Friday round-up

RACHEL SACHS AUG 17, 2012 7:42 AM

Coverage of the upcoming Term continues to focus on Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, in which the Court will consider the University of Texas’s use of race in its undergraduate admissions process. Additional coverage of the amicus briefs filed earlier this week in support of the university comes from Professor Tomiko Brown-Nagin at the Legal History Blog. The editorial board of the Los Angeles Times discusses the federal government’s amicus brief in support of the university, praising what it describes as the government’s “welcome and forceful endorsement of affirmative action” and arguing that “an important precedent shouldn’t fall simply because of a personnel change on the Court.” Additional commentary comes from Mark Ladov at The National Law Journal, Stan Simpson at the Hartford Courant, and Michael King at the Austin Chronicle.

Briefly:

• This blog’s symposium commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Alexander Bickel’s The Least Dangerous Branch continued with posts by Erwin Chemerinsky and Roger Pilon.
• At Wired, David Kravets examines the Fourth Circuit’s recent decision holding that impersonating a police officer is not speech protected under the First Amendment in light of the Court’s recent holding in United States v. Alvarez that the Stolen Valor Act, which criminalized lies about having received military honors, is unconstitutional.  At Verdict, Vikram Amar also provides doctrinal analysis of the various opinions in Alvarez.
• The recording of the State and Local Legal Center’s webinar on the Court’s 2011 Term is now available online, here.

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