Faculty Commentary

“It must not be forgotten that it is perhaps more dangerous for a nation to allow itself to be conquered intellectually than by arms.” – Guillaume Apollinaire, “The New Spirit and the Poets” (1917) In his commencement address at West Point on June 13, 2020, US President Donald J. Trump presented a narrowing view of [...]

READ MORE

The Supreme Court created quite a stir recently when it held in Bostock v. Clayton Country, Georgia that Title VII, the major federal anti-employment-discrimination law, protected gay and transgender employees on the same basis as heterosexual employees. Deciding three companion cases involving different employees, the Court filled a major gap in employee protection – most [...]

READ MORE

Wednesday’s decision by the D.C. Circuit granting General Mike Flynn’s petition for mandamus is a dangerous precedent. In directing US District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan to grant DOJ’s motion to dismiss the false statement charges against Flynn, the court disrupted orderly court proceedings. While I believe DOJ would have ultimately prevailed in due course, the [...]

READ MORE

On Juneteenth, the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted a resolution requesting the High Commissioner for Human Rights, with the assistance of relevant Special Mandate Holders, to prepare a report on systemic racism and violations of international human rights law against Africans and people of African descent by law enforcement agencies, especially those incidents that [...]

READ MORE

In the weeks since Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd in Minneapolis, protests have spread across the United States. An endless stream of online videos shows officers pushing, beating, pepper spraying, tear gassing, and shooting “less lethal” munitions at protestors and journalists, alike. These displays of police violence, like the murder of Floyd, are horrifying. But [...]

READ MORE

The outrage much of the nation and world has expressed at the police killing of George Floyd has been accompanied by demands for greater punishment of all of the officers involved. These demands call attention to an often-overlooked element of the problem of police violence: those subjected to unlawful police practices largely depend on other [...]

READ MORE