Category: Courts and law
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Viewpoint Discrimination in Hiring at UVa – “Presumptively Unconstitutional”
by James C. Sherlock The University of Virginia engages today in in-your-face viewpoint discrimination in hiring. The counterfactually named University of Virginia Office for Equal Opportunity and Civil Rights (EOCR) declares itself responsible for: Recruitment and Hiring: facilitating and monitoring faculty and staff recruitment and hiring and training faculty and staff regarding applicable laws and best…
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For Your Consideration: An Intellectual Freedom Protection Act
by James C. Sherlock I offer for your consideration the text of a draft Intellectual Freedom Protection Act proposed this morning by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). FIRE is the leading American voice supporting academic freedom, free speech and due process. In doing so they defend democracy itself. They are what the ACLU…
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Richmond’s Crime-Infested Neighborhoods, Terrible Public Schools and Equity
by James C. Sherlock It’s Black History Month. Even in Richmond. As a contribution, I am going to review the facts on the ground in Richmond — in its most crime-ridden neighborhoods and its worst public schools. Which are overwhelmingly Black. And co-located. In a city with a Black mayor and a Black school board.…
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The Bill of the Year: Menstrual Search Warrants
By Steve Haner Now here’s a phrase I never expected to type, even in a blog post: menstrual data. Looks like the 2023 Virginia General Assembly will be best remembered down the road for a silly bill that sparked a very avoidable stumble and then turned into a National Thing. Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) was…
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Calls Increase for Judge Bennett’s Resignation
by Scott Dreyer As reported here, the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) recently released a scathing report on the former Virginia Parole Board scandal from early 2020. As documented in 69 pages, the former board repeatedly broke both laws and the board’s own procedures to illegally release many prisoners convicted of violent crimes, and…
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School Discipline – Part 5 – How and When Democrats Broke Virginia Public Schools
by James C. Sherlock We read earlier today that the eminent developmental theorist Urie Bronfenbrenner has written: The more we study human development, the more it becomes clear the family is the most powerful, most humane and, by far, the most economical way of making human beings human. That truth, however, does not account for…
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Virginia Is for Lovers… Er, Lawyers
From a study by federal-lawyer.com: There are 21.23 applicants to law school per 100,000 population in Virginia — the ninth highest ratio for any state in the country. Leading the tally is our next-door neighbor, Washington, D.C., with 129.4 applicants, far exceeding the 29.15 per 100,000 ratio of runner-up New York. According to the American…
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Virginia Senate Committee Passes Second Look Bill
by Hans Bader Do all inmates deserve a chance for release? Even a serial killer, or a serial rapist who has been locked up and released before? They may soon have that chance in Virginia. In the state Senate, the Judiciary Committee has just approved the Second Look bill, SB 842. It would allow offenders…
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Virginia Community Schools Redefined – Hubs for Government and Not-for-Profit Services in Inner Cities – Part 1 – the Current Framework
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in Attendance, Charity, Philanthropy, Nonprofits, Children and Families, Civil Rights, Individual Liberties, Courts and law, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Culture wars, Discipline and Disorder, Education (K-12), Efficiency in Government, General Assembly, Health Care, Infrastructure, LGBQT, Mental illness and substance abuse, Political Influence, Poverty & income gap, Public safety & health, Social Services and Entitlements, Threat Assessmentby James C. Sherlock I believe a major approach to address both education and health care in Virginia’s inner cities is available if we will define it right and use it right. Community schools. One issue. Virginia’s official version of community schools, the Virginia Community School Framework, (the Framework) is fatally flawed. The approach successful elsewhere…
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RVA 5×5: Redefining 100 Percent Compliance
by Jon Baliles The recent stories from the City Jail have been anything but good — inmates dying far too often, staffing shortages leading to dangerous work conditions, deputies quitting, and the lack of leadership that can’t fill the vacancies while conducting lie detector tests on some of the staff that remain. Tyler Layne at…
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SCC Term Bill Could Break Deadlock on Vacancies
By Steve Haner A Northern Virginia state senator has introduced legislation to change the terms of the members of the State Corporation Commission, perhaps creating a path to compromise on picking two or more new judges. Political deadlock between the Republican-controlled House and Democratic-controlled Senate has stalemated that process for more than a year. Democratic…
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In Search of the Fountainhead of Religious Freedom in Virginia
by James Wyatt Whitehead, V A recent trip to study the Civil War battlefield of Fredericksburg brought me to stately Washington Avenue in one of Virginia’s most historic cities. The street is adorned with grand Victorian mansions and Kenmore, the colonial home of Fielding and Betty Lewis (George Washington’s sister). Here stands a statue to…
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The Shooting at Richneck Elementary – Part One
by James C. Sherlock There is trauma everywhere you look. A six-year-old boy shoots his teacher in school and we first consider the trauma. Then we look for ways to minimize its effects. And we simultaneously ask questions about the event itself. What happened and why? Unless we are personally involved, and even if we…
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All In The Family
by Dick Hall-Sizemore It is not just national Republicans that appear ready to tear into each other. A couple of Virginia Republicans have also been at it. Wren Williams is a first-term Republican Delegate from Patrick County. Marie March, also in her first term, is a Republican delegate from next-door Floyd County. The redistricting has…
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Politics, Virginia Style
by Bill Bolling It has been said that if you love politics, Virgina is a great place to be because there is an election every year! This year, 2023, will be no exception with all 140 seats in the Virginia General Assembly up for grabs. But 2023 will not be your typical General Assembly election…