Various former Scientologists have accused the Church of heavy-handed tactics of harassment and threats after they went public with accusations of cult-like activities or fraudulent practices. The most recent, however, is the great grandson of the church’s founder L. Ron Hubbard. Jamie DeWolf held nothing back recently in accusing the Church of harassing him — describing his great grandfather as a “portly red-headed charismatic lying con-man pseudoscience self-help author.”
Category: Society
The fallout from the controversial interview given by Chick-Fil-A president Dan Cathy over anti-gay comments continues to build. While most business leaders work hard to keep their political and religious views from affecting customers or their business, Cathy came out swinging with comments saying that he runs the company according to Biblical commands and that he views gay marriage as a sin. The result has been national boycott, store protests, and most recently moves in major cities like Chicago to bar the restaurant. The suggested legislation in Chicago would be in my view unconstitutional. Despite our disagreement with Cathy, civil libertarians should defend his right to do business without harassment or censure from the government for his views. His company is subject to anti-discrimination laws. Those laws protect his employees from “Biblical” harassment.
Greek Triple jumper Voula Papachristou has been expelled from Greece’s Olympic team this week for mocking African immigrants and expressing support on Twitter for the far-right Golden Dawn party. Despite the obnoxious content of these views for many of us, I believe that the move raises serious free speech concerns.
Continue reading “Greek Athlete Expelled From Olympic Team Over Political Views And Racist Joke”
Since prospective law professors are suing law schools on the basis of age discrimination, it did not take long for law students to follow suit. C. Michael Kamps of Rockwall, Texas, is suing Baylor Law School for age discrimination on the grounds that he went to college before the use of grade inflation — resulting in a discriminatory impact based on his age.
Continue reading “Law Student Sues Baylor For Age Discrimination”
I am in Salt Lake City today for the hearing on the government’s second motion to dismiss the challenge to the state’s bigamy law by the Brown family — the cast of TLC’s Sister Wives program. As always in dealing with my own cases, I have to be circumspect in any public comments on the case. [Update: The court has promised a decision soon on whether it will proceed to rule on the constitutionality of the state law]
Continue reading “Sister Wives Case Goes Back To Court Today”
We have previously discussed the role of former General Counsel Cynthia Baldwin in the disastrous handling of the Sandusky scandal by Penn State. Baldwin is cited in the Freeh Report for her alleged failure to fully informed university officials and her opposition to an independent review that might have protected the university from the scandal and recently imposed heavy penalties against the school. Now former Penn State president Graham Spanier is joining in that criticism, saying that Baldwin failed to hire an experienced law firm during the grand jury probe.
Donald S. Dobkin, 59, has taken an unconventional approach to getting on a law faculty. Dobkin has repeatedly sued the University of Iowa and the College of Law after they turned him down for a faculty position — alleging age discrimination. Dobkin has sued Iowa before after he learned that an allegedly younger and less qualified lawyer was hired over him.
Continue reading “Lawyer Sues Iowa Over Refusal To Add Him To Law Faculty . . . Again”
The University of Illinois College of Law has had a tough run in recent years. The school was hammered by an admissions scandal after it allegedly admitted unqualified or less competitive students to secure jobs or to please powerful politicians. Now it has been hit with a public censure and $250,000 fine by the ABA’s Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar for intentionally reporting and publishing false admissions data in six out of the last 10 years.
Continue reading “University of Illinois Censured and Fined By ABA For False Admissions Data”
Indiana University Southeast near Louisville, Kentucky is at the center of a free speech controversy over a school code that bars students from expressing opinions on campus except in designated free speech zones. The code flips the presumption of higher education: students must generally refrain from free speech and even apply for the right to express opinions. The code, first promulgated in 2004, is being challenged as an example of how universities are cracking down on free speech.
Tony Robbins is facing a series of potential lawsuits after at least 21 people were treated for burns after a late-night firewalking event. The fire walking resulted in second- and third-degree burn injuries at the motivational speaker’s event at the San Jose Convention Center. He called the event “Unleash the Power Within” — it was not clear if the burns were caused by the unleashing of the inner power or the superheated coals that they were walking on.
Continue reading “Third Degree Self-Realization: Dozens Injured In Robbins Fire Walking Exercise”
by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
U.N. Visitor’s Plaza, New York, New York
A gift from Luxembourg.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last forty-eight hours, you have no doubt seen the coverage concerning the mass shooting in Aurora, Colorado. If you possess even a minimal level of empathy for your fellow human beings, twelve dead and fifty-eight wounded when their only crime was wanting to see a movie can only be properly described as tragic. Among the dead accounted for up to this point are a man who had been celebrating his twenty-seventh birthday (Alex Sullivan), a member of our Navy (Petty Officer Third Class John Larimer), a twenty-four year old aspiring sports journalist (Jessica Ghawi), and a six year-old girl. Some less responsible outlets are reporting this little girl’s name (Huffington Post, looking your direction), but other more responsible outlets are not. I will not post her name for the same reason others have declined: the little girl remains unidentified because her mother, also a victim of this horrific crime with gunshot wounds to the neck and abdomen, remains paralyzed in hospital and has not yet been told of her daughter’s death. Even in reporting on events, sometimes a little discretion goes a long way and does not impair the “public’s right to know” in any substantive manner.
Over the next few days, you will see many attempts by people with various political agendas trying to monopolize on this shooting to promote their pet causes. In fact, it has already started and in a most heinous manner. During a radio interview on The Heritage Foundation’s “Istook Live!” show, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) said Friday that the shootings were a result of “ongoing attacks on Judeo-Christian beliefs” . . . and questioned why nobody else in the theater had a gun to take down the shooter. Gohmert in one fell swoop illustrated that not only is he a base political opportunist, but that he apparently doesn’t understand the 1st or 2nd Amendments very well – a common affliction among Texas pols. Others pols are already using this as a way to promote their anti-gun agendas, their pro-gun agendas and the Twitter-verse is filling with statements from “our leaders” about this tragic event and all of them in some way self-serving.
I urge you to ignore these opportunists for a moment and to think about something else related to the Aurora shooting.
Multiple outlets are reporting that the accused gunman, James Holmes, had dyed his hair red and told the police he “was the Joker”.
There is the fantasy of violence. There is the reality of violence. They could not be more different in outcome. This presents the issue of instances like this where the line between fantasy and reality have clearly been crossed in some meaningful manner. Does this problem exist in the individual or in society itself? I submit the answer might be “a little of both”.
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
This past week Professor Turley had two posts regarding the innocent victim of a police shooting: http://jonathanturley.org/2012/07/17/florida-police-pound-on-wrong-door-looking-for-suspect-without-identifying-themselves-thenves-then-shoot-and-kill-innocent-man-who-answers-the-door-with-weapon/#comments and http://jonathanturley.org/2012/07/20/report-police-allegedly-increased-suspects-alleged-crime-after-shooting-third-person/#more-51907 These can fairly be called the latest installments of an ongoing series that details deaths and injuries sustained by people who are the victims of policing errors. There were a fair number of comments all lamenting yet another example of careless police work, in tandem with a propensity to shoot first and hope for the best. After awhile the comments petered out because this instance is but one of many that have been publicized by Professor Turley. He tries to focus attention on what seems to be blatant disregard for the rights of individual citizens. After all, what does one say after expressing their outrage at egregious behavior and impotently raging against the expected ensuing cover-ups? Emotionally, I personally feel horror and outrage when something like this happens and I desire justice in the form of stiff punishment for the avoidable errors that took an innocent life. Yet this occurs time and again as outrage simmers and yet another story captures our attention. It seems that nothing is ever really done with the macro-cosmic problem, even when on the individual level, though very occasionally, the people responsible are held to account. When I thought about the issue of police killing the wrong person it occurred to me that this is not something that has recently developed in our country, or indeed the rest of the world. In fact it seems to me that such occurrences represent a norm of human history that stems from how the entire concept of policing first came about. Policing had its origins in protecting wealth, property and the status quo of autocratic authority. Continue reading “Collateral Damage of the Police”
By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Author note: This is the fifth in a series about the child sexual abuse scandal at The Pennsylvania State University that helped bring down iconic football coach Joe Paterno and three top officials at the premier public college in Pennsylvania.
The Magician
Penn State’s ousted president and amateur magician, Graham Spanier, enjoyed a well-deserved reputation for secrecy while leading the state’s flagship public university. In one instance, Spanier became incensed when he learned that the Harrisburg Patriot-News had obtained the salaries of the top PSU officials — including Joe Paterno — from the state pension board. (Paterno had consistently made mention of the fact that he received around $500,000 per year as a coach, donating much of it back to PSU. Many prominent FBS football coaches make up to ten times that amount and it appears Paterno was fudging a bit on his salary.) Spanier embarked on a five-year fight to block publication of the salaries, taking the case through the entire appeals process and up to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Spanier lost at every level. Undaunted and against the odds, he successfully lobbied Pennsylvania state lawmakers to reject closing the loophole which exempted college employees salaries from the state’s “right-to-know” law. With that legislative prestidigitation, he just made the problem disappear.
There are millions of non-Muslims in Saudi Arabia. However, the Interior Ministry has warned non-Muslims that they are expected to respect Islamic restrictions during Ramadan and refrain from eating, drinking or smoking in public during Ramadan. Thus for a full month, non-Muslims are expected to act as Muslims in public in the ultimate denial of religious freedom.
Continue reading “Saudi Government Warns Non-Muslims To Observe Ramadan Restrictions”
We have been following the case of Andrew Scott who was fatally shot by Lake County Deputies looking for a suspect in his apartment complex. Police did not identify themselves when they knocked on Scott’s door around 1:30 am. When Scott came to the door armed and allegedly pointed the gun at the officers, they killed him. Now, there is an allegation that officers increased the alleged crime of the suspect after the shooting.