David Lat Profile picture
Mar 18, 2022 23 tweets 12 min read Read on X
1/ THREAD. I have appended an update/correction to my Original Jurisdiction post from yesterday about the March 10 protest at Yale Law School.

The disruption was much worse than I originally reported. Here's the text of my update on @YaleLawSch. Image
2/ It wasn't just the event that was disrupted.

Classes were disrupted too, including Federal Courts (Judith Resnik) and Advanced Legal Writing (Rob Harrison).

The latter was in Room 121—the room farthest away from Room 127, where the event took place.
3/ Students in Federal Courts, across the hall from the event, reported that "the floor was shaking" and Professor Resnik asked on-call students to "yell" so they could be heard over the din.
4/ A student in a classroom who was taking a test on an entirely different floor of the building could even hear the noise from the protest.

In other words, it wasn't just limited to the first floor.
5/ The protesters did block the main hallway of YLS, at least for a time. See photo: Image
6/ A faculty meeting—the job talk of Professor Claudia Flores, a Latinx legal scholar whose work focuses on international human rights and inequality—was disrupted.

After a few unsuccessful attempts to restart it, the meeting had to be moved to Zoom.
7/ In my opinion, the YLS protesters should apologize to Professor Flores, whose job talk was collateral damage for their rowdy and rude protest.

(I suspect that many of them would support having a Latinx professor of human rights law on the faculty.)
8/ In the room for Professor Flores's job talk was @YaleLawSch Dean Heather Gerken.

Attendees kept looking at @GerkenHeather, expecting her to go out and say something to the protesters—but she did nothing.
9/ Yes, I know, the dynamic duo of Dean of Students Ellen Cosgrove & DEI Director Yaseen Eldik were on the scene.

But having Dean Gerken herself come out to confront the protesters would have been far more powerful—& might have succeeded in quieting them.
10/ For anyone who missed it, here's the link to my story from yesterday about the unfortunate events at Yale Law School (which I am going to update now with the addition of this Twitter thread).

bit.ly/3JlPa1Q
11/ So based on what I've learned, I think @aaronsibarium's account of the YLS protest for @FreeBeacon is far more accurate than that of Eda Aker and @PhilipMousaviz1 for @yaledailynews.

The protest was highly disruptive, and it lasted for quite some time.
12/ Here’s the account of someone in the room at the Yale Law School protest: @JimmyByrn reports that he “could hear virtually none of it the entire time.”
13/ There are a bunch of dueling audio/video recordings from @mjs_DC at @Slate, @ADFLegal, and @aaronsibarium of the @FreeBeacon.

I'm going to post them all in this thread.
14/ This @Slate post by @mjs_DC has 2 clips.

The first is like the original @FreeBeacon one. We all agree it's rowdy.

In the second, @KWaggonerADF is audible—but not very, even though it's from the 2nd row. And it's 15 seconds.

bit.ly/3N2nC3N
15/ Here is the first of five YLS clips from @ADFLegal. In all of them, the crowd is loud and rowdy. But like the @Slate clip, they're also short—and therefore open to the criticism that they were cherry-picked.

1 of 5:

16/ Audio of the Yale Law School event from @ADFLegal, 2 of 5:

17/ Audio of the Yale Law School event from @ADFLegal, 3 of 5:

18/ Audio of the Yale Law School event from @ADFLegal, 4 of 5:

19/ Audio of the Yale Law School event from @ADFLegal, 5 of 5:

20/ I think the latest by @aaronsibarium & @FreeBeacon has the most comprehensive audio—23+ minutes, so more representative than either @Slate or @ADFLegal.

I find it often hard to hear (but, full disclosure, I have poor hearing).

bit.ly/3KQxN9E
21/ One other thing to note:

The various recordings, from @mjs_DC @Slate @ADFLegal @aaronsibarium @FreeBeacon, are all from INSIDE Room 127, where the protest took place.

Remember that the protesters then went into the hallway (until some returned for Q&A).
22/ The problems that I started this thread with—the disrupted classes, the faculty/meeting job talk that had to be rescheduled, etc.—flowed from the protesters being loud in the hallway.

The in-room recordings are less helpful in assessing that disruption.
23/ To everyone giving me grief about the "Latinx" mention in tweet #6 above, I think it should be clear from this thread (and all of my other writing) that I'm not exactly Mr. Woke....

Here's the explanation:

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More from @DavidLat

Apr 12
1/ I realize folks aren't coming to me for theater recs, but I saw Paula Vogel's "Mother Play" at @2STNYC last night, and I was blown away. Bring tissues if you tend to cry during powerful works of theater.

#MotherPlayBway
2/ My husband Zach and I agree that the performances in Mother Play—by Jessica Lange, Celia Keenan-Bolger, and Jim Parsons—are superb. #MotherPlayBway
3/ We did have differing reactions to Mother Play itself.

I found the play extremely engrossing and emotionally resonant.

Zach liked it overall, but might agree with the Google AI review summary saying "some of the dynamics seem familiar." #MotherPlayBway
Read 8 tweets
Apr 11
1/ Here's my (very detailed) post about Tuesday night's protest at the home of Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky.

It includes new reporting, detailed legal analysis, and links to many other sources (including videos).

Link: bit.ly/3Ue6uh1
2/ I asked @BerkeleyLaw Dean Erwin Chemerinsky whether he and Professor Catherine Fisk would be seeking discipline against Malak Afaneh and the protesters.

Dean Chemerinsky said they're not sure—but if they do, it will be confidential, per law (e.g., FERPA).
3/ Was Dean Chemerinsky's house subject to the 1st Amendment?

As he told the @LATimes, it's a privately owned home, owned by him and Professor Fisk; it's "not owned by the university, on university property, or in any way paid for by the university."
Read 21 tweets
Apr 4
1/ Read Judge Aileen Cannon's order, linked in @emptywheel's post below (👇).

It's kind of clever—in a devious way....
2/ On the one hand, Judge Cannon kinda walks back some of her prior crazytown order:

The Espionage Act counts "make no reference to the Presidential Records Act, nor do they rely on that statute for purposes of stating an offense."

Ding ding ding!
3/ On the other hand, as @emptywheel notes, Judge Cannon reserves the right to "do something whack with jury instructions"—i.e., instruct on his nutty Presidential Records Act (PRA) theory.

AFTER the jury has been sworn and jeopardy has attached.
Read 17 tweets
Mar 21
1/ I'm interrupting my Twitter hiatus to share an important story I just published on Original Jurisdiction:

"Cannon Fodder: Law Clerks Quit On Judge Aileen Cannon"

Here's the link to the full story:

bit.ly/3TqQVRE
2/ Why is this significant? For a few reasons.

First, law clerks are critically important to judges, who couldn't do their work without them.

They are not "clerical." Instead, as I've written before, they're the wind beneath the wings of federal judges.
3/ Second, a federal district judge usually hires only two to three law clerks each year, so for two clerks to quit is quite notable.

It's not like associates quitting a 1,000-lawyer Biglaw firm.
Read 10 tweets
Mar 24, 2023
To anyone who has been following the #gwynethpaltrowskicrashcase more closely than I have, can you explain to me:

Why the heck didn't this settle?

The plaintiff seeks $300K. Gwyneth can sell enough "Smells Like My Orgasm Candles" ($75) to cover that.
2/ More than 95% of civil cases settle.

@GwynethPaltrow is presumably (a) rich & (b) averse to bad publicity.

When a case does go to trial, there's usually a reason (e.g., grudge match, no middle ground, etc.).

Why this can't be solved for $300K (or less)?
3/ I can see @CecereCarl's point as to, say, large companies and patent trolls.

But I can't imagine Paltrow is sued THAT often (or any more often than a comparable celeb).

And it's undisputed that an accident did happen.

Read 4 tweets
Mar 23, 2023
1/ 🧵Judge Allison Burroughs (D. Mass.) said it was "greedy" of @JeannieSGersen to push for greater disclosure of sealed portions of the trial-court record in the @Harvard affirmative-action case.
2/ But as @JeannieSGersen writes in her @NewYorker piece, "it is not greedy for the public to expect the transparency on which the courts’ legitimacy depends."

3/ The need for greater transparency applies to both the judicial proceedings in the Harvard case and the underlying admissions process at issue in the litigation (now before #SCOTUS).

Read 4 tweets

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