McBlogmick

Here is a summary (blissfully short) for systemic disparate treatment:

and disparate impact:

If you have listened to my podcasts in the past, you might notice that these sound a little different. I did not slow down the playback, as I sometimes do. So if I’m speaking too fast, you might want to slow down your playback if you can.

Professor Bodie was quoted in this interesting New York Times analysis of the NFL players’ rights to take a knee.

I keep talking about how many important civil rights cases have come from Missouri and from St. Louis in particular. BAMSL is holding a CLE to talk about four of them at the Missouri History Museum

Click here to register if you are interested.

I owe my worklaw students apologies for being so delayed on podcasts. Scripts for everything we’ve covered since the last quiz except for discrimination are on TWEN, and the discrimination one will be available Wednesday. I still have to record the two new ones, but hope to have those available tomorrow.

In the meantime, there are just so many news stories related to our topics–here is a smattering of them and thanks to those of you who have been sending me links. I love them!

Former Hazelwood Principal’s Reverse Discrimination Case

DOJ Reverses Policy on Transgender Employees

Jemele Hill Suspended by ESPN for Violating Social Media Policy

Should You Fire the Charlottesville Protestors?

The Legality of Firing NFL Players for Protesting

Wisconsin Company to Microchip Employees

European Court of Human Rights Limits Employee Email Monitoring

Google Sued for Sex Discrimination

Harvey Weinstein Fired for Decades of Harassment

Weinstein Paid Off Accusers

There are lots of different articles on these stories, but these all lay out the basics on workplace privacy, voice, and discrimination stories in the news.

Although we aren’t going to really have much time to talk about the intersection of immigration law and employment law (it’s a big and specialized area), you might be wondering how the rescission of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program will work and what the consequences might be.

There is a great explainer at the Balikinization blog.

The oral argument transcript from the Supreme Court case I mentioned today about class action waivers as a condition of employment just went live. I haven’t read it yet, but I’ll likely have thoughts. And there are some experts among your classmates on this issue too! The National Law Journal, at least, suggests that the Court may be leaning in the direction of agreeing that these waivers violate the NLRA and the Norris-LaGuardia Act.

The summary judgment motion in Liebesman v. Competitor Group will be heard tomorrow (9/28) at the Carnahan Courthouse, Division 500, 5th Floor. It is 9th on the motion docket. And here are some of the documents.

2015-05-11 Doc 35 Order-MTD Denied

Motion for Summary Judgment 1

Memorandum+IIn+Support+of+Defendants+Motion+for+Summary+Judgment

Statement of Uncontroverted Facts 1

MOL IOT MSJ

ExhA – Liebesman Depo

ExhB – Lemoine Declaration

ExhC – Plaintiff’s Interrog Responses

Hey all. I’ve started to update podcasts for this class, and I have two ready to post. The scripts are on TWEN under the slides and helpful extras link in their own folder. And here is the audio:

Introductory podcast

Justiciability

Quite a few of the cases or problems in my criminal law class involve rape or sexual assault. The casebook I use has a different approach to teaching criminal law that doesn’t separate out these kinds of crimes from other kinds of crimes. There are disadvantages to this, largely because the law surrounding sexual violence has been the subject of sweeping reform that is connected to issues of race and sex equality in complicated ways. And society’s beliefs about what constitutes blameworthy sexual conduct are both in flux and not always connected with what the law says is blameworthy. Not treating sexual violence separately means that we often don’t have time to discuss the reforms and the continuing difficulty we have in defining crimes in this area. There are advantages, though, too. The cases and problems we have are accurate reflections of what the law right now is, and not separating sexual violence out as something different from other kinds of crimes can help us take it more seriously and to develop attitudes that treat victims and defendants the same way we would treat them for other kinds of crimes. This helps to get outside the “bad, old” ways of thinking to more effectively avoid engaging in the same harms that the reforms were targeted to solve.

In connection with that, I read an article today that was so thoughtful about some of the problems that we have in figuring out what sexual conduct ought to be criminal and why that I had to share it. Sarah Hepola in “The Alcohol Blackout,” published October 29 in Texas Monthly explores the role of excessive alcohol in helping to create the situations in which injuries because of sexual conduct occur. There are places that I might make different normative judgments than she does, but her treatment of room for disagreement in particular is especially important. I encourage you to read it.

The Supreme Court issued a per curiam opinion yesterday in an excessive force case, Mullenix v. Luna, essentially holding that unless “existing precedent placed the conclusion that [the officer] acted unreasonably in these circumstances ‘beyond debate,'” the officer would be immune from a suit for damages. The debate between the concurrence and single dissent is interesting, especially since Justice Sotomayor is the dissenter. As a former prosecutor, she tends to be pretty sympathetic to security issues.