Legal scholars troubled over Democrats' memo

Washington Times ^ | 3/19/04 | Charles Hurt

[ConservativeGadfly]

May be true inside the Senate, but it ain't true outside those hallowed halls. Rest assured that many, many people are working on this feverishly.

[ConservativeGadfly]

Workin' on it.

[SuziQ]

"Wow," Georgetown University law professor Jonathan Turley said when he read the memo. "It raises very serious questions about propriety. On its face, there is an element of complicity and dishonesty."

No sh*t, Sherlock!

[abner]

Rest assured that many, many people are working on this feverishly.

Ain't it grand?

[Libloather]

...a memo showing staffers in Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's office plotting to manipulate one of the most significant court cases in recent years.

Should be hitting the headlines any year now...

[Liz]

The only legal scholars contacted by The Washington Times who did not condemn the Kennedy memo were University of Chicago's Cass R. Sunstein and Harvard University's Lawrence H. Tribe, two law professors who are widely credited with developing the current Democratic strategies to block Republican nominees.

Depraved liberals have perverted the halls of academia as they have the rest of the culture. Academia considers itself above mere political partisanship. Now we have profs dictating Dumbocrats' political machinations forcing liberal judges on the populace through secret, manipulative, underhanded activities.

Is this any way to run a democracy?

Democracy dies behind closed doors. Dumbocrats and their allies in academia are pulling the plug on our freedoms.

[The Wizard]

some dem MUST pay

[Liz]

University of Chicago Transgender Activists Demand 'Gender Neutral' Bathrooms

Monday, December 01, 2003


Continuing their campaign to force a mental disorder on the general populace, transgender activists at the University of Chicago are demanding ''gender neutral'' bathrooms. Apparently assuming that someone actually has a gender is now considered offensive, and making sure that transgenders are ''comfortable'' is of the utmost importance to society. In addition, feminists have decided that separate bathrooms for men and women constitute oppression.

Lucio Guerrero, writing for The Chicago Sun-Times, provides the mind-boggling details.

Transgender, gay and feminist groups at the University of Chicago are asking officials to consider creating more gender-neutral bathrooms, saying some people aren't comfortable selecting a gender-specific facility.

''Persons who are not easily legible as male or female often experience various forms of intimidation in these places. If a woman in a women's-only restroom is assumed to be a man, there may be real threats to her comfort and even safety,'' warns the Coalition for a Queer Safe Campus, a student group comprised of various organizations supporting equality on campus. ''Students have faced gay-baiting comments in our university's sex-segregated bathrooms.''

The issue is especially of concern to transgenders who attend the university. The coalition said they know of students who don't use the bathrooms at school to avoid any controversy.

Members of the Feminist Majority, Queers & Associates and the Center for Gender Studies held a panel at the university last week to discuss the issue. Moon Duchin, a graduate student at U. of C. and an adviser to the Queer Safe Campus bathroom initiative, said there is a misperception on campus from some students about the gender-neutral bathrooms.

She said after the panel convened and word spread about the topic, some students posted negative comments on Web sites about the movement.

''This is a hot-button issue with some people who think that we are trying to do away with conventional bathrooms,'' Duchin said. ''But that's not the case. We are trying to create more choices for people.''

In the short term, the group wants to change existing bathrooms on one floor of the Joseph Regenstein Library and one floor of Cobb Hall, a popular student hangout. In the future, the group would like the university to consider gender-neutral bathrooms to be included in the plans for new buildings.

''Access to public, single-occupancy bathrooms would be ideal for undercutting this source of intimidation, but converting existing multi-stall bathrooms to gender neutrality is an excellent, and easy, intermediate step,'' the group writes on its Web site.

''They have done a great job of raising community awareness of the issue,'' said Bill Michel, associate dean of the college. ''We are in the process of evaluating these two buildings to see if would be possible to create more bathrooms.''

Michel said the university already has nine gender-neutral bathrooms but none in the two most popular buildings.

But it is more than just a gay and transgender issue, for some feminists the issue of gender specific bathrooms has been a problem for years.

''Some feminists might say that any sex segregation is problematic,'' said Mary Anne Case, a professor of law at the University of Chicago who has studied the early roots of feminism and the inequality in sex segregated bathrooms.

Case said that along with creating more bathroom space for women -- a typical problem in public facilities -- the gender-neutral bathroom would also give men and women less reasons to separate in social functions.


--SNIP--

[Fiddlstix]

"I don't want to comment on stolen materials," Mr. Sunstein said. "Even if there is something bad in there, it would be improper of me -- and possibly of you -- to comment on them."