Bleed Blue And Gold

Latest on Academic Freedom

2005-03-28T15:36:00.001-08:00

Sorry I haven't posted all month. I've been working on a project and it's attendant blog. Hasn't left much time to write for this one.

However... I saw Churchill today when he spoke on the Cal campus.

FYI... the CU investigative committee, who never one officially notified Churchill of the investigation nor asked him a single question, decided there were no legal grounds for firing Churchill. Nuff said.

Not quite...

FYFI, apparently the tax payers of Colorado have never paid Ward Churchill's salary. In fact, he has an endowed professorship. I guess that makes him a revenue generator for CU and the people of Colorado.

Latest on Academic Freedom

2005-03-28T15:36:00.000-08:00

The First Amendment and partisan politics

2005-02-25T16:47:00.000-08:00

I wrote in comment that the protections of the First Amendment transcend partisan politics and partisan ideologies. Just a spot of evidence for my claim: Genya and I actually agree about what constitutes a violation of the First Amendment.

Ideological witch-hunts aren't good for the country, for citizens or for the principles and values upon which our government was founded. I don't care if the hunters come from the right or from the left or from those self-proclaimed "centrists."

Regarding Newt's comments about state subsidies of speech (that I refuse to link to because they are SO ignorant), please see:

Robert C. Post, "Racist Speech, Democracy, and the First Amendment" 32 Wm.& Mary L. Rev. 267, 318 (1990) (analyzing instrumental regulation of speech within universities)

See also:Robert C. Post, "Subsidized Speech" 106 Yale L. Journal 151-195, (Oct. 1996)

EVENT: Revisiting 209

2005-02-25T15:15:00.000-08:00

Revisiting 209: A Case for Affirmative Action in Higher Education

Monday, February 28, 2005
5:00 PM - 7:30 PM

Location:
UC Hastings College of the Law
Alumni Reception Center
200 McAllister Street
San Francisco, CA 94102

Contact:
Barbra L. Williams
Co-President, Black Law Students Association
(510) 238-9096
bwmseduc@aol.com

Agenda:
5:00 PM
Opening Remarks/Introduction of Moderator(1 min.)
Barbra Williams, Co-President, UC Hastings Black LawStudents Association

Panel Introductions

Prof. C. Keith Wingate, - Panel Discussion

Bob Laird, Author, The Case for Affirmative Actionin University Admissions
Mr. Laird is a past director of UndergraduateAdmission at the University of California, Berkeley. His book explains the critical role of affirmativeaction in creating diverse public institutions,describes the turbulent debates regarding suchprograms, and explains the guidelines that will governaffirmative action policies in education in theimmediate future.

Vikram Amar, UC Hastings Professor of Law
Prof. Amar will discuss the William Henderson,Texas Law Review article entitled, The LSAT, LawSchool Exams, and Meritocracy: The Surprising andUnder theorized Role of Test-taking Speed.

The major implication of this study is that the current emphasison time pressured law school exams increases therelative importance of the LSAT as an admissioncriterion. The current emphasis on time-pressured lawschool exams, may skew measures of merit in ways thathave little theoretical connection to the actualpractice of law. The study also found somepreliminary evidence that the performance gap betweenwhite and minority students may be smaller on lesstime-pressured testing methods, includingblind-graded, take-home exams.

William Kidder, Equal Justice Society
Kidder co-authored a rebuttal to Richard Sander's study in the Stanford Law Review, in which he argues that affirmative action decreases the number ofAfrican American attorneys nationwide. Kidder' s article shows that available data on law school admissions, law school performance, and bar exam performance indicate that Sander's article is premised upon a series of statistical errors, oversights, and implausible assumptions. The EJS concludes that if affirmative action in law school admissions were eliminated tomorrow, there would probably be a 30-40 percent decline in the numbers of African Americansentering the legal profession, not the rosy 7.9percent improvement that Sander forecasts.

Michael Harris, Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of SF Bay Area
In 2004, LCCR worked together with the MexicanAmerican Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) to sponsor state bill AB2387, which would have allowed public universities in California to consider race, national origin, ethnicity, gender, geography, and income in admissions decisions to obtain a diversestudent body. The bill was vetoed by GovernorSchwarzenegger. Harris will discuss the goals of thebill and prospective strategies to combat the effectsof Proposition 209.

6:01 PM - 6:15 PM Questions & Answers

6:15 PM - 6:25 PM Break

6:30 PM Keynote Address Dean Christopher Edley, Jr.,
Universityof California School of Law (Boalt Hall)

7:00 JamesFinberg, President, Bar Association of San Francisco
Partner, Co-Sponsors, Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein LLP

Finberg will comment on the Bar Association of SanFrancisco's efforts to increase minority enrollment.

Closing Remarks/Acknowledgments
Barbra Williams, Co-President, UC Hastings BLSA

7:00 PM - 7:30 PM - Refreshments

Pitchers and Catchers Report!

2005-02-23T17:41:00.000-08:00

Thank god for A'sball!

See the A's 2005 roster. It's a virtual "Who?... Who?" of baseball. Hopefully, a bunch of soon-to-bes... and Barry Zito.

I'm officially announcing, ladies and men-loving-men, the team is better good looking than last year. :-) Join me, won't you, in the right field bleachers, where the views are best.

By the way... May 13- 22 is going to be a great week. First NYY comes to town. Then the defending World Champions. Then, three games at Mayes Field across the Bay.

Yeah Baby! Got to go email my boss about scheduling my vacation during that week...

Presidents' Day

2005-02-17T16:15:00.000-08:00

I'm off for Presidents' Day weekend. I'll be on an island in Puget Sound with no cell-phone reception, no cable tv and no access to the Internet. (Unless you count dial-up. I don't.) I will have my PDA and keyboard with me, so I might draft some posts. But I won't be back until Wednesday, February 23.

In case you are wondering just how big of a nerd I am... Let me give you a small idea.

Last night, I had tickets for a concert in the South Bay. I left with time to spare because rain just makes Bay Area traffic totally unreasonable. But, by some miracle, there was no traffic and the rain didn't start until I was already in the South Bay. I found myself with an entire hour before the concert started.

So what did I do? I pulled into the well lit parking lot of one of their ugly strip malls and parked. Next, I busted out my PDA, wedging it in my steering wheel. I unfolded my portable bluetooth keyboard (with full size keys; it's sooooo dreamy!), and Voila! I started a post I hope to finish this weekend.

TMI? Probably. Have a great holiday weekend!

Churchill and Academic Freedom

2005-02-16T13:30:00.000-08:00

I'm feeling pretty vindicated in my understanding of academic freedom as it relates to Ward Churchill. (woo hoo permalinks!) "Everyone's a Judge" Feb. 14, 2005

See this thoughtful thread in the Leiter Reports. Leiter, by the way, no fan of Churchill or of Ethnic Studies as a discipline.

Leiter missed the Federal Indian law issues. Go figure considering related Indian law issues are rarely, if ever (pretty close to never) taught in doctrinal courses. Leiter is likely missing a lot about Indian issues though, considering he doesn't think much of Ethnic Studies as a rigorous course of study.

I missed the defamation issue. While we didn't cover "intentionals" in my first year Torts class, I have little excuse because we definitely covered it in Post's 1A course. Alas. Cast no reflection upon Prof. Post. He tried.

See the American Association of Professors POV here.

Re: "How Indian is Churchill?" see CU student description of Chruchill's Feb. 8th (?) comments and reception in a CU forum. For those too lazy to link, let's just say, you're missing out on a bit of a history lesson. Oh, and AIM was in the house.

Finally, who the hell at The Rocky Mountain News is writing this crap? And why won't the paper attribute it to someone?

Diversity in Action Forum

2005-02-15T11:05:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I RSVPed (iwan@berkeley.edu) for the Diversity in Action Forum on March 3, 2005.

I received the following, informative, email in response. Sharing it here to encourage others to RSVP and attend.

"DIVERSITY IN ACTION: LEADING THE NATION THROUGH RESEARCH AND PRACTICE."

The forum will take place on March 3, 2005 from 10:00AM-5:00PM in the Pauley Ballroom of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Student Union.

The forum is organized into two parts: morning and afternoon sessions.
The morning session, which will take place from 10:00am-12:30pm, consists of a panel of well-known academics from colleges and universities around the country who will speak about their successes in creating and sustaining diversity projects on their campuses.

In the afternoon, we will host two breakout sessions: the first will focus on creating a research agenda on diversity for Cal and how each campus population (students, staff, faculty) plays an important role in that task; the second breakout session will focus on building alliances through interaction with other members on the Berkeley campus in order to create a diverse and inclusive community.

The final events of the afternoon will be a keynote address by Dean Christopher Edley of Boalt Hall School of Law, and remarks by Chancellor Robert Birgeneau and Academic Senate Chair Robert Knapp.

Please note that we have not yet finalized the exact schedule. We will send a finalized schedule to participants closer to the date of the event.

If you have any additional questions before then, please contact me at iwan@berkeley.edu or by phone at (510) 642-6621. We greatly value your commitment to diversity and excellence, and look forward to seeing you at the Diversity Forum!

With Warm Regards,Irene Wan
Campus Community Initiative
2222 Bancroft WayBerkeley, CA 94720-4300

Update: Diversity in Higher Education

2005-02-14T17:54:00.000-08:00

FIRST:
This article in The Chronicle today gives an brief, narrative overview of diversity at UC in the past 10 years.

IMPORTANT NOTE: An all-day UCB campus event on March 3, 2005 "Diversity In Action" RSVP to iwan@berkeley.edu.

SECOND:
New data refuting Richard Sander's study in the Stanfurd Law Review, in which he argues that affirmative action decreases the number of African American attorneys nationwide.

Equal Justice Society's research page says "... available data on law school admissions, law school performance, and bar exam performance indicate that sanders article is premised upon a series of statistical errors, oversights, and implausible assumptions. We conclude that if affirmative action in law school admissions were eliminated tomorrow, there would probably be a 30-40 percent decline in the numbers of African Americans entering the legal profession, not the rosy 7.9 percent improvement that Sander forecasts." Read it for yourself here.

Everyone's a Judge

2005-02-14T14:59:00.000-08:00

After a debate between Boalt Professor, John Yoo (some Yoo's controversial publications here) and Brosnahan was cancelled at Boalt last week, due to UCPD's security concerns, Armen's Boalt blog lit up with quite a bit of discussion about the role of the 1st Amendment at public universities.

An anonymous poster pointed out that public universities can limit speech on their campuses and cited two excellent law review articles on point by Robert C. Post. I followed up in comment by suggesting discussion of the similarities and differences between Yoo's situation and Ward Churchill's case at CU. After that, the comments heated up. When Armen chimed in with an eager defense for protecting free expression, particularly on public university campuses because they are public, I busted out my tired 1A memories (for I had the inestimable Robert C. Post for First Amendment). I sited the SCotUS opinion written by Sacramento's own Justice Kennedy (a Stanfurd product) for the proposition that public universities are "limited public forums" and can exercise content-based limits on speech, but not viewpoint limits, that are consistent with the public university's educational mission. I didn't say the university's mission is education, Kennedy did. No sooner do I post Kennedy's own words than I see this article, in the Desert Sun Times, reporting that Kennedy was in-state recently. According to this unattributed piece, Kennedy opined that education's loftier and most significant role (is) promoting liberty and democracy.

Taking that "loftier goal" seriously, I'm thinkin you might need to conceive of the public university as an even less "limited" public forum if you believe, to paraphrase Post's words, "Public discourse is a site for forging an independent public opinion and legitimacy of democratic government requires that the government be responsive to public opinion." Other than the media, what public forum, however "limited", contributes so significantly to "the forging of independent public opinion"? I tend to think you better have really, sincerely strong (strict scrutiny-level) justifications for limiting speech on a public university campus. I tend not to trust managerial justifications like security issues, particularly if those security issues are raised by "web-chatter." One can see why Yoo didn't show up to the debate after being warned-off by UCPD, the man is serious about self-defense.

I also tend not to trust inquiries by the state or media into the sources of Churchill's identity. The timing of CU's interrogation is suspect, suggesting any "identity fraud" perpetrated by Churchill is, at best, a pretext for the real reason CU and the Governor of CO want Churchill fired. I suspect the "real reason" is they don't like the stances he takes in his scholarship, which sounds peculiarly like view-point discrimination. As to the particular article and book that fanned the embers of the Churchill fire, I strongly suggest people read the article and foundational materials to which Churchill refers when he alleges the people in the WTC were not innocents but, rather, were complicit "technocrats." Further, its important to note that Churchill includes himself, and all Americans, in the allegation of complicity. None of us, he asserts, is innocent. I can't agree more.

The questions surrounding the legitimacy of Churchill's genetic and cultural claims has been long and on-going in Indian community, and the debate properly belongs in Indian community. It is fundamental to sovereignty that the sovereign determine who is and who is not a member of its polity, and the standards of the sovereign should be used to make the determination. Simply, being American Indian is a matter of community recognition and "recognition" can manifest in many ways, only one (a very important one) of which is official tribal enrollment. Therefore, I don't believe Churchill's identity is an issue on which non-Indian public comment has much persuasive force or value.

Whether Churchill fabricated evidence (alleged here, among other allegations, by Berny Morson, Charlie Brennan and John Ensslin of the Rocky Mountain News) and in and for some of his scholarship or not is ethically and legally a matter for his peers to decide, according to doctrine of Academic Freedom. The principle of academic freedom (see in relevant part, element #3 with amendments and commentary at note 4) is founded upon the First Amendment, as necessary to a robust public discourse, particularly on matters political. The only people ethically and legally qualified to judge the quality of Churchill's scholarship, for the purposes of tenure or dismissal, are his academic peers.

Further, it's irresponsible of professional journalists to report allegations and innuendo as if they are fact. See this UNattributed webpiece. The non-professional-reporters can blog all they want about it (I can even support your figurative "lynch blog" in the name of the First Amendment). But given recent events blurring the line between commenter and journalist (too many to link to), "columns" appearing in printed media, or on official newspaper websites, should be clearly marked as "commentary" so as not to be confused by readers with news-reporting.

So... First Amendment and public university PROUD people! If Boalt Hall and UC has a place in its discourse for John Yoo, then barring a finding of fabrication of scholarly evidence, certainly CU ought to have a place for Ward Churchill.

Re-Runs

2005-02-11T11:55:00.000-08:00

Why is it that I'll sit on Monday nights and enjoy watching rerun after rerun of The West Wing, but if Comedy Central reruns a week of The Daily Show With Jon Stewart, then I'm totally annoyed?

Revisiting I-200

2005-02-09T16:32:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Bashman of How Applealing for spotting this opinion yesterday in the Seattle Times about legislative attempts to reverse Washington's anti-affirmative action measure I-200. Perhaps, given the recent Supreme Court decision inThe Michigan cases, now is exactly the right time to re-open the debate on the west coast about the value of affirmative measures to increase access for racial minorities to public higher education.

There are only two voter-approved anti-affirmative action initiatives. California's Proposition 209 and Washington State's I-200. One Florida began was Governor Jeb Bush's executive order. Other anti-affirmative action activities were legitimized through judicial decree, for example the 11th Cir. opinion out of Georgia. Because Georgia and Florida are both in the 11th Cir, the UGA opinion had the temporary effect of supporting the One Florida plan. Johnson v. UGA joined other judicial limitations on affirmative action in higher education, Hopwood in the 5th Cir. and Michigan's Bollinger cases in the 6th Cir. However, the 2003 Supreme Court decision hearkened back to Bakke to overturn all the lower court decisions on the ground that attempts to achieve diversity in higher education is a compelling state interest which justifies the use of race in admission to public schools. John Carlson, in his Seattle Time Op, is correct that the Michigan decision does not require race-based affirmative measures. The Court decision simply says that there is a legitimate justification for government to use race in admissions if it so chooses.

In the 25+ year backlash against affirmative action, the argument against it has been that governments aren't justified in using race as a category for deprivation or allocation of resources. This popular opinion was reflected in specific opinions from the Court. However, the Court always held out that there may be legitimate uses of race in governmental actions.

In the Michigan and other affirmative action cases, the Court is primarily concerned with the state's justifications for employing affirmative action measures. O'Connor, writing for the Court in Grutter, declares, "Context matters when reviewing race-based governmental action under the Equal Protection Clause." She then distinguishes education as a context different from other areas in which some justifications for affirmative action have been litigated, such as public contracting. Lest there be confusion about whether the contracting cases are controlling O'Connor writes, "Nor, since Bakke, have we directly addressed the use of race in the context of public higher education." The distinction between the justifications for affirmative action in public education and the justifications for affirmative action in public contracting are particularly interesting because O'Connor also wrote two of the controlling public contracting decisions.

The Court relied on the Diversity Rational as the reason for deciding that race can be legitimately taken into account in admission to institutions of higher education. (links to concepts "diversity rational" and "critical mass" coming soon)

If there's a controlling case on affirmative action in public employment, I am unaware. I haven't adequately researched it. The case that immediately comes to mind is Piscataway v. Taxman which was settled out of court approximately two months before the Supreme Court was set to hear it. I believe there is also an east-coast lower-court case on the justification of "role models" for hiring a black teacher over a white teacher in a predominately black public school, but I don't recall the parties in the case and haven't looked it up. Anyway, as I recall, the lower court found the "role model" justification was not a compelling state interest for hiring a black teacher over an equally qualified white teacher. But, as a lower court case, the decision would only have persuasive and not controlling authority outside its jurisdiction.

With that background of lower court activism in limiting the use of race as a factor in admission to higher education, it is clearer that Washington's I-200 and California's Proposition 209 are significantly different from the judicial cases in Georgia, Texas and Michigan and different from the executive activism in Florida. First, I-200 and Prop. 209 limit more than just how state-run colleges and universities can select students for admission to higher education. The initiatives also limit the use of race in public employment and public contracting. Second, the WA and CA initiatives were directly voter approved. There is an implicit argument in Carlson's Seattle Times article that directly democratic moves like I-200 and Proposition 209 shouldn't be changed through legislative action. After all the voters have, theoretically, bypassed their representatives for a reason and have spoken. But let's look at the arguments FOR changing I-200 and then look at the arguments for using the state legislature to do it.

Though I-200 was passed only ten years ago, times seem to be a-changing. As I said above, with the Supreme Court specifically stating that governments can use limited, affirmative, race-inclusive means to achieve the compelling state interest of diversity in public higher education, the people of Washington and California may need debate whether the initiatives are simply too far reaching. The populus may need to revisit their notions of when it is legitimate and when it is illegitimate to take race into account. If using race in admissions was considered illegitimate before the Michigan cases, maybe the people will now be persuaded by the logic of the Court in the context of higher education. Certainly public debate should be reopened on the issue. It is entirely possible that given the effects of serverely curtailing affirmative measures in Washington and California, that the majorities who favored I-200 and Prop-209 ten years ago may not be in favor now.

Carlson argues that there is no need to change the law because the University of Washington has achieved diversity without taking race into account. Carlson argues that traditionally excluded minorities are now attending UW in numbers proportional to Washington state demographics. However, his use of state demographic data is selective, at best, and should at least be justified according to some stated value or social good, for example the mission of the university or service to the communities the university serves. While UW is the state's flagship school and certainly should serve the people of Washington who help to fund it, UW also competes on a regional and national level for undergraduate and graduate students. As a research university, UW contributes knowledge and information not only to the state of Washington but also to the nation. Therefore, perhaps it makes more sense for national or regional demographic figures to determine whether or not diversity has been achieved at UW. At the very least, Carlson's use of state-wide demographic data to declare that diversity has been achieved should be questioned and justified.

Despite Mr. Carlson's assertion that, "most people, regardless of their politics, are fair. They believe that discrimination is wrong and that civil rights belong to everyone," his reference to the nearly proportional representation of students of color at UW to their percentage of the Washington public is decidedly unfair and likely discriminatory as well. I don't support proportional representation because, as expemplified by Mr. Carlson's polemic, proportional representation tends to act as a cap on the number of qualified minority students admitted. Presumably, in fairness, Mr. Carlson would like his alma mater to educate the best students, not just the best 3.7% of African American students and the best 72% (or 54%) of White students.

Mr. Carlson's reference to the demographic make-up and proportional representation at UW is also misleading with regard to why diversity is desirable in higher education. The Court's understanding of the diversity rational is supported by the notion of "critical mass." Unlike proportional representation which is a maximum, critical mass in the context of higher education is best understood as a minimum; enough minority students to ensure that 'minority students don't feel isolated or like spokespersons for their race; to provide adequate opportunities for the kind of interaction upon which the educational benefits of diversity depend; and to challenge all students to think critically and to reexamine stereotypes." Critical mass is a flexible, context-specific, minimum for achieving the benefits of diversity. Therefore, before Carlson can declare that diversity at UW has been achieved there should be a serious inquiry into whether or not there are sufficient numbers of traditionally excluded minority students to approximate a critical mass in UW classrooms so the benefits of diversity can flow.

Now that we've at least reopened the debate that Carlson seeks to close, let's discuss the legitimacy of legislators overturning direct voter initiatives. I'm sure there's a law review article out there somewhere, but the arguments are identifiable without too much scholarly analysis. There are three choices for over-turning Prop-209 and I-200. First, find an aggrieved party with standing and take it to the state courts. Certainly not the fastest way to get something done and given the legal expenses for both sides, certainly not the most cost effective. Second, voters can reverse themselves at great expense. It's more cost effective to have the legislature execute the will of the people. After all, the people of Washington are already paying their representatives so the costs are built in. There could be a lively theoretical debate about "elitist" representatives overriding the will of the people, but if the majorities of people in Washington state and in California are persuaded by the logic of The Court and have changed their minds about the legitimacy of taking race into account for admission to their institutions of higher education, the legislature seems to be the most efficient and cost-effective place to turn.

Black History Month

2005-02-01T23:18:00.000-08:00

I run for fun, fitness and thinking time. While running the other day, in honor of Black History month, I was challenging myself to come up with a list of "Great Black Boalties." I also considered doing some serious googling to come up with a list of "Great Black Cal alumni." Of course, "great" is a sort of flexible criterion... and I could list a lot of people with whom I went to school. But I think I'm going for, you know, like broadly great, state-wide or national -- or at least well known. Your suggestions welcomed and encouraged.

Great Black Boalties

Judge Thelton Henderson (BA, JD, so we forgive his later ties to Stanfurd)
Eva Patterson
Robert Westley

In making this list, I want to honor the far-reaching contributions of Black Cal and Boalt alumns, but I also want to seriously challenge Cal and Boalt's records for admission, recrutiment and retention of amazing Black students. So look here in the future for data on those issues. I'd love to get my hands on data of Black applicants who were denied admission to Boalt or Cal who later went on to amazingness benefiting other schools. I remember Matt Gonzalez telling newly enrolled graduate students at Cal that the reason he went to Stanfurd for law school rather than Boalt is Boalt didn't admit him. Certainly Cal and Boalt are missing opportunties like this all the time.

Great Pedagogy

2005-01-31T18:25:00.001-08:00

I've been struggling with a way to begin posting. It seemed I should have some momentous beginning... something that managed to cover all the major things I care about, that this blawg should strive to cover... public legal education, educational access, race, law, pedagogy... Already, you can see I've given up on monument. However, I think an email I received by way of multiple FWDs from Prof. Angela Harris about theLatCrit Conference provides a solid place to start.

I very often tell people that I would have dropped out of law school after the first semester if it hadn't been for Angela Harris. I'm the first in my family ever to go to college. My dad and I are the only people, on either side of my family going as far back as anyone knows, who graduated from high school. I set law school as a goal (a story for another time) when I was in 6th grade. My path to Boalt was long and anything but traditional. I'm nothing if not tenacious. So it is really something to say that after one semester, I was willing to give up the goal I'd spent 16 years working toward. (Again, stories for other times.) It is, therefore, equally something that anything Prof. Harris was willing to do was able to make such a significant impact. Angela Harris is a hero, and she is positioned at several intersections of my interests, so I'd like to start my blog with something related to her.

One of my professors used to joke, you could always tell someone had gone to law school because they number their thoughts. That's probably accurate.

There were at least 4 things that Angela Harris did to encourage me to stay. First, she, Prof. Rachel Moran and Eleanor Swift began The Center for Social Justice. Just before the Center was announced, when I was but a budding academic groupie, I recall walking through the law school parking lot, dodging undergraduate effluvia, and found myself behind these three amazing women. I'm not exaggerating when I admit, I was inspired and motivated by merely walking behind them. These brilliant women and their Center for Social Justice gave me a reason to apply to Boalt Hall Post-Proposition 209.

Second, Angela Harris encouraged, Prof.Eric Yamamoto (Boalt, '78) to visit Boalt and teach Race & American Law. I'd had a course of this title as an undergraduate with HayLo, but Prof. Harris assured me that Prof. Yamamoto's materials and approach would not be repetitive. She was right. While I think IHL is brilliant, a very good academic and an amazing writer, Yamamoto is all that AND a learner's teacher. I enrolled in his Race & American Law course and found a holistic and context-centered approach to teaching law. (If only I'd also had Yamamoto for Civ.Pro instead of that stodgy, old, backward-ass, thinks-he's-funny partner from GDC!) Not only is Yamamoto a superior thinker, prolific writer, and dedicated teacher, he's also an inspirational mentor; always making us students take time to "talk story". I'll never forget the day Eric brought Mr. Fred Korematsu to class. In law school, very few plaintiffs have names. So it was as astonishing as if your torts professor had invited poor Mrs. Palsgraf to the class on proximate cause. Mr. Korematsu was very real, in the sense that Mr. Korematsu was smart and plain-spoken and the sense that Yamamoto had (re)humanized what many of us might have thought of as, at best, a 40+ year-old injustice and at worst as a 40-year-old Supreme Court case (oh so relevant in today!).

The third thing Angela Harris did to encourage me to stay in law school is she allowed me to take control of my education. For example, I hated my criminal law class, which also happened to be my small section. It didn't help that I really couldn't take 99% of the people in my mod (and I'm sure the feelings were reciprocated). Our Crim professor didn't want to be there any more than I did. When he came into class the first day, he cited the grading system, and suggested we could vote to just draw lots for grades. I happily voted to draw lots and even offered to take a "P" lot. Alas, the 27 Red-Hots in my mod, outvoted me (talk about tyranny of the majority). Rather than attend that Crim class, I attended Angela Harris' Criminal Law class instead. Of course, I took the exam in my designated class (it was a take-home as opposed to Harris' in-class; which worked for me so I wasn't about to fight it). Angela also let me audit her Critical Race Theory seminar, which helped me retain my hold on the reason I'd come to law school in the first place. (Special thanks to my Legal Writing professor, who let me ditch her conflicting class to attend Harris' Crim class.)

Finally, Profs Harris and Yamamoto encouraged me to attend LatCrit, where I wandered around wide-eyed and drooled gah-gah at the sum of brain power. At the conference, I attended every plenary and enjoyed watching these superior beings hash-out meanings, definitions and project direction. Much more spirited, intellectual and inspirational than some other conference one might choose to attend while in law school. I didn't ditch a single panel. One of the panels was a most powerful "talking circle" on indigenaeity in Latino/a identity. I also volunteered to read and provide input on some "papers in progress." Some of those papers were being written by my heroes and professors, so it was a chance to get a sneak-peak as well as turn the tables a bit. There was also some "Free/Discretionary/Recreational/Spontaneous Caucusing Time" which, if you hung out with the right people, involved social lubricants and Trivial Pursuit (TM) (links avoided to protect the not-so-innocent). So, welcome to my Blawg. And if you're a future or current law student looking for some intellectual community, (or a reason to stay in law school), I highly recommend applying for The LatCrit Scholar's Program(the conference is in Puerto Rico this year!).

Disclaimer

2005-01-26T13:45:00.000-08:00

Though I went to college and law school at Berkeley, and worked on the campus for years (felt like eons)... I am not affiliated with The University of California, UC Berkeley or Boalt Hall (School of Law). My opinions are not necessarily the opinions of the University, the campus or the Law School. More than likely my opinions are not the policies of the University, the campus or the Law School.

I am huge fan of the University, the campus and the Law School. The campus has extraordinarily high standards, is rich in resources and opportunities. As an undergraduate institution, it does more to prepare students for further study than any other school in the nation. At the graduate level the campus has amazing breadth and each department has incomparable depth. The campus competes and excels in multiple doctoral/research markets; whether west-coast or boutique, public or private. You can compare UC Berkeley on any number of criteria and it will consistently be at the top.

However, just because Cal is good, doesn't mean it's good enough. Because I believe so strongly in the greatness of Cal, I seek to keep watchful eye over the standards for admission, instruction, research, and graduation. Because Cal is a public school, funded in part by the tax-payers of California, I seek to insure the University meets its obligation to serve the people of California by improving access for the diverse populations of California. Since Proposition 209 was put into effect, the number of historically underrepresented students at Cal has continued to decrease at the undergraduate level (links pending). Further, the number of faculty from historically underrepresented groups is also sadly lacking. Finally, though improving, Cal has a woeful record on access to persons with mobility and other disabilities.

This blog/blawg will cover all things Cal, lots of things UC, tons of things Boalt and many things me.