Current Events in Law and Ethics
February 4, 2013 at 12:56 pm
I will do almost anything to reach my students. I am constantly innovating, and I am willing to try new things to get every student in the classroom involved.
I will not, however, try to rap.
Apparently I wouldn’t make it at Tufts University, where a science professor raps his lectures. I really don’t need to say anything else. Just check out the video.
Perhaps my greatest objection is to the sideways hat.
February 1, 2013 at 11:15 am
This is a Bratz doll. Will anyone admit to playing with one?
These dolls really make me scared for the future of our society. They are also at the center of a heated legal battle in an industry that is supposed to "play nice." Years ago Mattel, a toy company, sued Bratz-maker MGA, alleging that the inventor of Bratz came up with the idea while still working at Mattel. In an ugly and long litigation, MGA then counterclaimed against Mattel, alleging that Mattel engaged in corporate spying and unfair business practices. This is truly a case of David and Goliath, with Mattel, the largest toy company in the world, picking on the small California company that made Bratz dolls
A jury found in favor of MGA in 2011, finding that the small company rightfully owned the Bratz dolls, and awarding hundreds of millions in damages against Mattel.
Now an appeals court has struck down the damages award against Mattel, finding that the counterclaims should have been considered separate from Mattel's original claims. This means the parties will be going back to court yet again, for another trial on MGA's claims against Mattel.
Regardless of the final outcome, many people have been critical of both companies' decisions to drag this litigation on for so many years, spending millions on legal fees. Why do you think the parties fought so hard and so long? What is at stake in a case like this?
January 22, 2013 at 2:55 pm
Back in Ancient times, when I entered the work world, when you were pissed at your boss you would gather by the water cooler and do your whining in person. The boss would rarely hear about it, and if she did learn of your complaints, it was usually considered harmless venting.
Now that people do not speak to each other in person much, all that venting occurs on social media websites. If your boss is being unreasonable, you post a rude comment about her online. That means that the entire world can read your post, which may reflect poorly on your boss, or worse, the entire company. As a result, most large businesses have instituted social media policies. Violation of those policies in many cases may lead to termination.
From a business perspective, it seems entirely reasonable to prohibit employees from denigrating the business in such a public way. But what about free speech? Our Constitution guarantees freedom of speech in the First Amendment. So how should courts resolve this tension between free speech and a business's reputation?
This is all a rather new question, considering we have only had Facebook and Twitter for a handful of years. So far, though, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the federal agency that regulate labor relations, has come down hard on employers that infringe on employee's ability to discuss work conditions, online or in person. As discussed in this NY Times article, the NLRB has ruled in favor of several employees on this ground, but made clear that offensive employee comments that are not about work conditions are not protected. More far-reaching, however, have been the agency's rulings about the validity of several large corporation's social media policies.
So, is Facebook the new water cooler? Or is social media so different than old-fashioned venting that it should be treated differently by employers and the courts?
January 18, 2013 at 10:26 am
The law is a powerful tool. It plays an important role in having an ordered society. An ordered society is one in which when you order a footlong sandwich at Subway, you get 12 inches.
Is it false advertising to call it a "footlong" when the sandwich is only 11 inches? I don't know for sure, but I am definitely bringing a ruler with me next time I go to subway.
January 17, 2013 at 3:06 pm
I spend a lot of time reading about lying. This tends to be a depressing yet enlightening endeavor. Research shows that most of us lie in small ways often. But then there are the Grand Poobah's of lying: Bernie Madoff,
Bill Clinton (although Kant would say Bill was evading, not lying), my favorite TV 
character from Suits (if you aren't watching you should be), and now Lance Armstrong. The ability to live your entire life as a lie is quite astounding. That is why I enjoyed this article about Lance Armstrong's long deception about his use of performance enhancing drugs.
Armstrong is a particularly fascinating liar because he managed to do so much good while being so bad. His charity has raised millions of dollars for cancer research, and brought great attention to the issue. His LIVESTRONG campaign was a great inspiration to many cancer patients and survivors. So does all that good outweigh the bad? Everyone I ask has a different conclusion. What do you think?
January 16, 2013 at 10:04 am
I hope my former students are still reading this blog. This is probably most important for those who have already suffered through my class, although it is a good thought for the future for my new students. I wrote this a few years ago after spending my entire winter break writing letters of recommendation for students that I hadn't laid eyes upon in two years. I hope you find it helpful.
A Note regarding Letters of Recommendation
For several years I have been spending a significant percentage of my time writing letters of recommendation for my students, current and former. I am happy to do so; my students work hard and I am happy to acknowledge their strengths, and I realize I wouldn’t be where I am without several busy people taking time to write letters for me, so I feel I obligated to do the same. Because I take the time to know my students, in most cases it is easy for me to write a letter expressing a personal view of the student. Occasionally, though, the circumstances present a real challenge. I do the best I can, but the best letters are those that reflect anecdotes and personal details that don’t come through on a transcript. The following is a list of my suggestions on how to get good, personal, and detailed letters of recommendation written for you, whether it is by me or another professor or professional contact.
- Let me get to know you. Simply showing up in class, doing well on exams, and writing good papers is not enough. Often I have “A” students that I barely know. All I can write is about is their performance on tests and papers, which is already conveyed to the Admissions Office/Employer in your transcript. This is even worse if the student doesn’t get an A. It is easy to let a professor get to know you: just go see them in office hours, suggest lunch or coffee, even chatting before and after class can be helpful. Some of my best letters have been written about a meaningful conversation I had with a student in office hours that had nothing to do with our course. You do not need an important question or topic to come see me.
- Class participation is only the first step. One way I can start to get to know you is through strong class participation. It is not the only way, and it isn’t enough, but it is a start.
- You don’t need an “A” to get a good letter. Some of my favorite students received average grades in my course. But because I got to know them outside of class, I could appreciate all their strengths, and write meaningful letters. I include this point so you don’t think all we care about is grades, and to reinforce how important it is to get to know your recommender.
- Provide ample notice. Give your recommender enough time. I suggest a month if possible. Writing letters isn’t our only job.
- Ask right after your class is over. I prefer to write letters while you are fresh in my mind. It allows me to recall anecdotes, rather than just look at my grade sheet to see how you did. The letter will still be good months later when you apply.
- Keep in touch. Even if I knew you well when you were in my class, if you come to me two years later, and I haven’t spoken to you since, it will be challenging to remember the type of personal details that make a good letter. Stop by office hours, meet me for coffee, send an email once in a while. I saw some intern extraordinaire on the Today Show the other day; she said she gets in touch at least three times a year with all her professional contacts. Think of your professors the same way.
- Let me know the results. Nothing is more frustrating than spending your free time writing letters of recommendation for a student, and never hearing back from them again. I want to know where you got in, and what your plans are. If I didn’t care, I wouldn’t write the letter. A simple email would suffice, although a visit is nice.
January 8, 2013 at 2:22 pm
One of our favorite dinner table topics in my house is what we would do if we were in charge of the world for a day. Usually the discussion centers around excessive dessert eating and elimination of homework. I like to pretend I can eliminate all the things in the world that annoy me. None are a big deal, most are none of my business, but I am confident the world would be a better place if, for instance, everyone stopped wearing ugly shoes (Crocs!). 
It seems that our state legislature has a long history of playing the same game, except their votes count. As pointed out in this recent Boston Globe article, Massachusetts still has dozens of antiquated laws on the books. For example, spitting in public is a crime. (I actually agree with this one wholeheartedly. You are all disgusting if you spit in public.) Swearing at a sporting event is also a crime, but who hasn't done that? More seriously, Massachusetts still has on the books laws from 1845-47 that make abortion a crime. Those laws are unconstitutional under the Supreme Court's pronouncement in Roe v. Wade, but if Roe were ever overturned, we would be back to those 1845 laws.
Massachusetts is certainly not alone in having old, and sometimes weird, laws on the books. Yet state legislators are either too lazy or too scared to go through the political effort to repeal the laws. What unusual antiquated laws are on the books where you are from?
December 6, 2012 at 4:28 pm
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, the highest court in our Commonwealth, ruled today that the police may search the call history on your cell phone when you are arrested. This is a search allowed without a warrant. The Court left for another day the issue of whether the police need a warrant to read your emails or texts after an arrest.
The Court's ruling is based on the police's long-established ability to look for evidence of a crime in a suspect's personal belongings as part of the booking process. While I understand that searches incident to arrest are a well-entrenched exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement, allowing the police to look at a suspect's phone seems ripe for abuse. Who or what will stop the police from looking at the rest of the information on the phone? And why is the call history automatically relevant to the arrest? Certainly the police would need a warrant to obtain a suspect's land-line telephone records after arrest. So now that we carry our phones in our pockets, has the level of privacy in our calls changed?
Has the Court gone too far, or is this just a 21st century version of a search incident to arrest?
December 4, 2012 at 11:41 am
Yesterday's Boston Globe had a quick shout-out for a very smart young man that did the right thing by acknowledging errors in his previously published paper. Our news are usually filled with bad guys, so I thought I would bring your attention to some positive news on ethics.
