Senate approves Koh. No, not that one.

June 19, 2009 11:31 pm Leave a Comment

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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Miller: Sotomayor ‘a dedicated and serious young woman’

June 16, 2009 1:10 pm Leave a Comment

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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Still no ruling in Ricci case

June 15, 2009 11:01 am Leave a Comment

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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Koh’s confirmation vote is held up in Senate

June 4, 2009 2:38 pm Leave a Comment

A vote on Yale Law School Dean Harold Hongju Koh’s nomination to the post of legal adviser to the Department of State has been delayed indefinitely in the Senate, sources familiar with the situation told the News this week.

Two Senate aides, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicate nature of confirmation votes, said that at least one senator had placed a “hold” on Koh’s vote. A hold is an informal practice in which senators express to the leadership that they may filibuster a bill, usually preventing it from coming to the floor until certain concessions are made.

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Finish his law degree? No, Brian Deese has G.M. to dismantle.

June 1, 2009 10:28 pm Leave a Comment

A few years ago, Brian Deese put his studies at Yale Law School on hold to volunteer for the presidential campaigns of Sen. Hillary Clinton LAW ’73 and, after she dropped out of the race, then-Sen. Barack Obama. After the election, it might have seemed likely that Deese would return to the Law School, where he was once a member of the class of 2008, to receive his degree.

But it turned out President Obama had another assignment in store for Deese: He would be made responsible for the fate of the U.S. auto industry.

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Recording hints at Sotomayor’s take on Ricci v. DeStefano

May 31, 2009 1:24 pm Leave a Comment

The Wall Street Journal has posted a recording of the controversial Ricci v. Destefano case being argued in front of the three-judge panel of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals — a panel that included President Barack Obama’s nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor LAW ’79.

“We’re not suggesting that unqualified people be hired, the city’s not suggesting that,” Sotomayor told the firefighters’ attorney, Karen Torre, at one point in the hearing. “[But] if your test is going to always put a certain group at the bottom of the pass rate so they’re never, ever going to be promoted, and there is a fair test that could be devised that measures knowledge in a more substantive way, then why shouldn’t the city have an opportunity to try to look and see if it can develop that?”

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Did another Eli almost break the story of Watergate?

May 28, 2009 11:37 pm Leave a Comment

According to a new book, a New York Times reporter learned about Watergate before the Washington Post published any of its groundbreaking investigative stories that eventually took down President Richard Nixon.

The only problem? The reporter had just been admitted to Yale Law School and left the newspaper before he could actually write about the scandal.

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Poll: 61 percent of Connecticut residents support death penalty

2:17 pm Leave a Comment

Last week we reported on Gov. M. Jodi Rell’s threat to veto a proposed ban on the death penalty in Connecticut. A Quinnipiac University Poll released today shows that three in five state residents agree with her. In a poll of 1575 people, 77 percent of Republicans, 50 percent of Democrats and 64 percent of Independents indicated their support for capital punishment.

Of supporters, 23 percent listed the cost of keeping offenders in prison as the main reason for continuing the death penalty. Another 23 percent indicated that it should be continued because it is a fair punishment, and 22 percent said the severity of some crimes warranted the death penalty.

In a statement, Ben Jones, the executive director of CT Network to Abolish the Death Penalty argued that the poll showed a misconception among residents about the cost of the death penalty relative to life sentences in prison.

Recapping the Clinton visit

May 26, 2009 10:59 pm Leave a Comment

Hillary Clinton’s LAW ’73 trip to New Haven on Monday created a veritable buzz. (According to the New Haven Independent, she even got to enter through the otherwise locked L-Dub gate! Seriously! Celebrities…)

Shortly after Commencement exercises ended around noon Monday, she headed to the Law School to celebrate with the class of 2009. Check the video out here, courtesy of the Law School. When Acting Dean Kate Stith introduced Clinton in the courtyard of the Law School, the crowd of several hundred students and their guests gave the former first lady a standing ovation.

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Obama names Yale chemist to EPA

8:42 pm Leave a Comment

The founder of “green chemistry” is heading back to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, where he established the new field of study more than a decade ago.

Last Thursday, President Barack Obama nominated Yale faculty member Paul Anastas, co-author of “Green Chemistry: Theory and Practice,” to be the Assistant Administrator for the EPA’s Office of Research and Development.

If confirmed, Anastas will head research at the ORD, which is the EPA’s scientific research branch.

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Missed this morning’s ceremony?

1:36 pm Leave a Comment

The White House released a transcript of the 40-minute ceremony this morning at which President Barack Obama announced his nomination of federal appeals court judge Sonia Sotomayor LAW ’79 to the U.S. Supreme Court. The text of Obama’s introduction and Sotomayor’s remarks are after the jump.

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