Students at the University of Louisville Louis D. Brandeis School of Law were shocked in February to learn their school was hosting a “Drag Story Hour,” in which one of their professors dressed as a woman and told a story about a gay rabbit with a member of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.  The event was part of the university’s “Drag Me to Class” fundraiser to raise money for students to attend the LGBT-focused Lavender Law Conference in the nation’s capital. But while the school leaned into drag, students were fuming over projections that the law school could be taking a massive dive in the US News & World Report’s upcoming law school rankings.  Those fears were confirmed on April 9, when the rankings saw Brandeis drop from 99 to 136 in the rankings. The 37 spot drop was the largest of any school on the list, and has left both faculty and students pointing fingers. School administrators blamed the drop in rankings on leadership changes, a lagging job market due to the COVID pandemic, and a new methodological ranking system by US News & World Report. Current students aren’t buying it, and told The Daily Wire that the drop came as they witnessed the school pivot towards activism, and away from academics. The school’s total first-time bar passage rates have been in a free fall since 2020, when the rate sat at 89%, to just 75% last year. And the pass rate was just 65% in 2022, according to the most recent data available on the school’s website. By comparison, the number one law school in the country, Stanford, had a first-time bar passage rate of 94%.  One student, who chose to remain anonymous to avoid academic repercussions, told The Daily Wire that traditional law school electives like remedies and federal courts have not been offered over the last two years while other substantive classes like advanced civil procedure and advance contracts were only sporadically taught.  Meanwhile, the student noted a surge of “wacky” classes like “Gender, Law, and Policy,” “Afro-American Women and Reproductive Justice,” Critical Race Theory,” and “Reproductive Rights and Justice,” which were all taught in the last year.  The class on “Critical Race Theory,” examines the “fundamental propositions about race and racism in society and uses those propositions to critique the law as a legitimizing force for advancing systemic racism and structural inequality.” It is taught by Cedric Powell, a Critical Race Theory scholar. Another class called “Environmental Law,” focuses on discussions of “environmental justice” and accuses white people of racism, according to another current student. The professor who teaches the class, Tony Arnold, also leads up the law school’s “Resilience Justice Project,” which is a research project looking at the “inequitable vulnerabilities of communities” through a lens of “climate change,” “systemic racism,” and “anti-colonialism.” The project’s goals include increasing the “power of low-income communities of color” and making changes to systems of injustice in society and governance.” The students said that there was a real appetite for that type of instruction among the student body. “To be fair a little bit to the school, that’s what a lot of the students coming in do want, which is kind of the sad part,” one student told The Daily Wire. “But it’s not what everybody wants. A lot of us wanted law school to be an academic pursuit as opposed to an activist one.”  The pivot Left at Brandeis includes a hyper-focus on the politicized death of Breonna Taylor, who was fatally shot by police after her boyfriend opened fire on several officers conducting a drug bust in Louisville. Earlier this year, Brandeis School of Law Assistant Director of Diversity and Community Mark Martinez sent out a campus-wide email in remembrance of the fourth anniversary of Taylor’s death. The email boasted that the school sought “to honor Breonna Taylor in several ways,” and included a poem by leftist poet Camonghne Felix that encouraged the public to “shut the streets down” and referenced embracing “rage” and being a “menace.” The school also hosts a yearly lecture called “The Breonna Taylor Lecture on Structural Inequality.” It created “The Breonna Taylor Legacy Fellowship” in 2022, which gives a handful of students $9,000 summer stipends to pursue “social justice” work. Money for the scholarship comes from the proceeds of a portrait of Taylor painted by activist painter Amy Sherald.  In line with criticism of police over Taylor’s death, the school brought in a lecturer in April to talk to school staff about “white supremacy” in policing for its 2024 faculty workshop.  The school has also encouraged students to flag alleged “microaggressions.” This was so that administrators could help decrease “the systemic and cultural oppression within the school.” One example of a microaggression included a student complaining about how a professor “erased trans identities” by making a reference to the biology of women.  Internally, Brandeis has openly embraced Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives. “Fostering an equitable and inclusive learning environment is a priority at the University of Louisville and at the Brandeis School of Law, as we strive to better serve our students, faculty and staff of color, those who identify as LGBTQ+, those with disabilities, those from international backgrounds and others who have been historically marginalized or underrepresented in the legal profession,” the school says.  While students don’t pin all the blame for the decline on activism and DEI-focused luncheons, they wish the school would focus more on education than politically-charged seminars and drag dress-up fundraisers. They also point to a real lack of “academic diversity” on campus, saying that there are only a few center-Right professors on the whole staff.  The professor who participated in the drag fundraiser was law professor Dan Canon, who donned a skirt and wig to read the book “A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo,” a children’s picture book about gay rabbits, alongside “Sister Petty Davis,” a member of a local chapter of the anti-Christian Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. According to the university, the two also gave students tips on “drag activism.” Screen Shot: Brandeis School of Law Instagram. The fundraiser involved donors giving in support of specific law school faculty members to dress up in drag. The reading raised $1,800 for the campus’s Lamba Law Caucus to go to an LGBT-themed retreat.  Canon has been with the university since 2016 and teaches civil rights and civil procedure at the law school. He supports abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, boasts about suing former President Donald Trump, and was one of the lawyers who helped to overturn laws defining marriage as between a man and a woman.  In 2017, he ran for Congress in Indiana as a Democrat seeking to abolish ICE, saying that it existed “solely to cruelly and wantonly [break] up families.” Later that year, in an article for Slate, he claimed that concerns over illegal immigration were unfounded.  Another professor provided commentary “on the role of structural inequality in the disproportionate use of force by law enforcement in communities of color,” for a documentary on the death of George Floyd by the Black News Channel. Enid F. Trucios-Haynes, an immigration and civil rights professor, advocated against a proposed Kentucky bill that would have given law enforcement more tools to crack down on illegal immigration and is linked to the leftist ACLU.  Professors have also lashed out at anyone from the other side of the political aisle. One former conservative Brandeis professor, Justin Walker, was criticized by his colleagues after former President Donald Trump appointed him to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. After the nomination, several of his colleagues released a letter saying that they could “not fully support” Walker’s nomination.  Administrators at the law school have a similar leftward bent. The school’s associate dean of academic affairs, JoAnne Sweeney, who includes “feminist jurisprudence” as one of her scholarly interests, has made several public partisan statements. In an opinion column for the Washington Post, she wrote that Ireland’s vote to legalize abortion should bring “hope” to Americans.  “Ireland’s story provides some hope that the United States might find its way to legalizing abortion, yet it also shows how a government can impede changes that have strong public support by passing unpopular legislation and blocking any attempts at judicial reform,” she wrote. Sweeney’s social media history shows her cheering on Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) while saying that former President Donald Trump appealing to the First Amendment after the Democrat-led House impeached him over January 6 is “utter bulls***.” The school’s dean, Melanie Jacobs, has a similar leftward social media history. In a post from January 2022, Jacobs referred to an unborn baby as “a mass of cells smaller than my fingernail” as justification for abortion. “A D&C is not a good medical option for me but is for many women,” she posted. “That treatment is now unavailable in many states. This is about more than abortion. Why is women’s health secondary to a mass of cells smaller than my fingernail?” In another post, she said that a bill to protect children from transgender procedures would “cause pain and breed discrimination.”  When Jacobs, a lawyer whose academic work focused on “non-traditional families,” was appointed the new dean of Brandeis, then interim President Lori Gonzalez praised her for her history of advocating for DEI. Gonzalez said that Jacobs had a “history of championing diversity, equity, and inclusion and is a strong advocate for the needs of students, faculty, and staff.” In February, Jacobs hosted a panel of the National Conference of Bar Presidents in Louisville asking the question, “Is DEI dead, or are those rumors greatly exaggerated?”  The success among diversity rankings apparently did not translate into success with the US News & World Report’s rankings. In an email to students, Jacobs maintained that the ranking did not truly measure the school’s success.  “The hard news is that Brandeis School of Law dropped in the rankings, a dip that does not reflect what a great moment this is for our law school and our students. No ranking methodology can fully capture what is happening at an institution, especially a methodology that has markedly changed,” Jacobs wrote in a letter to the campus community obtained by The Daily Wire. In a statement to The Daily Wire, a spokesman for the school pointed to recent bar passage rates and employment data when asked about the drop in ranking. “Last year, U.S. News changed the weights of the criteria used in compiling its rankings. Unfortunately, this resulted in a 37-point drop for Brandeis Law School,” the spokesman said. “Because U.S. News relies on data that we report to the ABA for accreditation purposes, the employment and bar passage numbers never represent our most recent cohort. For this year’s rankings, U.S. News relied on bar passage rate and employment data – two significant portions of the new ranking formula – from 2021 and 2022.” “In fact, the Brandeis School of Law Class of 2023 had the best first-time taker bar passage rate in the Commonwealth of Kentucky – over 80% for first-time takers – and over 90% of the Class of 2023 is employed,” the spokesman added. “Both of these data points are key metrics for determining a law school’s success.” The most current data available on the school’s website indicates that the passage rate inside Kentucky for first-time takers was 78%, and the rate outside of Kentucky was 64%. Bills to claw back DEI initiatives and the promotion of discriminatory concepts failed in the Kentucky legislature this year, even though Republicans have a supermajority.  “I feel a little betrayed by my own state, my own legislature. This is a state school,” one student said. “I’m just a little depressed by the fact that we have an all-red legislature in Kentucky that’s just kind of not done much about it, until recently with the DEI bill, which they miserably failed at.”  The measure, which would have banned state funds from going toward DEI offices and officers, DEI training, DEI initiatives, and the promotion of discriminatory concepts, failed after Republicans in the Senate were unable to move the bill forward.  The bill reportedly “caused an uproar on campus,” and the school hosted luncheons where students were encouraged to be “scared” of the measure. One faculty member at Brandeis, Cassie Chamber Armstrong, is also a Democrat state senator from Louisville. She opposed the bill, claiming it would have blocked her from teaching history.  On the other hand, conservative students say the infiltration of leftwing politics into public universities has “gone way too far” and should have been addressed years ago. Journalist Chris Rufo reported earlier this month that DEI had taken over the University of Kentucky, and called on the Republican-dominated state legislature to crack down on DEI in the state.  Other conservative states, like Texas and Florida, have advanced robust DEI prohibitions leading many university DEI offices to be closed down and DEI officers fired. Kentucky Republicans would need to stick close together as Democratic Governor Andy Beshear would most likely veto any legislation that cracks down on DEI.  Still, many students say their requests are simple: “More law, less activism.”

'We’re not feeling it'

'It is time to break up Live Nation-Ticketmaster'

A video shared on X claims to show the Iranian president Ibrahim Raisi before he died. Video footage shows Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi on board the helicopter shortly before it made a hard landing in mountainous terrain due to foggy conditions in East Azerbaijan province. pic.twitter.com/vywHa5QJIC — Abdiwali Hassan (@abdihassand) May 19, 2024 Verdict: False The […]

The claim is inaccurate at this time. Neither CNN nor ABC have announced cancellation.

The railroad previously agreed to a $600 million settlement with victims of the derailment

'He needs to consider stepping aside'

Books book review Ann Leckie Dredges Up Short Fiction Treasures in Her New Collection Lake of Souls Discover the wit and weight of the Ancillary Justice and Raven Tower author’s short fiction. By Natalie Zutter | Published on May 23, 2024 Comment 0 Share New Share Drawing its title from the brand-new novelette is extremely fitting for Lake of Souls, the collected (and, in the author’s own musings, lesser-known or -appreciated) short fiction works of Ann Leckie: These 18 stories reflect that same expansiveness, how one person—or a singular account—can possess a multitude of ideas or identities depending on who exactly is relating the story. One story, which starts as a Lovecraftian riff but ends on a John Carter of Mars vibe, leaves readers with uneasy answers about humans’ tendency to assert what folks today call Main Character Energy. Those same readers will be more likely to identify with the lobster-dogs and singing dinosaur space explorers than the human anthropologists or corporations supposedly steering interstellar voyages. Worlds end, but always with sights set toward a new one; an attempt to genetically optimize the humble onion winds up eradicating the entire crop line. The collection is split quasi-equally into thirds, with Leckie’s standalone works as well as tie-ins to the sci-fi Imperial Radch universe and the fantasy world of The Raven Tower. Yet all of the aforementioned examples come from the opening portion, which contains the most dynamic stories—which makes for a strong start but sets up the subsequent categories for unfavorable comparisons. These (primarily sci-fi) standalones are the most playful peek into Leckie’s imagination, which is flexible enough to offer equal consideration to both high- and low-stakes stories. That in turn gives Lake of Souls a personal, cohesive feel, even if some of the stories occasionally turn repetitive. Leckie’s wit shines in tales of mismatched pairs completely misunderstanding one another. “Lake of Souls” constantly switches between the equally moving perspectives of an alien nymph searching for its name (and thus its soul) and a human anthropologist, the sole survivor of a research mission studying what the two-leggers call lobster-dogs. By contrast, the frenetic “Another Word for World” takes place solely within the POV of Ashiban Xidyla, a middle-aged representative for one of two warring factions, struggling to communicate with the teenage Sovereign of Iss after their translator device is destroyed during an assassination attempt. As this odd duo trudges across their shared planet, their attempts at communication expose a generations-old translation error, making an incisive commentary on the danger of deliberate misinterpretation. Buy the Book Lake of Souls Ann Leckie Buy Book Lake of Souls Ann Leckie Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget “Sovereign” is an example of one ongoing motif: titles that don’t actually mean what the reader initially assumes. Other recurring themes include thorny family dynamics—especially where death and resurrection are concerned—and inquisitive interrogation of personal and cultural histories, like in the remarkable story of “The Endangered Camp,” in which society of dinosaurs refer to their own oral history when debating whether or not to turn their ship around, but the same song can provide two different courses of action depending on which verse the singer decides to end on. While Leckie’s highly detailed worldbuilding in both her sci-fi and fantasy series is hall-of-fame caliber, the collected stories themselves feel more, well, ancillary to their respective fictional universes. They certainly illuminate fascinating corners of empires and kingdoms through compelling character studies, yet the actual plots blur together enough that it’s difficult to identify particular standouts as in the first batch of stories. “She Commands Me and I Obey” contextualizes the astonishingly high stakes of a sports game with the worship of athlete deities, and is a worthwhile read for any fan of Ancillary Justice and its sequels who may have never gotten around to it before now. Yet “Night’s Slow Poison” is a subtler brew of Radchaai intrigue, bringing to mind the political machinations and cultural maneuvers of Leckie’s latest novel Translation State. The stories set in the world of Leckie’s standalone fantasy novel The Raven Tower tend more toward creation myths and fables, detailing the somewhat repetitive ways in which humans make bargains with the small gods who are omnipotent when speaking the truth but for whom falsehoods would bleed their power dry into nothingness. The idea that these gods, from a tiny skink to a vast river, are all constrained by clarity of language is a compelling one, but there are only so many ways that mortals can navigate the ensuing loopholes. That said, “The Snake’s Wife” is a standout from this half of the collection, if only because of how brutally its human cruelty reshapes fates while attempting to evade divine retribution. (As Leckie herself said, all the content warnings for this taboo tale that hinges on castration.) Less disturbing yet equally effective is “Marsh Gods,” marrying the aforementioned high and low stakes in a young girl confronting her prodigal brother after a brush with death transforms him into a stranger. Think of all of these stories as “small, short-term deals”—as human/deity agreements are described in “The Nalendar”—and even the less thrilling ones will take on their own temporary power. Leckie certainly knows how to weave truth into a collection; it takes nothing away to say that there will be something for everyone.[end-mark] Lake of Souls is published by Orbit Books. The post Ann Leckie Dredges Up Short Fiction Treasures in Her New Collection <em>Lake of Souls</em> appeared first on Reactor.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Section 230 of the Communications Act (CDA), an online liability shield that prevents online apps, websites, and services from being held civilly liable for content posted by their users if they act in “good faith” to moderate content, provided the foundation for most of today’s popular platforms to grow without being sued out of existence. But as these platforms have grown, Section 230 has become a political football that lawmakers have used in an attempt to influence how platforms editorialize and moderate content, with pro-censorship factions threatening reforms that force platforms to censor more aggressively and pro-free speech factions pushing reforms that reduce the power of Big Tech to censor lawful speech. And during a Communications and Technology Subcommittee hearing yesterday, lawmakers discussed a radical new Section 230 proposal that would sunset the law and create a new solution that “ensures safety and accountability for past and future harm.” We obtained a copy of the draft bill to sunset Section 230 for you here. In a memo for the hearing, lawmakers acknowledged that their true intention is “not to have Section 230 actually sunset” but to “encourage” technology companies to work with Congress on Section 230 reform and noted that they intend to focus on the role Section 230 plays in shaping how Big Tech addresses “harmful content, misinformation, and hate speech” — three broad, subjective categories of legal speech that are often used to justify censorship of disfavored opinions. And during the hearing, several lawmakers signaled that they want to use this latest piece of Section 230 legislation to force social media platforms to censor a wider range of content, including content that they deem to be harmful or misinformation. Rep. Doris Matsui (D-CA) acknowledged that Section 230 “allowed the internet to flourish in its early days” but complained that it serves as “a haven for harmful content, disinformation, and online harassment.” She added: “The role of Section 230 needs immediate scrutiny, because as it exists today, it is just not working.” https://video.reclaimthenet.org/articles/sunset-section-230-hearing-1.mp4 Rep. John Joyce (R-PA) suggested Section 230 reforms are necessary to protect children — a talking point that’s often used to erode free speech and privacy for everyone. “We need to make sure that they [children] are not interacting with harmful or inappropriate content,” Rep. John Joyce (R-PA) said. “And Section 230 is only exacerbating this problem. We here in Congress need to find a solution to this problem that Section 230 poses.” https://video.reclaimthenet.org/articles/sunset-section-230-hearing-2.mp4 Rep. Tony Cárdenas (D-CA) complained that platforms aren’t doing enough to combat “outrageous and harmful content” and “harmful mis-and-dis-information”: “While I wish we could better depend on American companies to help combat these issues, the reality is that outrageous and harmful content helps drive their profit margins. That’s the online platforms. I’ll also highlight, as I have in previous hearings, that the problem of harmful mis-and-dis-information online is even worse for users who speak Spanish and other languages outside of English as a result of platforms not making adequate investments to protect them.” https://video.reclaimthenet.org/articles/sunset-section-230-hearing-3.mp4 Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) also signaled an intent to use Section 230 reform to target “false information” and claimed that Section 230 has allowed platforms to “evade accountability for what occurs on their platforms.” https://video.reclaimthenet.org/articles/sunset-section-230-hearing-4.mp4 Rep. Buddy Cater (R-GA) framed Section 230 as “part of the problem” because “it’s kind of set a free for all on the Internet” when pushing for reform. https://video.reclaimthenet.org/articles/sunset-section-230-hearing-5.mp4 While several lawmakers were in favor of Section 230 reforms that pressure platforms to moderate more aggressively, one of the witnesses, Kate Tummarello, the Executive Director at the advocacy organization Engine, did warn that these efforts could lead to censorship. “It’s not that the platforms would be held liable for the speech,” Tummarello said. “It’s that the platforms could very easily be pressured into removing speech people don’t like.” https://video.reclaimthenet.org/articles/sunset-section-230-hearing-6.mp4 You can watch the full hearing here. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Lawmakers Push for the Censorship of “Harmful Content,” “Disinformation” in Latest Section 230 Reform Push appeared first on Reclaim The Net.