Archives for March 2011

Smita Ghosh 

One can imagine, in Florida, applying for admission to UF or to get into some of the State’s other hot spots. But “applying” for one’s civil rights is harder to envision.  Indeed, it’s hard to imagine the anxiety arising from an application process in which much more is at stake than your ability to “go gator.”

Pam Bondi, Florida’s newly elected Attorney General, announced in late February a plan that would require felons who have finished their sentences to “apply” for the restoration of their civil rights — including their right to vote, hold public office, apply for occupational licenses and sit on juries.

[Read more…] about Flordia AG thinks civil rights must be earned

Michael Stephan

A recent Ninth Circuit ruling is good news for free speech advocates and jail inmates who want to read a publication called Crime, Justice & America (CJA).  The publication explores criminal justice issues relevant to inmates, such as ”the steps between a felony arrest and conviction.”

In Hrdlicka v. Reniff, released in late January, the Ninth Circuit reversed a district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of two California county jails who had refused to distribute unsolicited copies of CJA to inmates. CJA had filed a § 1983 action for injunctive relief against the counties, alleging that the jails’ distribution policies violated the First Amendment. In response, the jails offered many reasons for their refusals to distribute unsolicited copies of CJA, including concerns that the publication could be used to start fires or hide contraband.

[Read more…] about Ninth Circuit Reinstates First Amendment Challenge to Prohibitions of Publications for Inmates

Yevgeny Shrago

Residents of DC’s posh Georgetown neighborhood have succeeded in keeping most urban disturbances out of their little bubble: the Metro conveniently misses the neighborhood and they have successfully fought to close down any restaurants that made noise. But they still have one enemy ruining their idyll: the students of Georgetown University. As they can’t eliminate the university entirely, the residents have come up with a new plan over the last 20 years.   The residents keep out the poor. It works there because the people who want to fight it aren’t represented and it could work here for the same reasons.

The latest salvo in this battle came with the Georgetown Advisory Neighborhood Council’s recommendations for Georgetown’s new ten year plan. According to the Council, Georgetown should cut enrollment and strictly limit the number of students living off campus, bar student commuters from parking in the surrounding neighborhoods and should not be allowed to acquire more land in the Georgetown area without approval from the Board of Zoning Adjustment. Once the undergraduates are safely contained within the university, the owners in the surrounding neighborhoods will be able to reap all the positive externalities of having a prestigious university nearby, while forcing the university to internalize the negative ones, usually to the detriment of the students.

[Read more…] about Student Representation and Local Government

Marshall Thompson

Last week the United Nations Security Council voted unanimously “in swift and decisive action” to refer Muammar Qadhafi’s violent suppression of Libyan protests to the International Criminal Court. As the French delegate put it, the Council’s action will ensure that crimes against humanity won’t go unpunished. It’s a hopeful day for the future of international human rights, and a hopeful day for the people of Libya. There’s just one problem: Libya has never signed on to the ICC.

This is where it gets awkward. The delegate from India had to point out that there are five members of the 15-member Security Council who, like Libya, are not parties to the Rome Statute that created the ICC. India, China and Lebanon are not parties. Russia has signed, but has not ratified. The United States initially signed the Rome Statute, but then Pres. George W. Bush officially revoked in May of 2002.

[Read more…] about UN Resolution on Libya Awkward for U.S.

Jay Willis

Harvard and Princeton made news this week when each school’s administrations announced a reinstating of an accelerated application process for incoming freshmen. Accelerated application programs can include binding early decision (ED) programs, like Columbia and Penn’s, which allow applicants to apply earlier in the application cycle on the conditions that they do not apply ED to any other school and that they attend the school if admitted.  Other schools, such as Stanford and Yale, use a similar procedure called non-binding early action (EA).  This program does not require students to attend if admitted, but also limits students’ ability to apply early to other schools (Stanford’s ban is total, while Yale’s allows for a few exceptions).

Schools have argued that early application procedures gave students that are confident of their first-choice school a chance to make their intentions known and to dispose with much of the stress of the college application process.  However, many commentators, most notably James Fallows in a 2001 Atlantic Monthly article , contended that such processes disadvantage financial needy students who might be averse to committing to a school without being able to compare financial aid offers from other schools.  As a corollary, critics argue that early applications assist wealthier students for whom maximizing financial aid is less important than attending their first-choice school.  Finally, early application programs increase the likelihood of acceptance; the benefit of applying early, in a study cited by Fallows, was equivalent to about 100 SAT points.  In sum: wealthier students are beneficiaries of a system that also made admission easier.

[Read more…] about Early Admissions Makes a Comeback at Harvard, Princeton