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Monthly Archives: February 2012
Khan Today, Who Tomorrow: Repugnant Finely Tuned Conviction Machines
By Benjamin G. Davis, Associate Professor of Law, University of Toledo College of Law Over at lawfareblog.com, the presentation of the guilty plea by Majid Khan in the military commission is done. Reading what he admits to is terrible to read – … Continue reading
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Moneyball As a Metaphor for Restructuring Law Schools
I just finished reading Moneyball by Michael Lewis, although I haven’t seen the film yet, which is up for six Oscars on Sunday night. As someone uninterested in sports (except for basketball), I couldn’t quite understand why I was so intrigued by a book about baseball and statistics. And I mean engrossed in this book, reporting like an eager third grader every night at dinner as I delved deeper into the Oakland A’s dugout. Billy Beane, played by Brad Pitt in the film, decides to use a different schema for recruiting and retaining ball players during the 2002 baseball season. Breaking all of the rules of what matters about a player’s stats, Oakland’s general manager Billy Beane, with the help of Peter Brand, a Harvard educated math wonk, played by Jonah Hill, methodically holds fast to a new set of statistics to assess the value of any player. This is called sabermetrics. Beane throws out 150 years of baseball wisdom in a single baseball season.
A totally different way of assessing the value of a player, um, that sounds intriguing. Continue reading
There is a 99% among colleges, too
An interesting chart appears in this week’s Chronicle of Higher Education, February 24, 2012. Although giving to colleges and universities is up again, 8.2% in 2011, amounting to $30.3 billion, 86% of that giving went to just 25% of schools. Continue reading
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The Devastating Disconnect Between Rich and Poor
Posted by Lisa R. Pruitt The Occupy Wall Street movement has recently drawn national attention to economic inequality, and several new studies and a book just published also invite us to consider the acuteness of this inequality, as well as its … Continue reading
Posted in Diversity, Social Justice
Tagged education, geography, poverty, privilege, race, socioeconomic class
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Perry v. Brown: A Tiny Step towards the Wedding
On my office door is a cartoon by Luckovitch for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. It’s a church wedding. The minister, at the altar, is calling down the aisle to the couple. “One step forward, two steps back, now three forward, one back . . . .” In one of the pews, someone is saying “Gay weddings take forever.” This week’s marriage equality decision in Perry v. Brown (9th Cir. Feb. 7, 2012) is a lot like that. It takes a very small step forward and a large step sideways towards marriage for same-sex couples in California. And it’s a good thing, too. Continue reading
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