Higher Ed Law Prof Blog

Why Phishing Expeditions Work So Well

Harvard report explains it all.Report

Ermerging Cyber Security Threats

Georgia Tech's take on the top threats.Report

Education, Iranian Style

PREPPING FOR WAR AGAINST U.S.
AND WEST THROUGH. SCHOOL TEXTS

Iran is using its school textbooks to indoctrinate its children in a
global war against the "enemies of Islam," with a special focus on the
United States and the West, according to a comprehensive and alarming
report from the Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace.

As you will see by reading the report or a summary, both available
online at http://www.edume.org/
tp%3a%2f%2fwww.edume.org%2f> , Iran is training 15 million children to
strive for "martyrdom" in attacks against the United States. In fact,
the declared goal of the school curriculum is to prepare students for an
armed struggle against the United States to put an end to "Western
dominion" and establish the reign of Islam.

"Now, in order to continue the Islamic Revolution," says a book for 7th
graders, "it is our duty to continue with all [our] power our revolt
against the Arrogant Ones [i.e., the United States], and the oppressors,
and not cease until all Islam's commandments and the spread of the
redeeming message of 'there is no god except Allah' are realized in the
whole world."

For 11th graders, the message is, "America is known as an Imperialist
country, which embarks on military intervention wherever it sees that
its interests are in danger. It does not refrain from massacring
people, burying alive the soldiers of the opposite side and using
weapons of mass destruction (as it did in Iraq). It makes use of atomic
bombs (the bombardment of Japan). It uses the weapons of human rights
in order to suppress the justice seekers (as it does in its abuses
against Islamic Iran). It creates the greatest dictatorships and the
most violent and torturing security-oriented regimes, and defends them."

The 11th graders are called to action: "O Muslims of all countries of
the world! Since under the foreigners' dominance gradual death has been
inflicted on you, you should overcome the fear of death and make use of
the existence of the passionate and the martyrdom-seeking youths, who
are ready to smash the borders of unbelief. Do not think of keeping the
status quo."

Interested in teaching about homeland security?

Homeland security and counterterrorism programs are ont he rise at universities.See my article on it in the Greentree Gazette.That's me on the fence line of the West Bank, traveling on a Foundation for Defense of Democracies fellowship last May.

Anyone interested in a tenure-track position teaching Homeland
Security should contact Dr. Kay Scarborough at Eastern Kentucky
University at kscarbocop@aol.com.

More Cuomo subpoenas...

... in student-loan scandal.Chronicle of Higher Ed

Rhode Island Student Loan Authority...

... cleans up its act.Announcement

Diversity is on the rise at U. Cal.

So says a new report.ReportBut see the next item, taken from the Chronicle of Higher Ed, which says referenda in several more states will be on the 2008 ballot in an effort to further restrist universties' use of affirmative action efforts.

Affirmative action will be under fire again in '08

5 More States May Curb Use of Race in Hiring and Admissions

By PETER SCHMIDT

The prominent affirmative-action critic Ward Connerly appears well on his way to getting up to five states to vote in November 2008 on ballot measures banning the use of racial, ethnic, and gender preferences by public colleges and other state and local agencies.

And, according to political analysts who monitor the states that are the targets of Mr. Connerly's planned "Super Tuesday" on affirmative action—Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska, and Oklahoma—he stands a very good chance of getting measures passed in all of them. (From the Chronicle of Higher Ed blog)

Thousands of academics bask in glory of Nobel Peace Prize

The Alliance for Climate Protection crunched the numbers that support Al Gore's claims of climate change. They share this year's Nobel Peace Prize with the former US Veep.ACP home page

Gore wins Nobel Prize

ShaNew York Timesres it with Alliance for Climate Protection.

This Week's "Attorney at Large" column

He Who Laughs Last
By
James Castagnera
Last Friday I envied Al Gore. He woke up the co-recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, awarded for his work on global warming. People may still chuckle that in 2000 he came close to claiming he invented the Internet. No one can laugh at him now. The Peace Prize comes to the former Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate on top of an Oscar for his film, “An Inconvenient Truth,” which has awakened millions of us to the threats posed by climate change. Yes, 2007 is a banner year for Al Gore.
Contrast Gore’s great year to President George W. Bush’s reversal of fortunes. In 2000 a conservative Supreme Court awarded Mr. Bush the presidency of the United States, climaxing the most closely contested presidential election in U.S. history. Then in 2001, the lackluster start to W’s first term was eclipsed by the blinding light of the World Trade Center’s twin towers ablaze with burning jet fuel. For more than 3,000 Americans, September 11th was fatally tragic. For a president whose legitimacy was still questioned by half of all voters, Nine-Eleven was a call to greatness.
How the worm has turned in half a dozen years. While Mr. Bush chases his approval ratings down into the black hole of an unpopular war, Mr. Gore basks in the glory of two world-beating awards in a single year. Talk of a Gore reprise in the ’08 presidential sweepstakes abounds, though he coyly continues to be non-committal.
I suspect there are those who are gloating over Gore’s triumph and Bush’s political demise. And, yes, an Oscar and a Nobel seem suitable consolation prizes for having been gypped out of the White House, while W may be getting just what he deserves for having mired us in the most mismanaged conflict since Vietnam. Yes, indeed, it looks as if Al Gore gets the last laugh. Many, no doubt, are laughing along with him.
But wait a minute. What’s really at stake here? On one hand, Mr. Bush’s troubles in Iraq are shared by all of us, whether we voted for him or against him, and whether we now support or condemn the war. The same can be said of Mr. Gore’s inconvenient truth. If global warming is a fact --- and it seems irrefutable --- and if that fact portends more and fiercer Katrinas --- among the many unpleasant prospects of a warmer world --- then it, too, is a problem we all share.
These two human catastrophes have something else in common, too. Regardless of what was said, and continues to be said, about the Iraq War being a front in the War on Terror, the invasion was, and is, all about oil. We Yanks depend upon foreign oil, especially Middle Eastern oil. To ensure a stable, affordable supply of the black gold, our national interest lies in holding at least one major Mid-East nation firmly under our national influence. Despite rumblings of an Iranian invasion, at the end of the day Iran is more than we can chew. Saudi Arabia is a false friend; after all, most of the Nine-Eleven terrorists were Saudis. When the House of Saud someday collapses like a house of cards, Mecca and Medina will make it impossible for the U.S. to occupy Riyadh.
In other words, Iraq was the best choice among the big players in the region for the U.S. to control. That Iraqi resistance was underestimated and the occupation badly bungled doesn’t change the fundamental geo-political soundness of the decision to invade. Our unquenchable thirst for oil compelled it.
Oil also is a major culprit contributing to Gore’s inconvenient truth. Just as our unquenchable thirst for petroleum sends our soldiers into harm’s way, so too does it fill our atmosphere with the pollutants creating the greenhouse effect. In a weird way, Al Gore and George Bush are the two sides of the same coin of the realm. As Gore warns of global warming, Bush works to keep our tanks full of the very fuel that is the major cause of our coming inconvenience.
While we are free to applaud Mr. Gore and condemn Mr. Bush --- because, yes, despite the War on Terror and the Inconvenient Truth, this remains a free country at least for now --- we have no reason to laugh.
[Jim Castagnera is the Associate Provost and Associate Counsel at Rider University. He is also a 2007-08 Fellow of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. His new novel is available at Lulu.com]

New York Knicks, move over

Fresno State settles Associate AD's sex discrimination case for $3.5 million.Fresno State Bee

Cornell and Michigan, move over

NYU is coming to Dubai.Chronicle of Higher Ed

Google, mmove over

American Public Education announces its IPO terms.AP story

Plagiarism and the Professorate

As seen in the Grentree Gazette.

by Jim Castagnera
“Capitol Concerns”
November 2006
Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code is the biggest bestseller of all time, boasting more than 60 million copies in 44 languages. Brown’s net worth is reported to be about a quarter billion and climbing. But if another author, Lewis Purdue, is to be believed, most universities, if they played by their own rules, would fire Brown from their faculties.
Perdue, author of 1983’s The Da Vinci Legacy and 2000’s Daughter of God, possesses an expert opinion from Director John Olsson of Britain’s Forensic Linguistics Institute, who has publicly called Brown’s book, “the most blatant example of in-your-face plagiarism I’ve ever seen.” Unfortunately for Perdue, when Brown and Random House hauled him into the federal court in Manhattan, seeking a declaration that Code did not violate Perdue’s copyrights, the judge disallowed the expert report.
Although Perdue is pursuing the case into the U.S. Supreme Court on a motion for certiorari, the two lower courts ruling against him may be dead right. Current U.S. copyright law protects only the actual expression of an author’s ideas, not the underlying ideas themselves. Copyright infringement is not synonymous with plagiarism.
Perhaps it should be. So suggests an article by Harvard Law Professor Arthur Miller in the January issue of his law school’s journal. In the article, entitled “Common Law Protection for Products of the Mind,” Miller, citing Perdue’s case among many others, contends that the law should look at how the plaintiff’s idea enriched the defendant… not at whether the defendant ripped off an exact copy of the plaintiff’s work. This approach matches what most universities tell their students about plagiarism. At my own institution, Rider University in central New Jersey, the sweeping definition of plagiarism in the student handbook includes:
“1.1 Ghostwriting-Written work submitted by an individual student (or group of students working together as approved in advance by the instructor) is expected to be the work of that student (or approved group).…
“1.2 Word for Word Plagiarism-Copying, word for word, from any source (book, magazine, newspaper, Internet source, unpublished paper or thesis) without proper acknowledgment by quotation and citation within the text of the paper….
“1.3 Patchwork Plagiarism-The submission of work which has been constructed by piecing together phrases and/or sentences quoted verbatim (word for word) or paraphrased from a variety of unacknowledged sources is an act of academic dishonesty….
“1.4 Unacknowledged Paraphrases-Submission of another author’s facts or ideas in one’s own words without acknowledgment by proper citation is an act of academic dishonesty.”

The academic penalties for plagiarism can be as severe as this definition is expansive. The career-busting equivalent of capital punishment is often invoked. For example, in mid-September the University of Cincinnati announced initiation of steps to terminate its director of German-American studies on the grounds of numerous plagiarized passages in a 2000 tome, The German-American Experience. Charges were first made on the website H-Net (www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=104811076280447 ), which claimed in 2003 that roughly half of the first 180 pages were lifted from a 1962 book, The Germans in America. A more ancient volume, 1909’s The German Element in the United States, also allegedly was looted by the Cincinnati faculty-member/librarian for his own book.
If the University of Cincinnati imposes workplace capital punishment, the author of The German-American Experience will join a long line of academic plagiarizers who were marched up the steps to that same guillotine. Some casualties, however, have refused to lie down and play dead. Chris Dussold, a former Southern Illinois at Edwardsville faculty member, for instance, is fighting a multi-front campaign against his former employers. Fired in 2004 for allegedly lifting a two-page teaching statement, Dussold has since sued. Dussold apparently doesn’t deny that he borrowed the statement, which he considered mere boilerplate, from a colleague. He says, simply, that plagiarism never crossed his mind. He adds that a false rumor, that he was sleeping with a student, is the real reason he was fired.
Not satisfied with suing, Dussold launched a “glass houses” campaign, pointing out for example that the school’s chancellor copied several passages of a speech from a web site. The chancellor owned up and apologized. Earlier this year the chancellor of Southern Illinois’s Carbondale campus admitted that portions of his 2005 state-of-the university address came verbatim from a 1986 book he hadn’t written. Both chancellors blamed staffers, but Dussold contends that since he was fired, so too should they be.
Dussold’s counterattack calls into question how hypocritical plagiarism rules really are. Earlier this year, President Scott D. Miller of Delaware’s Wesley College survived a plagiarism investigation and a faculty no-confidence referendum that came out even. A panel chaired by former Penn President Judith Rodin blamed public relations staffers under tremendous pressure to provide their boss with an outstanding speech. Miller promised to put safeguards in place. Professor Dussold presumably would say that this is another case of too little, too late.
Superstar profs, such as the late best-selling historian Stephen Ambrose, often likewise successfully weather accusations of plagiarism, shrugging them off as fair-use or inadvertence. Author Dan Brown and his publisher have thus far weathered two trials, one the Perdue hearing, the other a courtroom drama played out last year in London, where British authors unsuccessfully challenged Brown’s right to borrow from their non-fiction Holy Blood, Holy Grail. In a classic example of the superstar shrug, Brown told Today’s Matt Lauer, “When DaVinci Code debuted at No. 1, I actually got a lot of calls from best-selling authors… saying, ‘Well, get ready, because there are going to be people that you never heard of come out of the woodwork sort of wanting to ride your coattails’.”
In recent correspondence and conversation, Perdue conceded to me “mistakes and misjudgments” which landed him in a federal court across the country from his California home, grappling with a mass-media Goliath, like some David who’d forgotten to pack his sling. Even today, as he awaits rulings on whether he might actually owe Random House its attorney fees and whether the Supremes might stoop to review his case, Perdue admits, “I also realize I am too close to this issue to be as cool and rational as needed.” Still he persists, as does Illinois’s Professor Dussold. As Dussold uses the Internet to further his “glass houses” attack against Illinois’s chancellors ( see, for example, http://economy-chat.com/aggy/tag/chris-dussold/ ), Perdue employs extensive web sites and blogs to sustain his counteroffensive against nemesis Dan Brown (see, for example, http://davincicrock.blogspot.com/ and http://www.davincilegacy.com/Infringement/ ).
The Perdue and Dussold cases --- implicating as they do high-stakes litigation and high-profile guerrilla warfare on the web --- require industry-wide recognition that hoary academic-plagiarism policies, intended mainly to squelch student cheating, need reexamination. Is your university’s policy overly broad? Is it uniformly applied to students, junior faculty, tenured superstars, and high-ranking administrators alike? Does it comport with federal copyright law and your institution’s IP policies?
No one size fits all. Harvard’s Miller may make a telling point about protecting ideas as well as their expression. But unless your trustees would drop the blade on Dan Brown (if guilty), you’d best not be too quick to terminate the Chris Dussolds on your faculty or to expel the Polly Plagiarizers among your student body.

Southern Illinois Pres Exonerated of Plagiarism

Chronicle of Higher Ed

Anti-Illegals Ordinance Challenged in Federal Court

Below the Beltway

A Primer on Recent Immigration Law Developments

Download 12_immigration_natur230b04.doc

[From Filipp and Castagnera, Employment Law Answer Book, 2008 Supplement, available from Wolters Kluwer]

Faculty rank and file defy leadership, ratify deal in PA

Faculty Union Endorses Contract for Pennsylvania System

A union that represents about 5,500 professors in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education has voted to approve a tentative contract agreement with the state. The vote came after some union leaders had advised their rank-and-file members to reject the collective-bargaining deal.

The tentative contract was announced on July 3, after the union had threatened to go on strike over deadlocked negotiations. Then, in August, the union’s executive council cried foul over the contract, saying its final draft omitted some agreements that had been hashed out in the talks. That group of union leaders urged the members to vote down the agreement.

Later in the summer, however, the union’s legislative assembly — a much larger body than the executive council — gave its blessing to the contract. The contract still faces approval by the system’s Board of Governors. —John Gravois (from the Chronicle of Higher Ed news blog)

Will the real facists please stand up?

Controversial posters heighten controversy over Islamo-facism on GW campus.GW Hatchet student newspaper

In case you missed it, a column to die for....

History News Network (George Mason University) runs my latest "Attorney at Large.http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/43562.html

More on Academic Freedom: Does It Apply to Administrators?

Or what about poor old Larry Summers?

The University of California took heat last month when it “disinvited” Harvard’s former president, Lawrence H. Summers, to speak at the university. Many in academe cried censorship. Now two faculty members — John Cary Sims, a professor of law at the University of the Pacific’s McGeorge School of Law, in Sacramento, and Deb Niemeier, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California at Davis — are responding.

“This controversy has nothing to do with academic freedom,” they write on The Sacramento Bee’s Web site. Summers, they say, was invited to speak by a member of the Board of Regents at a private dinner party, where faculty members had no chance for input. After the regents heard from university critics, they withdrew what was simply a private invitation.

“Sophistry,” says the critic Stanley Kurtz at the National Review’s online corner. “Depriving Summers of a podium because he once tentatively raised one partial, possible explanation for male/female differences in academic hiring sends a chilling message to the entire country about forbidden topics of debate on America’s college campuses.”

Last month, the American Association of University Professors seemed to agree when it criticized the university for canceling the lecture.Chronicle Blog

A good word for Israeli academics

Chronicle Review

An Israeli Fencing Lesson

Israel 21c

Study Abroad comes up clean

A new survey disputes recent claims of corruption in the high flying realms of study aborad.Chronicle of Higher Ed

Ronnie, come back, we need ya!

Study reports faculty conservatives are rarer than was dandruff on Ronald Reagan's blue serge suits.Harvard study

Vegan art teached sliced and diced

An art teacher who told his students, "You are eating my friends and ruining my world" got chopped from the faculty.Chicago Tribune

She's NOT Dale Evans, Roy.

Oregon teacher suing to carry gun to class reveals her identity.Oregonlive.com

According to Doyle

Interim report of Wisconsin Governor's task force on campus safety.Doyle Report

Media and Blogger Reactions to Columbia Free-Speech Controversy

Chronicle of Higher Ed

Free Speech, Academic Freedom, and Hazing

Where is the line between student free speech and illegal harassment or hazing? And when is the school liable for student-to-student verbal abuse? The leading decisions derive from the K-12 environment but are instructive to higher education. A recent example, again drawn from the K-12 environment but pertinent to higher education is L.W. ex rel. L.G. v. Toms River Regional Schools Bd.,
189 N.J. 381, 915 A.2d 535 (2007). In this case, as early as the fourth grade, classmates began taunting plaintiff L.W. with homosexual epithets such as “gay,” “homo,” and “fag.” The harassment increased in regularity and severity as L.W. advanced through school. In seventh grade, the bullying occurred daily and escalated to physical aggression and molestation. Within days of entering high school, the abuse culminated with a pair of physical attacks. Ultimately, L.W.'s unease prompted him to withdraw from his local high school and enroll elsewhere, at the expense of his school district.
The harassment escalated in 1998 when L.W. enrolled at Intermediate West for seventh grade, a school with an enrollment of 1,400 students. “Almost every single day” classmates directed slurs at L.W. loudly in the halls “so everyone could hear.” When asked about his day, L.W. would occasionally reply, “Nobody called me anything today. I had a good day.” But, on entering the seventh grade, the maltreatment was no longer limited to verbal disparagement. In the fall, L.W. discovered a piece of construction paper attached to his locker that read, “You're a dancer, you're gay, you're a faggot, you don't belong in our school, get out.” L.W. did not immediately report the incident to school officials.
The first reported incident occurred in late January. While in the school cafeteria, a group of ten to fifteen students surrounded L.W. One of those students, R.C., then struck L.W. on the back of the head and taunted him with “the usual” homosexual epithets. L.W. went to the office and called his mother. When she arrived to pick L.W. up, eighth-grade Assistant Principal Raymond McCusker informed her that he would report the incident to seventh-grade Assistant Principal Irene Benn. The next day, L.W. remained home from school, still upset from the previous day's events. His mother called Benn four times that day to determine what action was taken in response. Benn advised L.W.'s mother that McCusker had briefed her on the incident, but because “something had come up,” she “did not have time to speak to the children involved.” The following day, Benn informed L.W.'s mother that she had spoken with the main participants and determined that R.C., after being called a “whore” by L.W., retaliated against him. Benn counseled both students regarding the inappropriateness of their behavior and warned them of the consequences of future actions. Benn did not punish or reprimand any of the other students involved.
Also in late January, a student approached L.W. in the locker room and, with a crowd of students looking on, said, “If you had a p* * * *, I'd f* * * you up and down.” L.W. was “[e]mbarrassed, vulnerable, [and] ashamed.” L.W. and his mother reported the incident to Benn, but because L.W. did not want any problems performing in the upcoming school play, his mother asked Benn to wait until after the performance to speak with the offending student. However, L.W.'s mother did not follow up with Benn, and no action was taken.
Even the school play was not free of harassment. At every practice, an eighth grade student, R.G., insulted L.W. with derogatory comments. L.W. reported the harassment, and R.G. apologized. Further, as part of a school function, L.W. went to Toms River High School North to watch a dress rehearsal of a school play. There, D.M. mocked L.W. and smacked him on the head with his playbill. L.W. reported the incident. Benn counseled D.M., advising him that further inappropriate conduct would result in more significant consequences. D.M.'s mother was advised of the incident. She apologized to L.W.'s mother and insisted that D.M. write a letter apologizing to L.W.
The insults such as “butt boy, fruit cake, [and] fudge [p]acker” did not abate. The remarks were so frequent in seventh grade that L.W. testified that “[i]f I ma[d]e it through a day without comments, I was lucky.” For example, various students pestered L.W. during physical education. When L.W. informed Benn of the badgering, she discouraged the heckling students from using such language and warned them of future consequences if their behavior continued. In addition to reporting the incidents to Benn, L.W. sought the help of his guidance counselor who urged L.W. to “toughen up and turn the other cheek.” L.W.'s mother complained to Benn about the guidance counselor's advice.
The harassment at Intermediate West peaked in mid-March. While standing in the lunch line, M.S., along with two friends, J.A. and C.C., approached L.W., calling him “gay” and “faggot.” M.S. then grabbed L.W.'s “private area” and “humped” him, taunting, “Do you like it, do you like it like this?” L.W. escaped, but M.S. followed him and repeated the molestation as classmates watched. L.W. then fled to the school's main office. Benn spoke with all three attackers, told them that their conduct was “inappropriate” and that, if repeated, “it would be dealt with more severely.” The assaulting students then returned to class.
L.W.'s mother arrived at school shortly thereafter to pick up her son, who waited in the school's main office while his mother and Benn spoke. Even in the main office, students teased L.W. Following the cafeteria incident, L.W. did not attend school for several days. When he did return, Mark Regan, Principal of Intermediate West, Anne Baldi, the school's affirmative action officer, Benn, and McCusker met with L.W.'s mother and aunt. At that meeting, held less than two months after the first reported incident of harassment, Regan informed L.W.'s mother that an “open door policy” would be imposed, permitting her son to leave class and report problems directly to him or Benn any time anyone bothered him. Further, Regan assured L.W.'s mother that her son's teachers would be informed of the situation and L.W.'s special permission to leave class. Finally, Regan stated that harassing students would be dealt with immediately. According to Regan, first-time offenders would be counseled and more drastic action would be taken against repeat offenders.
On his first day back to school, L.W. faced homosexual taunts from his schoolmates, namely, C.C., B.E., and T.L. School officials reacted. Because C.C. was a repeat offender, his family was contacted and he received detention, while Benn and McCusker counseled the first-time offenders on the consequences of their behavior. Later that same day, R.B., P.D., J.P., and T.S. told L.W. that he should “be in a girls['] locker room.” As a repeat offender, P.D. was punished with detention, his parents were contacted, and he was warned that he would be suspended if he offended again. The others, all first-time offenders, were counseled. L.W.'s gym locker was also moved closer to the physical education office.
The next month, in April of his seventh grade year, L.W. slapped a female student's buttocks on her dare. Thereafter, the female student's brother, D.R., accompanied by W.K., confronted L.W. in the locker room and said, “I heard [you] smacked my sister on her a* *, I don't want you to do that, you're a fag, you don't belong doing that.” D.R. then slapped L.W. across his face, ordering him “never to touch his sister again.” Laughing and saying “Faggot ... get out of here, we don't want you here,” W.K. then “whipped” L.W. over the back of his neck with a silver chain. L.W. reported the incident before going home that day. When his mother arrived, L.W. was crying. He had “welts” on his neck, and his cheek was “all red” from the attack. School officials suspended D.R. and W.K. five days each. L.W. did not return to school for over a week.
Although unreported, the verbal abuse persisted through the end of the seventh grade, but was of a lesser degree. Eighth grade was a better year for L.W. Although the verbal harassment continued, it was more sporadic. No physical abuse was reported, and, at L.W.'s graduation, L.W. and his mother thanked Regan for “giving L.[W.] a good year.” Concerning the lack of physical confrontation during his eighth grade year, L.W. testified that a security guard monitored him between classes approximately eighty percent of the time. However, the guard, a former police officer, testified that he was assigned to the intermediate school generally and that he was not assigned specifically to monitor L.W. Although the security guard was transferred to Toms River High School South when L.W. entered that school as a freshman, the guard stated that the transfer was unrelated to L.W.'s academic progression.
Throughout L.W.'s time at Intermediate West, a school-wide non-discrimination policy was in effect, one that the District characterized as a “zero tolerance” policy. The District provided students and parents with a handbook of rules, regulations, and policies stating that the District does not discriminate on the basis of numerous characteristics including race, sex, and religion. However, the handbook did not enumerate affectional or sexual orientation. Additionally, the District, which oversees roughly 18,000 students, maintained a second nondiscrimination policy, an affirmative action overview. That policy was not generally distributed to students and parents; rather, it was maintained by the District's superintendent, principals, and affirmative action office. The affirmative action overview enumerated “affectional or sexual orientation” as a prohibited basis for discrimination.
Benn testified that she explained the school's non-discrimination policies to students in a class period at the beginning of the academic year. However, E.C., a classmate of L.W.'s, testified that the assembly addressed mostly “fighting” and “yelling in the hall.” To the extent harassment was discussed, according to Benn, no specific reference was made to sexual orientation. The District did not reinforce the discrimination policy through assemblies, letters to parents, or any other widespread communication.
The District employed “progressive discipline” when addressing peer discrimination and harassment. School officials counseled first-time offenders regarding their inappropriate conduct and advised them that more serious consequences would result if the conduct recurred. For a second transgression, the offender earned disciplinary “points.” A third offense could result in suspension. By way of comparison, if a student was more than one minute late for class, the student received three “points” and a detention. Overall, the progressive discipline was student-specific, predicated on the offender's prior record, not the victim's identity or history.
On entering High School South, the epithets resurfaced. To avoid the derision he encountered on the school bus, L.W. decided to walk home after school. However, while walking home from school in early September and off school grounds, a car approached L.W. and three students, L.B., J.F., and M.F., exited. M.F. said, “I heard you have a crush on L.B., and that [his] family doesn't like faggots, [he doesn't] like faggots.” J.F. pressed L.W., “Well, are you a faggot?” M.F. chimed in, “We don't like faggots, our whole family doesn't like faggots.” L.W. yelled, “It's none of your damn business.” M.F. then punched L.W. in the face, knocking him down. L.W. ran away, crying hysterically, but M.F. chased after him threatening, “If I hear that you said anything about this I'm going to knife you.” L.W. subsequently missed a day or two of school.
In the wake of the attack, L.W.'s mother informed high school officials of the mistreatment her son endured in middle school. According to L.W.'s mother, the educators seemed unaware of L.W.'s past. The District suspended M.F. for ten days, and he later pled guilty to a charge of assault. School officials advised L.W. to take the bus home in the future.
The final incident occurred in mid-September when L.W. went to downtown Toms River for lunch, as many students did. L.T. approached L.W., who was sitting on a curb outside a 7-Eleven convenience store. Unprovoked, L.T. pushed L.W. to the ground and grabbed L.W.'s shirt. L.T. warned L.W. that if he ever heard that L.W. had a crush on him or his friends again that he'd “kick [L.W.'s] a* *.” The aggressor then “completely covered” L.W. with dirt. The District suspended L.T. for ten days.
On her son's behalf, L.W.'s mother filed a complaint under the LAD, alleging that the Toms River Regional Schools Board of Education (District) failed to take corrective action in response to the harassment L.W. endured because of his perceived sexual orientation. The Director of the Division on Civil Rights (Director) held that the District was liable for the student-on-student harassment that L.W. repeatedly endured. The Appellate Division affirmed the Director's decision.
On appeal, the New Jersey Supreme Court considered whether the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination (LAD), N.J.S.A. 10:5-1 et seq., which forbids among other things sexual-preference discrimination, could be extended to the plaintiff’s situation. The judges held. “Because the Act's broad statutory language is clear, we hold that the LAD recognizes a cause of action against a school district for student-on-student affectional or sexual orientation harassment. We also hold that a school district is liable for such harassment when the school district knew or should have known of the harassment but failed to take actions reasonably calculated to end the mistreatment and offensive conduct. Our conclusion furthers the legislative intent of eradicating the scourge of discrimination not only from society, but also from our schools, thus encouraging school districts to take proactive steps to protect the children in their charge.”

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at Columbia

"Bollinger Back in the Eye of a Storm"

Columbia's Free-Speech Wars, 1968 Style

The Strawberry Statement

More Singles in University Teaching and Research Careers

The changing demographics of higher ed are reported in this article.Chronicle of Higher EdBelow:

1. My thoughts on divorce and dating in the autumn of my years.
2. A Chinese professor's observations on elders remarrying under China's revised marriage law.
3. Difficulties facing faculty who wish they could retire.
4. An essay in this week's Chronicle Review onthe plight of the near-poor in America... which may include aome in academia.

Just Shoot Me

The Associated Press reported recently that the U.S. divorce rate is at its lowest point since 1970. That happens to be the year I got married. According to the AP, the rate has been declining more or less steadily since 1981. In ’81 5.3 divorces occurred for every 1,000 Americans. Last year 3.6 was the figure.
If you’re pro-marriage and pro-family, don’t stand up and cheer just yet. One demographic fact driving down the rate, experts told AP, is that ten times as many couples choose to live together sans wedding bands than was the case in 1970. The marriage rate has dropped 30 percent in the past quarter century. Couples who do tie the knot typically hold off an extra five years.
Some folks, I’m sure, stay married because a divorce is a luxury they can’t afford. Rich celebrities have paid spectacular amounts to escape soured relationships. Kevin Costner’s first divorce settlement reportedly weighed in at $80 million. Bruce Springsteen is said to have paid model-actress Julianne Phillips $20 million to split up in 1989. I’m impressed that these guys were capable of shelling out more money than I will probably ever earn. One more movie or concert tour and the coffers were filled to overflowing again, I guess. For most of us, the break-up is a huge financial setback.
Just affording a good divorce lawyer is a challenge. A colleague whose wife left him last year journeyed to Doylestown, Bucks County’s seat, in search of legal counsel. Interviewing several “family practice” attorneys, he was quoted hourly rates in the range of $350.
Then there’s all the sentimental stuff. Once the big bucks, such as they are in our debt-burdened society, are out of the way, the real blood gets shed over the CD collection, the Lazy-Boy, and the kitchen furniture. Last, but far from least, are custody and visitation rights with the kids. As Paul Simon said in one of his songs, “This will cost a year of my life. And then there’s all that weight to be lost.”
Oh, yeah, I almost forgot the weight-loss part. Have you ever noticed how many divorcees look ten times better six months after the divorce is final than they looked before the proceedings started? Well and good… but you have to wonder whether the mess might have been avoided had they lost that 75 pounds before their spouses lost interest in them.
An old joke has a ninety-something couple coming into court and petitioning for a divorce. “Sure,” says the judge, “I can grant you a divorce. But may I ask why it’s taken you so long to split up.”
Replies the wife, “We were waiting for the kids to die.”
I don’t know anyone who waited that long. I do know quite a few former couples who held off until the kids were out of college and completely on their own. Some of these break-ups proceeded pretty amicably, I must admit. The scary part for some of these folks came after the split, when they decided to start dating. Not having had a “date” in the pristine sense of the term for nearly four decades, I feel for them.
Bars and clubs were once the venues of choice for meeting similarly situated people of the opposite (or in some cases, same) sex. Today, the Internet is the favored route to a new relationship. On some sites, I’m told, you review the profiles and “wink” at the guy or girl who captures your fancy. This seems a little bit scary to me. As Diane Keeton’s old movie, “Looking for Mr. Good Bar,” demonstrated decades ago, picking up people in saloons is a dangerous game. How much more dangerous is Internet dating, I wonder. People can create completely fictional personas to attract that first wink.
Then there’s the date itself. As a teenager, on a first date I groped my way to first base in the back seat of the old man’s car… if I was lucky. Now, here are these thirty- or forty- something folks, going back to one or another’s home after dinner and a movie. What’s called for… a kiss good night… or a whole lot more? Do you discuss this candidly as consenting adults or grope your way to the answer like awkward teens?
This is more than I can stretch my mind around. That’s why I’ve told my better half, “If you ever get sick and tired of me, just shoot me.”

Remarriage at an elderly age

A Chinese professor writes of the "perplexities" of remarriage at an elderly age under new Chinese marriage laws.ArticleAs for me, well before I'd consider divorce and remarriage, I'd rather my wife shot me. (See above.)

Can Professors Afford to Retire?

Can professors afford to retire ? Evidence from
a survey of Canadian university pension plans
ALLEN GOSS
York University in Toronto, Canada
Abstract
I explore the diversity among pension plans offered to faculty at 52 Canadian universities. Far
from displaying homogeneity, I find marked differences between the plans, both in their
structure (DB, DC, and hybrid) and in the replacement ratios from those plans. Using financial
simulations I construct representative pension payoff profiles for each plan and find expected
replacement ratios (the annual annuity stream available at retirement expressed as a percentage
of final wages) ranging from 54.3% to 88.2% and internal rates of return on contributions
varying from 10.39% to 18%.
1 Introduction
Most people would acknowledge the importance of pension benefits as a component
of financial wealth. At the same time, the complexity of pension plans and the diversity
of plan features and benefits can make direct comparison between pension
plans difficult. Arguably, pension benefits are one of the most complex components
of an individual’s financial wealth, and a lack of financial sophistication likely
explains why employees so often ignore pensions.1 They should not. I survey pension
benefits at Canadian universities to demonstrate that the differences between competing
plans can be economically significant, often swamping salary in economic
importance.
The motives for preparing this survey are twofold. First, I provide a comprehensive
overview of the Canadian university pension landscape. The analysis is thorough,
and the information will be of interest to plan administrators as well as plan participants
from universities across Canada. Secondly, the choice of Canadian university
faculty pension plans facilitates the comparison of a broad spectrum of plans offered
to a relatively homogenous group of employees. Canadian university pension plans
Allen Goss is a Doctoral candidate at the Schulich School of Business, York University in Toronto,
Canada. Tel: (416) 736–2100, ext. 77911. Email: agoss01@schulich.yorku.ca. I am grateful to Robert
Brown, Charles Draimin, Ming Dong, Donna Gray, Paul Huber, Alan MacNaughton, Melville
McMillan, Moshe Milevsky, Mark Rosenfeld, Pauline Shum, and seminar participants at the University
of Toronto for helpful comments. All errors are my own.
1 See for example, Whitehouse (2000), who finds that less than a third of respondents to a UK survey of
pension literacy knew the approximate value of their pension entitlements.
PEF, 6 (2) : 187–226, July, 2007. f 2007 Cambridge University Press 187
doi:10.1017/S1474747206002708 Printed in the United Kingdom
can be broadly divided into three types: defined contribution (DC) plans, defined
benefit (DB) plans, and hybrid plans. Given the ongoing transition toward DC plans,
it is instructive to examine a sector where DB and hybrid plans still dominate. In
contrast to private industry plans, where data are often unavailable or incomplete,
the choice of Canadian universities allows for a systematic examination of individual
plans and the differences between them.
While economic intuition suggests that the benefits offered a homogenous, mobile
work force must be comparable across employers, I document a remarkable degree of
heterogeneity in benefits between competing plans. To the extent that pension plans
differ, one should observe the cost to employees increasing to compensate for
improved benefits, or decreasing to offset less generous benefits. In the absence of
offsetting benefit costs, employers should be able to lower salaries to compensate for
higher benefit levels.2 If we consider an employee entering the university workforce,
her objective is to maximize utility over lifetime consumption. Either she takes a
larger current salary and a smaller pension benefit, or a smaller salary and a larger
future pension. The simulation results do not suggest that this is the case. Instead,
there is a large variance, both in terms of benefits and costs. What the simulations do
suggest is that employees need to pay attention to the specifics of their pension plans,
as the economic differences between plans can often be significant.
The theoretical literature is now well developed, with Bodie et al. (1988),McCarthy
(2003), and others using lifecycle models to examine the trade-off between consumption
and saving in the pension context. Previous research using simulations in a
pension context often relied on ‘representative plans’ to examine issues, because of
the difficulty in gathering unique plan data from large numbers of plan providers.
The DB vs. DC decision facing US university employees explored by Johnston et al.
(2001) is representative of this strand of research. In contrast to the ‘representative
plan’ methodology, I have gone to the field and collected actual plan data and used
the unique plan features for each university as the inputs into the simulations.
The simulation of the replacement ratios of contributory pension plans for a professor
retiring at 65 ranges from 54.3%to 88.2%. The replacement ratio is the annual
annuity stream available at retirement expressed as a percentage of final wages.
Financial planners suggest that replacement ratios of 60 to 70% are required for a
person to maintain a comparable lifestyle after retirement.3 The wide range of replacement
ratios is interesting, but it is not remarkable.What is remarkable though is
that the difference in pension benefits is not reflected in the cost to employees. Some
plans with generous benefits cost the employee very little (or nothing, in the case
of a non-contributory plan), while others with smaller benefits cost the employees
more money. Internal rates of return (hereafter IRR) for contributory pension
plans – that rate which equates the employee contributions with the lump sum pension
benefit – range from 10.39% to 18% per annum. With the present value of
these benefits often topping $1,000,000, pension benefits clearly merit the attention
of employees.
2 See Woodbury (1983) for a discussion of the trade-off between wage and non-wage benefits.
3 See, for example, the testimony of the American Society of Pension Actuaries at a Hearing on Pensions
before the US.Senate Committee on Finance, 30 June 1999.
188 A. Goss
The survey finds a wide variety of plan types offered by Canadian universities, each
with a unique set of features. Often, it is small details that hide the true breadth of the
variance between alternative plans. Plans that seem to be comparable on a superficial
level can actually yield very different annuity streams at retirement, depending on the
details of the plan. For example, both Acadia University and the University of
Ottawa offer DB plans to faculty. Both plans provide single life, five-year guaranteed
annuities with partial inflation protection after retirement. The funding formula for
both plans is 1.3% of highest average earnings up to the YMPE4 and 2% thereafter.
Ignoring the differences in the indexing formulae, one might expect the two plans to
yield similar benefits. However, when I calculate the pension benefit of an employee
with a starting salary of $64,313 (the 10th percentile of all faculty salaries in 2004) and
assuming a 3%rate of inflation the final defined benefit pension is $33,926 (in current
dollars) after 35 years at Acadia, but $40,893 at the University of Ottawa. The reason
for the startling 20% difference in payouts from the two plans is a small but critical
detail of the University of Ottawa plan. The YMPE is frozen at $31,790 for calculating
benefits in the University of Ottawa pension plan. Were the YMPE to remain
frozen throughout the career of the employee, the impact would be over $90,000 on a
present value basis.
It would be tempting to argue that the University of Ottawa plan is superior because
the benefit is higher. However, to do so would be premature. I have made the
simplifying assumption that salaries increase at the rate of inflation over the employee’s
entire career. Our hypothetical faculty member never sees her real wages
increase as she works through the ranks at the university. The incorporation of this
element yields completely different results. Assuming that wages exceed inflation by
2% to account for the increases in real salary enjoyed by the faculty member as she
moves up through the ranks, the nominal pension benefit at Acadia and at Ottawa is
now exactly the same, at $75,881. Clearly, small details in plan design can make big
differences. As soon as the final average salary exceeds $122,786 (in current dollars)
there is no difference between the plans because the maximum defined benefit limit
has been reached. At that point, the only determinant of the size of the DB pension is
the number of years of service. The Income Tax Act (hereafter ITA) stipulates the
maximum benefit that can be derived from a DB plan5 and it is a subject that I discuss
in further detail in a later section of the paper.
The preceding example motivates the balance of the paper. In order to understand
the impact that small differences in plan features can have, I perform simulations to
replicate the payout for a representative faculty member joining each of these plans.
Building on the preceding simple example, I model the random nature of wage
increases and investment returns. Now however, instead of being deterministic, I
allow real wage increases to be random, both in time and in magnitude. Furthermore,
I allow investment returns to be stochastic. The simulation methodology is described
4 Yearly Maximum Pensionable Earnings as defined under the Canada Pension Plan. It is the maximum
salary on which CPP deductions can be taken and is set at $41,100 for 2005.
5 The maximum benefit is set at the lesser of 2% of highest average earnings for the employee and oneninth
of the defined contribution limit per year of service. The defined benefit maximum is $2,000 in 2005
(one-ninth of the DC contribution limit of $18,000).
Survey of Canadian university pension plans 189
in Section 2, followed by a discussion of the results in Section 3. Section 4 describes
the sensitivity of the results to the choice of inputs. Section 5 concludes.file=%2FPEF%2FPEF6_02%2FS1474747206002708a.pdf&code=e0023ef00f1972471d84a553e6b92ef1">Article/Survey

The Crisis of the Near Poor

From this week's Chronicle Review.10/5 ChronicleMaybe some of us lowly academics can understand this. (See above.)

As Scandal Rocks Oral Roberts University...

... the giants of 20th century American evangelism are passing from the scene.Hubbard obit

Recalling another educator-evangelist...

... who died earlier this year. Here's the column I wrote then:

The sudden demise last week of the Reverend Jerry Falwell recalled to me a U.S. Supreme Court case that at one time I taught, when on the faculty of the Widener Law School. The 1988 decision is Hustler Magazine v. Falwell. I’m sure no reader of this highly respectable newspaper has ever purchased a copy of Hustler Magazine, but no doubt you know it by reputation. Considered pornographic by many, Hustler was (and to some degree still is) equally reputed as a source of political satire and irreverent social commentary. Its publisher, Larry Flint was (and remains) as iconic and controversial as the Reverend Falwell.
The Falwell-Flint legal encounter occurred when Hustler’s November 1983 issue led off on its inside-front cover with a parody ad for Campari Liqueur. Actual Campari ads of that era interviewed celebrities about their “first times,” ostensibly referring to their first taste of the liqueur, but implying something else. The Falwell parody presented a spoof interview with Falwell in which he allegedly admitted to a drunken, incestuous relationship with his mother in the family’s outhouse. Not surprisingly, the Reverend Jerry took strong exception to the joke.
The litigation seesawed back and forth through the federal courts for five years. At trial a jury found against Falwell, concluding that any reasonable reader would recognize the ad to be a bad joke. The court of appeals reversed, holding that the trial judge should have asked the jury to decide whether the parody was so outrageous as to intentionally inflict emotional distress on its target, i.e., Falwell. The Supremes reversed the decision yet again, ruling that the First Amendment demands that the rights of free speech and a free press cannot depend upon jurors’ tastes and sensibilities. Flint one, Falwell zero.
By 1988 Flint was far from being a stranger to the Supreme Court. He was first prosecuted on organized crime and obscenity charges in Cincinnati in 1976, found guilty and sentenced to 7-25 years. The conviction was overturned with one part of the case coming to the nation’s highest court in 1981. He was back before the Supremes in 1983, after the girlfriend of the publisher of a rival girlie magazine sued him for publishing a derogatory cartoon. During this appearance, Flint shouted “F_ _ _ this court!” Chief Justice Burger had him arrested.
Also in 1983, a banner year for Flint, he appeared at another trial, this one for refusing to release surveillance tapes the FBI wanted, wearing the American flag as a diaper. He was jailed for desecrating the flag.
Although a 1978 assassination attempt left Flint paralyzed from the waste down, he has managed to outlive his old nemesis, Falwell. Needless to say, he has his own website, www.larryflynt.com. Among other items posted there are the most recent parody ads, a Hustler feature that Flint has never abandoned.
On the day of Falwell’s death, Flint reminisced on www.accesshollywood.com about his legal confrontation with the mega-preacher.
"The Reverend Jerry Falwell and I were arch enemies for fifteen years. We became involved in a lawsuit concerning First Amendment rights and Hustler magazine. Without question, this was my most important battle – the l988 Hustler Magazine, Inc., v. Jerry Falwell case, where after millions of dollars and much deliberation, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in my favor.” He added, “My mother always told me that no matter how much you dislike a person, when you meet them face to face you will find characteristics about them that you like. Jerry Falwell was a perfect example of that. I hated everything he stood for, but after meeting him in person, years after the trial, Jerry Falwell and I became good friends. He would visit me in California and we would debate together on college campuses. I always appreciated his sincerity even though I knew what he was selling and he knew what I was selling.”
Flint continued to have run-ins with the law as recently as 1998. Falwell became infamous for his unfeeling flubs, most notably blaming immoral Americans for bringing the Nine/Eleven attacks down on the nation. Eventually, perhaps, they both became parodies of themselves, albeit very wealthy ones. But back when they were still “arch enemies,” they significantly shaped our Constitutional law and the national political agenda.

Who the heck is Oral Roberts?

Wiki-bio of Oral Roberts

Visit Oral Roberts U.

Oral ROberts U. home page

Scandal Brewing at Oral Roberts U.

...says USA Today.USA Today