Free Republic

Pablo Escobar's famed hippos - who have thrived in Colombia since the notorious drug lord was killed almost 30 years ago - got a stay of execution after a United States federal court ruled that animals can be recognized as legal persons. Judge Karen Litkovitz, of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, issued the ruling Tuesday after the nonprofit Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF) filed an application seeking to allow two experts in nonsurgical sterilization of wildlife to provide testimony supporting a Colombian lawsuit to stop a cull. The Animal Legal Defense Fund made the...

In Meriwether v. Trustees of Shawnee State University, (SD OH, Sept. 5, 2019), an Ohio federal magistrate judge recommended dismissing challenges brought by a faculty member against his university claiming that the school's nondiscrimination policy violates his 1st and 14th Amendment rights as well as his rights under the state constitution. Shawnee State requires faculty to refer to students using pronouns that reflect the student's gender identity even when that is different that the gender assigned to the student at birth. Plaintiff alleges that he is an evangelical Christian with the religious belief that gender cannot be changed after the...