the coronavirus, many actors contributed to this terrible decision. The Wisconsin legislature—controlled by Republicans thanks to aggressive partisan gerrymandering—bears the brunt of the blame. It refused to delay the primary, partly due to Trump-inspired denial and also in an apparent effort to aid the state supreme court re-election campaign of a Republican loyalist who would likely cast a vote to preserve the GOP gerrymander.
So too, Wisconsin’s Democratic governor, Tony Evers, bears some responsibility for dithering when he should have taken decisive action to postpone the election. Evers did finally act to postpone the election, only to be thwarted by the Republican majority on the state supreme court, which ruled that he lacked the authority to take this step on his own.
Meanwhile, the state received an overwhelming flood of last-minute applications for absentee ballots from Wisconsinites understandably wary of risking their lives to cast a vote in person. As a consequence, many voters did not even receive their blank ballots in time to cast them. Accordingly, a federal district judge ordered the state to extend the time for mailing in completed absentee ballots. Yet that measure was also thwarted—this time by a 5-4 majority of the U.S. Supreme Court, also splitting on partisan lines.
KEEP READING

Even in Time of Crisis, Hold Fast to Bar Exam | Editorial Board New Jersey Law Journal

Even in Time of Crisis, Hold Fast to Bar Exam | New Jersey Law Journal: We do not think the current crisis is the appropriate time to “reinvent” the primary gate-keeping function for entry into the profession.
by the Editorial Board

Each day during this global catastrophe, another anchor by which we secure our cultural, social or civic institutions comes loose, and we must decide whether to attempt either to reattach it or else reinvent it. New Jersey, New York and several other states have cancelled their July 2020 administrations of the bar exam due to the coronavirus epidemic, possibly to be rescheduled for September, if conditions permit.

Our Supreme Court recognized that, “without a means to pass the bar and obtain a law license, qualified law school students who expect to graduate this Spring may lose job offers, be unable to find legal work, and otherwise suffer financial hardship.” This previously unimaginable situation prompted law students and legal academics to suggest a radical alternative: waive the requirement of passing the bar exam for 2020 applicants and enact an “emergency diploma privilege” that would grant an immediate license to practice. Loosely modeled after the 150-year-old practice in Wisconsin that permits J.D. graduates of that state’s two law schools who have also completed 60 course credits in certain prescribed subjects to receive a license without sitting for the bar exam, the “diploma privilege” was originally instituted to encourage entry into the profession through formal legal education rather than the then prevailing method of “reading law” through apprenticeships. The 2020 version would extend the privilege to graduates of any of the 200+ ABA approved law schools and would drop the specific curricular requirements.

In The Bar Exam and the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Need For Immediate Action, published on March 22, 2020 (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3559060), 11 legal academics make the argument for implementing an immediate diploma privilege. It argues that licensing 2020 law school graduates and skipping the bar exam is justified by the disparate impact the delay in licensing would have on providing legal representation to particularly vulnerable communities. Almost half of new law school graduates take jobs with government, public-interest organizations or small law firms of 25 lawyers or less. The paper further notes: “These … employers, notably, tend to serve the needs of low-income individuals, middle-income individuals, and small businesses. Disrupting the flow of new lawyers into these workplaces will undermine service to groups that already struggle to obtain services from our legal system.”

While focusing on providing service to prospective clients, the paper also advocates for the “mental health of the bar candidates hoping to join our profession this year, who are already suffering educational, family, and financial disruptions.” It continues that, “As stewards of the legal profession, we need to provide humane options for these new graduates, at the same time that we guarantee a supply of new lawyers to serve pressing client needs.”

Respectfully, while we share the authors’ concern for the disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic, both to the public seeking legal services and to 2020 law school graduates, we do not think the current crisis is the appropriate time to “reinvent” the primary gate-keeping function for entry into the profession. While, as with any metric of human endeavor, we can certainly debate particular flaws in the current bar exam system, its basic function to establish at least a presumption that someone is competent to practice law—in whom clients may entrust the most essential aspects of their lives and affairs—remains an essential prerequisite. The moment of ineluctable accountability and responsibility to perform beyond what is convenient and learn beyond what is easy, is one that must be experienced by every person who is permitted to practice.

Our Supreme Court wisely chose a less drastic alternative, but one that demonstrates appropriate flexibility in these times of dire need. The court expanded slightly on existing Rule 1:21-3, and will permit 2020 law school graduates who have not already sat for the bar exam to practice temporarily, i.e. until they are able to sit for the bar exam, but only under the supervision of a licensed attorney who has been licensed to practice for at least three years. The remainder of Rule 1:21-3 is unchanged, which permits recent graduates employed by a nonprofit organization providing legal assistance to persons of low-moderate means which is affiliated with an ABA-accredited law school the limited ability to appear in certain cases before the state courts and agencies without immediate attorney supervision. They may also appear before those same tribunals in conjunction with a legal services or public interest organization or law school clinical or pro bono program, or an agency of municipal, county or state government certified under R. 1:21-11(b)(3).

Our Supreme Court has repeatedly stated that “the determination of whether someone should be permitted to engage in conduct that is arguably the practice of law is governed not by attempting to apply some definition of what constitutes that practice, but rather by asking whether the public interest is disserved by permitting such conduct. The resolution of the question is determined by practical, not theoretical, considerations.” (In re Opinion 33 of the Comm. on the Unauthorized Practice of Law, 160 N.J. 63, 73 (1999)). The appeal to “practicality” and the “public interest” has an obvious relevance in current circumstances.

What the rules do not and should not do, however, is give a law school graduate automatic and indefinite freedom to practice law without supervision, as would a plenary license issued after passing the bar and certification by the Committee on Character. The proponents of a “diploma privilege” do not explain how they would address the requirement of obtaining a certificate of good character, which, as the court’s order noted, can takes months even under ordinary circumstances, and is just as likely to be stalled due to the pandemic as administration of the bar exam itself.

The freedom to practice law without supervision must be sparingly granted only to those who have presented affirmative evidence that it is justified. This is one anchor that should be retained.

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