University of Arizona Law School Professor Jane Bambauer
Scouring law school websites may not be your idea of fun. Maybe it ranks right up there with scouring sites of county recorders, or tax-advice columnists. (Cue the angry tweets from all three providers.)
But you may be surprised at the valuable information located at law school sites. Today, I share some news from the University of Arizona Law School.
First, I point you toward a podcast with interview of UA Law Professor Jane Bambauer. In it, she discusses her Stanford Law Review article called Is Data Speech?
The podcast is on the unsurprisingly good site of Surprisingly Free (“A weekly podcast featuring in-depth discussions with an eclectic mix of authors, academics, and entrepreneurs at the intersection of technology, policy, and economics”—yo, bookmark it!). In the July 23 interview, Bambauer “addresses several issues relating to whether data can be can be considered speech, how to define ‘data,’ and whether data collection can be covered by the First Amendment.”
If you’re more of a visual thinker, you can read a draft of her paper here.
This is a fascinating topic, and perhaps I’ll prevail on Professor Bambauer to cover this topic (and others??) in Arizona Attorney Magazine.
Last month, she was a co-host at a law school event (and I’m still sorry I didn’t get the chance to talk to her, as she was swarmed by law students and others). Below are a few photos from the July 10 law school event, held at the downtown Phoenix Palomar Hotel.
And then, in case I needed reminding that I didn’t hang out with professors nearly enough in law school, I see a new book is out that bears reading. It’s called “Saving the Neighborhood,” and a co-author is UA Law Professor Carol Rose.
You can purchase the book here. And from the same spot, I share a description of the volume, which clearly has much to say about our society and the evolution (or not) that it’s witnessed.
“Saving the Neighborhood tells the charged, still controversial story of the rise and fall of racially restrictive covenants in America, and offers rare insight into the ways legal and social norms reinforce one another, acting with pernicious efficacy to codify and perpetuate intolerance.”
University of Arizona Law School Professor Carol Rose
“The early 1900s saw an unprecedented migration of African Americans leaving the rural South in search of better work and equal citizenship. In reaction, many white communities instituted property agreements—covenants—designed to limit ownership and residency according to race. Restrictive covenants quickly became a powerful legal guarantor of segregation, their authority facing serious challenge only in 1948, when the Supreme Court declared them legally unenforceable in Shelley v. Kraemer. Although the ruling was a shock to courts that had upheld covenants for decades, it failed to end their influence. In this incisive study, Richard Brooks and Carol Rose unpack why.”
“At root, covenants were social signals. Their greatest use lay in reassuring the white residents that they shared the same goal, while sending a warning to would-be minority entrants: keep out. The authors uncover how loosely knit urban and suburban communities, fearing ethnic mixing or even “tipping,” were fair game to a new class of entrepreneurs who catered to their fears while exacerbating the message encoded in covenants: that black residents threatened white property values. Legal racial covenants expressed and bestowed an aura of legitimacy upon the wish of many white neighborhoods to exclude minorities. Sadly for American race relations, their legacy still lingers.”
I know; heady stuff for a Monday morning. Well, it’s August, and school is back in session. Let’s get learning.
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