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Emory’s law school has a bit of a problem with the casual use of the n-word, and while one professor caught deploying the term immediately began to make amends, the law professor who kicked off Emory’s current spate of problems — who was caught using the term twice — plans to vigorously fight the school in a faculty hearing today. The committee will determine if the professor, Paul Zwier, should be reinstated or remain suspended without pay for up to another two years.

Law.com affiliate The Daily Report acquired a copy of the 75-page report from the Emory Office of Equity and Inclusion, which recommends another two years on ice.

The unsigned report concluded that Zwier’s use of the n-word in a first-year torts class and his subsequent use of a variant of the epithet in a private conversation constituted “a pattern of discriminatory harassment” that was “so severe” it created “an intimidating, hostile, or offensive educational environment” that was “disruptive” and interfered with students’ academic performance.

It’s astounding how unnecessary it is to use this language. For his own case, Zwier says that, “in using the n-word, he intended to suggest that the court record was sanitized and that the plaintiff had actually been called the inflammatory epithet.” You see how that sentence accomplished exactly the same purpose without any racial slurs? Amazing!

Unfortunately, rather than embrace this reality and seek amends, Zwier’s got the American Association of University Professors and the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education trying to pitch this as academic freedom thing.

When I’ve discussed this case over social media, Zwier’s defenders allege that the second incident was a “trap” of sorts — an utterance drawn out by a student with an agenda. It’s a weird way to put it because an agenda of “maybe don’t use the n-word” doesn’t seem all that bad, but whatever. In any event, the Law.com article recounts allegations that the second accuser’s behavior that tends to make him look like he was a vexatious party — including characterizing the interim dean’s cautionary words about avoiding libel during the ongoing investigation (which led that same dean to call for Zwier’s dismissal) as a “threat.” Putting aside whether or not one can be forgiven for being overly upset about being forced to listen to racial slurs, when no one is seriously contesting that the supposed professional in a power position used racial slurs, who the hell cares what the guy on the receiving end did?

“I was trying as much as I could [to explain] what my family background was. It was not meant disparagingly to any group,” Zwier said in explaining why he told Tolston he had been called a ”n-r lover.”

Yes. That right there is all that’s relevant no matter what the other guy did afterward. This is the old Sarah Silverman routine (that got her in a good deal of trouble at the time) highlighting how racial slurs don’t become better when you say you “love” them. Being an ally doesn’t carry absolute immunity in perpetuity. In Zwier’s defense, he seems to genuinely feel that he’s substantively on the right side of the civil rights chasm and that this is entirely stylistic.

The problem that he just doesn’t seem to grasp is that rhetoric isn’t just stylistic. It shapes everything about the educational dynamic. In another conversation with a student, Zwier pointed out his genuine track record on racial justice work and said, “I’m the wrong guy to be subject to this kind of attack as if I’m cavalier or insensitive or… misunderstanding how it can cause harm.”

No, if you’re not yet in a position to say, “it was cavalier and insensitive and I did misunderstand how it can cause harm,” then you’ve not yet come to grips with what’s really going on here. Once that’s been done, the path to returning to school can begin, but not before.

Confidential Report Sets Stage for Emory Law Prof’s Hearing Over N-Word [Law.com]

Earlier: Welcome To Emory Law School — It’s Been 0 Days Since We Last Used The N-Word In Class
Why Can’t Emory Law School Professors Stop Using The N-Word All The Time?
Law School Professor Drops The N-Word In The First Week Of Class
Law School Professor Who Dropped The N-Word In Class Is Back At It
Law Professor Drops Racial Slur In Class Because Otherwise How Will Black Students Ever Learn About Racism?

Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

We’ve long discussed how the Pai FCC’s net neutrality repeal was plagued with millions of fraudulent comments, many of which were submitted by a bot pulling names from a hacked database of some kind. Millions of ordinary folks (like myself) had their identities used to support Pai’s unpopular plan, as did several Senators. Numerous journalists like Jason Prechtel have submitted FOIA requests for more data (server logs, IP addresses, API data, anything) that might indicate who was behind the fraudulent comments, who may have bankrolled them, and what the Pai FCC knew about it.

Those efforts have slowly been paying off. Back in January, Gizmodo linked some of the fake comments to Trump associates and some DC lobbying shops like CQ Roll Call. This week, Buzzfeed went even further, drawing a direct line between the fake comments and the broadband industry:

“A BuzzFeed News investigation — based on an analysis of millions of comments, along with court records, business filings, and interviews with dozens of people — offers a window into how a crucial democratic process was skewed by one of the most prolific uses of political impersonation in US history. In a key part of the puzzle, two little-known firms, Media Bridge and LCX Digital, working on behalf of industry group Broadband for America, misappropriated names and personal information as part of a bid to submit more than 1.5 million statements favorable to their cause.”

Broadband For America, who we’ve discussed previously, pretends to be a coalition of “consumer groups” and other interests “dedicated to protecting a free and open internet for all Americans.” But it’s little more than a cut out for Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, and other industry giants. Via a slow and painstaking FOIA process, Buzzfeed ultimately linked many of the stolen identities to major data breaches like the hack of modern business solutions by matching the fraudulent names via the hack database at HaveIBeenPwned.

Just in case the lede gets buried here: the broadband industry hired shady goons to use stolen data to create fake public support for anti-consumer tech policy. And nobody (especially the FCC) has done a damn thing about it.

Granted the net neutrality repeal is just one of many examples of lobbyists polluting regulatory comment periods (usually the only time consumers are allowed to give feedback on policy decisions) with fake people, and both Media Bridge and LCX Digital appear to have other clients beyond just the broadband sector:

“The anti–net neutrality comments harvested on behalf of Broadband for America, the industry group that represented telecommunications giants including AT&T, Cox, and Comcast, were uploaded to the FCC website by Media Bridge founder Shane Cory, a former executive director of both the Libertarian Party and the conservative sting group Project Veritas. Cory has claimed credit for “20 or 30” major public advocacy campaigns in recent years, including, he says, record-setting submissions to the IRS, Environmental Protection Agency, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, and “probably a handful of others.”

Classy! Given that both the DOJ and the NY Attorney General are (supposedly still) conducting ongoing inquiries into the fake net neutrality comments, this may not be the last time you’ll see these lobbying shops’ names in lights. Meanwhile it’s rather ironic that the same week a court ruling comes down supporting (mostly) the FCC’s repeal, a big chunk of the “public support” for the repeal — and the FCC’s primary justification for it (that the rules stifled broadband investment) — were clearly proven to be fraudulent. So far, one gets the sneaking suspicion the US legal system may just be broken.

Surprise! Buzzfeed Links Bogus Net Neutrality Comments Directly To Broadband Industry

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Zimbabwe is facing the worst economic crisis since 2008, when inflation got so bad it had to print trillion-dollar notes. Many thought after Robert Mugabe fell two years ago things would get better, but they haven’t. Nearly everyone is suffering, but recently, it’s doctors who’ve taken to the streets in protest. NPR’s Eyder Peralta reports.

EYDER PERALTA, BYLINE: The doctors gather in front of one of the big public hospitals in Harare.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER: (Foreign language spoken).

UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Foreign language spoken).

PERALTA: Since the beginning of last month, junior doctors have not been showing up to work. Dr. Tapiwa Mungofa stands before his peers and says doctors are now being paid less than $100 a month. That’s not enough to eat, not enough to pay rent.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

TAPIWA MUNGOFA: We are not talking about clothes. We are not talking about buying cars. We are not talking about anything – just to survive. Just to be able to go to work, we couldn’t afford.

PERALTA: The night before, the head of the doctors union, Dr. Peter Magombeyi, a pediatrician who had led this strike, was abducted. The doctors had no doubt the government was to blame, so the fear is palpable.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

MUNGOFA: We are now considering the workplace and even our homes unsafe for doctors. We don’t know who is going to be taken next.

PERALTA: The doctors take off. They march around the hospital campus.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Singing in foreign language).

PERALTA: But they never leave the gates because that would mean facing off with security forces.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Singing in foreign language).

PERALTA: Right now, it’s not just doctors who are hurting. Zimbabwe’s currency has tumbled. Inflation is sky-high. And the markets have lost trust in the government. Economist Tony Hawkins.

TONY HAWKINS: So you’ve got a sort of a vicious circle relationship. And the authorities are really at a loss to know what to do.

PERALTA: In real terms, the government has few dollars to pay for essentials – gasoline to run generators, chemicals to treat water, money to pay teachers and doctors. For regular folk, the minimum wage keeps dropping. In just one week, it lost almost 40% of its value. They now make just $20 a month. One of the big problems is that Zimbabwe lacks the reserves to prop up its currency.

HAWKINS: It’s hard to see a way out of this unless there’s some kind of international bailout.

PERALTA: And the international community has been waiting for real democratic changes in order to step in. The abduction of the doctor hasn’t helped, but Sibusiso Moyo, the country’s foreign minister, says they had nothing to do with it.

Still, about 50 other government critics have been abducted in recent months, and several activists were criminally charged by the government after they were found. Is this not the way old Zimbabwe used to deal with its foes, I ask.

SIBUSISO MOYO: It’s not easy to move from one regime into the next.

PERALTA: This is a new government, he says, that is, quote, decongesting minds and teaching people to unlearn the past.

MOYO: And therefore, when you say it looks like, because of certain issues, we may be the same like the previous, it is only because everybody is human and that people are likely to fall into the previous.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Singing in foreign language).

PERALTA: The day after the first protest, doctors do leave the hospital.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Singing in foreign language).

PERALTA: They walk onto the city streets, but they are stopped by police about a block from the presidential offices. Dr. Karongo, who only gives his first name because he fears retaliation, stands right in front of officers in full riot gear. The abduction, he says, made them push through their fear.

KARONGO: For this incident, everyone is prepared to come out and be heard.

PERALTA: This time, it was hundreds of them. Senior doctors and nurses joined in. They sat at a major thoroughfare as workers gawked from buildings above. Dr. Tinga, who only gave her first name because of the same fears, says they were forced to the streets.

TINGA: We are being forced to work in an environment where there’s nothing to use in the hospital.

PERALTA: No pain medicine, no gloves, no needles – and some doctors have had to turn to farming to make a living. Dr. Tinga is having to take money from her parents abroad to make ends meet. I ask if she ever imagined herself on the streets of Harare facing off with riot police.

TINGA: Never. I thought life was going to be really good once I was done with med school. I thought med school was the worst that my life was ever going to experience, so it’s crazy, yeah.

PERALTA: Dr. Peter Magombeyi was eventually found in a field far from Harare. He says he remembers being held in a basement and electrocuted. After initially being barred from leaving, he is now in South Africa getting medical treatment.

Eyder Peralta, NPR News, Harare. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

Post published in: Featured

* Michael Avenatti is suing Stormy for legal fees and remembering those names should serve as a reminder that impeachment as a concept six months ago and as a concept post-Ukraine revelations isn’t even in the same ballpark. [Daily Beast]

* Antonio Brown may not be an ideal litigant. [TMZ]

* A reminder that criminals are routinely too stupid to avoid a (digital) paper trail. [Courthouse News Service]

* A look at Pat Cipollone and his campaign to demean his office. [The Atlantic]

* Attention vapers: New York courts have got your back. [Law360]

* The Sixth Circuit could blow up the opioid suits under the foundational American doctrine of “big companies can’t do anything wrong.” [Law.com]

* In a very Silicon Valley kind of move, IP firm Harrity & Harrity opened an incubator for women and minority owned law firms. [American Lawyer]

* The most trusted corporate law firms. [Forbes]

Seal Software, the company that helped spawn the increasingly competitive field of enterprise contract review and analytics, has now expanded into the pre-execution, negotiation side of the contracts lifecycle with the launch of Seal Now, a contract analytics product specifically designed to review draft contracts prepared by a third party on its own templates.

In so doing, Seal is facing a new group of competitors that already offer contract prescreening, including BlackBoiler, ContractLogix, LawGeex, and ThoughtRiver. But Seal has the market advantage of an established customer base and technology that works across the contract lifecycle, from negotiation to review.

Using the AI and analytics capabilities of Seal’s contract analytics platform, Seal Now analyzes contract drafts and delivers a “scorecard” grading the extent to which they conform to conform to or diverge from a company’s legal standards and playbooks. These scorecards — which use red, yellow and green lights similar to a traffic light — are provided directly within Microsoft Word and also delivered via email.

According to the company, Seal Now incorporates a combination of AI insights using Seal’s contract analytics platform, a logic engine to confirm compliance with a company’s playbook, a clause library to allow substitution of preferred or approved language, and scorecards and dashboards to show key information and guide the negotiator to critical areas of the draft contract.

Seal’s general counsel, Laurie Brasner, told me in an interview yesterday that she uses Seal Now in her own work and that it has been a game changer for her.

As GC of a growing company, she explained, she cannot personally review every contract. But what she can do is identify the elements that she most cares about and, by using Seal Now, quickly review contract drafts and make sure they are all there. “The speed and accuracy are crucial, and it gives me the confidence to move forward.”

It also serves a triage function, she said, giving her a quick and early look at the likely issues in the negotiation and helping her decide the right lawyer in her department to handle it. It also helps her work with her internal sales staff in negotiating a contract, enabling her to identify the business issues they should tackle and the legal issues her lawyers should handle. “It shows us how we can work in tandem from early on.”

Seal said that it beta tested the Seal Now product with several clients, including the enterprise legal services provider UnitedLex, and that UnitedLex will now be making it a core part of its own service offering, predicting that its own clients will achieve more than $250 million in accelerated revenue due to more rapid contracting cycle times. (The statement did not give a time frame for that assertion.)

Seal Now is not a substitute for the work done by lawyers in negotiating and drafting contracts, Brasner said, but it drives efficiency by speeding review and enhancing the accuracy of the review, and it gives her assurance that contracts are being handled in the right way, even if she cannot review each and every one.

According to a new study of clinician faculty demographics by the Clinical Legal Education Association, what percentage of all full-time law school clinicians are minorities?

Hint: Caitlin Barry of Villanova Law, one of the study’s authors, said of the findings: “I think we were surprised by the lack of more significant progress over time—although anecdotally most of us, just looking around the institutions where we work, should not have been surprised given that we’ve all been working within law schools and clinics. I would not say that, on the whole, the findings are positive.”

See the answer on the next page.

Calling All Legal Ops Leaders: The 2019 LDO Survey Is Live

Calling All Legal Ops Leaders: The 2019 LDO Survey Is Live

LDO and Above the Law

I think it’s inappropriate to be having ‘what if’ discussions about Justice Ginsburg’s health. But the fact that the left is talking so much about Justice Ginsburg demonstrates her importance to them as a symbol and the intensity of the kinds of campaigns they would wage over Supreme Court vacancies in the future.

— Leonard Leo, executive vice president of the Federalist Society, commenting on the fact that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s health has been a constant topic of conversation among both Democrats and Republicans in the lead up to the upcoming presidential election. Leo has headed up numerous GOP Supreme Court selections, including that of Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.