Prof. Aprill's law review article on dictionary citations referenced in NY Times story

Professor Ellen Aprill's law review article, "The Law of the Word: Dictionary Shopping in the Supreme Court," was cited in a New York Times column about dictionary citations in opinions. Below is an excerpt of the column, "Dictionary Citations by Justices Rise Sharply":

"A decade later, Ellen P. Aprill, who teaches at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, considered the implications of that finding in an article on "dictionary shopping in the Supreme Court."

"It may also be a surprise to the Supreme Court justices who look to dictionaries as authorities in construing statutes," she wrote in the Arizona State Law Journal, "that in good measure they are interpreting law according to The New York Times."

Prof. Justin Levitt's All About Redistricting gets a nod from the Washington Post

Washington Post political blogger Aaron Blake Tweeted of Associate Professor Justin Levitt's All About Redistricting website: "Want to know the latest on redistricting in a certain state? An AWESOME tool: http://bit.ly/kb6eTk."

Disability Rights Legal Center debuts Kirkland & Ellis Justice Fellowship

The Disability Rights Legal Center just announced the creation of The Kirkland & Ellis Justice Fellowship, a two-year position to head up the center's newly formed Community Advocacy Program. The goal of the program and the fellowship is to provide members of the disability community with critical information and resources about their civil rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act and other laws.

Given the complexity of legal issues, the DRLC is creating its first-ever fellowship to address the myriad of complex legal issues facing people with disabilities today. The fellowship will also give the next generation of attorneys an opportunity to engage in social justice work at the beginning of their legal careers. The fellowship is named in honor of Kirkland & Ellis LLP in recognition of the DRLC's long-standing pro-bono and co-counseling relationships with the firm, and for Kirkland's generous funding of this new fellowship.

The fellow will work at DRLC's Los Angeles office with other staff in the program, as well as DRLC's clinical law students and pro bono attorneys. He or she will also be responsible for outreach to legal organizations, service providers and other attorneys in order to facilitate meaningful referrals for callers and educate the community about DRLC's services. The goal of the program and the fellowship is to provide the disability community with critical information and resources that will connect them with relevant service providers, provide limited representation on smaller legal matters, facilitate self-advocacy and identify systemic issues appropriate for DRLC impact litigation. Importantly, the fellow will develop at least one area of expertise, such as housing rights for people with disabilities, rights of people who use service animals, the education rights of youth in the delinquency system, or the intersection of race and disability. The fellow will give trainings and write articles in this area of expertise to further the civil rights of people with disabilities in the disability and legal communities. Interested applicants should apply no later than July 8th via DRLC's website.

Prof. Justin Levitt launches All About Redistricting website

Associate Professor Justin Levitt, a national expert on redistricting, has launched All About Redistricting, an online guide to the process of drawing electoral district lines. The site is at redistricting.lls.edu.

All About Redistricting explains state-by-state the intricacies of the process with easy-to-digest breakdowns of state rules, summaries of procedures and links to relevant state websites. A series of interactive maps (example at right) guide users through the process. Levitt, a prolific scholar whose works include A Citizens Guide to Redistricting, includes his analyses of everything from current litigation to reform initiatives. Redistricting is underway nationwide in a process that will continue through 2012.

"This website is designed to be a one-stop easy-reference site for all sorts of redistricting information," said Levitt. "For each state's congressional and state legislative districts, we track the current status, describe who draws the lines and the rules for when and how the lines are drawn, and follow redistricting litigation from start to finish. Maps and charts quickly put the states in national context. And the site gathers other resources explaining how the process works now and how it might work in the future, all together in one place."

Levitt has served in various capacities for several presidential campaigns, including as the National Voter Protection Counsel in 2008. He coordinated the amicus response in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, a Supreme Court challenge to a state's voter ID requirements. Prior to joining the Loyola faculty, he was counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice. A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School, Levitt also teaches Constitutional Law at Loyola Law School.

Prof. Yxta Murray writes about Mark Zuckerberg's new kill-it-yourself diet

By Professor Yxta Maya Murray

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently emailed Fortune magazine with the news that this year he is undertaking a personal quest to eat only meat that he kills himself. As of this writing, he's reportedly axed a chicken, a pig, a goat, and -- in a particularly Woody Allenesque gesture -- a lobster, the last of which was "boiled alive."

Zuckerberg packages his slayage as a brand of gastronomical "gratitude" that is linked to whole-foodist-cum-low-carbon-footprinty aspirations. Most of the (acidic, hilarious) commentary has matched this reading of Z's "me kill, me eat" carnilosophy, and has taken him to task for being a bad vegetarian. Laurel Miller of Huffpost Food accuses Z of being a possibly unhinged throat-slasher of baby livestock. Lynn Crosbie of the Globe and Mail accuses him of "gross eco-crimes."

Read the complete piece at Zocalo.

For veterans with mental illnesses, court reluctantly steps in where Congress should have

By Associate Dean Michael Waterstone

A recent Ninth Circuit decision is part of a long-standing debate about the difference between our stated commitment to take care of disabled veterans, and what really happens on the ground.

A group of veterans sued the Department of Veterans Affairs, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief to remedy delays in the provision of mental health care and the adjudication of service-connected death and disability compensation claims by the VA. The Veterans argued that these delays violated their due process rights to receive the care and benefits they are guaranteed by statute. The case dramatically demonstrated the nature of the delays: for example, it takes an average of more than four years for a veteran to fully adjudicate a claim for benefits (during which time many are mooted by deaths). The court was explicit that these delays were not in keeping with our country's stated commitment to veterans, writing "on an average day, eighteen veterans of our nation's armed forces take their own lives. ... Among all veterans enrolled in the VA system, an additional 1,000 attempt suicide each month. Although the VA is obligated o provide veterans mental health services, many veterans with severe depression or post-traumatic stress disorder are forced to wait weeks for mental health referrals and are given no opportunity to request or demonstrate their need for expedited care. For those who commit suicide in the interim, care does not come soon enough."

So the VA is a mess (which is not new news). What to do about it? The court struggled here, noting that "we would have preferred Congress or the President to have remedied the VA's egregious problems without our intervention when evidence of the Department's harmful shortcomings and its failure to properly address the needs of our veterans came to light years ago." The court was also cognizant that it was not really the ideal branch of government to address these problems. But ultimately, the court viewed these delays as violating the plaintiff's constitutional rights "to be free from unjustified governmental deprivation of property - including the health care and benefits that our laws guarantee veterans upon completion of their service."

Center for Restorative Justice to host event on youth offenders and their victims

By Seth Lennon Weiner, Co-Director, Loyola's Center for Restorative Justice

he U.S. Supreme Court's recent ruling in Brown v. Plata brings into sharp focus the current dilemma facing California's criminal justice system. With prison overcrowding currently at alarming levels, California must find a careful balance between protecting the Eighth Amendment guarantees to prisoners and the public safety of the state. Considering Philadelphia's less than positive experience with a court-ordered reduction in prison populations during the 1990s, many Californians have expressed their anxiety and doubt over the High Court's ruling. The ruling, however, highlights more fundamental questions about our current criminal system in America: Where should the focus of criminal law be and around whom should the justice system be centered?

Loyola's Center for Restorative Justice (CRJ) believes that the answer to these questions requires a transformation of our current criminal justice system. Unlike our current system where the offender is the focus of the criminal proceeding, restorative justice seeks to transfer the focal point to the victim. Currently, California replaces the victim and seeks retribution on behalf of the victim and community at large. A system based on restorative principles would shift the focus of criminal proceedings from sanctions to restitution in order to make the victim whole and the offender directly culpable for the harm caused.

Restorative justice is not only a way of holding offenders accountable but, more importantly, is an idea that seeks to change the behavior of offenders and mitigate the harm caused to victims. By recognizing and addressing the harm caused to the victim as well as the harm that caused the offender to commit the offense, restorative justice takes a comprehensive approach that promotes healing and justice between the victim, the offender, and the community.