Faculty in the News, November 2001-February 2002

Rosa Ehrenreich Brooks’s op-ed piece on post-Taliban Afghanistan was published in the Nov. 25 Los Angeles Times and reprinted in Newsday the next day. Brooks argued that we will need to impose our commitment to human rights, women’s rights and democracy. “We need to learn from past mistakes to break the cycle of atrocity and terror in Afghanistan,” she wrote. “U.N. troops sent to provide security in Afghanistan must be given a robust mandate to protect human rights and safeguard fledgling democratic institutions. Peacekeepers will need rules of engagement that allow them to use force when necessary to accomplish these goals.”

An article on slavery reparations in the Nov. 26 Legal Times paid homage to the work of Kim Forde-Mazrui, which the author found “very helpful . . . in thinking through this issue.” The article notes that Forde-Mazrui has written a strong defense of the constitutionality of race-neutral affirmative action.

Articles on the abridgment of civil liberties in the face of terrorism in both the Nov. 18 New York Times and the Dec. 13 Christian Science Monitor have quoted Mike Klarman. In the Times article he said that “Sometimes we try to delude ourselves into thinking that the courts will protect us from our worst inclinations,” but in fact “the justices are part of the same culture that is willing, in times of war, to trade civil liberties for security.” Klarman also addressed these issues Nov. 30 on NPR's "All Things Considered."

Paul Lombardo was quoted in both a Nov. 25 Richmond Times-Dispatch story on the use of state patients as guinea pigs during World War II and a Dec. 9 Roanoke Times article on parental rights of a mother whose children had been abandoned. “The problems of children living in poverty with mothers who may not be able to take care of them are a daily business,” Lombardo said. “Resources that are available to mothers are probably more important than their mental status.”

David Martin has been quoted in several recent stories on terrorism-related immigration issues, including a Nov. 23 Boston Globe story on Canadian asylum law and a Nov. 30 St. Petersburg Times story on the use of secret evidence in deportation proceedings. A Nov. 12 New York Times story quotes Martin: “We're at risk of developing an exaggerated view of what immigration law can do in response to terrorism. There's all this talk of monitoring either students or anyone who comes in on temporary admission. Those may be very good in their own right. But it's not an efficient way to win the struggle against terrorism.”

Several news stories have quoted John Norton Moore, most extensively a Dec. 6 Salon.com article on the government’s expansive new law enforcement powers in which he said “We've done nothing that interferes with people's First Amendment freedoms. We've done nothing to limit discussion. And if you look at the USA Patriot Act, it's adjusting law enforcement issues at the margins.” Other Moore stories include a Dec. 5 New York Times article on a related topic and a Dec. 17 Christian Science Monitor article on the CIA’s role in domestic surveillance.

Robert O’Neil spoke at a Dec. 18 meeting in Washington of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, “War on Terrorism: What Does It Mean for Science?”, warning that stringent visa new requirements would pose a huge roadblock for research and development. He was also quoted in several recent news stories, including a Dec. 7 Virginian-Pilot article on gag orders in civil litigation. A Nov. 19 Legal Times story on a case before the Supreme Court on state judicial elections quotes O’Neil arguing that “Courts are profoundly different from other institutions in various ways that warrant curbing campaign speech to a degree that is neither necessary nor acceptable for other branches.”

Back-to-back days in mid-November found George Rutherglen in the New York Times and the Washington Post. He was quoted in the Nov. 13 Times on the new antiterrorism policy permitting the monitoring of lawyer-client communications, and the following day in the Post on a case permitting the introduction of evidence discovered after Virginia’s 21-day deadline for review of criminal convictions. In suggesting that the state may try to limit the impact of the case, Rutherglen said “It's better to settle a case that is a clear loser rather than go down in flames and have the constitutional principle established that you have a right to be free if you are innocent.”

Finally, Richard Posner’s review of R. Kent Newmyer’s new book on John Marshall in the Dec. 17 New Republic called Ted White a “leading student of the Marshall Court” and quoted White’s characterization of Marshall’s “extraordinary personality, a central trait of which was inoffensiveness.”   

John T. Monahan, a psychologist and law professor, was quoted Feb. 6 in a Los Angeles Times story headlined"High Court to Reexamine Sexual Predator Law Crime: Freedom for a Serial Rapist, and Many Others, Hinges on Question of the Likelihood of Recidivism."

Associate Professor of Law Stephen Smith was interviewed Jan. 26 on CNN's "Saturday Morning," discussing whether Jamil Abdulah Al-Amin—formerly known as H. Rap Brown, now accused of the March 2000 murder of two Atlanta sheriff's deputies—could receive a fair trial in the United States. According to the show's rough transcript, Smith said, "I think we do have a lot of precedent for being able to handle this in a fair and responsible way. And I expect that to be what happens in this particular case."

Robert L. Turner, associate director of U.Va.'s Center for National Security Law, was quoted Jan. 27 in a Richmond Times-Dispatch story, "Lindh's Trial Won't Be Ordinary: Timing Issue Could Trip Up Prosecutors."

Faculty in the News is compiled by Kent Olson, Law Library Director of Reference, Research and Instruction; and the Academic Communications department.