If you think Notre Dame Law School’s administrative problems are bad, check out what’s happening at Ave Maria Law School in Ann Arbor. Yikes. (Hat tip: Stephen.)

Of course, as discussed previously in comments, Ave Maria is the school that former NDLS admissions director Chuck Roboski joined in January 2006 as the Associate Dean for Admissions and External Relations. I have no idea of his role in, or position on, the current troubles there, I just mention him because I’m sure this will now make its way into the ongoing NDLS debate.

Anyway, more about the Ave Maria situation here and here.

P.S. On a more positive note, I recently learned that Sean Seymore, who graduated from NDLS last year, will be joining the Northwestern faculty as a visiting assistant professor starting in July. He’ll teach Patent Law in the fall and a patent-related seminar in the spring. Congrats, Sean!

“I feel like I’ve been hit over the head with a brick. … [pause] … It’s a wonderful paper.”

–Becky, after proofreading/revising/tearing apart my term paper on “human shields” and just-war theory.

This is awesome.

Polygamous lesbians flee Sharia.

As Chris, who sent me the article, put it, “Talk about a suspect class.”

Memo to fellow 3Ls planning on travelling abroad during the five weeks between taking the bar and starting work: you may want to go somewhere other than Europe.

The euro reached an all-time high against the dollar Friday when weak U.S. growth figures reinforced worries about a widening economic disparity between Europe and the United States.

The surge will not be kind to Americans visiting Europe this summer, who will feel the effect in higher prices for hotels in Rome, entrance fees at the Louvre and cherry beer in Belgium.

Notre Dame’s memorial mass for Ryan Rudd, our classmate who died suddenly of cancer earlier this month, has been set for Tuesday, May 1 at 5:15 in the Basilica. Ryan’s family will be here. (From what I understand, the delay in scheduling the mass was related to coordinating with the family in terms of when they’d be in town.) President Jenkins will preside, and Father Coughlin will be the preacher. A reception in the Law School Lounge will follow.

And we’re talking about homosexuality, polygamy, and polyamory. I even got to use the phrase “random fetish” (quoting Jon Stewart). God bless Con Law II.

P.S. For those who are interested in this topic of polyamory, here are the articles I sent to Professor Mason after the class discussion on Tuesday: from The Observer, from The New Scientist and (only tangentially relevant) from New York Magazine.

Myself, I agree with the Stewart Theory: the debate over gay marriage (and related issues) comes down to the fact that homosexuality is a fundamental part of the human condition, whereas polyamory and other such sexual traits are “random fetishes,” IMHO. That doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with them, necessarily (personally, I don’t care what people do, as long as they aren’t hurting anyone else… er, without that person’s informed consent, I suppose, so we can allow for S&M), but it’s relevant to whether society needs to recognize them in some way, protect them from discrimination, etc. That’s my opinion. But can I justify it on a legal, or constitutional, basis? That’s a somewhat more complicated question.

Anyway, it’s 1:39. Thirty-six minutes left…

P.P.S. The phrase “God bless Con Law II” is not intended to discriminate against anyone on the basis of their religion. :)

UPDATE, 2:05 PM: Ten minutes left!

UPDATE, 2:15 PM: Technically, the class period is over, but we’re still here. Not that I mind. This is a fun discussion. :)

UPDATE, 2:17 PM: Someone’s playing tetris. Heh.

UPDATE, 2:18:15 PM: Done!

P.P.P.S. I’m glad my law-school career ended (class-wise) with ConLaw II. It was one of my favorite classes ever. And I’m not just saying that because Professor of the Year Mason might be reading this. (I have no idea whether she’s one of the faculty members who reads my blog.) It was really a great class.

NDLS’s own Meg Tierney is nominated for Grad/Faculty/Staff Female of the Year in the “RecSpys,” the RecSports awards. You need a Notre Dame NetID to vote. Vote here!

[UPDATE: Xoxo is working again from NDLS. See below. -1:50 PM]

The self-described “Most Prestigious College Admissions Discussion Board in the World,” Xoxohth.com a.k.a. AutoAdmit.com, has seemingly been blocked by Notre Dame. People off-campus report being able to access it, and it’s still accessible through Anonymouse [WARNING: Anonymouse may display NSFW ads!!], so clearly the site isn’t down. But when you try to access it directly from campus (well, from the law school, at least), you get a standard error message:

I personally feel a degree of contempt for Xoxohth that exceeds even my contempt for NDNation — the cretins who inhabit that message board are a bunch of dishonest, pretentious, snobby, racist a**holes who delight in anonymous character assassination and tearing down their fellow human beings — so I’m not exactly shedding any tears over this, if it’s true. But, as with the Billy Packer thing, I guess I should be outraged, free speech or whatever, blah blah blah. But seriously, Xoxohth sucks.

P.S. Xoxohth was recently in the news because, in the wake of the Virginia Tech tragedy, some idiot user posted a threat to Hastings Law School, as a “joke,” which led to the school being closed for a day last Wednesday. I have no idea if that’s related to the apparent ban here.

P.P.S. You can read more about Xoxohth, and the many controversies it has spawned, here. That post in turn contains links to various others.

UPDATE: Lisa, who tipped me off to this story, sends along a link to Notre Dame’s Responsible Use of Information Technologies Policy, which forbids, among other things, using computer resources for any “purpose which is illegal, immoral, unethical, dishonest, damaging to the reputation of the University, inconsistent with the mission of the University, or likely to subject the University to liability.” Specifically cited examples of such purposes include “harassment,” “libel or slander,” “posting or sending obscene, pornographic, sexually explicit, or offensive material,” and “posting or sending material that is contrary to the mission or values of the University.” Xoxohth routinely involves all of those things. No idea if that has anything to do with this, though.

UPDATE 2: According to a commenter on a Xoxohth thread linking to this post, “It’s not just ND. I emailed around. A friend in the northeast is having trouble, too.” Not sure what to make of that.

UPDATE 3: False alarm! Xoxohth is accessible again from the law school, as of 1:50 PM. Dunno what was wrong before, but I guess it wasn’t a ban (or if so, it was lifted very quickly).

Incidentally, I e-mailed OIT (the Office of Information Technology) at 12:48 PM and asked: “Has the website www.xoxohth.com (also known as www.autoadmit.com) been blocked by the university? It is inaccessible from the law school (and I assume from elsewhere on campus), but the site isn’t down, it can still be accessed from elsewhere and through sites like Anonymouse.” I haven’t heard back, and I have no idea whether my e-mail has anything to do with the site’s restoration, I’m just throwing it out there.

UPDATE 4: OIT wrote back and said they’re able to access the site. They seemed not to know anything about the problem. So who knows?

Tomorrow (er, today, Thursday) is my last day of class.

Ever.

Dunno why that didn’t hit me until just now, but it didn’t. (Classes don’t officially end until Tuesday, but I don’t happen to have any classes on Friday or next Monday or Tuesday.)

I liveblogged my last undergraduate class. Will I do the same for Professor Mason’s ConLaw II (my very last class, from 1:00 to 2:15) later today? I dunno… back at USC, none of my profs read my blog. ;) But I’ll undoubtedly blog something, at least.

Of course, “last class” really just means “OMG, time to really really start panicking about finals.” But still, there’s a wee bit of nostalgia wrapped up in it.

Congratulations are in order for:

Professor of the Year: Professor Jennifer Mason

McLean Faculty/Staff Award: Tim Gritten

McLean Student Award: Jon Schoenwetter

Conrad Kellenberg Service Award: Stephen M. Duvernay

Huzzah!

William B. Lawless, dean of the Notre Dame Law School from 1968 to 1971, died Monday at age 84. Among other things, he started NDLS’s London Program.

Buffalo-area readers will be interested to know that he went to Canisius High School. He also got a B.A. from UB, though the timeline listed in the article doesn’t make any sense (he went to law school, then college? huh?). He later taught at UB and Fordham.

Anyway, “in lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be sent to support scholarships for Notre Dame law students. The address is: Notre Dame Law School Annual Fund, 1100 Grace Hall, Notre Dame, IN 46556.”

NPR takes a look at various Bush Administration officials potentially implicated in the U.S. Attorney kerfuffle. Professor Kelley is one of the nine (The Nine?) whom they profile. Oddly, he’s the only one they don’t have a photo for. I’m guessing he’s not too torn up about that, though…

Last Wednesday evening, I blogged about the special Bud Light bottles with Sabres logos on them that are being sold in western New York in honor of Buffalo’s playoff drive. I learned about this from Bfloblog (which wrote, “The fact people would change their beer because there’s a Sabres logo on the bottle is a bit frightening. The fact it is considered news is terrifying.”) and thought it was rather amusing, which is why I blogged about it. Alas, I hadn’t gone beer shopping while in Buffalo the previous weekend, and I didn’t know about the bottles then, so I didn’t expect I’d have the chance to drink from one of them while watching a Sabres game. And I certainly didn’t expect that my blog post would earn me any freebies.

But, lo and behold, the next day in ConLaw, one of my classmates clandestinely handed me the the bottle you that see photographed above (posed next to Toby, our one Buffalo-area-native pet). This classmate, who shall remain nameless because I’m not sure whether alcohol trafficking in class violates the Honor Code :), had been in Buffalo the previous weekend, and had bought some of the special Sabres-branded Bud Lights and brought them back to South Bend. He then saw my blog post, and decided to give me one of them.

This is amusing on several levels. One, my blog got me free beer. Two, it took less than 18 hours for a blog post about beer to translate into actual beer. Three, a fellow law student brought in beer and gave it to me in class. I can honestly say that’s the first time, at any level of school, that I’ve had alcohol smuggled to me in the classroom. And it happened a month before graduation. I think my education is now officially complete. :)

Anyway, I have yet to actually drink the beer. I figure I should save it for when I’m watching the Sabres play. I was going to drink it during Game 5 of the Islanders series, but then I wasn’t really in the mood for beer, so I decided to hold off. I would consider saving it until the Stanley Cup finals (knock on wood furiously), but by then we’ll be living in Knoxville, and moving a bottle of Bud Light from Indiana to Tennessee seems a little excessive. Besides, if the Sabres make it to the finals and get within a game of winning the Cup, Becky and I are totally going to drive up to B’lo, just to be in the city when they (again, knock on wood furiously) win… so I can buy another Buffaslug Light then, if I want. (Then again, once I’m in Buffalo, at Pearl Street or someplace similar, why would I drink Bud Light?) Anyway, perhaps I’ll drink this bottle during Game 1 of the Rangers series.

Speaking of which, the schedule for the Sabres-Rangers series hasn’t been officially announced yet, but Newsday reports that NBC has said it will televise Game 2 on Saturday, which probably means Game 1 is on Thursday. (Hat tip: Sabres Insider.) In any event, the first two games will be in Buffalo, as well as games 5 and 7, if necessary.

One thing’s for sure: if they win this series, the Sabres won’t just be in the Eastern Conference finals, and halfway to their first-ever Stanley Cup. They’ll also be the undisputed New York state champions. ;)

P.S. Here’s a picture of Toby defending the beer from Sasha’s advances:

That exchange resulted in a brief staring contest…

…followed by an uneasy truce:

Toby’s defensiveness is understandable. Sasha is a Coyotes fan.

I sort of hate to keep giving this controversy new legs, but I’m not going to arbitrarily cut off the discussion while people still have things to say, so… here goes. Fellow Notre Dame 3L Jimmy Paulino, the subject of much controversy and discussion stemming from his quoted remarks in an Observer article earlier this week, has submitted a lengthy piece to the Observer, which is apparently due to be published in tomorrow’s paper. A little bird sent me a sneak-preview copy, and I’ve published it in full after the jump.

First, though, two letters to the editor were published today: one by a trio of alumnae (a fuller version of that letter was on the blog yesterday), the other by a 1L named Laura Geldermann. Both defend the law school while acknolwedging that it is not without its problems. Both are worth reading, especially if you want to actually talk about the issues, rather than just about Jimmy’s controversial comments.

Now, on to Jimmy’s leaked op-ed. Again, it’s after the jump. Enjoy. And, as Randy Jackson might say, yo, dawg, check it out: keep it real, keep it civil. (Okay, Randy wouldn’t say that last part.)

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