Friday, January 25, 2008

Weekend Roundup

Dana Goldstein: Andrew Sullivan does not determine what constitutes feminist.

Though I'm sure some of my fellow progressives might consider me part of the problem here, I too have wondered why right-wing views on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict are automatically labeled "pro-Israel".

Reading conservative blogs, I can never tell if, as someone who strives to hold "responsible" foreign policy views, I'm supposed to support democracy abroad or not. Here Powerline attacks Barack Obama for being too close to Kenya's opposition during the recent election dispute in the East African nation. There's a lot of talk about how the current government is an "ally on the war on terror." There is very little about whether it, you know, actually won the election under dispute.

Here's a phrase I hate to see in print: "U.S.-style torture". It's from the Asia Times, and its describing American complicity in Thai torture techniques.

TPM has a good post on Hillary Clinton's mid-game push to allow delegates from Michigan and Florida into the Democratic National Convention (after they were excluded for hosting their primary too early), but Matt Yglesias wins for titling his post "Calvinball."

With the drop out of Fred Thompson from the GOP race, Orin Kerr announces he's now backing John McCain. Fellow VCer Dale Carpenter follows suit.

PG has far more patience dealing with folks who try to minimize the wrongfulness of Japanese internment than I do.

Michael J. Klarman, author of From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality, is moving from UVA to Harvard Law School. As someone who is considering UVA law school, who else working on race relations is currently there? I know Alex Johnson just returned from Minnesota -- anyone else?

Today, the FRC cheers California for giving cancer patients the choice between losing their job or agonizing pain. Because not giving an inch in the war on marijuana is worth sacrificing our humanity for. On the other hand, they give updates on gay marriage maneuvers in four states, and only in Maryland are the anti-marriage equality forces firmly on the defensive. Go Maryland! I cannot express how proud I will be if my state is the first to ratify gay marriage solely through democratic procedures.

Finally, be sure to congratulate Rachel, who is pregnant with twins!

4 comments:

PG said...

Klarman is teh cool. I'm sure someone else at UVa Law is doing race, but none of the names on the faculty list ring a bell for that subject, so it may be someone not-so-famous.

Come to Columbia! We're practically falling over with people who do critical race theory.

David Schraub said...

You make it sound like a given I'll be admitted to Columbia.

Also, I've already been admitted to your cross-town neighbor. If it come down to it, I'll have Jill make the pitch for NYU. What's Columbia's argument?

Fletcher Reede said...

Losing Klarman is a tough hit, but it's been a foregone conclusion for a long time (he's too much of a Red Sox fan to pass up living in Boston, although he did stick around in Charlottesville 1-2 years longer than expected). Off the top of my head, major work in race relations is currently being done by Tomiko Brown-Nagin, Risa Goluboff (more as a historian, I think), and Kim Forde-Mazrui, who directs the Center for the Study of Race and the Law. The Center's list of faculty names everyone else who teaches on the topic, but leaves out Devon Carbado, who visited last semester and could be lured here to fill Klarman's shoes.

PG said...

If you're in at NYU already, I think it more likely than not that you'll be admitted to Columbia.

Argument for Columbia:
Less expensive area to live; has an actual campus; thriving chapters of both the Federalist Society and ACS (so you get good speakers and debates)...

Specific to you, Columbia has excellent support for students who are interested in law teaching.

If you're doing a dual degree, Columbia in general is a superior school to NYU, so while the law schools are ranked evenly, your 2nd degree is likely to be worth more coming from Columbia.

Also, Columbia has one of the best tenured faculty in the country for studying race and the law:
Patricia Williams and Kimberle Crenshaw (who are sufficiently famous that even I had heard of them before I started law school), Kendall Thomas, Katherine Franke, Jack Greenberg (admittedly so old that he was on the Brown v. Board legal team). Among new (lesser known) faculty in this field, there's Olatunde Johnson.

NYU has Derrick Bell, who's still listed as a "visiting professor."

There are some areas where I would say NYU is superior to Columbia -- perhaps philosophy/ abstract legal theory, since they have Dworkin and Nagel and stole Waldron from us -- but race is not one of them.

Columbia also has really good gender and law profs and a feminist theory workshop that gets awesome speakers: email Prof. Franke for the schedule of speakers if you want to coincide a visit. I know I saw Mari Matsuda's name on the list, among several others whom I think would interest you. There's also an excellent international law faculty.

That's my 5 minute pitch, but I probably could build a longer brief :-)