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Written by: Tucker Culbertson April 10 was rough on me.  A certain performer – whose work I find nearly wholly reprehensible – stepped up, spoke out, and seriously represented. Worse still, she represented me. Lady Gaga told London’s Daily Mail:…

Written by: Jessica Silbey Angela Onwuachi-Willig, over at Colored Demos, has this to say about the Kagan nomination. I largely agree with Angela and hope, because I believe that Kagan will be confirmed, that Kagan’s record on faculty hires at Harvard is not a blueprint for…

Written by: Jessica Silbey It is that time of year again, a glorious time for professors when classes are over and exams to be graded have not yet stacked up. We plan our summer and the projects we aspire to complete. I have always felt so blessed this time of year for the time the summer affords me to think hard and long about problems I see with the law and about possible solutions in the way we think or act in regards to it. This summer I am taking some time also to think more about teaching. I was at the annual conference of the Association of Law, Culture and the Humanities some time ago and was discussing with folks on a panel about "Law and the Humanities and the State of  Interdisciplinary Scholarship" how to make our scholarship on the subject resonate more in the practice of educating and in the practice of law.

Written by:  Jessica Silbey Back in 2006, the first time I (eh hem) tried my hand at blogging, I was all afire about various states' legislatures passing laws to restrict access to abortion services. At the time, South Dakota had just passed a law making it a crime to perform an abortion for any purpose except to save the life of the mother, clearly a violation of Roe v. Wade and Casey v. Planned Parenthood. I called it the "Dare Doctrine," as in "we South Dakota legislators disagree with you Supreme Court of the United States and are calling you into a game of chicken. We know you have explicitly held otherwise, but we are right and Roe and Casey were wrong. We dare you to make us take it back."

Written by: andre cummings In 2008 testimony to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in the days following the failure of Lehman Brothers, former Federal Bank chair Alan Greenspan told Congress, “Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders’ equity, myself included, are in a state of shocked disbelief.”  Law and economics icon Judge Richard Posner wrote in 2009 a book entitled “The Failure of Capitalism” that “we are learning from [the crisis] that we need a more active and intelligent government to keep our model of a capitalist economy from running off the rails.” How did the economy run off the rails in 2008?  New revelations have just surfaced that should add additional “shocked disbelief” to Greenspan’s admittedly flawed worldview.  On Wednesday, news from Congressional interrogation now shows that Washington Mutual, once the nation’s largest savings and loan association, was deliberately packaging mortgages they knew were delinquent or strongly believed would become delinquent, and securitized them as CDOs to pass the risk of default on to investors. The bank admittedly and purposefully "used shoddy lending practices . . . to make tens of thousands of high-risk home loans that too often contained excessive risk, fraudulent information or errors” according to the congressional report. The bank, in its reckless pursuit of profits, in the face of competition that had materially minimized its returns resorted to innovative new financial instruments that instead of freeing up capital caused a financial collapse.

Written by:  andre cummings The United States Senate will take up new financial sector regulation on Monday.  Momentum has been growing in recent weeks as it now appears that new regulation will receive bipartisan support.  The financial market crisis of 2008 has clarified the necessity that Congress better protect consumers from abusive Wall Street practices.  The Senate must concern itself with turning banking back into an industry that promotes wealth across the country rather than the pre-crisis trend of reckless pursuit of ill-gotten profits.  By establishing a Consumer Financial Protection Agency, Congress can commit to protecting American communities and consumers rather than protecting Wall Street’s recklessness.

Written by: Angela Onwuachi-Willig A  few years ago, at a retreat where we set certain short and long term goals, the SALT Board agreed that SALT would have a blog.  None of us knew much about blogs at that time, but we were persuaded that alternative methods of reaching the public to provide information about issues of social justice and human rights should be an integral part of our agenda as activist progressives. There are many opportunities for SALT members to speak out. We have our classrooms, and SALT, through its teaching conferences, has advocated for teaching that is activist, inclusive, and self conscious in focusing attention on issues of social justice. In our institutions, we can sponsor teach-ins, conferences, and symposia.  As legal scholars, we can write and publish law review articles.  As clinicians, we can represent clients from subordinated communities. As members of the academy, we can show up to public hearings on issues of importance in legal education like the accreditation standards for law schools. We can and do submit comments or responses to reports issued by the American Bar Association. Like many organizations with members who are knowledgeable people with something to say and information to share, however, SALT has had to adapt to a new world in which electronic and social media play a significant role.  While it may appear that the openness of the internet places us all on an equal footing --we can all write and we can publish what we write -- attracting an audience is not as easy as it might seem. It helps to have some name recognition.  It helps if an institution has a reputation which makes it a site in the virtual world where members of the public search for information that they need.  SALT has that reputation and its website is one of the places where people go to find out what position progressives have taken on a variety of issues. [showtime] THE WHO OF SALT The blog is different from our website.  On our website, we publish the letters and formal positions that the organization has taken.  The blog is not a forum for the expression of SALT’s positions, but a place where our members can publish commentary on emerging issues in law, politics, and education or where they can develop arguments about policies and problems that are persistent or seem intractable.  The SALT Board has no list of topics that should be addressed or any agenda that it has set for this blog.  The blog is owned by the membership, and the individual posts are not official, quasi-official, or even remotely related to SALT public positions.  We are offering the progressive community of law teachers an opportunity to be heard.