hunter of justice

A profile of Justice Moreno, the lone dissenter in Strauss v. Horton

From the LA Times:

For most of his eight years on the California Supreme Court, the low-key and affable Carlos R. Moreno largely blended in with the six other justices, building a reliably middle-of-the-road record. Then came Proposition 8, the initiative that reinstated a ban on same-sex-marriage. In May, Moreno cast the court's only vote to overturn it.

Now, with the court's term concluding last month, the jurist chosen because of his moderate views is getting a second appraisal from legal analysts, who say his unexpected boldness may signal a growing independence. His lonely stance has raised his profile and encouraged speculation that he may be stepping into a more visible role.

Moreno, in several interviews, offered some of his most extensive comments on the controversial decision, which he weighed while he was under consideration for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court.

The court's lone Democrat, born in Los Angeles to Mexican immigrants, ... Moreno has tended to vote with the court's more liberal jurists -- Joyce L. Kennard and Kathryn Mickle Werdegar -- and he joined a narrow majority in May 2008 to overturn the state's ban on same-sex marriage. But he had never come close to becoming a liberal icon like Stanley Mosk, the late justice whom Moreno replaced. Court analysts were more likely to commend Moreno for congeniality than for courage.

"His signature opinion to date is his dissent in the Prop. 8 case," said Jon Eisenberg, an appellate lawyer. "He did not stay under the radar. He took a position without regard to the consequences. . . . That was unusual for him because he threw caution to the wind."

Embracing a novel theory, Moreno said he "legally and morally" believes that a measure that strips a minority of a key right can not be approved as constitutional amendment by a mere majority in an election. That's a stance the state court has never taken and, had President Obama nominated him to the U.S. Supreme Court, it could have doomed his appointment.

UC Irvine Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky said it was remarkable that Moreno held to his position on Proposition 8 once he learned of his candidacy. "He knew he was being considered for the U.S. Supreme Court, and it would have been very easy for him in a 6-1 case to make it unanimous," Chemerinsky said. Moreno, who has a gay nephew and lesbian niece, said in his dissent that the ballot measure was a threat to all minorities.

"Feelings about same-sex marriage are really generational," Moreno said over lunch at a Peruvian cafe near his San Francisco chambers. "The bans against interracial marriage were at one time widely accepted, but no one would tolerate that kind of restriction in modern times. And I think the same is true for gay marriage."

Moreno also was the only member of the court to marry a gay couple before voters reinstated the marriage ban. One of his law clerks asked him to do the honors. Chief Justice Ronald M. George, who wrote the historic ruling that first allowed gays to wed in California, also had been asked to marry gay couples. He refused, saying it might create an appearance of conflict if Proposition 8 passed and came before the court. Moreno said he concluded it would be "discrimination" to refuse, because same-sex marriage at the time was legal....

A review of court decisions over a recent 15-month period found Moreno agreed most often with George. He disagreed with the court's conservatives as often as with its liberals."So he is very much dead center," said Santa Clara University Law Professor Gerald Uelmen, who did the analysis. Still, those who know Moreno say he is personally closest to the court's more liberal justices and more likely than George to vote with them. Chemerinsky called Moreno "one of the more liberal judges on a fairly conservative court."

Although Moreno has shown independent streaks before, he said he believes "the law should develop incrementally." "I am not in favor of big leaps," he said. He prefers the label "careful" to "cautious," though he adds, "I don't think that 'cautious' is too far off the mark."

Asked whether his years on the court have made him more confident and willing to dissent, he hesitated. "It takes quite a bit for me to dissent," he said. "On a court like ours, we try to accommodate. It is only the last resort that any of us dissent."

Queer and (in the) country

Following is an interview in Wiretap magazine
with Mary Gray, author of Out in the Country: Youth, Media and Queer Visibility in Rural America, a new book on rural gay life. The author, a professor in the Gender Studies Department at Indiana University, is doing readings this fall in New York, DC, San Francisco, Philadelphia and other locations; full schedule and details are here. Although not about legal issues,the discussion opens a window onto an aspect of lgbt political and social life about which little is known.

The advice given to queer and questioning youth by gay rights icon Harvey Milk was simple: Move to the nearest city. Why is this statement a disservice to queer rural youth?

This sentiment effectively tells rural LGBTQ-identifying youth they can't be happily queer right where they are and should expect -- perhaps deserve -- hostility if they do stay in their communities.

Many of the youth I met struggled with reconciling the deep connection or pride they feel for their hometowns with the popular representation of their communities as backward, ignorant and unlivable -- not just for queer folks, but for anyone with taste or class. They feel they're not supposed to see their communities as viable options, and are being told they need to choose between being queerly out of place in the country and moving to a big city to find legitimate visibility.

How does class affect the lives of LGBTQ folks in these areas?

Working class and poor rural communities require citizen solidarity to weather the neglect and marginalization from the nation-state. In this environment, LGBTQ people must be seen primarily as "locals" and risk too much advocating for their concerns as queer folks because familiarity, not difference, ensures one's access to basic necessities.

Beyond churches, there are few resources available in rural communities to cover these basics should one's family be unable or unwilling to provide them. The fact that rural queer youth feel they have to choose speaks to the assumption that queerness not only resides in urban settings, but only comes with social and economic mobility.

According to the 2000 Census, rural America is 82 percent white. How do queer people of color navigate their personal and political alliances in a space of overlapping marginalization?

Queer youth of color are doubly estranged and, if they openly identify as queer, have more to risk. While parallels drawn by white peers or allies between the civil rights and LGBTQ rights movements might help young people of color feel more connected to LGBTQ activism, this uncritical argument also creates dissonance. As one young African American man named Brandon noted, he could see the connections between the two movements, but ultimately felt a greater responsibility to be a leader among students of color because that's where his community was.

For Brandon, the internet introduced another layer to racial divisions. He went online to find other bi- or gay-identifying men in his region and found almost exclusively white men, some of whom spoke about their desire in ways that struck Brandon as incredibly racist. While Brandon still felt the internet was an important part of allowing him to feel his desire for other men was normal, it also demonstrated how hard it would be for him to synthesize his racial and sexual identities.

How is the internet used by rural queer youth to shape or reinforce one's own queer identification?

The internet's value to rural queer youth identification can't be understated, but its impact cuts both ways. The internet offers an opportunity to explore queer identifications and search for other youth in the area, but it also make things more difficult by homogenizing what LGBTQ life and people are like and erasing the rural from the picture of queer life.

The internet also gives ideas for organizing politically that have no viability in rural communities. A door-to-door voter registration drive for LGBTQ issues won't work in a place where people don't see LGBTQ issues as a local concern.

What should national organizations do to re-center rural queer youth needs in the larger gay rights movement?

We need to re-examine our assumption that rural places are endemically hostile to queer folks. The frequency of hate crimes in cities should signal to us that rural and urban spaces are differently [but] not more or less violent to queer people. Without rural communities and their LGBTQ constituents, national and statewide advocacy groups will be unable to advance basic civil rights issues on a national scale.

Assuming LGBTQ life necessarily improves through securing the right to marry without equally valuing, and in rural communities prioritizing, accessible LGBTQ-specific healthcare and job protections will do very little to change the lives of working class and poor rural LGBTQ youth. Anyone who thinks rural queer kids are just a wedding ring away from full citizenship and equality hasn't spent time looking for healthcare or a living wage in rural Appalachia.

Your research was rooted in uncovering best practices for rural queer youth organizing. What strategies did you find?

The importance of coalitional politics in rural communities and the need to prioritize the "localness" of an issue is crucial. In some cases, gay-straight alliances will work, but human dignity student clubs that address homophobia alongside other discrimination may work better to build community support. The argument that non-LGBTQ folks should care about LGBTQ issues like marriage equality because it's "the right thing to do" misses the complicated meaning of marriage and families to people who depend on those institutions for both material and symbolic support.

For more information, visit:

http://queercountry.fromthesquare.org/

Dem Senators and Clinton on gays in the military, 1993

From Joan Walsh at Salon who is reviewing the new Taylor Branch book, The Clinton Tapes:

There are some wonderful windows on policy triumph and disappointment: [Branch] depicts a stormy but funny meeting of Democratic senators to tell Clinton why they'll block any liberalization of policy on gays in the military. Robert Byrd leads off fulminating about the immorality of homosexuality, and Clinton tries to head him off by noting that adultery is immoral (ahem) but we don't dismiss military folks for cheating on their spouses. Sam Nunn raised the unit cohesion argument (there was a lot of discussion of those close quarters, especially on Navy ships!). Clinton observes Sen. Ted Kennedy on the sidelines: "I couldn't tell if Teddy was going to start giggling or jump out the window" as the talk turned to the bawdy, omnisexual practices of ancient Greek and Roman warriors.

But at the end of the day, Clinton said, he was surprised by the fact that he couldn't tell which of the opponents truly believed it was bad to have gays in the military (or anywhere else); all they discussed was the politics of the proposal. That theme would recur. Clinton was the consummate horse-trader, no steely ideologue, but even he was surprised at the extent to which politics trumped policy, or even the silly idea of what's right or what's best for the country, in every single debate.

Lambda settles Benitez case

Last year, Lambda Legal won a decision in the California Supreme Court that a private medical practice could not assert the religious beliefs of its doctor-owners as a defense to a claim that a lesbian had been denied services because of her sexual orientation. Yesterday, rather than take the case to trial, the defendants agreed to settle with the plaintiff, Guadalupe Benitez.  Mucho kudos to lead counsel Jenny Pizer.

From the San Diego Union Tribune:

A long-running lawsuit between an Oceanside lesbian couple and two doctors that pitted the civil rights of same-sex couples against religious freedom for physicians has been settled. The terms of the settlement were not disclosed. It ends a lawsuit filed in 2001 by Guadalupe Benitez against Drs. Douglas Fenton and Christine Brody at North Coast Women's Care in Vista.

Benitez alleged that the doctors told her they would not inseminate her because their religious convictions – they are Christians – prohibited them from doing the procedure for a lesbian couple. Benitez went to another doctor, got pregnant and had a child with her partner, Joanne Clark. The boy is now 7. The couple also have 4-year-old twins....

  ... [T]he doctors and the couple released a joint statement in which the doctors said they were sorry that Benitez and Clark felt they were being treated differently because of their sexual orientation. The doctors said they want “all of their patients, including those who are lesbian and gay, to feel welcome and accepted in their medical practice, and are committed to treating all of their patients with equal dignity and respect in the context of the highest quality of medical care.”

The doctors contended as the case went on that they declined to do the procedure because Benitez was unmarried – not because of her sexual orientation. But there was also evidence in the case early on that the doctors had acknowledged that they did not inseminate her because she is a lesbian....

“It was a really hard thing to go through, but it was worth it because we have hopefully paved the way for other people, and made sure that this is not going to happen to someone else,” [Benitez] said....

The state's civil rights law ... allow[s] doctors to opt out of some kinds of medical procedures, such as abortion. But if a physician does offer to do certain procedures, they must be made available to all, said Jennifer Pizer of Lambda Legal, an advocacy group for same-sex rights.

While the exact amount of the settlement is private, Pizer said it was enough so that the couple's children “will be able to have whatever type of education they want to have in the future.” ...

The disparate impact non-issue in ENDA

By Guest Contributor Harper Jean Tobin

At last week’s House Education and Labor Committee hearing on ENDA, witness Camille Olsen, an attorney who represents employers, raised several questions about what she characterized as ambiguities in the bill. Among the points Olson raised was the question of “disparate impact” claims under ENDA. Olson’s technical arguments were potentially confusing even for an attorney like myself, so it’s worth trying to explain them in plain English.

Under existing employment discrimination laws, there are two types of unlawful discrimination claims. “Disparate treatment” cases are where there is evidence of intentional discrimination by the employer. Vandy Beth Glenn suffered a classic case of disparate treatment when her boss fired her for the stated reason that she was transitioning from male to female. The principle of “disparate impact” is different: an employer may not take actions that have the overall effect of excluding a group of people, unless there is a sufficient reason to do so.  For example, height and weight requirements have a disparate impact on women because (even though some women would meet them) they tend, on average, to exclude more women than men. Unless an employer can demonstrate a sound reason for using these requirements, they will be deemed discriminatory.

The disparate impact approach has been a powerful tool for promoting the inclusion of women and minority groups in the workplace. Some conservatives, however, oppose it because they view it as a form of “reverse discrimination.” Justice Antonin Scalia even speculated earlier this year that disparate impact laws could be unconstitutional. Because it has become something of a political football, disparate impact would be a sticking point under any new anti-discrimination law. But as Rep. Robert Andrews pointed out at the hearing, it would be hard to think of a situation where a disparate impact claim could be brought under ENDA. (No short men or tall women? No Streisand fans need apply?)  So, to avoid distracting debates on the subject, ENDA states that “Only disparate treatment claims may be brought under this Act.” That seems plenty clear to us. But Olson suggested that ENDA needs, well, added redundancy: to provide in so many words that disparate impact claims are barred, and that “disparate impact” means that same thing it does under every other law. Of course, as Acting EEOC Chair Stuart Ishimaru stated at the hearing, that’s really not needed: read in context, the bill is already crystal clear.

Like many of the other questions that have been raised about ENDA, this one is really a non-issue. We can expect to see more such non-issues raised in the weeks ahead.

-- Cross-posted at the Transgender Equality blog

Court dismisses case brought by partner denied hospital visitation

In a case with heart-wrenching facts, the federal district court in Miami has ruled that Jackson Memorial Hospital violated no duties of care in denying visitation to the partner and children of a patient who lay dying and in largely ignoring their requests for updates as to the patient's status. In Langbehn v Jackson Memorial Hospital, the court held that Janice Langbehn, who furnished a copy of her health care power of attorney to hospital staff shortly after her partner Lisa Pond was admitted, had no basis to recover in tort for the way that she was treated during the eight hours she spent in the trauma center [ER] waiting area. 

The court accorded no weight to proof of bias behind why Langbehn was treated as she was, and instead acknowledged only a narrow potential zone of liability for situations in which the health care surrogate could show that the denials of information or visitation create medical risk for the patient or that the surrogate would have made different decisions regarding care had she been more fully informed.

Lambda, which represents Langbehn, describes the facts as follows:

While on a family cruise leaving from Miami, Lisa Pond, a healthy 39 year-old, suddenly collapsed. She was rushed to Miami's Jackson Memorial Hospital with her partner Janice and three children following close behind. There, the hospital refused to accept information from Janice about her partner's medical history. Janice was informed that she was in an anti-gay city and state, and she could expect to receive no information or acknowledgment as Lisa's partner or family. A doctor finally spoke with Janice telling her that there was no chance of recovery. Other than one five minute visit that was arranged by a Catholic priest at Janice's request to perform last rites, and despite the doctor's acknowledgment that no medical reason existed to prevent visitation, neither Janice — who provided the hospital with a medical Power of Attorney document — nor their children were allowed to see Lisa until nearly eight hours after their arrival. Soon after Lisa's death, Janice tried to get her death certificate in order to get life insurance and Social Security benefits for their children. She was denied both by the State of Florida and the Dade County Medical Examiner.

The court agreed that the hospital had a duty to inform Langbehn about Pond's condition and to allow her, as the surrogate, to make decisions. However, it found that this duty was not breached because doctors consulted with Langbehn twice (during the eight hours), including once when they sought her permission to use a brain monitor. Because there was no medical need, as determined by the physicians, to provide additional information to Langbehn, the court ruled that the hospital staff had no duty to do so. Further, the court held that the duty to provide any information ceased after last rites were administered because there were no further medical decisions to be made.

The court's reasoning was similarly strained as to visitation. Staff in the ER where Pond was initially taken repeatedly refused Langbehn's requests to see Pond, despite one doctor's statement that there was no medical reason for Pond's family not to be with her. The sole exception was when last rites were administered. Seven hours after she was admitted, Pond was transferred to a non-trauma room in a different part of the hospital, but Langbehn was not told. An hour later, Pond's sister arrived. Hospital staff treated the sister as a legitimate relative, and informed her of Pond's transfer. Together with the sister, Langbehn and the children were then allowed visitation with Pond until she died.

On these facts, the court found no liability because "doctors at a trauma unit do not have a freestanding legal duty, untethered to informed consent..., to allow visitation with a patient who is in critical condition and undergoing treatment ... or to allow visitation with a terminal patient ... who is going to be transferred to a regular room where visitation will be permitted...[D]ecisions as to visitation must be left to the medical personnel in charge of the patient..."

In a similar case, the Washington Court of Appeals ruled that a patient's life partner could sue for outrage and negligent infliction of emotional distress for having been excluded from the patient's room for long periods the night before her death.  Reed v. ANM Healthcare, 147 Wash. App. 1044 (2008). There the physicians had allowed visitation, but a nurse countermanded the order.  The judge distinguished the facts in the Florida case because it was the physicians who barred the visitation that Langbehn sought.

At the very end of his opinion, Judge Jordan noted that "the defendants' lack of sensitivity and inattention" to the plaintiffs "caused them needless distress...[Defendants' actions] exhibited a lack of compassion and was unbecoming of a renowned trauma center...Unfortunately, no relief is available..."

In this case, tragic facts made very bad law, although the public education value of the ruling will probably be enormous. Not only should Lambda appeal, but Florida legislators should swiftly enact provisions that clearly prohibit this kind of conduct.

Out in Carolina politics: an interview with NC State Senator Julia Boseman

Julia Boseman, North Carolina's only out state senator, was the solitary holdout who voted no on the resolution honoring Sen. Jesse Helms after he died last year. She is also the successful plaintiff in a custody case, in which the North Carolina Court of Appeals accepted the validity of a second-parent adoption. What absolutely boggles my mind is that if I still lived in the very conservative town where I grew up, she would be my state senator.

Durham Indy interview conducted by Steven Petrow:     

In sitting down with the Indy recently at her Wilmington home, Boseman, a 43-year-old Democrat from New Hanover County, spoke frankly and movingly about [a number of issues].

For Boseman (and North Carolina's LGBT community), it's been, as she says, a "really good year," one where she successfully led the fight as primary sponsor of the School Violence Prevention Act (known informally as the anti-bullying bill), which specifically protects LGBT kids and marks the first time that sexual orientation and gender identity are included in North Carolina law. The year also marked the passage of the Healthy Youth Act, which provides young people with life-saving information about STDs as part of a comprehensive sex education program that teaches more than just abstinence....

Indy: When you first ran for office, were you out as a lesbian?

Sen. Boseman: Yes!

How much do you think your sexual identity has been a driver in your political life?

I have to say it's much easier with the whole world knowing that you're gay. I can remember when I ran in 2000 for county commissioner, I had a choice: I can either be closeted or I can run as an openly gay candidate. If I run as an out gay person, I take away the biggest bombshell that they can use against me. There was a lot of interest in my race at that time—especially my first Senate race [in 2004]—because there have only been a handful of openly gay elected officials in North Carolina. So people from around the country had concerns.

[In the end], I made a conscious decision to run as an out lesbian. I have to say it was a little unnerving when the media went through my campaign reports and they found out I got support from the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund. They came into my office with the cameras running, saying, "You're a lesbian. You're openly gay."

"Yes, I am. I am going to be honest with the people about who I am, just as I will be about honest with them about the issues that affect them."

So what's it like to be the lesbian, the only out state senator, the poster child for being an elected dyke here in North Carolina?

I never really think of it like that. People automatically assume things about you because you're gay—like you're going to raise taxes through the roof because you're liberal. You want everything that's considered liberal. Actually, we care about all the same things as other people—getting a good education, roads, where's the guy who's picking up my trash.

What advice do you have for other LGBT folks who are thinking about politics and public service?

You better have a really thick skin. You better want it real bad. You need to work hard. Don't get distracted from the light at the end of the tunnel.

Homophobia at U VA law school, circa 1985 - UPDATED

10/6/09 UPDATE - Since the following post was published, multiple blogs have picked up the story; current Virginia Law Dean Mahoney issued a denial that discrimination was a factor in Bill's tenure denial; Bill replied that Mahoney was mistaken; and a U VA student blog republished an article from the student newspaper in January 1986 quoting many students as "shocked" that Bill did not receive tenure and voicing suspicion that something fishy was going on (the main belief being that Bill's criticism of law and economics scholarship was behind the decision).  In other words, the end point of this story seems to be a he-said-he-said dispute, with a conclusive adjudication of exactly what happened and why probably impossible. Bill is a friend and co-author; I believe his testimony. The bigger point is that he has opened a window into what the world was like for gay men and lesbians in law teaching in the 1980's - it wasn't pretty.

++++++++

As part of his testimony at last week's House hearing on ENDA, Bill Eskridge retold a story that many people find it difficult to believe: that he was denied tenure at the University of Virginia Law School in substantial part because he is gay. What follows is an excerpt from the full testimony (pp.83-93):

    …Although I was gay and was dating men in Washington, DC during my tenure at Virginia, I was never publicly “out,” largely because I thought that such a status would be lethal for tenure purposes; from time to time, I heard snide anti-homosexual comments from senior faculty. But because I was closeted, I was vaguely optimistic about tenure when my case came up in the Fall Term, 1985. … [A faculty subcommittee reviewed Eskridge’s work and enthusiastically recommended tenure. The full appointments committee, in a virtually unprecedented move, rejected the recommendation.]

My understanding was that the subcommittee’s report was supposed to serve as the factual record for the Appointments Committee to consider in making its tenure recommendation to the faculty.   Before my case, the Appointments Committee had generally included at least one faculty member who was also on the subcommittee, and the report was always accepted as the primary basis for the final recommendation.   In my case, however, there was no overlap of personnel, and the Appointments Committee wrote its own report, apparently the first time that happened under this bifurcated system. … According to faculty colleagues, the committee’s meeting was an emotional one, filled with tension and anxiety.

…The morning after the committee’s negative meeting, I remained unaware of the committee’s recommendations and of its substantive objections.   Apparently, other senior faculty members became aware of the committee’s negative leanings and the fact that the committee had kept me in completely in the dark and was not following the procedures that had been duly established by the faculty.   While I sat in my office preparing for class that morning, stormy conversations were apparently occurring at various parts of the law school’s building.  Late in the morning, as I was finishing up my class preparation, the chair of the committee stormed into my office and screamed at me for 10 minutes or so.  With clenched fists and a beet-red face, the chair of the committee threw a tantrum that included a string of accusations, such as “stabbing me in the back” and behaving in the treacherous manner that he and his colleagues ought to have expected of a “faggot.”   Apparently, the chair thought I had complained to the dean that he had been derelict in following the established law school procedures and that I was sneaking behind his back to discredit him.  In fact, I remained utterly clueless as to what those procedures were and was reduced to tears as the chair of the committee spat on me and called me dirty names.   During this tirade, the chair of the committee never shared with me his committee’s reasons, their recommendation, or the news that I had a right to appear before the committee.  Nor did he share this information with me thereafter.  (Nor did he apologize for unfairly screaming at me, spitting on me, or calling me a “faggot.”)…

            After the committee’s report was ratified by the faculty, blood was in the water.  For the remainder of my tenure at the University of Virginia School of Law, I was harassed on a regular basis by faculty colleagues and parts of the law school’s administration.   Several faculty friends and at least one member of the committee explicitly urged me to get out of Charlottesville as quickly as possible, partly because there was so much hatred toward me on the faculty and partly just for my own mental sanity and physical safety (during the tirade by the chair of the committee, I believed that he was going to assault me).   So I visited at the Georgetown University Law Center in academic year 1987-88 and accepted a permanent position there in 1988. …

           

 

Kendell 2.0 - I felt like I was playing out of position

Kate Kendell reflects on the personal side of the California roller coaster ride for lgbt rights (with apologies for too much camera movement):

Lawbama profs - fall update (updated 10/21/09)

All together, 46 law professors are working or will soon be working in the Obama administration. In addition, four profs have been named to advisory or oversight boards.

Here's the updated list:

ADELL AMOS (Oregon) has been appointed Deputy Solicitor for land and water resources at Department of the Interior.

SAM BAGENSTOS (Michigan) is Deputy Assistant AG in the Civil Rights Division at Justice.

JONATHAN BAKER (American) is Chief Economist at the FCC.

MICHAEL BARR (Michigan) is Assistant Secretary of Treasury for Financial Institutions.

DAVID BARRON (Harvard) is Principal Deputy Assistant AG at OLC.

NORMAN BAY (New Mexico) has been named to head the Office of Enforcement for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

ROSA BROOKS (Georgetown) is a senior adviser to the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy.

MARCILYNN BURKE (University of Houston Law Center) is deputy director of policy and programs for the Bureau of Land Management

BILL BURKE-WHITE (Penn) is joining the State Department’s Policy and Planning office.

ALTA CHARO (Wisconsin) is a senior adviser in the Office of the Commissioner at the FDA.

SARAH CLEVELAND (Columbia) is Counselor on International Law with the Office of the Legal Adviser of the U. S. State Department.

TINO CUELLAR (Stanford) is Special Assistant to the President for Justice and Regulatory Policy, in the White House Domestic Policy Council.

SUSAN CRAWFORD (Michigan) is Special Assistant to the President for Science, Technology and Innovation Policy.

NESTOR DAVIDSON (Colorado) is Principal Deputy General Counsel at HUD.

LARRY ECHOHAWK (BYU) is the new head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

CHAI FELDBLUM (Georgetown) has been nominated to become a commissioner on the EEOC.

JODY FREEMAN (Harvard) is a counselor in the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change.

SETH HARRIS (New York Law School) is Deputy Secretary of Labor.

LISA HEINZERLING (Georgetown) wins the prize for first promotion: initially a senior advisor to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, she has been named Associate Administrator for the Office of Policy, Economics and Innovation (OPEI).