Racially homogenous universities:

Actually, racial homogeneity has proved a bit of a legal problem for some historically black colleges and universities. Alcorn State, in Mississippi, has diversified by attracting (white) Russian students, thanks partially to the recruitment efforts of a tennis coach and a lawsuit that the state hadn't been taking fair care of Mississippi's three HBCUS -- Alcorn State, Jackson State, and Mississippi Valley State Univ.

The result is a good story, avaliable here, as reported by the New York Times in March. (life before google... what was that like?)

More affirmative action:

Mustafa Hirji writes, "A native Indian or an Asian isn't disadvantaged by race when applying to universities or jobs. . . . If all races are equal, than the impediment isn't race, and race shouldn't be a basis for affirmative action.
" (see his point 3 of his full message availabe here below, along with Will's comments on it).

I think the last sentence should be, If all races are treated equally, then the impediment isn't race.... And as for whether the latter's the case, do you remember this recent study? (apologies...html google cashed version)

To test whether employers discriminate against black job applicants, Marianne Bertrand of the University of Chicago and Sendhil Mullainathan of M.I.T. conducted an unusual experiment. They selected 1,300 help-wanted ads from newspapers in Boston and Chicago and submitted multiple résumés from phantom job seekers. The researchers randomly assigned the first names on the résumés, choosing from one set that is particularly common among blacks and from another that is common among whites.

Apart from their names, applicants had the same experience, education and skills, so employers had no reason to distinguish among them. The results are disturbing. Applicants with white-sounding names were 50 percent more likely to be called for interviews than were those with black-sounding names. Interviews were requested for 10.1 percent of applicants with white-sounding names and only 6.7 percent of those with black-sounding names.

Their most alarming finding is that the likelihood of being called for an interview rises sharply with an applicant's credentials - - like experience and honors - - for those with white-sounding names, but much less for those with black-sounding names. A grave concern is that this phenomenon may be damping the incentives for blacks to acquire job skills, producing a self-fulfilling prophecy that perpetuates prejudice and misallocates resources.

So, the charitable theory of affirmative action offers that it corrects for the biases current and operating in the system -- the one that causes employers to pull J. Truman Mayflower III's resume out of the stack. The skeptical realist replies that affirmative action perpetuates the biased system, perhaps even worsening rather than correcting the problem. Studies like this make it hard to say that one's race can't be a disadvantage -- not through any fault of the person's own, but because of the reactions which others have to it.

Well, I'm off too go do something semi-productive for a while, but I leave you with this opinion from the 5th Circuit and a few excerpts. (Link via Sua Sponte)

Before proceeding further, the Court notes that this case involves two extremely likable lawyers, who have together delivered some of the most amateurish pleadings ever to cross the hallowed causeway into Galveston, an effort which leads the Court to surmise but one plausible explanation. Both attorneys have obviously entered into a secret pact — complete with hats, handshakes and cryptic words — to draft their pleadings entirely in crayon on the back sides of gravy-stained paper place mats, in the hope that the Court would be so charmed by their child-like efforts that their utter dearth of legal authorities in their briefing would go unnoticed. Whatever actually occurred, the Court is now faced with the daunting task of deciphering their submissions.

With Big Chief tablet readied, thick black pencil in hand, and a devil-may-care laugh in the face of death, life on the razor's edge sense of exhilaration, the Court begins...

Defendant submitted a Reply brief, on June 11, 2001, after the Court had already drafted, but not finalized, this Order. In a regretful effort to be thorough, the Court reviewed this submission....Plaintiff's citation, however, points to a nonexistent Volume "1886" of the Federal Reporter Third Edition and neglects to provide a pinpoint citation for what, after being located, turned out to be a forty-page decision. Ultimately, to the Court's dismay after reviewing the opinion, it stands simply for the bombshell proposition that torts committed on navigable waters (in this case an alleged defamation committed by the controversial G. Gordon Liddy aboard a cruise ship at sea) require the application of general maritime rather than state tort law. See Wells v. Liddy, 186 F.3d 505, 524 (4th Cir. 1999) (What the ..)?!...

The Court cannot even begin to comprehend why this case was selected for reference. It is almost as if Plaintiff's counsel chose the opinion by throwing long range darts at the Federal Reporter (remarkably enough hitting a nonexistent volume!). And though the Court often gives great heed to dicta from courts as far flung as those of Manitoba, it finds this case unpersuasive...

Despite the continued shortcomings of Plaintiff's supplemental submission, the Court commends Plaintiff for his vastly improved choice of crayon — Brick Red is much easier on the eyes than Goldenrod, and stands out much better amidst the mustard splotched about Plaintiff's briefing. But at the end of the day, even if you put a calico dress on it and call it Florence, a pig is still a pig...

Now, alas, the Court must return to grownup land. As vaguely alluded to by the parties, the issue in this case turns upon which law — state or maritime — applies to each of Plaintiff's potential claims versus Defendant Phillips. And despite Plaintiff's and Defendant's joint, heroic efforts to obscure it, the answer to this question is readily ascertained...

After this remarkably long walk on a short legal pier, having received no useful guidance whatever from either party, the Court has endeavored, primarily based upon its affection for both counsel, but also out of its own sense of morbid curiosity, to resolve what it perceived to be the legal issue presented. Despite the waste of perfectly good crayon seen in both parties' briefing (and the inexplicable odor of wet dog emanating from such) the Court believes it has satisfactorily resolved this matter. Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment is GRANTED.

At this juncture, Plaintiff retains, albeit seemingly to his befuddlement and/or consternation, a maritime law cause of action versus his alleged Jones Act employer, Defendant Unity Marine Corporation, Inc. However, it is well known around these parts that Unity Marine's lawyer is equally likable and has been writing crisply in ink since the second grade. Some old-timers even spin yarns of an ability to type. The Court cannot speak to the veracity of such loose talk, but out of caution, the Court suggests that Plaintiff's lovable counsel had best upgrade to a nice shiny No. 2 pencil or at least sharpen what's left of the stubs of his crayons for what remains of this heart-stopping, spine-tingling action.

In either case, the Court cautions Plaintiff's counsel not to run with a sharpened writing utensil in hand — he could put his eye out.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

The New York Times reports on a fellow in Washington state named William Sheehan, who maintains a website where he posts the addresses, social security numbers, and other similar data, of police officers. He doesn't much like police officers. The Washington legislature tried to stop him, but a federal judge struck down their statute as unconstitutional. This should remind readers, perhaps, of the "Nuremberg Files" case where anti-abortion activists listed personal information for abortion doctors in an effort to encourage violence against them, or perhaps of Cox v. Cohn which dealt with whether radio announcers could publicly list the names of rape victims.

My own view is that there shouldn't be some sort of middle ground information that is "public but not too public." If you can tell your best friend over the phone, you ought to be able to post it on your blog. I'm not sure my view is entirely supported by First Amendment jurisprudence, but . . .

Sheehan himself notes that he's a little uneasy about posting the social security numbers, since he thinks the state shouldn't be revealing those in the first place, but has decided to include them anyway for verification purposes. I think that people ought to have a decent amount of a right not to disclose certain things in the first place (unlisted numbers and addresses, etc.) but that once they do disclose them, they shouldn't get any legal right to stop other people from talking about them.

Incidentally, I don't think the Times article gives the address for his site. It's here.

Incidentally, for the oenophiles among you, here's a Federal Trade Commission report on the benefits of letting wineries ship their wine directly to their customers through the mail (many states don't). It's far more cogent and carefully-reasoned than my first-year paper on the subject, but not as funny.

So here's a boring article on tort reform, and here's an interesting sentence:

The Democratic alternative to the Republican measure, which would offer tax relief to doctors, strip the insurance industry of its longstanding exemption to federal antitrust law and create a commission to study the cause of high malpractice premiums, draws on some ideas Mr. Edwards laid out in May in an opinion article published in The Washington Post. . .