Law schools' free speech reckoning, no free PACER, law firm and ex-aide end sexual harassment suit, Twitter's legal woes continue
Reuters Legal
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This year saw the national debate over "cancel culture" and the limits of free speech arrived in full force on U.S. law school campuses.
Conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito called the state of law school free speech "abysmal" during a speech in October, about a month after two federal appeals court judges pledged not to hire clerks from Yale Law School because of student protests against conservative speakers there.
The clashes over speech unfolded throughout the year and at law campuses across the country. Some legal academics argue that critics are overstating the problem and that law schools have always been places where viewpoints collide and tensions are worked out.
Berkeley law dean Erwin Chemerinsky said:
“Law schools have to be places where all ideas and views are expressed.”
Chemerinsky said he worries about students facing subtle pressure from classmates to withhold certain views, which is harder to address than protecting invited speakers.
U.S. lawmakers have left a proposal to make the federal judiciary's PACER online court records system free out of a sprawling, $1.66 trillion spending measure unveiled on Tuesday, a setback for advocates as the current Congress nears its end.
The legislation had lingered despite information from the Congressional Budget Office that showed making PACER free would not add to the federal deficit as initially presumed, but would actually cut it by $14 million over a decade.
Rather than mandating changes to PACER, lawmakers in an accompanying explanatory statement said they would be expecting the judiciary to update them on its already-underway plans to modernize PACER and a related electronic case management system.
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A former administrative assistant at law firm Fox Rothschild has dropped her lawsuit accusing a former attorney there of sexual harassment and assault, according to court papers.
Stephanie Jones and Fox Rothschild informed U.S. District Judge Evelyn Padin in Newark, New Jersey, that they would be dismissing "any and all claims" in the case.
Jones' December 2019 lawsuit said Ian Siminoff, then a New Jersey-based labor and employment counsel at the firm, sent her a series of sexually explicit text messages and photos and sexually assaulted her three times between 2014 and 2017.
Fox Rothschild fired Siminoff after the lawsuit was filed. The firm denied Jones' allegations of gender bias and retaliation.
Twitter was accused by 100 former employees of various legal violations stemming from Elon Musk's takeover of the company, including targeting women for layoffs and failing to pay promised severance.
Shannon Liss-Riordan, a lawyer for the workers, said she had filed 100 demands for arbitration against Twitter that make similar claims to four class action lawsuits pending in California federal court.
Twitter laid off roughly 3,700 employees in early November in a cost-cutting measure by Musk, who paid $44 billion to acquire the social media platform, and hundreds more subsequently resigned.
The arbitration demands accuse Twitter of sex discrimination, breach of contract, and illegally terminating employees who were on medical or parental leave.
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