Matt follows up on a post he wrote for HarvardCRCL.org looking at the First Amendment implications of requiring cigarette companies to include new graphic warning labels on their packages. Noah and Matt discuss the competing budget plans presented by the Republican and Democratic leaders in Washington.
CR-CL’s Executive Editors for Online Content Noah Kaplan and Matt Giffin are joined by Ariel Oshinky and Stephen Squibb, members of the Occupy Boston Communications Committee. Ariel and Stephen discuss the motivating ideology of the Occupy Movement, the relationship between Occupy Boston, the city, the police, and the courts, and the future of Occupy as a movement. Will Occupy suffer the fate of the Tea Party and be coopted by mainstream politics? What has Occupy already accomplished? What can it accomplish in the upcoming election; in a year; in five years?
It is reasonably foreseeable that parents will try to use this information to pressure their children’s schools into firing certain teachers or to assign their children to particular classrooms – actions which will not serve the broader purpose of improving instruction….The level of detail with which the data has been released can only serve to publicly humiliate teachers and is only reasonably necessary for school administrators’ use, not the general public.
The obvious fact that unpaid internships create opportunities for exploitation raises the equally obvious question of how exploitation should be defined.
Last week, a former unpaid intern sued her former employer for violating federal and state minimum wage laws. Over one million Americans work as interns each year, and over half are not paid. Many of these unpaid positions should be paid under the Fair Labor Standards Act, but a lack of enforcement has allowed such non-payment to persist.
In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court held on Wednesday that a “ministerial exception” barred a parochial school teacher from pursuing an employment discrimination claim against the church that runs the school. This opinion dramatically limits the scope of protection provided to religious employees under the “primary duties” test, the standard previously used by several federal circuits. Although lower courts can continue to carve out areas in which exceptional circumstances may compel the conclusion that the ministerial exception need not apply, “ministers” now receive no protection under civil rights or other discrimination statutes.
As the allegations of sexual harassment built against Herman Cain this month, Cain’s supporters and the press have quickly invoked race as a part of the discussion in Cain’s presidential campaign. After the press aired the initial allegations of harassment, Cain’s supporters began to echo the “high tech lynching” terminology [...]
A former Target employee has brought a claim against Target in federal court based upon the Fair Labor Standards Act. The plaintiff’s complaint states that he had complained to Target’s Human Resources Department about having to work during what were supposed to be 30-minute unpaid meal breaks, that Target responded by saying they could not pay him for this work because they “couldn’t pay overtime,” and that Target ultimately terminated him in retaliation for raising these concerns. This complaint may add controversy to Target’s very public fight to prevent unionization that has developed over the past year.
“[T]his is tough and I’m stuck on this.” Justice Breyer expressed the prevailing theme of the oral arguments before the Supreme Court in Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC. The oral arguments demonstrated that the justices are having a difficult time delineating the boundaries of the ministerial exception. Professor Laycock sketches out a broad ministerial exception that would prevent judges from interpreting religious doctrines where a church’s interpretation could reasonably vary [...]
An Administrative Law Judge for the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) recently decided the “first case involving Facebook to have resulted in an ALJ decision.” Judge Arthur Amchan stated that “the only substantive issue in this case . . . is whether by their postings on Facebook, the five employees engaged in activity protected by the [National Labor Relations] Act (NLRA).” Judge Amchan stated that “discussing” employment conditions is protected “regardless of whether there is evidence that such discussions are engaged in with the object of initiating or inducing group action.” Should NLRA protection turn on whether the Facebook post receives a “Like” or a few one-line lighthearted responses by friends who happen to be co-workers?
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