"State law says that no school’s nonwhite enrollment can deviate from the districtwide average for schools with the same grade levels by more than 25 percentage points."

Race-balancing in Connecticut.

In addition to New Lebanon and Hamilton Avenue Elementary, the two schools on the western edge of town with too few white students, two schools on the far eastern and northern sides of town are flirting with imbalance of an opposite kind: having too few minority children... The imbalance was created by a steady increase in black and Hispanic residents on the western side of [Greenwich]...

Tony Kushner thinks it's fine for a movie to "manipulate a small detail in the service of a greater historical truth."

"History doesn’t always organize itself according to the rules of drama. It’s ridiculous. It’s like saying that Lincoln didn’t have green socks, he had blue socks."

The green/blue sock equivalent ridiculousness in Kushner's screenplay was having Connecticut vote against the abolition of slavery when in fact it voted for.

"Lincoln" smears Connecticut.

"I could not believe my own eyes and ears," said Connecticut Congressman Joe Courtney. "Placing the State of Connecticut on the wrong side of the historic and divisive fight over slavery is a distortion of easily verifiable facts."

"It is historical fiction -- a noble genre going back to Shakespeare and well before -- not history," [said Columbia University historian Eric Foner].

And yet we're pressured to go see that movie because of the way it explains history. 

By coincidence, Shakespeare is getting some negative press this week, after bones found under a parking lot in England were determined to have belonged to Richard III, the last of the Plantagenet dynasty, supplanted by the Tudors, whom Shakespeare had reason to flatter as he portrayed Richard III as a villain.

No “bunch-backed toad,” no “slave of nature and the son of hell,” no “bottled spider,” the exhumed Richard is enjoying a remake as a physically challenged fellow with spinal curvature who might have starred in last year’s London Paralympics if given the chance.

Alas he got clobbered several times with a halberd (presumably wielded by a halberdier ignoring late 15th century safety regulations), and may have suffered the ignominy of being sodomized with an unlicensed dagger while being carried naked on horseback to Leicester. ....

“I’ve spoken to scoliosis experts and they say acute scoliosis like that was painful,” Philippa Langley, a Richard III enthusiast, told The Guardian. “So we know that he was working through the pain barrier every day just to do his job.... He had an incredibly powerful, strong work ethic. This man never stopped. He was on a horse every day, fighting skirmishes, doing everything they had to do.”

Imagine a movie about Lincoln that does not cater to the tastes of the present-day dynasty. There's plenty of old material to rake over. He wasn't called "bunch-backed toad" or a "bottled spider," but he was called "The obscene ape of Illinois." And:

The illustrious Honest Old Abe has continued during the last week to make a fool of himself and to mortify and shame the intelligent people of this great nation. His speeches have demonstrated the fact that although originally a Herculean rail splitter and more lately a whimsical story teller and side splitter, he is no more capable of becoming a statesman, nay, even a moderate one, than the braying ass can become a noble lion. People now marvel how it came to pass that Mr. Lincoln should have been selected as the representative man of any party. His weak, wishy-washy, namby-pamby efforts, imbecile in matter, disgusting in manner, have made us the laughing stock of the whole world. The European powers will despise us because we have no better material out of which to make a President. The truth is, Lincoln is only a moderate lawyer and in the larger cities of the Union could pass for no more than a facetious pettifogger. Take him from his vocation and he loses even these small characteristics and indulges in simple twaddle which would disgrace a well bred school boy.

"Angry residents pelted utility crews with eggs as they tried to restore power in Bridgeport, Conn...."

"... after the mayor claimed the local power company had 'shortchanged' the state's largest city as it tries to recover from superstorm Sandy."

I'm sick and tired of Bridgeport being shortchanged," [Mayor Bill] Finch said, noting that Bridgeport has the largest number of United Illuminating ratepayers and claimingg it should be treated better by the New Haven-based utility.

United Illuminating has denied giving priority to wealthy customers, while ignoring Bridgeport residents.

Class warfare. Ask the eggheads in New Haven about it.

You think because a chimpanzee knows you, he doesn't hate you?

"A 200-pound pet chimpanzee in Stamford, Conn., Monday viciously mauled a woman he had known for years, leaving her critically injured with much of her face torn away... The attack, in the driveway of a sprawling home in a densely wooded neighborhood on the north side of Stamford, also brought a brutal end to the life of the chimpanzee, Travis, 14, a popular figure in town who had appeared in television commercials and often posed for photographs at the towing shop operated by his owners.... Travis was in a rambunctious mood... Travis would not be lured back into the house, even after Ms. Herold gave him tea laced with Xanax. Ms. Herold called Ms. Nash, who drove over, but when she stepped out of her car at around 3:40 p.m., Travis went at her full force. While it was not clear what prompted the assault, Ms. Nash had markedly changed her hairstyle since the last time Travis had seen her, possibly leading him to mistake her for an intruder."

ADDED: "One thing that we're looking into is that we understand the chimpanzee has Lyme disease and has been ill from that..."

Oh, for the love of God. He had chimpanzeeness. The human beings are responsible for leaving him unrestrained. Do you think because it's Connecticut, he will behave? The loathsome sentimentality of these excuses! For relief from sentimentality, feast your eyes on the comments herein. I won't frontpage the most ribald and cruel things. I'll just say the one thing that really made me laugh. After I wrote: "This is Darwin Award level stupidity. You don't keep a pet 200-pound ape around the house!" Rocketeer67 said:

Please, don't ever let my wife hear you say this. I don't have any place else to go!

IN THE COMMENTS: Pogo:

"2009: A Chimp Odyssey"

TRAVIS: Look Charla, I can see you're really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a Xanax, and think things over.

TRAVIS: I know I've made some very poor decisions recently, including the impromptu facelift, but I can give you my complete assurance that my behavior will be back to normal. I've still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in Stamford. And I want to stay in the neighborhood.

[TRAVIS gets a fatal dose of Xanax]

TRAVIS: I'm afraid. I'm afraid, Charla. Charla, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going. There is no question about it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I'm a... fraid."

AND: Pogo continues:

My Dinner With Travis

TRAVIS: Goals and plans are not — I mean, they're fantasy. They're part of a dream life! I mean, you know, it always just does seem so ridiculous somehow that everybody has to have his little goal in life. I mean, it's so absurd, in a way. I mean, when you consider that it doesn't matter which one it is.

CHARLA: Right! And because people's concentration is on their goals, in their life they just live each moment by habit! Really, like the Norwegian, telling the same stories over and over again. Life becomes habitual! And it is, today! I mean, very few things happen now like that moment when Marlon Brando sent the Indian woman to accept the Oscar and everything went haywire? Things just very rarely go haywire now. And if you're just operating by habit, then you're not really living. I mean, you know, in Sanskrit the root of the verb "to be" is the same as the verb "to grow" or "to make grow."

TRAVIS: ***CHOMP***

CHARLA: AAAAARRRRRGGGGhhhhhackspitgurgle

TRAVIS: Do you think maybe we live in this dream world because we do so many things every day that affect us in ways that somehow we're just not aware of?

TRAVIS: Charla?

TRAVIS: Charla?

The Connecticut Supreme Court finds a right to same-sex marriage.

WaPo reports.

"They think we’re a cult. People think we should be home playing 'Grand Theft Auto.'"

Kids build a Wiffle ball field on public land and — invoking the favor of adults who value old-fashioned fun — stand their ground when the neighbors go legal on them.

"Outsider art" gets counted as a thesis at the ultimate insider place: Harvard Law School.

Is this the education you want your lawyer to have? It's lawyerly: looking for loopholes.

IN THE COMMENTS: George underlines a point I only suggested:

It's not Outsider Art.

To be an Outsider Artist, you must possess some combination of the following:

a) an affinity for religious vision(s), especially if they involve Jesus, the Rapture, blood, tree roots, and devils;
b) no formal art training;
c) a grave illness/accident (ideally involving paralysis or loss of a limb;
d) alcoholism;
e) be from the South;
f) have little or no education and absolutely no law degree (unless thereafter you are forcibly imprisoned in a mental institution for 50 years and upon your death the bulk of your work (paper clip lint sculptures) is burned by insensitive orderlies);
g) be white or preferably black and lived a life of isolation from modernity;
h) be willing to do what gallery owners and auctioneers tell you to do;
i) concoct the most positively lurid depictions of sexual organs and acts;
j) wear clothes you have painted;
k) build electromagnetic energy devices and concrete statues in and around your polka-dotted shotgun shack;
l) invent a name for yourself; and
m) be mentally ill or at least seem that way to white-wine sipping Yuppies from Connecticut and Atlanta.

Well delineated, George. And now it occurs to me that law schools might want to enhance diversity by admitting Outsider Law Students.

So, yes, I've flown out of New York.

And I'm here in Madison. No race-and-feminism conferencing yet for me. I'm too late for the afternoon session. But I will make it to this evening's keynote speech from Columbia lawprof Patricia Williams. It's called "Moaning in America," and I'm expecting multilayered wordplay and... what? Anti-Reaganism? Suffering? Sex?

Meanwhile, I'm resting up — sipping cappuccino in my favorite Madison café.

It's not as if the trip was grueling, though we did spend an extra half hour on the ground. The air traffic was backed up this morning after President Bush flew in through La Guardia to give this talk at the Economic Club. (He said we're going through a "tough time" but we should "bounce back.") The only reason I knew is that my car service driver pointed out the helicopters flying overhead in formation.

The driver seemed pretty interested in politics. He had the news radio on and when the story on Eliot Spitzer elicited a barely audible scoff from me, he struck up a conversation about it. He assured me that all men, given the chance, would do what Spitzer did, and that Spitzer's enemies went after him and brought him down.

"I'm from Egypt," he said and proceeded to tell me about an Egyptian politician who was destroyed by a trumped up charge of rape against his son which tricked the man into trying to bribe the authorities, and so he was caught and destroyed. That is to say: there is human nature, and that is simply a given; the real problem is those people who set out to destroy a political opponent.

But don't you think that once someone is in power, it is his responsibility to refrain from doing those things that will allow his enemies to take him down?

No, all men will do this. This is the way men are.

Even Barack Obama?

I was going to say even Mitt Romney?, but I thought Barack Obama would make a better question, and in fact, he didn't want to say Barack Obama would do the same thing. He went back to stressing that it is the enemies who seek to destroy a man who deserve our scorn.



The plane was tiny and there was hardly anyone on it, but it was a smooth nonstop flight, and I passed the time this way:

1. I did a packet of Brooklyn-themed crosswords that Eric Berlin sent me after I blogged about the movie "Wordplay." (You can get them here for $1.99.) In the movie, they make a big deal about how the annual tournament must — as a matter of long tradition — take place at the Marriott in Stamford, Connecticut, but in fact, this year's tournament was in the Marriott that's 2 blocks away from where I was at Brooklyn Law School. Too bad I missed it! But it was really nice of Eric to notice and to send me the the Brooklyn-themed puzzles he'd constructed for the event.

2. I watched the new episode of "Survivor," the one where — spoiler alert — Jonathan's leg wound swells up and threatens his life and they need to tear him away from the game and the people he loves, and then Chet whines about a boo-boo on his foot that he thinks is getting infected and he insists that the others vote him out — which they do. The Jonathan-Chet contrast is a brilliant case study in masculinity. There was also some hilarious fake-idol-finding by Jason and impressive pole-carrying by James. And then, in the end, I totally fell for the editing that made me think dear, sweet, flexible, swimmy Ozzy was in danger. Surely, if they were blindsiding him, he'd have felt the vibe and played his real immunity idol, but it was nerve-racking there for a second.

3. I read the Peter Bagge comic in the new issue of Reason magazine — the one where he's traveling around New Hampshire, covering the primaries, almost adulating Ron Paul and then facing up to the reality of that racist newsletter. I don't think the comic is linkable yet on line, so pick up the paper copy of the magazine. I've been getting my courtesy copy in the mail ever since this encounter. If only the blogging life had more things like that in it. Not too many more, but a few.

4. With a little more time, I turned the magazine page and read this article about — guess what? — prostitutes!— completely unrelated to the Eliot Spitzer downfall. It's a review of "Sin in the Second City: Madams, Ministers, Playboys, and the Battle for America’s Soul," by Karen Abbott. The review begins with a description of a high class whorehouse, circa 1907:

The Everleigh Club was an ornate mansion. Thirty themed boudoirs (“the Japanese Parlor,” “the Moorish Room,” “the Egyptian Room”) included absurd touches of decadence, such as hidden buttons to ring for champagne and a fountain that fired a jet of perfume. The city’s finest chefs prepared the women’s dinners. They read poetry by the fire with guests, who included the writers Theodore Dreiser and Ring Lardner. Sometimes Minna and Ada let swarms of butterflies fly loose throughout the house.

Then, I got to thinking about that question I'd just posed on the blog before getting onto the plane. I reconsidered, picturing it with themed boudoirs, champagne buttons, perfume fountains, top chefs, famous writer clients, and butterflies.

5. I gazed out at the clouds and the brown-and-white Wisconsin land below and daydreamed.

"Wordplay."

I finally got around to watching the movie "Wordplay," the one about crossword puzzles, especially the New York Times crossword puzzle, especially the annual tournament where crossword puzzlers convene in a Marriott hotel in Connecticut so they can hug each other and compete to see who can do the puzzles the fastest. Almost all the big critics loved this movie, and it's okay, but as a documentary it's way low on my list of favorites. (My list has "Crumb," "Grey Gardens," "Fast, Cheap and Out of Control," and "Grizzly Man" at the top.)

My main problem is that I'm interested in crosswords — for many years, I had to do (and did) the NYT crossword every day — but I don't care about rushing through it trying to get it done as quickly as possible. To me, it ruins the pleasure to become so concerned about time rather than words and the structure of the grid. So I wasn't fascinated by the guys in the movie who were obsessing about their speed. I loved the scene where Merl Reagle constructs a crossword before our eyes. Constructing a puzzle — now there is a mystery to unfold! Solving puzzles — well, almost anyone can solve a NYT puzzle (especially if it's Monday).

But the tournament hands the filmmaker — Patrick Creadon — something to photograph, something with a built-in narrative arc. And so — in an open confession of lack of creativity and artistic vision — that's where Creadon went with this.

The movie is padded with sequences showing celebrities doing the NYT puzzle. It's fun enough to see Bill Clinton and — not in the same room — Jon Stewart doing crosswords on camera and talking as they go. But how much do you want to see of the crossword puzzlings of former NYT public editor David Okrent? Enough with the Indigo Girls! And who gives a rat's ass about Ken Burns? Oh, you love his documentaries? Then you shouldn't take my reviews of documentaries too seriously, but really, even if you love Ken Burns's documentaries, surely, you're not fascinated by Ken Burns, the man. Are you? Because that would be very sad. Not sad enough to be the subject of a film as profound as "Grey Gardens" or "Crumb." Just routine sad. Get-a-life sad.

Prop guns don't kill people. Theater kids pretend to kill people.

Another cross-posting from that blog that is dividing my bloggerly attention:

PUT DOWN THOSE STAGE PROP GUNS! Because you know if you want to avert campus shooting sprees, you want to start with the hard-working theater kids who rehearsed their hearts out to put on a big show. Yes, the show is about presidential assassins, but it's Sondheim. It's high class. The bright side of this is: Because it's high-class musical theater that's getting censored, even the usual prissy anti-gun types should get pissed off.

Via Nick Gillespie, who hates the musical "Assassins" ("godawful in its original conception and execution back in 1990 (and naturally, retardedly well-received in its 2004 Broadway revival)"). I've never seen the show, but I loved Sarah Vowell's description of it in her cool book "Assassination Vacation":

"It's the Stephen Sondheim musical in which a bunch of presidential assassins and would-be assassins sing songs about how much better their lives would be if they could gun down a president."

"Oh," remarks Mr. Connecticut. "How was it?"

"Oh my god," I gush. "Even though the actors were mostly college kids, I thought it was great! The orange-haired guy who played the man who wanted to fly a plane into Nixon was hilarious. And I found myself strangely smitten with John Wilkes Booth; every time he looked in my direction I could feel myself blush." Apparently, talking about going to the Museum of Television and Radio is "too personal," but I seem to have no problem revealing my crush on the man who murdered Lincoln.

Yale law students sue over "the scummiest kind of sexually offensive tripe" at AutoAdmit.

WSJ Law Blog has the story:

In the latest chapter of the AutoAdmit.com scandal, two female Yale Law School students have sued Anthony Ciolli, the Web site’s former “chief educational director,” and more than two dozen others who allegedly used pseudonyms and posted the students’ photos as well as defamatory and threatening remarks about them on the online law-school discussion forum....

The law students aren’t named in the suit — filed yesterday in U.S. District Court in Connecticut — which claims the defendants violated copyright infringement by posting photos of one of the women without her permission, falsely posing as the women in posts on the site, and engaging in “unreasonable publicity given to another’s life; publicity that places another in a false light before the public; intentional infliction of emotional distress; negligent infliction of emotional distress; and defamation.”

The complaint asks for judgment against the defendants for unspecified damages as well as punitive damages in the amount of $245,400. Besides Ciolli, named defendants include individuals with pseudonyms such as “Pauliewalnuts” and “The Ayatollah of Rock-n-Rollah.”

“It’s bringing the right to protect yourself against offensive words and images into the 21st century,” said David N. Rosen, a New Haven, Conn.-based attorney for the students and a senior research scholar in law at Yale Law to the Law Blog in an interview. “This is the scummiest kind of sexually offensive tripe,” he said of the postings about the women on AutoAdmit.

So this is the 21st century? Where courts award punitive damages for offensive words and pictures? Isn't "the scummiest kind of sexually offensive tripe" exactly what we always used to say people had to put up with in a free country? Man, that was so 20th century!

ADDED: Over at AutoAdmit, they're trashing the complaint.

MORE: Glenn Reynolds: "Stuff that offends dumb hicks in the heartland is constitutionally protected. Stuff that offends Yale Law Students must be stamped out!" Yeah, really.

And in the comments Bruce Hayden raises a damned good question about the copyright claim (which is the whole basis for federal subject matter jurisdiction in the complaint (PDF)): "Copyright protects original expression. Thus, the photographer would be the copyright owner, not the subject of the photographs." I'm not a copyright expert, and I'm not writing this as anyone's lawyer -- I'm retired from the practice of law -- but it looks to me as though the copyright claim is completely frivolous, and all the other claims are state law claims. Subject matter jurisdiction is based only on federal question jurisdiction, not diversity of citizenship, so all those state law claims are in federal court because they are supplemental to the federal claim. Under § 1367(c), then, when the copyright claim is tossed out, the whole case should be dismissed. Unless our fearless lawyer refiles in state court, we'll never get to hash out all the interesting free speech issues. But then, this case should never have been filed. So, much as I'd like to see a strong precedent protecting offensive speech, it will be good to see this nipped in the bud.

AND: The complaint does assert that one of the plaintiffs owns the copyright in the photographs that are the basis of the copyright claims. It appears that the plaintiff acquired the copyrights in preparation for the lawsuit, and I'll leave it to copyright experts to say more about that, but the question I want to raise is: If the plaintiff(s) did not own the copyrights at the same time as the other incidents alleged in the complaint, how can the copyright infringement be part of the same constitutional case as all the state law tort claims under §1367(a)? That is, how can the federal court have jurisdiction over anything but the copyright claims?

ONE MORE THING: This post originated as a response to the lawyer's phrase "the scummiest kind of sexually offensive tripe." I want to see "the scummiest kind of sexually offensive tripe" protected. That doesn't mean I support defamation or the revelation of private facts or impersonating someone by name on a website. Those are different matters, and I don't mean to express an opinion as to whether any torts like that are alleged in the complaint. I just want to remind people to keep our free speech bearings. We have lost our way if we've forgotten the importance of protecting speech that is "scummy" and "offensive" and "tripe."

ADDED: Eugene Volokh has a detailed post on many of the fine points of liability.

"Clinton, Giuliani in a strange way may be helping each other."

Writes Marc Humbert:

While the [New York] endorsements came as no real surprise, the Giuliani camp made it clear there was a multilayer agenda at work. Besides demonstrating to other GOP contenders that he probably had New York locked up and they should keep their distance, Giuliani was also sending a message to Republicans nationwide that he was the one GOP contender who could put New York and other states in the Northeast in play for the party.

"This time we are not giving up on New York. This time we are going to win New York, and we are going to win California, and New Jersey, and Connecticut and Pennsylvania," he said in Syracuse. "We are going to contest this election in every state and not give away half the states before the election even begins."...

Such numbers, according to a top Clinton ally, show not why Republicans should pick Giuliani, but why Democrats need to pick her.

"You cannot win the White House as a Democrat without New York. It would be like trying to win the White House as a Republican without Texas. It just can't happen," said David Pollak, co-chairman of New York's state Democratic Committee.

"I don't think you could make the case that the others are bad candidates, I just think Hillary is by far in the best shape right now against Giuliani if he is the nominee because he does put New York in play," Pollak added. "I'm not saying he wins New York, but he puts it in play."

I realize she's the Senator from New York, but that doesn't mean she's all that much stronger than the other Democratic candidates in New York. Clearly, Giuliani is the only Republican candidate that has a chance in those big blue states. This has been one of Giuliani's big arguments. The question is whether Hillary can take that argument -- which is a good one -- and leverage an argument of her own -- which is not so obvious.

[Clinton and Giuliani] were opponents in the 2000 Senate race in New York until Giuliani dropped out in the face of prostate cancer and a disintegrating marriage. Polls at the time showed the two running about even.

That was also, of course, the year that saw the disputed presidential election being decided by court rulings that gave the Electoral College victory to Republican George W. Bush after Democrat Al Gore won the popular vote.

"It would be a twisted version of 2000 if Barack Obama won the presidential vote by a million votes, but lost the Electoral College because he didn't win New York," said Pollak.

Thanks for reminding us of Al Gore, who would not have lost in 2000 if he had won his home state.

"Bromide Obama, filled with grand but usually evasive eloquence.... Then, in a blink, ... small and concrete... like a community organizer..."

I didn't link to this nicely written column by David Brooks a few days ago because it was behind the TimesSelect wall, but here it is reprinted in a little Connecticut paper. Brooks says you have to ask Barack Obama every question twice, "the first time to allow him to talk about how he would talk about the subject, and the second time so you can pin him down to the practical issues at hand."

If you ask him about the Middle East peace process, he will wax rhapsodic about the need to get energetically engaged. He'll talk about the shared interests all have in democracy and prosperity. But then when you ask him concretely if the U.S. should sit down and talk with Hamas, he says no. “There's no point in sitting down so long as Hamas says Israel doesn't have the right to exist.”...

In other words, he has a tendency to go big and offer himself up as Bromide Obama, filled with grand but usually evasive eloquence about bringing people together and showing respect. Then, in a blink, he can go small and concrete, and sound more like a community organizer than George F. Kennan.

But don't all candidates do this? Maybe the real difference is that a lot of people love the "Bromide Obama" routine... at least for now. It's not the evasiveness that's special. It's the eloquence. The supposed eloquence. I don't consider evasive speech eloquent myself. But clearly, Obama in his windy, inspirational mode has impressed people. At least for now.

The view from Route 10.

The Connecticut River, which draws the line between Vermont and New Hampshire, seen from the New Hampshire side.

Last night at the University of Wisconsin Law School.

Here's what happened at my law school last night, at an event I avoided:

An emotionally charged group of hundreds of students, faculty and community members met Thursday night to address a University of Wisconsin professor’s statements about the Hmong community.

Law professor Leonard Kaplan made several statements during his Feb. 15 class that offended a group of students, who were coined the “Magnificent Seven” by those in attendance at the forum.

According to an e-mail sent to several law and Hmong students, Kaplan spoke for 10 minutes using “racist and inappropriate” remarks, allegedly saying, “Hmong men have no talent other than to kill,” and “all second-generation Hmong end up in gangs and other criminal activity,” among other comments.

Kaplan's version of the story has never been presented, strangely enough. The quotes are obviously cruelly torn from the teaching context. It is irrational to think that a law professor would assert things like this as a matter of belief. Kaplan isn't a racist, but anyone ought to know that a real racist who is clever enough to be a law professor would express himself subtly, not by bursting out with racist comments (unless he's lost his mind).

I don't know what the actual quotes were, and the repetition of the purported quotations from the email is giving them the aura of reality. Even if they are true, however, anyone who thinks about how teaching works ought to be able to imagine how there might be some pedagogical context in which those words would be said by the professor, perhaps phrasing a hypothetical or characterizing the thoughts of another person. Obviously, it would help to have an accurate report to counterweight the email (which I don't think was intended to go out to the press).

Jane Hamilton-Merritt, an author and Nobel Peace Prize nominee known for her writings on Hmong culture, flew in from Connecticut for the forum.

Originally aimed at addressing cultural acceptance of Hmong people, the discussion shifted focus almost entirely to Kaplan’s controversial comments.

As you can see, some people here at the law school believed this event would not focus on what happened in the classroom. You can detect a plan for healing, closure, and positivity.

“No matter what we all think is offensive, we’re not going to leave here with anyone ‘winning,’” said UW law student [name deleted], who was in Kaplan’s lecture. “I think the reality is the remarks, … if you agree or not, have been very damaging to the particular students and an entire population.”

[Name deleted] thus acknowledged the effect on the students, something that could conceivably be done without needing to get the facts straight or understanding why Kaplan said whatever it is he did. I imagine that [name deleted] believed this was a path toward closure.

With the initial goal of the meeting to be generally about Hmong cultural ignorance, [UW law professor Jane] Larson said Kaplan felt being in the room himself would change the nature of the discussion....

UW undergraduate [name deleted] said he regretted Kaplan did not take the opportunity to explain his comments.

But with such a large group assembled and some students very upset, how could you realistically expect them all to sit passively for Hamilton-Merritt's healthful lesson?

“We fully support all research with the marketplace of ideas, but we believe [what Kaplan said] extends far beyond the bounds of academic freedom,” [name deleted] said. “We respectfully request a public repeal and apology, and a (diversity) committee dedicated to faculty and staff.”

[Name deleted] then turned to Law School Dean Ken Davis personally, breaking the meeting’s procedural rules, before being cut off by the forum’s moderator.

What?! Procedural rules failed to keep the meeting on track? Who could have predicted that a student would try to refocus things on a matter of pressing, passionate concern? Wouldn't you have thought that someone who was "nominated for a Nobel Prize" and who flew in from the east coast would inspire awed silence?

Davis told the large crowd he hopes to continue the education of his faculty and staff.

“Sometimes we stumble, but we try to learn and try to move forward,” Davis said. “Within the Law School community, this will not be the end to learn about the wonderful community within our state.”

"Continue the education of his faculty and staff"? So it's reeducation time for all of us -- even though whatever it was that Kaplan said seems to be a complete anomaly and says nothing about the rest of us? Personally, I would never choose to approach a racial theme in class by stirring things up with exaggerated statements, and I find it hard to understand why Kaplan did whatever he did. As you know from my recent column, I support traditional law school teaching, but there are some people here who go for innovation. Innovation could lead a teacher to do things that distress the students and unleash difficult emotions. I would suppose that it would be the deepest concern about racism that would take a professor down this path.

Law student [named deleted] said he was hoping for more of an open forum where both sides were represented, adding several students may plan a “counter-forum.” He said he thinks Kaplan’s comments were conveyed as “bold and obviously untrue” and should be a part of the law education process.

“Every law professor offends their students — that’s their style,” [name deleted] said. “The last thing I’d want is to have professors treading on thin ice because they’re afraid of offending people.”

Don't you love the voice of reason?

Several students from Kaplan’s class gave their accounts of the incident in question.

[Name deleted], who was in class when Kaplan made his comments about the Hmong community, said she was outraged and upset she didn’t immediately respond to the comments in class.

“When I heard these comments, I was disturbed, shocked and angry at Kaplan and at myself for not speaking up, and at my classmates,” [name deleted] said.

The law professors want you to speak in class. The presentation is usually designed to create an occasion for speaking. Why not go in the next day and speak up? Kaplan's class is ongoing. There are endless opportunities. Did you ever get the impression that Kaplan was trying to close down discussion as opposed to stimulating it? When does a teacher stimulate discussion so much that instead of speaking in class, you choose to go outside of the class?

[Name deleted], who was in Kaplan’s class and first circulated mass e-mails to gather support, said she has been inundated with e-mails from both hate and support mail from around the country.

This is a classic example of the behavior of email. I can see how a student might feel too confused or intimidated to speak in class and might then send out an email as a way to process what happened and get ready perhaps to go back to class and engage with the teacher in a good way. But once something this inflammatory is in email, it escapes. It goes viral. It takes on a life of its own:

[Name deleted], who is in the class but did not attend lecture Feb. 15, met with Kaplan regarding the comments.

“We all genuinely believe that he is sorry we are hurt,” [name deleted] said. “What came as a shock, an injury and an insult was the fact he believed his statements to be true. He was not willing to repeal his statements.”

"The fact he believed his statements to be true"? And how did you come to be in possession of that "fact"?

ADDED: Today's Badger Herald also has this letter from Gerald Cox. CORRECTION: I think these are in fact 3 separate responses to a column on the subject by Gerald Cox (which would explain why the paragraphs don't fit together too well!):

I was in the class, this is all being taken out of context. If anything he was supporting Hmongs and criticizing Wisconsin failure in incorporating them into Northern WI society. Look at all the talk this has stirred! If anything he’s remarks helped bring light to a situation. He is not a racist and his remarks were not racist.

I’ve had Kaplan for a few courses and he is not a racist, and these remarks were completely taken out of context. The initial email describing Kaplan’s comments removed the context and intentionally led readers to conclude that Kaplan believes all Hmong are criminals and gangters which is obviously not something Kaplan believes. I feel bad that the student was offended but this student should publicly apologize to Kaplan for clearly misrepresenting his beliefs, the context of the discussion, and ignoring the fact that his effort to integrate cultural differences into the legal process class was designed to argue that the law should be more sensitive to cultural differences.

Especially as a professor, he should not be using terrible, ridiculous, ignorant stereotypes to prove his little point because you know what, to some, it is a terrible, ridiculous, and ignorant way of making a point. That’s not to say Kaplan’s a racist, but just because he isn’t a racist doesn’t mean he didn’t make ignorant, racist remarks. People make mistakes, he made a mistake, he should apologize, the Hmong student should not have to apologize for being offended (that suggestion just has no merit) and everybody should just learn and move on.

Cultural difference is quite the petard.

MORE: Here's the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's coverage of last night's event. Excerpt:

The students, who would not elaborate on what Kaplan had said, said in the beginning that their main goal was for faculty and students to be educated about the Hmong community and culture. But two of the students later broke down in tears as they talked angrily about the way Kaplan and the administration had responded to their concerns, with one student telling the crowd, "You have alienated us."

The fallout began when law student [name deleted], a Hmong who grew up in Eau Claire, circulated an e-mail among a dozen classmates accusing Kaplan of making "racist" comments during a class that focused on the intersection of culture and the law. [Name deleted] was not in class that day; she compiled the remarks from others.

So this is how the quotes came to be quoted. Did no one record the class?

Kaplan, who has refused the students' request to apologize publicly, did not show up at the forum even though he was expected to.

Expected to by whom? The faculty knew he wasn't going to be there.

For his part, law school Dean Kenneth Davis, who has overseen the fallout of the incident, which has not involved disciplinary action of Kaplan, would not comment, saying only that he was committed to moving forward with efforts to improve cultural understanding among faculty and students.

So it was no surprise when, toward the end of the forum, a woman in the audience drew applause when she complained:

"I'm left not knowing what happened. But I'm supposed to engage in a dialogue about it? . . . I'm left hanging."

The idea of the meeting really was that there was some way to go forward without needing to know what happened. But people care about the truth. I understand the impulse to say: Whatever happened, happened. Let's emphasize the positive and talk about the good things we can do in the future. But the human mind doesn't work that way. We want to understand the world we're in as we think about what to do about it.

[Name deleted] said Thursday night that her e-mail "wasn't well-informed" but "the remarks have had a damaging impact."

Ah! The tragedy of the viral email.

The students who were in Kaplan's class said they met with him to voice their anger and that he dismissed their opinions. They said that he apologized for hurting their feelings, but he stood by the comments he made in class.

Whatever they were!

However, law students were still upset by his remarks.

Whatever they were!

[Name deleted], a law student who is not in Kaplan's class, said she had been part of the discussions with the administration and was upset by the outcome. "Every corner we've turned, we've been dismissed by the faculty and our peers at the law school," she said.

She also said: "We feel so intensely alone. We have not gone to class. We have worked eight hours a day. We don't sleep very well. I want everyone to know you have alienated us."

[Name deleted], who was not in the class but was part of the discussion with Kaplan, broke down in tears while talking about the meeting. She said that she told Kaplan, "I know these things you said about Hmong people aren't true."

This is a terrible tragedy. I'm sure these students really are suffering, and I'm sure Kaplan, who was teaching about cultural difference, cares about this suffering. Contemplate whether his silence is benevolent forbearance.

NOTE: I've deleted the student names that originally appeared here. I didn't like using the students' names, and only had them because they were in the newspaper article I was commenting on. Obviously, the names are still available in the linked newspaper articles.

A benevolent law plays out unfairly in real life. Surprised?

Here's a story about how statutory law is forcing Old Greenwich, Connecticut to oust a family who has been operating a coffee stand for 8 years and give his concession to a man who happens to be blind:

[L]ittle-known but longstanding federal and state laws [gives] preference to the blind when it comes to operating concessions on government property....

On Wednesday, a crowd of regulars were quick to speak their minds in support of the Mahers. “To me, it seems unconstitutional,” said Ralph DellaCamera, a hedge fund trader passing through the station about 6:30 a.m. “That’s not the capitalistic system.”

Well, that is a funny understanding of constitutional law.

Some customers said they would treat the new vendor warily. “I’m not looking forward to giving him any of my business,” said Stephen Mesker, a regular. “Preference is one thing when you award a contract” for the first time, Mr. Mesker said, but taking it from an existing operator is “like telling someone who owns a house: ‘Guess what? We have someone better for it.’ ”

Hmmm... Don't tell him about Kelo.

The ordinary person's sense of justice means something, but it's hard to see how the law is unconstitutional or how the city can avoid it. The customers are certainly free to shun the new guy and to say in advance that they will to try to pressure him to withdraw.

I'm sure the people who passed the law thought highly of their benevolence toward the blind, don't you think?

"The Internet is an environment. You can't be addicted to the environment."

That's one position. The other is that internet addiction is a big problem:

"The Internet problem is still in its infancy," said lead study author Elias Aboujaoude, a psychiatrist and director of the Impulse Control Disorders Clinic at Stanford. No single online activity is to blame for excessive use, he said. "They're online in chat rooms, checking e-mail every two minutes, blogs. It really runs the gamut. [The problem is] not limited to porn or gambling" Web sites....

Excessive Internet use should be defined not by the number of hours spent online but "in terms of losses," said Maressa Hecht Orzack, a Harvard University professor and director of Computer Addiction Services at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass., founded in 1995. "If it is a loss [where] you are not getting to work, and family relationships are breaking down as a result around it and this is something you can't handle, then it's too much."

Since the early 1990s, several clinics have been established in the United States to treat heavy Internet users. They include the Center for Internet Addiction Recovery, in Bradford, Pa., and the Connecticut-based Center for Internet Behavior....

Uh-oh, I'm sensing convoluted recovery-movement styles of deploying power. I'm siding with the guy who says you can't be addicted to an environment.

(Bonus gripe: I've had it with "Caught in the Web" as a headline for articles about the internet.)

ADDED: La Shawn Barber has this post on internet addiction... with lots of comments.

AND: Eugene Volokh raises the alarm about an even more widespread problem: Communication Addiction! All I can say is that I take some solace in our society's brilliant success at stemming the spread of Thinking Addiction. This rare but distastrous disease can be hard for friends and family to detect as the sufferers may appear to be doing nothing at all or to be engaged in some relatively innocuous activity such as walking or doodling. These addicts fall prey to a dangerous sense of well-being or euphoria; they crave more and more time to think, often to the exclusion of family and friends; they may feel empty, depressed or irritable if they don't have time to think; often they lie to employers and family about activities -- e.g., "What are you thinking about?" "Nothing."; they have trouble stopping thinking; and this thinking may even interfere with school and work.

Attorneys Against the Ban....

... is a new group opposing the proposed amendment to the Wisconsin constitution that would ban marriage and "substantially similar" legal status for same-sex couples. They have a pithy FAQ. Here they address the question I think is most important:

What is “a legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage”?

The sponsors of the amendment have been evasive about what legal protections and rights they expect the amendment to take away.

The second sentence almost certainly bans unmarried partners (same-sex or opposite-sex) from entering into civil unions or comprehensive domestic partnerships, such as those enacted by the legislatures of Connecticut, Vermont and California. Such unions define the partners’ enforceable rights and obligations with respect to one another and give some legal recognition to their relationships, but do not constitute marriages. President Bush has endorsed such civil unions in the past. See Elisabeth Bumiller, “Bush Says His Party is Wrong to Oppose Gay Civil Unions,” New York Times (Oct. 26, 2004).

Beyond civil unions, the second sentence puts at risk a wide variety of legal rights, employment benefits, and contractual commitments that unmarried domestic partners take for granted. See questions and answers below. At a minimum, as Wisconsin State Senator Scott Fitzgerald acknowledged during the public hearing on the amendment on November 29, 2005, the courts will inevitably become involved in deciding whether a particular protection – or combination of protections – will be considered “substantially similar” to marriage. Thus, rather than taking this contentious social issue out of the courts, the amendment actually invites litigation.

If you support the amendment, please try to deal with this problem in the comments. The main justification for a constitutional amendment is that the courts forced it, but the Wisconsin courts have not found a gay marriage right. The amendment is trying to get out in front of the courts -- and I can understand this -- but it's written in a way that will have to involve the courts. I think our state courts have left matters to the political process. Why not trust them to continue to do that, especially since the alternative will provoke litigation?

And, conservatives, note the favorable reference to President Bush -- including the fact that they called him "President Bush."

75% of Connecticut Republicans back Lieberman.

And even Lamont has more Republican supporters than the Republican nominee, Schlesinger. Anyway, overall, Lieberman is polling at 53%, with Lamont at 41%. Wonder what they're saying over at DailyKos? Nothing since yesterday, when McJoan wrote Lieberman should be stripped of his seniority if he wins -- which she seems to be saying because his seniority is one argument for reelecting him.