News

Geoffrey Stone on Freedom of the Press and Criminal Solicitation

mferzige — Tue, 21 May 2013 20:52:02 +0000

Freedom of the Press and Criminal Solicitation

Geoffrey Stone

Huffington Post

May 21, 2013

Several years ago, the FBI obtained a search warrant authorizing it to review two days' worth of Fox News reporter James Rosen's emails after demonstrating to a judge it had probable cause to believe that Rosen had committed a crime by soliciting the disclosure of classified information from a government official. The government official was later indicted for leaking classified information.

Since this development came to light, members of the media have insisted that the assertion that Rosen violated the law by soliciting the disclosure of classified information is wholly incompatible with the First Amendment. As Michael Clemente, Fox News executive vice president, exclaimed, "We are outraged to learn today that James Rosen was named a criminal co-conspirator for simply doing his job as a reporter. . . . We will unequivocally defend his right to operate as a member of what up until now has always been a free press."

It is more complicated than that. At the outset, it is worth noting that two facets of this situation are clear. First, as a general rule, the First Amendment does not give government employees a constitutional right to disclose to reporters properly classified information. We can therefore reasonably assume, absent evidence to the contrary, that in this situation the source committed a federal crime by disclosing the classified information to Rosen.

Second, except in truly extraordinary circumstances, the First Amendment does give the press a constitutional right to publish even properly classified information when that information comes into its hands through no wrongdoing of its own. It might seem anamolous that the government employee has no right to leak the information but, if he does, the press has a right to publish it, but it is through these two seemingly-conflicting doctrines that the Supreme Court has long tried to balance the rights of the press with the legitimate and competing interests of the government.

In any event, we can assume that if in this situation the source had simply and on his own initiative turned over the classified information to Rosen, the source could have been criminally punished for the leak and Fox News would have had a constitutional right to broadcast the information.

That brings us to the question posed in the current situation, for here the source did not turn over the information to Rosen on his own initiative. Rather, Rosen allegedly persuaded him to do so. Has Rosen committed a crime, as the government alleged?

Faculty:

Geoffrey R. Stone

Epstein: The Real Lesson of the IRS Scandal

mferzige — Tue, 21 May 2013 20:49:58 +0000

The Real Lesson of the IRS Scandal

Richard Epstein

Defining Ideas

May 21, 2013

The news of the past week has rightly been dominated by allegations of abuse in the Exempt Office (EO) of the Internal Revenue Service. The EO is in charge of processing applications for tax-exempt status under Section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code, which authorizes these exemptions for “civic leagues or organizations not organized for profit but operated exclusively for the promotion of social welfare.” Some 3,357 applications for tax-exempt status were filed in 2012, an election year, which was a 50 percent increase from the 2,265 applications filed in w 2011.

The criteria for Section 501(c)(4) organizations are open-ended. Few complex organizations are ever operated “exclusively” for any single purpose, and the many applicants have rather different definitions of what counts as “social welfare.” The deadly combination of loose standards and applications in the thousands empowers the EO to decide which applications sail through, and which are mired in delay.

The May 14 report of the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration’s (IG) explicitly stated that the EO’s actions were “not politically biased,” but were attributable solely to the confusions of lower staff members, who somehow for nearly three years never quite understood their jobs assignments. Don’t believe a word of that whitewash. All the nitpicking questions and pointless delays, such as those experienced by the Ohio Tea Party, were calibrated to hold off the approval of these applications until after the November 2012 presidential election.

The dismal performance of the IRS is but a symptom of a much larger disease which has taken root in the charters of many of the major administrative agencies in the United States today: the permit power. Private individuals are not allowed to engage in certain activities or to claim certain benefits without the approval of some major government agency. The standards for approval are nebulous at best, which makes it hard for any outside reviewer to overturn the agency’s decision on a particular application.

That power also gives the agency discretion to drag out its review, since few individuals or groups are foolhardy enough to jump the gun and set up shop without obtaining the necessary approvals first. It takes literally a few minutes for a skilled government administrator to demand information that costs millions of dollars to collect and that can tie up a project for years. That delay becomes even longer for projects that need approval from multiple agencies at the federal or state level, or both.

The beauty of all of this (for the government) is that there is no effective legal remedy.

Faculty:

Richard A. Epstein

Henderson on Divestment and Financial Illiteracy

mferzige — Tue, 21 May 2013 20:41:06 +0000

Divestment and Financial Illiteracy

M. Todd Henderson

Huffington Post

May 21, 2013

The state of financial literacy in America is rotten. A Dodd-Frank-Act-mandated study of financial literacy recently concluded: "investors have a weak grasp of elementary financial concepts." Or, consider the 2009 National Financial Capability Study finding that only 52 percent of investors understand owning a broad basket of stocks provides a safer return than investing in a single company stock. This is like saying 52 percent of people believe in gravity.

The divestment wave hitting college campuses looks like another example of financial ignorance. Students for a Just and Sustainable Future (SJSF) is pressuring universities across the nation to force their endowment funds to divest their investments in fossil fuel companies. Students at Swarthmore, for instance, recently shouted down dissenting voices at a campus meeting on the subject, where Swarthmore's investment manager was describing the expected costs ($200 million over 10 years) of divestment. The students' tactic seems to be trying to put pressure on the stock price of fossil fuel companies, and therefore force the firms to change their behavior. Unfortunately for SJSF, there is little evidence to suggest this is likely to work.

A central tenet of corporate finance is that demand curves for individual stocks are approximately horizontal. For most things we buy, demand curves slope downward. This means if we demand less, less will be supplied and at lower prices. But stocks are not like other products. The stock price is merely an estimate of the cash flows that ownership of the stock will produce in the future, and therefore is not determined by a "demand" for the stock. Unless the sale of stock conveys information to the market about the future cash flows, no individual sale can move the price.

Faculty:

M. Todd Henderson

Law School, Law Library Community Laud Judith Wright as she Prepares to Retire

mheagney — Tue, 21 May 2013 15:13:54 +0000

Meredith Heagney

Law School Office of Communications

May 21, 2013

Much has changed since Judith Wright started working in the Law School library in September 1970. Back then, Wright was 26 and learning the ins and outs of a law library of books, journals, and card catalogs as a documents and reference librarian. Now, as Wright prepares to retire 43 years later, she is Associate Dean of Library and Information Services and a nationally respected expert who led the D’Angelo Law Library into the digital age and inspired how other law libraries run along the way.

One thing is constant, though: Wright’s reputation as a whip-smart, forward-thinking, and congenial librarian and colleague. She retires June 28 as the recent recipient of three prestigious awards from the law library community: the Hall of Fame Award from the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL), the Frederick Charles Hicks Award for Outstanding Contributions to Academic Law Librarianship from the AALL’s Academic Law Libraries Special Interest Section, and the Chicago Association of Law Libraries Award for Outstanding Lifetime Achievement in Law Librarianship.

Asked about the AALL’s decision to include Wright in the Hall of Fame, committee chair Frank Houdek, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor of Law at Southern Illinois University School of Law, described the award committee’s meeting this way:

“Other than ‘fine, yes, absolutely,’ there wasn’t much discussion. It was an obvious choice,” he said, adding that the Hall of Fame Award is relatively new, or Wright would’ve received it years ago.

No one at the Law School is the least bit surprised by the accolades.

“Judith is a remarkably warm, constructive, thoughtful person with whom to work,” said Professor Geoffrey Stone, who interacted with her closely while Dean from 1987 to 1993. He was one of six deans Wright has worked with as library chief. “She was never conflictual, never defensive, always wanted to do what was best for the Law School as an institution.”

Stone particularly remembered her competency and poise overseeing the extensive renovation and expansion of the library from 1985 to 1987, when she managed to keep the library fully operational for faculty and staff even as it was torn apart by construction. That kind of leadership was present again every time the library had a choice to make about modernizing in an increasingly digital world, Stone added.

“She led the process of the digitization and electronic revolution in terms of the way the Law School uses its resources,” Stone said. “I think that process has gone effortlessly. Maybe not always for Judith, but always from the standpoint of the users.”

And then there’s the simple fact that Wright’s personality and demeanor have made her extremely popular. As Stone said: “Everyone who’s ever dealt with Judith likes her, universally.”

Stone’s fellow professors, generations of students, and library colleagues near and far echoed that sentiment, and while Wright said she’s honored, she waves praise away and redirects the attention.

“It’s been such a great job, working with such smart, committed people. When you leave a job like this, you really are leaving a part of your life behind. But you really can’t hang on. At some point you have to move on and let other people take over,” Wright said. She expressed great pleasure that Sheri Lewis, now Associate Law Librarian for Public Services, will be her successor. “It would be a lot harder if Sheri weren’t following me. I would have a lot more concerns.”

Wright started as a documents and reference librarian from 1970 to 1977, under then-Law Librarian Leon Liddell, who Wright said instilled in her the importance of service. Just after starting at the Law Library, Wright earned her master’s degree from the University of Chicago Graduate Library School in 1971.

Prior to that, Wright, a native of western Tennessee who grew up on a cotton farm, earned a bachelor’s degree at the University of Memphis. Before she came to the Law School, Wright worked as an elementary school librarian and as an American Red Cross recreational worker, or “Doughnut Dolly,” in Vietnam, where she visited soldiers to boost morale.

When Wright started under Liddell, she wasn’t yet sure what she wanted to do as a career, but two weeks in, she was hooked on law librarianship, she said. She realized that she needed a law degree, and told then-Dean Phil Neal that she wanted to attend one of the downtown schools. She took a half-hour to fill out an application, Neal made a phone call, and she was in at DePaul University School of Law, she said. She took a three-year hiatus from her work in the Law Library to get her law degree and have her first son. She returned in 1980, after she graduated, and took leadership of the Law Library.

In the next three decades, Wright gained a reputation for being an innovator in collections, technologies, services, and facilities. She evaluated and implemented new practices and happily shared them with colleagues at other libraries.

Wright worked hard to maintain a strong partnership between the Law Library and the University Library. Such a setup is rare for law libraries, which tend to be fiercely independent. The collaboration allows Chicago’s highly interdisciplinary faculty access to many important resources they wouldn’t otherwise have. She kept the library running and completely operational during two major renovations: the aforementioned project in the 1980s, which increased the book stacks by 40 percent, and a 2007-2008 project which replaced all the library’s “innards,” such as heating, cooling, wiring, and flooring.

Houdek, of Southern Illinois University Law, said that Wright has long had a gift for thinking of future needs. She understood early in her career that international law knowledge and resources would grow increasingly important, and she cultivated the materials and staff to make sure Chicago Law was a leader in that area, he said.

She also responded to rapidly evolving technology, often leading the way in embracing a new resource. The library got access to its first database, Lexis-Nexis, in the late 1970s. Westlaw followed in the ‘80s. Today, Wright and her staff manage more than 90 databases, all with different content and interfaces, in addition to more than 680,000 volumes of print resources and 14,000 e-books.

Wright pushed for changes, such as encouraging publishers to let Google “crawl,” or search, their data, but also worked hard to preserve the past, with a dogged commitment to keeping print resources when many institutions were throwing them away. She was an early adopter of HeinOnline, a legal research database founded in 2000, buying journals in electronic format as well as print when many other librarians balked at the idea, Houdek said. Now, HeinOnline is a standard in all law libraries.

“She got it, very early,” Houdek said. “And that’s just one example of many where she was way ahead of the game.”

Wright also knew a not-so-stellar idea when she saw one, said S. Blair Kauffman, Law Librarian and Professor of Law at Yale Law School. In the 1980s, microform gained popularity and libraries started to collect it, but the Law Library stood out as having a very small collection. Wright chose to bypass microform, which was smart; it turned out to be a poor investment.

“Judith was reluctant to go along with the masses of what her fellow law library directors were doing in terms of diversifying the format,” he said. “She definitely marches to her own drummer. She’s not one to jump on fads.”

Wright was a founder of the Chicago Legal Academic System (CLAS), a resource and information sharing system for law libraries in the Chicago area, and has participated in and presented research for many law library associations, including the ones honoring her with these recent awards. She has been a prominent voice in a longtime discussion about American Bar Association accreditation standards as they pertain to law libraries.

She’s also a wonderful mentor and very generous with her time, especially if it benefits the law library profession, Kauffman said. He met Wright in 1982, when he was director of the law library at Northern Illinois University. She invited him to visit. He remembers thinking Wright’s library at Chicago Law was “something to aspire toward.”

“I think of Judith as being a librarian’s librarian, very much an expert. Someone who really knew her stuff, who thought carefully and deeply about the issues we were confronting, and that other knowledgable librarians would consult,” he said. “She’s calm, reasoned, well-informed, she listens, and she points you in a good direction.”

Kauffman and Wright are part of a “Gang of 10” of librarians representing the law libraries at the 10 top-ranking law schools. The group gets together about twice a year, and Wright “is the one who people listen to with respect,” Kauffman said. He said he has tried to hire Chicago Law librarians several times over the years, but they want to stay, in large part because of Wright.

Lewis, Wright’s successor, has worked for her for 12 years, making her one of 17 people on Wright’s staff of 25 who have worked for her for 10 years or more. Eleven of them have worked for her for 15 years or more, and eight of them for 20 years or more.

That kind of loyalty is no accident, Lewis said.

“You won’t find someone better to work for. She’s extra supportive and collaborative, and she allows people to do the work they really care about.”

Steve Coats has worked for Wright for just six years, as the library’s administrative assistant. But he too struggles to envision the library without her.

“Though she demands the best from us, she has never failed in being gracious in the years I have worked for her,” Coats said. “I am almost always happy to get to come to work and I always want to do my best for her. I never want to get so much as a raised eyebrow from Judith, as that’s the equivalent of lashes from normal humans. She truly does bring the best out of people.”

The Law School also will miss Wright’s institutional memory, which is unparalleled, and her generosity with that knowledge, Lewis said. She has many times taken new staff members in other departments under her wing. Basically, if you ask her for help, you’re going to get it.

Wright looks forward to a retirement of swimming in Lake Michigan, reading – she’s got a to-read list of books that spans 97 typed pages – and enjoying the upcoming weddings of both her sons in the next six months. She’s excited but expects to feel emotional when June 28 rolls around, she said.

“I always say, I have the world’s best job, and this is a very exciting place to work. Libraries are always changing. People don’t know that about libraries, but it’s true. It’s a lot of fun.”

Faculty:

Judith Wright

Faculty:

Sheri H. Lewis

Faculty:

Geoffrey R. Stone

Judith Wright in 1980, the year she took leadership in the library.

Judithscan.jpg

Eric Posner Debates Slate's Emily Bazelon on DOJ and AP

arester — Tue, 21 May 2013 14:52:02 +0000

Secrets and Scoops

Emily Bazelon and Eric Posner

Slate

May 17, 2013

In the wake of the story this week that the Justice Department scooped up two months’ worth of the phone records of reporters and editors at the Associated Press, University of Chicago law professor and Slate contributor Eric Posner and Slate senior editor Emily Bazelon have been arguing over whether this is an overreach by the Department of Justice and an intrusion on the newsgathering function of the press (Emily), or an entirely justified effort to find and prosecute a scurrilous government leaker who imperiled the country’s counterterrorism operation in Yemen (Eric). Here’s an edited version of their exchange:

Emily: Like a lot of journalists, I am dismayed and indignant about the Justice Department’s commandeering of two months of AP phone records. To me, this is part of a troubling development: The Obama administration has pursued more leak prosecutions—six—more aggressively than any administration in history. For comparison’s sake, as I mentioned earlier this week, from 1917 until 1985, there was one successful federal leak prosecution. Our democracy was the better for the freedom the press has traditionally had to uncover government secrets (see Watergate). In the case of the AP, the particular tactics the government used are worrisome for their breadth—lots of phone lines in different offices over a long period of time—and for the lack of judicial oversight. Instead of serving the AP with a subpoena, which would have alerted the news organization and given it a chance to fight the order in court, DoJ apparently sent the subpoena to the phone companies. The Justice Department decided on its own not to follow its usual policy of giving the press notice of this kind of intrusion, because it apparently decided that giving notice would threaten the integrity of the investigation. It’s hard to see why that would be true of phone records collected after the fact, as New Yorker general counsel Lynn Oberlander points out—and her larger point is that this should be a call for the courts, not prosecutors, to make...

Eric: It makes perfect sense to me—I can’t speak for everyone else, whose opinions rarely coincide with mine. The May 2012 AP story that’s at issue disclosed that the CIA thwarted a terrorist plot to plant a bomb on a plane flying to the United States from Yemen. As Orin Kerr explains, anyone who read the story could infer that U.S. or foreign agents had penetrated al-Qaida’s Yemen affiliate. Even if AP delayed publication until after completion of the operation, the information disclosed may have put the lives of agents in danger or disclosed intelligence methods or simply made foreign intelligence agencies yet again doubt the U.S. government’s ability to keep secrets. The story identifies its sources as U.S. government officials, who clearly violated federal secrecy law. The Justice Department acted rightly to investigate these violations. And because it knew that U.S. government officials communicated with AP journalists, it acted rightly to subpoena phone records that might disclose phone numbers of U.S. officials, who could then be questioned.

Faculty:

Eric Posner

Stone Talk to NPR's On The Media about the AP Subpoenas

mferzige — Mon, 20 May 2013 18:09:45 +0000

The Totally Legal Subpoena

On the Media

May 17, 2013

On May 17, 2013, Professor Geoffrey Stone talked with Brooke Gladstone on On the Media about the AP subpoenas. "Earlier this week, the Department of Justice revealed that it had subpoenaed the phone records of Associated Press reporters and editors over the course of two months in 2012. Many in the media were not pleased at what the AP called an "unprecedented intrusion." Brooke talks with University of Chicago Law Professor Geoffrey Stone who says, unprecedented or not, the DOJ's actions were certainly legal."

Faculty:

Geoffrey R. Stone

Geof Stone on the DOJ and the AP

arester — Fri, 17 May 2013 15:44:07 +0000

The AP 'Scandal': The Straight Scoop

Geoffrey R. Stone

The Huffington Post

May 16, 2013

We've read a lot lately about the AP "scandal." In short, on May 7, 2012, the Associated Press released a story that disclosed classified details of a CIA operation in Yemen that prevented an airliner bombing around the anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden.

In an effort to determine the identity of the government employee who leaked the classified information to the AP, the Justice Department, after conducting an extensive investigation without success, subpoenaed from the AP's phone company the records for more than twenty telephone lines used by the AP and its journalists. The hope was that, by examining the incoming and outgoing phone numbers, it could identify the leaker and prevent him or her from releasing additional classified information in the future.

According to the media (to say nothing of Republicans and Fox News), in pursuing this investigation the Obama administration brutalized the Constitution and flagrantly violated the law. The hysteria of the media's response is predictably self-involved and self-interested and the reaction of Republicans is predictably hypocritical.

Faculty:

Geoffrey R. Stone

Chicago Weekly on Justice Ginsburg's Law School Visit

arester — Thu, 16 May 2013 15:28:11 +0000

The Forty-Year Fight

Olivia Dorow Hovland

Chicago Weekly

May 16, 2013

Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s diminutive stature was dwarfed by the marshals that surrounded her as she made her way down the main aisle of the University of Chicago Law School auditorium Saturday afternoon. But when she ascended the stage, the significance of her presence and the weight of her achievements made even that cavernous room feel small.

Ginsburg was there to provide a modern reevaluation of the Burger Court’s 1973 ruling on Roe v. Wade, a decision that is now forty years old. The case, which addressed a woman’s right to choose whether or not to have an abortion, is now perceived as a landmark decision on women’s rights. While Ginsburg was not a sitting justice at the time of the ruling, her reputation as a “pioneer for gender equality,” as pronounced by Dean of the Law School Michael Schill, made her thoroughly qualified to hold court on the subject.

The audience of well-dressed, enthusiastic law students collectively leaned forward in their seats as Ginsburg began to speak, perhaps expecting an impassioned defense of a decision that has drawn battle lines between pro-life and pro-choice factions in the United States today. But she proceeded to strike a moderate tone, expressing worries about how the universality of the rights afforded by the ruling also made the decision a target for those who would seek to roll back its protections. “Roe became a symbol for the right to life movement,” said Ginsburg. “You have a name, you have a symbol. You can aim at that.”

Faculty:

Michael H. Schill

Clinic Files Suit on Behalf of Parents of Children Impacted by CPS Closings

arester — Thu, 16 May 2013 17:38:39 +0000

Chicago parents file federal lawsuit charging CPS with racial, disabilities violations; seeks to halt school closings

Press release

May 15, 2013

The education of students with disabilities and race discrimination are the subjects of two class action lawsuits filed today in federal court against the Chicago Board of Education by parents of Chicago Public Schools (CPS) students. The suit also has the support of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU). The parents seek an injunction against all proposed school closings by the City and CPS for violations of the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Illinois Civil Rights Act (ICRA).

The litigation is being handled by Despres, Schwartz and Geoghegan, Ltd., Robin Potter & Associates, P.C., and the Edwin F. Mandel Legal Aid Clinic of the University of Chicago. The respective plaintiffs include Mandi Swan, Denise Burns, Felicia Bradley, Sherise McDaniel, Marshetta Ross, Frances Newman and Alphonso Newman, on behalf of their children and all the other children impacted by the closings.

The first suit charges the Board, CPS Chief Executive Officer Barbara Byrd-Bennett and the City of Chicago with violating Title II of the ADA in their proposal to close 53 elementary schools. It reads:

In violation of Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the defendants propose to carry out the closings of 53 elementary schools in a manner that does not permit a timely and orderly process either for the proper review and revision of the individualized education programs (IEPs) for the plaintiff children and over 6,000 other children in special education programs or for the extra services and counseling such children require to make the difficult transition to unfamiliar schools and unfamiliar teachers and students. By putting off their decision on the closings to the eleventh hour, or the very end of the school year – for the largest closing of public schools in American history – the defendants place the plaintiff children and other children in special education at far greater risk than their non-disabled peers. The late date makes it impossible to conduct the closings without significant disruption to the programs in which these children participate and without adequate provision for the special safety risks faced by children with disabilities. In violation of federal law, this late, ill-timed, and ill-prepared program for the closing of 53 elementary schools will have a discriminatory impact upon the plaintiff children and other children with disabilities, compared to their non-disabled peers.

“There is no way that in a few short months the Board can responsibly do the counseling and provide the support services these children with disabilities need,” said CTU Financial Secretary Kristine Mayle, a former special education teacher. “These proposed closings will inevitably put our students at greater risk for academic failure.”

Parents fear that by holding off the closing decisions to the eleventh hour and rushing children into new and unfamiliar schools without adequate counseling and support services, the Board will inflict harm and present severe obstacles to growth for the more than 6,000 children in CPS special education programs in the affected schools. They are asking the federal court for an injunction to delay school closings for a period of one year.

“This is a tragedy in the making,” said plaintiff Denise Burns, the mother of a child living with a disability. “Let’s slow down and do this sensibly.”

The second suit charges the Board, Byrd-Bennett and the City with violations of Title II of the ADA for their proposal to close “so-called ‘under-utilized’ schools and needlessly uproot, transfer, and destabilize plaintiffs and thousands of other children in special education who will suffer academic and emotional setbacks as a result,” and adds a claim of racial discrimination in violation of Section 5 of the ICRA as parents seek to block the Board from continuing to select African-American children in school closings. It reads:

[I]n violation of Section 5 of the Illinois Civil Rights Act of 2003 (ICRA), 740 ILCS 23/5, and by repeatedly selecting African American students to bear the costs of the closings, the defendants have unlawfully used “criteria and methods of administration” that have the “effect” of subjecting the plaintiffs’ children and other African American children represented by the plaintiff parents to discrimination because of race. In conducting closings since 2001, the defendants have used various shifting criteria that they allege to be race neutral but that always have the effect of singling out poor and marginalized African American children to bear the educational and human costs of the closings. For the 72 schools that defendants have closed to date, African American children make up more than 90 percent of the displaced children; and in currently proposed closings, they make up more than 80 percent of the displaced children. Yet African American children constitute only 42 percent of the children in the public schools.

The impact on African American children is in stark contrast to the impact on white children – who have been almost universally insulated from the negative educational consequences of school closings. The 54 schools selected by the CEO for closing have a combined enrollment of 125 white students out of a total enrollment of 16,059 students – less than one percent.

Since the Board began closing schools in 2001, it has been in violation of the Illinois Civil Rights Act, according to the parents. Of the 72 schools the Board has closed to date, more than 90 percent of the displaced children are Black. In the latest closing proposal, 88 percent of the children in the closing schools are African-American, yet Black children make up only 42 percent of the students in the Chicago public schools.

“The Board says they use neutral criteria, but somehow they keep finding criteria that will single out only African-American children,” said plaintiff and parent, Frances Newman. Her husband Alphonso added, “When these schools close, these children know they are being stigmatized because of their race.”

The CTU has led the vigorous charge against the experimental school reform policies that have harmed CPS students since the city’s public schools were turned over to mayoral control in 1995. Rather than close existing schools, CPS should provide schools supports that have a track record of success; a broad deep curriculum based on inquiry rather than mindless testing; trauma counseling and healthcare; opportunities for professional collaboration and growth; respect for professional judgment; and real opportunities for parental decision-making and involvement.

“School closings as policy is unsound,” said CTU President Karen Lewis, a nationally board certified teacher. “This city has worked systematically to undermine our public education system and destabilize certain communities. There is no magic bullet, but we do know that research-based policies, targeted resource investments and reforms that are geared towards nurturing environments put our schools on track for steady improvement.

“We hope the courts act swiftly to stop this assault on our schools, our students and our communities,” she said.

Faculty:

Randall D. Schmidt

Epstein in Foreign Policy on White House Secrecy

arester — Wed, 15 May 2013 21:29:02 +0000

Obama's Self-Inflicted Scandal

Richard A. Epstein

Foreign Policy

May 15, 2013

Forget Afghanistan, Syria, and the war or terror. Barack Obama's administration now finds itself embroiled in a three-front domestic war that threatens to undermine public confidence in the U.S. president's ability to lead the nation. The first of these, which has yet to quiet down, is the enormous dispute over the timeline involving acknowledgment of al Qaeda's involvement in the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. The second involves the recent revelation that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) focused special scrutiny on applicants for tax-exempt status that sported Tea Party or other "small government" credentials. The last, and potentially most serious, is the recent revelations that Attorney General Eric Holder ordered extensive investigation into Associated Press (AP) reporters in April and May 2012.

Of these, the third is likely to cause the greatest grief for the president and strong calls for the resignation of Holder, who at latest report has already recused himself from a government investigation of massive snooping by the Department of Justice (DOJ) into key AP reporters in New York, Washington, and Hartford, Connecticut. On Benghazi, Obama has sought to defend himself on the ground that the supposed coverup never took place or that it was simply confusion due to incomplete information from a distant flash point, not political calculation in the heat of a tight election race. On the Tea Party investigation, he can distance himself from activities of high-level officials inside the IRS who fortunately, from his point of view, were not political appointees. But he has no such cover with respect to the AP investigation, where his own attorney general is on the line for going after journalists in ways that must be regarded as a deep and troublesome attack on the press, a secret Watergate-like affair that will send chills through the spines of media people everywhere.

Worse still, the source of the scandal goes to a foreign-policy area of great sensitivity. The president's credibility is on the line with respect to the use of drones in the war on terror and the administration's own garbled account of what counts as a "necessity" that justifies their secret deployment and the authorization of targeted killing. This has raised hackles not just among liberals and those concerned with executive privilege, but even among people like me who do not think that the nation benefits by having judges get involved in reviewing potential targets of attack. At this point, the two narratives run together. The very president who has pledged himself to the most open and transparent administration ever is now perceived on all sides of the political spectrum as a secretive soul who skulks about in the shadows, so sure of his own moral rectitude that he thinks that it is all right to ignore the procedural safeguards that the U.S. Constitution wisely puts in the path of less wise and omniscient presidents. Long ago, James Madison warned in Federalist No. 10 that the Constitution had to be rigged for bad times because it is in the nature of politics that "Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm." Madison's time has come.

Faculty:

Richard A. Epstein

News

Geoffrey Stone on Freedom of the Press and Criminal Solicitation

Epstein: The Real Lesson of the IRS Scandal

Henderson on Divestment and Financial Illiteracy

Law School, Law Library Community Laud Judith Wright as she Prepares to Retire

Eric Posner Debates Slate's Emily Bazelon on DOJ and AP

Stone Talk to NPR's On The Media about the AP Subpoenas

Geof Stone on the DOJ and the AP

Chicago Weekly on Justice Ginsburg's Law School Visit

Clinic Files Suit on Behalf of Parents of Children Impacted by CPS Closings

Related Links:

Epstein in Foreign Policy on White House Secrecy