Many Democratic candidates for president have addressed questions about whether the US should make “reparations” for slavery (and other social injustices). Unfortunately, that term is confusing and scary for some people (including some of the candidates) who conceive of it simply as making cash payments to certain individuals. In fact, the proponents are suggesting something … Continue reading Benefits of Reframing “Reparations”
Several new articles reflect what I think are good and bad approaches to dealing with historic injustices that I described in a recent post. For some reason, a 1971 Playboy interview of John Wayne just went viral. In it, he said, “I believe in white supremacy,” and justified “our so-called stealing of our country” from … Continue reading More about Our Need for Truth and Reconciliation
Donald Trump. Anthony Weiner. Ralph Northam. Kevin McCarthy. Justin Fairfax. Steve King. Antonin Scalia. Brett Kavanaugh. Roy Moore. Al Franken. James Watt. Bill Clinton. Ronald Reagan. Richard Nixon. George H.W. Bush. Bernie Sanders. Spiro Agnew. Eric Schneiderman. Ilhan Omar. Eliot Spitzer. Harry Reid. Mike Huckabee. Joe Biden. George Allen. Ben Carson. Paul Ryan. Jesse Jackson. … Continue reading Our Need for Truth, Reconciliation, and Justice
As noted in this post about our need for truth, reconciliation, and justice about past injustices, Washington Post journalist James Hohmann compiled the following list of readings for Virginia Governor Ralph Northam to learn about our racial history based on suggestions of preeminent historians. This is a good reading list for all of us to … Continue reading Reading List About Our Racial History
A companion post discusses a great need for truth, reconciliation, and justice about past injustices in our society. This post identifies some organizations in our field that work to promote these goals and uses language from their websites to describe their activities. If you know of any resources that should be added to this list, … Continue reading Resources for Truth and Reconciliation
Michelle Obama’s fabulous memoir, Becoming, has valuable lessons for us in legal education and practice. This post first summarizes the book and then describes some of these lessons. The book is a chronological narrative of Ms. Obama’s life, which is fascinating in itself, though I was particularly interested in her portrayals of the worlds she … Continue reading Becoming Ourselves
The New York Times published an interesting article worth reading, which riffs on Mark Zuckerberg’s statement that Facebook would develop an independent body to make decisions about acceptability of posts on its platform. He mused that the body might be like a supreme court to make final decisions reflecting global social norms. The article was … Continue reading Dispute System Design for Facebook
The Harvard Negotiation & Mediation Clinical Program launched its new podcast Thanks for Listening! Here’s their description: This podcast will spotlight efforts to bridge the political divide in the U.S. through dialogue and collaborative processes, profiling the important and often courageous work of individuals and organizations who are helping citizens engage with one another on … Continue reading New Podcast: Thanks for Listening!
The first episode of the Serial podcast’s new season is a dramatic illustration of how much you can learn from a single case. The case involves a young white woman who was prosecuted for her participation in a bar fight. The Serial team are incredible storytellers, so this podcast is not “just” educational, but it … Continue reading Serial Podcast Shows How Much You Can Learn From a Single Case
I just wrote a post describing “litigation stress” that parties experience during litigation, noting that this can be particularly painful in some cases like those involving sexual assault allegations. Allegations of sexual assault by Judge Brett Kavanaugh have been in the news a lot lately. While these allegations aren’t being litigated in court, the process … Continue reading Real-Life Account of Litigation Stress in Bill Cosby Case
Litigation offers many potential benefits. It can help people solve difficult problems, make relationships and institutions function properly, and promote justice. It enables people to enlist legitimate, independent government officials to resolve disputes when the parties can’t resolve disputes themselves. Indeed, litigation provides mechanisms for structuring dispute resolution processes that enable most parties to ultimately … Continue reading Reality-Testing Questions for Real Life and Simulations – and Ideas for Stone Soup Assignments
Probably like many readers of this blog, I have been very uncomfortable with our highly polarized politics lately. I have written about my conflicted feelings about how to deal with these issues, including this article, How Can We Build Common Ground Between Bubbles? Clearly, it is counterproductive to try to build common ground with people … Continue reading Building Political Common Ground