In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Month: May 2007

AutoAdmit’s Anthony Ciolli Loses Job Offer

Because of the message board. Wow.

It’s a good post. Like I told the WSJ reporter, Ciolli losing his job offer doesn’t make me feel any better, and it doesn’t make me feel vindicated in any way. That said, I can understand why a firm would have serious concerns about hiring him. The fact that he and his partner, Jarret Cohen, allowed all kinds of disgusting commentary to remain up on the board doesn’t speak particularly well to character and fitness issues. I think that Ciolli made a series of very, very poor choices when he was running AutoAdmit. I do feel genuinely bad for him, though, to have lost his job right before graduation. Any way you slice it, that sucks.

But what’s disappointing is that Anthony seems to be shifting the blame to Jarret — claiming he had no authority over what was posted, etc etc. Frankly, that smells like bullshit to me. They co-ran the site. Even if Jarret had ultimate control, I’m sure Anthony’s opinion meant something. He wasn’t helpless. But because Jarret is self-employed and not a law student, he can take the blame without actually shouldering any of the consequences.

When it comes to internet-land, we all make choices. I’ve made a choice similar to Anthony’s — to co-run a website, and to do so under my full, real name. I’ve done that knowing that there will most certainly be consequences to that decision. There already have been. There have also been wonderful benefits, and so I’ve made the conscious choice to keep doing what I’m doing. But I’ve tried to do it as responsibly as I can, and the Feministe bloggers have collectively instituted a moderation policy that takes out any threatening comments — as well as comments that are racist, sexist, anti-Semitic, etc. I would not hesitate to delete a comment that released someone’s personal information, or that defamed them, or that harassed or threatened them. That isn’t exactly an unheard-of position when it comes to blogs and message boards — most blogs that I read, liberal or conservative, won’t stand for threats.

Anthony and Jarret decided that letting AutoAdmit turn into a free-for-all of racism, sexism and anti-Semitism was something that should be protected over individual rights to privacy or to simply be free of threats. I can’t imagine that Anthony had no idea that someone would eventually fight back — after all, they’re going after tons of law school women, many of whom aren’t exactly passive delicate flowers.

There are many things I’ve written that I no longer agree with, and many issues that I’ve changed my mind on. There are many things I’ve posted here that I wish I hadn’t. But they’re mine, and if I’m called out on them, I’ll take responsibility for writing them — I won’t blame Lauren or Zuzu or Piny for owning the site with me, or for not taking them down. It sucks to lose a job, and I really do sympathize with Anthony. But I think he’ll be a lot better off if he sucks it up, takes responsibility, apologizes and moves on. I don’t think this will ruin either his life or his legal career — and I hope it doesn’t. We’ve all done dumb things and made bad decisions. This certainly won’t be easy for him — character and fitness are, at least in theory, part of what makes a good lawyer, and if I were a hiring partner at a law firm I probably would not want to hire someone who makes the kinds of poor moral and ethical choices that Anthony has made. But then, I’m pretty sure that there are hiring partners who wouldn’t want to hire someone who makes the arguably poor decision to put all of her controversial political opinions online, in a well-read and very public forum. So I can’t exactly throw stones here, even if I do think I’ve done my best to run a responsible space. I think Anthony will recover from this, even though it’s not easy. I hope he does. And while I’m not his biggest fan in the world — nor he mine — I do wish him the best.

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Madame Justice

Bertha Wilson, the first woman to serve on Canada’s Supreme Court, has died.

OTTAWA, April 30, 2007 – The Supreme Court of Canada issued the following press release today:
The Honourable Bertha Wilson, formerly a justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, passed away in Ottawa on April 28, 2007 after a prolonged illness. Justice Wilson attended the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, and graduated with an M.A. in 1944. She continued her education at the Training College for Teachers in Aberdeen, obtaining her diploma in 1945. She married the Reverend John Wilson in December 1945 and they emigrated to Canada in 1949. In 1955, Bertha Wilson enrolled at Dalhousie University to study law, and in 1957 she completed her LL.B. and was called to the bar of Nova Scotia. In 1959 she was called to the bar of Ontario. She practised law in Toronto with Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt for 17 years.

Bertha Wilson broke ground in 1975 as the first woman appointed to the Court of Appeal for Ontario, and again in 1982 when she became the first woman appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada. She retired from the Court in 1991.

One of Wilson’s most significant opinions was her concurrence in 1988’s* R. v. Morgantaler, which decriminalized abortion in Canada. Calgary native Le Mew has written several posts about the influence that R. v. Morgantaler has had on his pro-choice thinking (not to mention his academic specialty, countermobilization, in particular relating to abortion politics):

My direct interest in the abortion issue is easily traced. The first court decision I remember hearing about and discussing was R. v. Morgentaler, the 1988 decision of the Supreme Court of Canada that ruled Canada’s federal abortion legislation unconstitutional. I gave a speech defending it at that year’s persuasive speech at my high school, and my interest in the subject has never really waned. (One can probably also trace my eventual decision to become a scholar of law and courts back to that decision too, although I would have never dreamed it at the time.) Morgentaler is worthy of examination by American supporters of reproductive freedom, because it addresses some issues that its American counterpart (with the partial exception of William O. Douglas’s short, brilliant concurrence in Doe v. Bolton) doesn’t. While I strongly believe that Roe v. Wade was correctly decided (1, 2, 3), like almost everybody I find Blackmun’s opinion for the Court deficient in many respects. Morgentaler is not the perfect opinion, but is does a much better job with similar legal materials.

Scott’s tribute is here.

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* I continue to be surprised that it took Canada until 1988 to decriminalize abortion, particularly in light of the liberality of its current law, which not only allows abortion on demand, but has the government pay for it.

Someone, please, firebomb Max Brenner’s

After hours, of course, so no one gets hurt. But if there was one spot in the city (or, in fact, the whole world) that I’d destroy, it would be the Second Avenue Max Brenner’s.

I hate it. I have to walk by it on my way to and from the gym, and it makes me physically upset. So thank goodness Frank Bruni demolishes it in his review.

And the substantial menu of dishes other than desserts — omelets for breakfast; salads, sandwiches and quiches for lunch and dinner — show that the standards aren’t particularly high. A congealed lasagna Bolognese could have been the work of that great Italian artisan Chef Boyardee.

I will buy everyone in this city a can of Spaghetti-O’s if we can shut down Max Brenner’s. Not that that would matter, since the place is dominated by tourists (and if any actual New Yorker sets foot in there, they deserve to be banished to Bakersfield), but the offer is still on the table.

**To clarify: Max Brenner’s is a restaurant that serves chocolate-everything, along with basics like sandwiches and soup. The food is terrible. The restaurant is ridiculous. It’s basically mall food. It particularly irritates me because they just opened one in my neighborhood which, though totally gentrified, has until a few years ago been pretty free of chain restaurants. It also makes me particularly angry because it’s about half a block away from one of the best dessert places in Manhattan — and yet it is always full of tourists who read about it in their guidebook. I want to shake them and tell them that they’d be better off at McDonald’s, and that if they’re going to come to the East Village, there are about 500 cute and delicious restaurants that they can eat at. There are a handful of things that I hate so much that I feel tense and twitchy just thinking about them. Those things are Nicholas Cage, Fergie, and Max Brenner’s.**

So share: What do you hate? And what or who would you (non-violently, of course) remove from the earth — or at least from the public?

Goodbye to a Good Man

lay

Donald Lay, a federal judge who “rigorously defended the rights of women, Native Americans and convicts,” passed away on Sunday.

Judge Lay was a member of the Eighth Circuit from 1966 until last year and was its chief judge from 1980 to 1982. He wrote more than 2,000 opinions and concurrences but also several notable dissents that were eventually upheld by the Supreme Court. One of his decisions, in a case involving the harassment of women at a mine in northern Minnesota, was the subject of the 2005 movie “North Country.”

In an interview yesterday, Judge Robert W. Pratt, chief judge of the Southern District of Iowa, part of the Eighth Circuit, said Judge Lay was “among the last of the unapologetic liberals who believed deeply in the Warren Court revolution and saw the federal courts as the protector of civil and equal rights.” He was also, Judge Pratt said, “a bulwark against efforts to repeal or reform habeas corpus,” the right of prisoners to challenge their convictions.

Thomas Boyd, a former law clerk for Judge Lay, said that Judge Lay had protected the rights “of even the most reviled members of our society” and that “one of the dissents he was most proud of was in Morrissey v. Brewer.”

In that 1971 case, the Eighth Circuit denied a habeas corpus petition by two prisoners, holding that their rights had not been violated when the Iowa State Parole Board revoked their paroles without hearings. Judge Lay’s dissent was upheld by the Supreme Court, with Chief Justice Warren E. Burger writing that the “liberty” of a parolee “is valuable and must be seen as within the protection of the 14th Amendment.”

The Supreme Court also upheld a dissent by Judge Lay in a 1983 case, Jaycees v. McClure. The Jaycees, a nonprofit organization that encouraged young men to engage in civic activities, had challenged a Minnesota order that they accept women as members. A federal district court upheld the order, but the Eighth Circuit reversed that ruling. In his dissent, Judge Lay said excluding women was based on an outdated rationale that “relegated women to a status inferior to that of men.” A year later, the Supreme Court agreed.

He is survived by his wife, five daughters, and 10 grandchildren. He did a whole lot of good in his 80 years, and improved the lives of people across the country — many of whom may never know who he was, but will enjoy greater equality and expanded liberties because of his work.

Perhaps Judge Lay’s most influential opinion came in Jenson v. Eveleth Taconite Co., which stemmed from a 1997 class-action suit brought by women working at a company mine. The women said they had been subjected to obscenities, stalking and other forms of sexual harassment for more than 20 years.

In his decision, Judge Lay wrote: “It should be obvious that the callous pattern and practice of sexual harassment engaged in by Eveleth Mines inevitably destroyed the self-esteem of the working women exposed to it. The humiliation and degradation suffered by these women is irreparable.”

The ruling was hailed as precedent-setting in a book by Clara Bingham and Laura Leedy Gansler, “Class Action: The Story of Lois Jenson and the Landmark Case That Changed Sexual Harassment Law” (Doubleday, 2002).

“Jenson v. Eveleth did not eradicate sexual harassment in the workplace,” the authors said. “But it made corporate America take real note of it for the first time, and established once and for all that women who are subjected to a hostile work environment need never stand alone again.”

Cheers to him.

Thanks to Dad for the link.

Posted in Law

The mysterious inner workings of a female duck

Belle Waring has the tale of a fascinating new discovery about the reasons that certain male ducks have such extravagant penises.

Let’s just say that it involves certain blind spots of male researchers.

Incidentally, is anyone else uncomfortable with the term “forced mating?” Sounds like ducks get raped on a fairly regular basis, even though theoretically the females choose their mates.

“Pro-life” Laws: Totally Fucked.



This seems relevant.

In Brazil, poor women are routinely maimed and even killed by illegal abortion. But that’s cool with the “pro-life” Catholic church, so long as women have to be held “responsible” for their misbehavior by dying. And that goes for contracting HIV, too. No, really:

“We cannot agree with condoms because they turn life into a life without responsibility,” Cardinal Geraldo Majella, head of the National Bishops Council, said just before this year’s Carnival celebrations, when the government gave out condoms.

Archbishop Angelo Amato last week called gay marriage evil, abortions terrorism, and their clinics slaughterhouses.

Abstinence or death, bitches.

And then there’s Ireland, where a 17-year-old girl is pregnant with a fetus that has such severe brain abnormalities that it will not live for more than a few days after birth (if even that long) — and instead of allowing her to go to Britian for an abortion, the Irish government refused to let her leave the country. So she may be forced to give birth to a baby with a large part of its brain missing, that will probably not live for more than a few hours. But she may have a chance at terminating the pregnancy if she can convince medical experts that she’s going to kill herself:

Ireland’s constitution was altered by national referendum in 1983 to give unborn children equal rights to life as mothers. In 1992, a teenager aged 14, who became pregnant through being raped, was refused permission to travel abroad in order to get an abortion. The case eventually went to the supreme court in Ireland where, because she was considered to be at risk of suicide, the decision was finally made to allow her to leave the republic for the operation. Since 1992, four governments have refused to introduce legislation confirming the supreme court’s judgment, and instead tried to get public support for a more restricted move. During 2002, a constitutional amendment which was designed to remove the threat of suicide as legal grounds for an abortion was narrowly defeated in a national referendum.

Totally, thoroughly fucked. I can’t think of a nicer way to put it. I’ll just point out, for the one millionth time, that this is the face of the “pro-life” movement, and this is what it looks like when “pro-life” policies are the rule of law. And once again, I’m really appreciating this “Assholes” tag.

Feminist Trivia

I play on a pub trivia team, and one of my teammates is putting together a quiz of her own with some guys from a rival team. I mentioned to her that I’d like to see more questions about women, about women’s accomplishments, about historical events meaningful to women (not to mention more sports questions about women’s sports) in pub quizzes in general. To the extent that there are questions about people, they tend to be about men. And many of the rounds (like sports) are geared to what men are socialized to think is important.* Women aren’t exactly erased, but they’re overlooked. And if women and women’s concerns aren’t considered something worth knowing or learning about, then it’s a short step to women and women’s concerns being considered unimportant.

So, since Elizabeth agreed that more questions about women and women’s issues would be a really great and subversive way to get more people thinking about women-related factoids — because they could come up at any time on a quiz! — I’m doing a bleg for feminist trivia.

Melissa McEwan suggested Eve’s Quest, which she reviewed here, as a good source of trivia questions. But do any of you have any good sources of feminist trivia or factoids you can share with the class?

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* Despite the fact that there’s a sports round every time and my team is mostly-female and mostly-uninterested-in-your-typical-American-sports, we win frequently. It helps that the Quizmaster is from Ireland and therefore, we escape the kind of football-and-baseball-centric sports rounds that favor American men. However, the Olympics are open to both men and women, and Liam’s sports rounds still largely ignore the women.

Progressive Family Values Conference at Yale

Ed: “Family Values” rhetoric is a major tool used by the right to gain votes and score morality points. But it’s the progressive left that actually takes steps to help families. Two weeks ago, a the Progressive Family Values Conference took place at Yale, where progressive thinkers came together to discuss these issues and strategize ways to incorporate our values into policy. The following is a commentary from one NYU Law student who attended the conference. It’s interesting stuff, so read on! And now, on to Colin:

A guest post by Colin Parent, NYU 3L, and former president of the NYU Law Chapter of the American Constitution Society

On April 21st, the Yale Law School chapter of the American Constitution Society, with the Yale Women Faculty Forum co-sponsored a conference on Progressive Family Values.

The American Constitution Society (ACS) is a relatively new organization of progressive law students and lawyers. Among their varied actives is a series of conferences for students and lawyers designed to develop a progressive vision of law and policy in America.

This most recent conference was premised on an understanding that the term “family values” has taken on a traditionalist connotation, popularly considered a reference to a certain social conservative ideology. But progressives also have values relevant to ensuring successful families. The function of families, from giving care to dependents to providing a fulfilling home life are all functions progressives have an interest in advancing.

With this in mind, among the conference’s stated goals were to push back against “progressive shyness” with respect to speaking about family values. But the conference was about more than just terminology or progressive rhetoric. Instead, the assembly aimed to encourage serious thought and conversation over how Americans can structure their laws and policies to protect their progressive family values.

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