Tag Archive: Law

  1. Ricci ruling won’t affect college admissions policies, experts say

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    As the Supreme Court weighed this spring whether the city of New Haven was wrong in throwing out a 2003 Fire Department promotion exam because the scores of black firefighters were much lower than the scores of white firefighters, many wondered if its eventual verdict would impact the realm of higher education. Could a decision regarding the multiple-choice firefighters’ exam be applied to other standardized, multiple-choice exams, like the SAT?

    Now that the Court has ruled, the answer, according to experts, appears to be no.

    While the SAT, like the firefighters’ promotion exam, has been found to reflect higher scores among whites — a fact obliquely referenced by Justice Anthony Kennedy in his majority opinion, which said the city was indeed wrong in throwing out the test — the SAT is not an exam relating to employment and therefore would not be affected by the Court’s decision.

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  2. Live-blogging the Ricci decision

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    Reporters and editors for the News will be posting periodic dispatches today monitoring the fallout from the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in the Ricci v. DeStefano reverse discrimination case. The Court is expected to release its ruling at 10 a.m.

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  3. Ricci decision to come out Monday

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    Six years after they took a promotional test, New Haven firefighter Frank Ricci and 19 of his peers are about to get more clarity on whether the test’s results will count.

    U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts said Thursday that the Court will hand down rulings on all three remaining pending cases — including the highly anticipated Ricci v. DeStefano case — on Monday morning. It is possible that even after the Court rules that the test’s fate will still be unclear; many observers think the Court will remand the case back to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court.

  4. Koh: ‘I feel like I am setting sail on a thrilling new adventure’

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    At long last, former Yale Law School Dean Harold Hongju Koh was confirmed this afternoon for the position of legal adviser to the Department of State. Immediately following the vote, Koh sent a message to the Law School community thanking students, faculty members and staff for their support during the confirmation process.

    “My job may be changing, but our friendships are enduring,” he wrote. “I feel like I am setting sail on a thrilling new adventure. One former Legal Adviser once described his job as ‘speaking law to power.’ I pledge to you to do my very best to bring the enduring values of our Law School to serve our country in facing its global challenges.”

    Koh also praised Acting Dean Kate Stith, whose service he called “heroic,” and his successor, Robert Post LAW ’77, whom Koh said “brings extraordinary personal and scholarly gifts to the position.”

    Read his full message after the jump.

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  5. Harold Hongju Koh’s day of reckoning is here

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    Update: The vote has been moved up to 4:10 p.m., according to Reid’s office.

    The long-awaited confirmation vote on Harold Hongju Koh’s nomination to be legal adviser to the Department of State should take place around 5:30 p.m. today, according to a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

  6. Democrats successfully force vote on Koh

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    Updated 10:45 p.m. A vote on Harold Hongju Koh’s nomination to be legal adviser to the Department of State is finally in sight.

    Senate Democrats successfully ended debate on Koh’s nomination this morning, as their cloture motion passed 65 to 31, split mostly along party lines. The cloture motion limits further consideration of Koh’s nomination to no more than 30 hours, meaning the former Yale Law School dean’s confirmation saga should finally come to an end this week.

    The vote came after several Democratic senators spoke out in Koh’s defense. Sen. Joseph Lieberman ’64 LAW ’67 of Connecticut called him “profoundly qualified,” and Sen. John Kerry ’66 of Massachusetts described him as “one of the foremost legal scholars in this country, a man of the highest intellect, integrity and character.”

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  7. Levin: ‘We all believe Dean Koh will be confirmed’

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    Now that his successor has been named, what happens if Harold Hongju Koh fails to win confirmation as legal adviser to the Department of State?

    Put it this way: Yale officials really, really don’t think that’s going to happen.  It better not, at least, or Koh may come back to find himself working in a much smaller office in the Sterling Law Building.

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  8. Reid to force vote on Koh confirmation

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    Updated 7:03 p.m. Harold Hongju Koh’s future should get a lot clearer in about 36 hours.

    Senate Democrats said this evening that they would give Republicans that much time to come to an agreement to consider Koh’s nomination for the position of legal adviser to the Department of State. If no agreement is reached, a cloture vote will be held Wednesday morning, Sen. Jeff Merkley, Democrat of Oregon, said on the Senate floor at 7 p.m. this evening.

    An hour earlier, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Regan Lachapelle, said in an e-mail message to the News that the Nevada senator was filing cloture “right now.” A cloture vote, which requires 60 votes to pass, would end debate on Koh’s nomination and force a vote on it.

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  9. Senate approves Koh. No, not that one.

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    One of the above Kohs has been confirmed by the Senate. Guess which one! (Hint: The less controversial one.)

    The Senate voted Friday to approve the nomination of Howard Koh ’73 MED ’77 — pictured at right — for the position of assistant secretary for health in the Department of Health and Human Services, said Regan Lachapelle, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Koh will be the primary adviser to Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius on matters relating to public health.

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  10. Miller: Sotomayor ‘a dedicated and serious young woman’

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    Before Sonia Sotomayor LAW ’79 was nominated to the Supreme Court, she was a student at Princeton — and a classmate of Yale College Dean Mary Miller.

    Along with four other students, Sotomayor and Miller served on a student search committee for a new assistant dean of student affairs. Frustrated with the process, the group wrote a letter to the editor in the September 12, 1974, issue of The Daily Princetonian.

    In the letter, which can be read in full here, the students criticized the search’s focus on selecting a minority candidate and the vague role of the student committee. While Miller is white and Sotomayor is Latina, both were chosen because they are women, at a time when Princeton was largely male.

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  11. Still no ruling in Ricci case

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    The United States Supreme Court issued two opinions today, but neither was about the much-discussed Ricci v. DeStefano case. The Court has been widely expected to release its ruling on that case sometime this month, but there is now speculation that it may wait until after the confirmation hearings for Sonia Sotomayor LAW ’79, which are scheduled for mid-July.

    As Legal Times points out, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said on Friday at the annual conference of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit that “one can safely predict [Ricci] will be among the last to come out before the term ends.” The Supreme Court’s term technically does not end until September, though all decisions were expected to be released before the justices leave for summer recess.

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