(Podcast) The banning of President Trump from many social media platforms has led to renewed calls from both political parties to amend or revoke Section 230. Jane Coaston debates what changing the law might mean with Klon Kitchen, director of the Center for Technology Policy at the Heritage Foundation, and Danielle Keats Citron, a professor at the UVA School of Law and author of “Hate Crimes in Cyberspace.”
UVA’s Miller Center will be hosting a panel Friday regarding presidential pardons. This is part of the ongoing conversation about impeachment and invoking the 25th Amendment against President Donald Trump.
When she was in fifth grade, Margaret Mary “Maggie” Cleary said she remembers telling her classmates that she had prosecutorial ambitions. “I’ve always had a passion for having victims see justice,” Cleary, a UVA Law grad, said recently from her office in a building near the Culpeper Courthouse. She has served as an assistant commonwealth’s attorney for the county since 2018. Starting Feb. 1, Cleary will become an assistant U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia, based in Roanoke.
Branden Kline, a Frederick native who overcame a series of injuries to reach the majors after the Orioles took him early in the 2012 draft, announced his retirement from baseball Wednesday morning. Kline, 29, was the Orioles’ second-round pick in 2012 out of the University of Virginia.
Sen. Chuck Schumer’s skills as a politician will be fully tested in the tightly controlled Senate, where the “filibuster” rule can make it difficult to pass any legislation with fewer than 60 votes, and where even measures that can be passed with a simple majority will have to please the most conservative Democrats in the body. “Schumer is constrained both by the filibuster and also the preferences of his least-liberal members,” said Kyle Kondik of the University of Virginia Center for Politics. “That list starts with Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia.”
“I think the public perception is that all those scary people who gathered on Capitol Hill, they met up and continue to meet up on Parler, whereas Facebook and Twitter are doing something about it,” said Danielle Citron, a law professor at the University of Virginia and an expert on online harms. “And so Parler is the lowest hanging fruit.”
(Commentary) Protected classes include cases involving race, age, gender and ancestry. Being president isn’t a protected class, regardless of how often one tweets about “presidential harassment.” “There is no law prohibiting discriminating against presidents,” said Frederick Schauer, a law professor at the University of Virginia.
UVA law professor Rachel Harmon, who studies police interaction with the public, says there are also "substantive" reasons for the police backing of Trump. She cites the administration's early opposition to federal "pattern and practice" reviews of allegations of excessive force by police departments. Harmon says police liked the administration's message that "individual police officers were being tainted and undermined, and there was undermining of the effectiveness of law enforcement by these overly aggressive investigations of police departments." She says she doesn't agree with that view.
Just eight days from leaving office, Trump is facing the biggest crisis of his presidency, with efforts to remove him snowballing. Perhaps his inciting a mob was the final straw, and with Trump out of the White House his power may erode. “On the other hand, rank and file Republicans still seem very loyal to the president, and many believe his nonsense about a stolen election,” said Kyle Kondik of UVA’s Center for Politics.
J. Miles Coleman, the associate editor of Sabato's Crystal Ball at the UVA Center for Politics, said that Democrats have benefited from the conglomeration of voters in population centers like Atlanta. "The Democrats have done very well in states like Georgia where they have one metro that can dominate," he said.
Social media companies like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitch suspended President Donald Trump's accounts after last Wednesday's deadly attack on the Capitol. Concern followed about whether the big tech companies violated the leader of the free world's First Amendment rights. A University of Virginia School of Law professor weighs in. "Because the deplatforming from Twitter and Facebook is the action of private companies and the First Amendment only applies to state actors, that is to the federal government or the state governments, and because Twitter and Facebook and other social media...
U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine sat down with the UVA Center for Politics Director Larry Sabato and recounted his experience during last week’s insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Jalane Schmidt, a Charlottesville-based anti-racist organizer who teaches religious studies at the University of Virginia, also remembers her warnings often going unacknowledged. “We got dismissed. You get dismissed if you use the ‘F word,’” Schmidt told HuffPost of using the term “fascism” to describe the president and the MAGA movement he created.
(Commentary co-written by Carolyn M. Callahan, Commonwealth Professor of Education Emeritus) Students come from diverse backgrounds, speak different languages, have different strengths and personal challenges, and have had very different preschool and family experiences. Far too many are denied access to opportunity based on where they live or the color of their skin. It was within this complex context that the authors of the December/January special issue explored ways to improve the education of advanced learners. Nearly every article was critical of the current state of affairs, but more im...
Visiting rules are changing at the UVA Health. This comes in response to an increase in COVID-19 cases around Charlottesville and across Virginia. The health system is prohibiting visitors to its inpatient units, emergency department, outpatient clinics, and outpatient procedural areas starting Wednesday.
(Book review) Saikrishna Prakash, the James Monroe Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Virginia, has written a terrific book. In “The Living Presidency: An Originalist Argument Against Its Ever-Expanding Powers,” Prakash provides a wide-ranging and deeply researched account of the expansive understanding of presidential power today and how it compares to the Constitution’s original meaning.
Five pilot research projects have received funding from the integrated Translational Health Research Institute of Virginia. According to a release, iTHRIV awarded $200,000 to the multi-institutional research projects at the University of Virginia, Virginia Tech, Inova Health System and Carilion Clinic.
The University of Virginia School of Nursing saw a rise in its early action and decision applications for the fall. According to the school, it had 1,930 applications come in for the BSN program. This is 653 more applications than what it had compared to last year. Austin Stajduhar, assistant dean of admission for UVA School of Nursing, says a factor in this rise is that many applicants are finding their calling during a crisis.
The UVA School of Nursing says the program saw a significant increase in applicants this year. That, while a student group is seeking to increase the amount of diversity in years to come.
The University of Virginia took another big step in its COVID-19 testing efforts. Full-time employees actively working on Grounds are now eligible for its voluntary asymptomatic virus testing program using saliva.