Religious Freedom

Tim Carney really is evil.

Twitter fingers turn into employment law cases.

Up next, a Christian nonreligious school doesn't want to acknowledge BLSA because those students bear the curse of Ham.

That’s one way to bypass those pesky “WWJD” objections.

* When in Rome: Alito openly worries about religious liberties being respected in his first big talk after ruining the right to choose. [Bloomberg] * Kamala Harris makes headlines for forcing the liberal agenda down peoples throats by literally just accommodating blind folks at the 32nd anniversary of the Americans With Disability Act’s. [MSNBC] * […]

Anti-trans bigotry dies at this funeral home.

* It looks like Department of Justice will try to have his cake and eat it too. The DOJ is sending Solicitor General Noel Francisco to argue on behalf of the religious freedom of bakers to discriminate against gay people while the government simultaneously argues how imperative it is to keep Muslims out of America. [National Law Journal]

* Former Fried Frank associate faces charges over alleged sexual relationship with 14-year-old girl. [The Recorder]

* Aetna settled a number of class actions over violating the privacy of HIV patients by distributing checks to the class in envelopes with glassine windows indicating “hey, about your HIV…” The attorneys are up in arms because they don’t seem to appreciate performative irony. [New Jersey Law Journal]

* Law firms ripped for cybersecurity failures. Again. [LegalTech News]

* Groups from across the political spectrum unite to oppose AT&T-Time Warner merger. So expect the DOJ to swiftly approve it anyway. [Law360]

* After being slapped with a sexual harassment suit yesterday, legal recruiting firm Wegman Partners announces it’s parted ways with the recruiter named in the suit. [New York Law Journal]

* In case you’re wondering where Biglaw makes its money, here’s a roundup of publicly reported legal bills from a variety of industries. [American Lawyer]

Sister Wives take their battle to the Supreme Court.

* More cases are working their way up to the Supreme Court to define a religiously affiliated employer’s obligations to its employees. [Rewire]

* Is there a particular formula for getting yourself a coveted Supreme Court clerkship? [Empirical SCOTUS]

* The conservative interpretation of the Second Amendment has been prelude to Donald Trump’s veiled assassination “joke.” [Slate]

* Is criminal sentencing about to go all precog in this country? [FiveThirtyEight]

* Yes, even liberals can commit sexual assault. [The Slot]

* Remember — these pages and pages of redactions were probably done by some poor contract attorney trying to make a living. [Gawker]

* If you thought you were going to be making $180K after graduation, then you better lower your expectations by quite a bit. Be prepared to make less than $65K! The National Association for Law Placement has released its annual edition of the bi-modal salary distribution for recent law school graduates, and the wide chasm between peaks on the bell curve looks more unhealthy than ever. [Big Law Business]

* In the wake of the Democratic National Convention, everyone wants to know the names on Hillary Clinton’s Supreme Court shortlist. It might surprise you that insiders say President Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, is at the top of Clinton’s list of eleven potential candidates. We’ll have more information on this later today. [The Hill]

* “What we’re seeing is a sort of shift around social norms. Kennedy is the best Geiger counter. He’s a very good instrument for measuring that.” SCOTUS seems to be cutting back on its defense of religious freedom in favor of supporting government regulators, and the high court’s swinger has led the way in the wake of Scalia’s passing. [USA Today]

* Federal prosecutors from the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office and the DOJ are now investigating whether Mossack Fonseca, the infamous firm behind the Panama Papers, knowingly assisted its clients in laundering money and/or evading taxes. A firm spokesperson has denied all accusations of criminal wrongdoing. [Wall Street Journal]

* “You can sentence me to whatever you want, I guess. This sentence, I won’t outlive it.” Convicted murderer Drew Peterson was sentenced to an additional 40 years in prison in a murder-for-hire plot to kill prosecutor James Glasgow. In 2047, Peterson will be 93 years old, and he’ll be up for parole for the murder of his third wife. [Chicago Tribune]

* A plea to strike down Mississippi’s “Protecting Freedom of Conscience from Government Discrimination Act,” which gives special privileges to opponents of gay marriage. [Bloomberg View]

* Not every litigation financier is Peter Thiel, and I think we are all pretty happy about that. [Wall Street Journal]

* What can Judge Maryanne Trump Barry teach her brother about the federal judiciary? [Real Clear Politics]

* Musings on why some law firms still haven’t matched the Cravath pay bump. [Law and More]

* These are the facts people need to know about gun laws. [Slate]

* This is what estate planning attorneys wished you knew about death and dying. [Forbes]

* If Justice Scalia had lived to July, he may have undone all of the advances of the Obama administration, which probably explains why the Republicans are so hard up about Merrick Garland’s nomination. [Slate]

* Feeling inspired by HBO’s Confirmation? Get the skinny on what it’s like to try a discrimination case. [Forensis Group]

* The Office of the Solicitor General has had quite the heavy workload this term. [Empirical SCOTUS]

* The Supreme Court won’t hear the Authors Guild appeal to the Second Circuit ruling in favor of Google for its book scanning project. [Techdirt]

* Gay republican confronts Ted Cruz over religious-freedom inspired laws. Let’s just say Cruz didn’t come off as a defender of LGBTQ rights. [Huffington Post]

* An illuminating interview with Wendy Davis, on what’s next following her defeat in the Texas Gubernatorial race. [Jezebel]

* St. Mary’s law professor David Grenardo on why the NCAA system is unfair, and as a former college football player, he knows what he is talking about. [San Antonio Express-News]

Is religious freedom only important when it protects those on the outside or is something more fundamental at work here? The answer is a little of both depending on how you look at it.

* It really isn’t okay that there are children that go hungry. Harvard Law student Thomas Tobin knows there is something that can be done to alleviate the problem. [Arkansas Online]

* The Supreme Court rejected requests for expedited audio in today’s two big cases: Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt and U.S. v. Texas. When are we going to be able to force them to put cameras in there and be done with it? [Fix the Court]

* Are the lawyers to blame for the giant Sharp / Foxconn deal falling through at the last second? And what can be done to salvage it? The clock is ticking and stock prices are falling. [Quartz]

* Remember a few months ago when Republican governors were all butthurt about Syrian refugees? U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Walton Pratt ruled Indiana Governor Mike Pence was way outta line about the whole mess. [Wonkette]

* The EEOC is going after employers that discriminate on the basis of sexuality, saying such actions are banned under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. About time. [Buzzfeed]

* Looking back at one of the worst Supreme Court decisions of all time to understand how important filling Justice Scalia’s seat really is. [Huffington Post]

* A Sikh officer in the Army is suing, complaining his religious observations have subjected him to increased testing. [New York Times]

* For those of you who missed last week’s event at NYU Law, here’s video from “Love, Law, and… Clerkships,” featuring Professor Barry Friedman, Judge Alison Nathan (S.D.N.Y.), and our very own David Lat. [YouTube]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjX6wLQmMIM&index=1&list=PLBC7DDA1DA3578169

* The 5 questions employers shouldn’t ask in job interviews. “Does this look infected?” inexplicably fails to make the list. [Law360]

* Cleveland is suing Tamir Rice’s family for not paying for the ambulance that picked him up after he got gunned down by police. In the contest for “Worst Place In America,” Cleveland just keeps racking up points. [Slate]

* Mark Cuban continues harassing the SEC with amicus filings over their haphazard enforcement antics. Being rich and a little bit obnoxious finally serves a public purpose. [Litigation Daily]

* Ikea has lost the trademark in its own name in Indonesia. This seems as good an opportunity as any to link to this video. [Coconuts Jakarta]

* Department of Justice sues Ferguson for years of pervasive racial discrimination. This comes after the city rejected a negotiated deal, because whenever the federal government has you dead to rights you should absolutely piss all over the deal they offer. [Huffington Post]

* NASA employees barred from writing “Jesus” in newsletter. Some are calling this a religious freedom issue, but that’s ridiculous — this is a scientific credibility issue. You’re NASA! You’ve been up there and know he’s not hanging around on a cloud. [Corporate Counsel]

* Sanctioned former Mintz Levin associate brings defamation claims against newspapers. [The Am Law Daily]

Sooner or later -- probably sooner -- this is an issue that this law school will have to come to grips with.

* Blame Kelly Drye for the lack of exotic snake regulations, because what could go wrong in an unregulated market for spitting cobras? [Slate]

* New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is instating mass pardons for youthful offenders. [New York Times]

* A Texas alumni group has apologized for calling Justice Scalia a racist. I guess scientists are made of sterner stuff. [Chronicle of Higher Education]

* The founding fathers were better about defending the rights of Muslims than (some) modern Republicans. [Washington Post]

* Preet Bharara’s latest target — the evils of auto-subscribing. [Law and More]

* Ah, the Christmas season. That time of the year when customer service is paradoxically at its best and worst. [That’s My Argument!]

* The verdict against former White House counsel J. Michael Farren has been affirmed by the Connecticut Appellate Court. [Legal Profession Blog]

* A true model of what political discourse should look like in this country: West Point cadets and Bard College students squared off in a debate over individuals’ right to privacy over national security concerns. [Huffington Post]

* The debate over bail reform in New York gets real, and some judges get angry. [Wise Law NY]

* Oof! Which Massachusetts law school saw a 14% drop in its bar passage rate? And other trends from the latest states to release its bar exam results. [Bar Exam Stats]

* Lawyers fighting the good fight, and standing up for your right to wear a pasta strainer over your head in your driver’s license photo. [Boston Globe]

* So it looks like the Supreme Court will be revisiting the reproductive choice rights set forth in Roe, but how did we get here? [RH Reality Check]

* Tom Hanks plays a lawyer that can predict the future. [Guile is Good]

* The town of Collidge, Arizona, does not understand the establishment clause of the First Amendment… come to think of it, they aren’t real clear on the exercise clause either, but that sure doesn’t stop them from invoking it! [Wonkette]

* Could Volkswagen’s revelation (that they rigged their cars to beat emissions tests but then, in real life, pumped out emissions like a bloated redneck with IBS that’s just been given a lifetime supply of baked beans) mean jail time for executives? [Mother Jones]

* Are you a veteran thinking about law school? First of all, why? But if you’re still interested, check out this upcoming Service to School even in D.C. to get the inside scoop. [Service to School]

* Reagan may have been an actor by trade, but he sure spoke like a lawyer. [Guile is Good]

* Don’t know where to house refugees? How about the former Dachau concentration camps? The eminently practical, yet horrifying German solution. [The Guardian]

* The papal visit starts today, and though expectations are high, there might be a nasty tax implication if the pontiff starts talking up Bernie Sanders too much. [TaxProf Blog]

* When Americans talk about religious freedom, they do not mean Muslim Americans. No duh. [The Atlantic]

* Book excerpt about the intersection of the girl who cried rape and lynching. [Jezebel]

* Still care about the Kim Davis debacle? Well, she might be heading back to jail. [Slate]

* If a Ponzi scheme is operated with Bitcoins, is it still a Ponzi scheme? [Dealbreaker]

Ted Cruz's new ad about religious freedom doesn't quite check out.