Obama’s Speech on Education

440px-Official_portrait_of_Barack_ObamaAt 11 a.m. central time, President Obama delivered a speech addressed to school children across the country. The hullabaloo that has preceded this event has amazed me; last week, Florida Republican party chairman Jim Greer said he was “absolutely appalled that taxpayer dollars are being used to spread President Obama’s socialist ideology.” A Facebook poll that asked whether President Obama should “be allowed to do a nationwide address to school children without parental consent” was running at 50.2% saying “no,” 46.1% saying “yes,” and 3.7% saying “I don’t care,” as of just before 11 a.m. this morning.  Another online poll, on Newsvine, showed that 81.3% of the respondents indicating they’d let their children hear the speech, 16.9% saying they wouldn’t, and 1.8% indicating that the idea of a speech was fine, but that there wasn’t enough time in the school day for such a thing.  This isn’t, of course, the first time that a sitting president has addressed school children.  In 1991, George H.W. Bush gave a speech at a junior high school, “urg[ing] students to study hard, avoid drugs and turn in troublemakers.” Democrats criticized the speech as “paid political advertising.”

As I read the text of President Obama’s speech, I find it hard to discern “socialist ideology” or even “paid political advertising.”  (Let us remember that pretty much everyone to whom his remarks are addressed is unable to vote!)  His remarks seem more “Republican” than not.  The themes of personal responsibility and hard work pervade the speech.  He says, “But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world – and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities”? He exhorts students to avoid making excuses about their role in their education.  “[T]he circumstances of your life – what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home – that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. . . . That’s no excuse for not trying.” And he reminds students that success is hard work and that they should learn from their failures.  “[Y]ou can’t let your failures define you – you have to let them teach you.”

How could any parent find fault in such advice?  Is it simply because the messenger is from a different political party or is it something else entirely?  Barack Obama is the president of the United States.  A demanding job, to be sure, but also a job that is heavy with symbolism.  There shouldn’t be anything inherently political in the simple fact that the county’s figurehead wishes to press upon the country’s future – its school children – that they ought to do their best in school and work hard.

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Rumors of the Death of the Billable Hour Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

2666304350_62fd7514eeOr so it seems to me.  Lately, there has been a variety of articles proclaiming the death, or impending death, of the billable hour.  So goes the argument: Billable hours misalign incentives between lawyers and their clients; law firms and lawyers have faced increasing pressure over recent years to redefine their business model and move away from the billable hour, at least in part; and in this economy clients have the motivation, the leverage, and the moxy to demand alternative billing arrangements from their lawyers.

In theory, this may be true, and perhaps large clients (as in those who spend enormous sums of money with their law firms on an annual basis) have put some of this theory into practice.  But I’m not so convinced that the billable hour has earned its demise quite yet.  For one thing I work as in house counsel at a Fortune 1000 company and I see very few alternative billing arrangements.  (For another, I used to work at a big law firm that also saw few alternative billing arrangements.)  That is due in part to our own taste for risk.  After all, alternative billing arrangements must incentivize both parties, meaning the client may end up paying more for a given set of services than it otherwise would have under a billable hour system.

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Is Michael Vick a Civil Rights Martyr?

VICKpbMichael Vick’s return to the NFL last Thursday demonstrated, if nothing else, that Americans are tired of debating dog-fighting and the appropriateness of Vick’s 23 month sentence for violating federal dog-fighting laws.  Only a couple of anti-Vick demonstrators showed up at the game.  In fact, by far the largest number of demonstrators at the game were civil rights activists, many members of the Philadelphia chapter of the NAACP and the Black Clergy of Philadelphia.  The pro-Vick demonstrators were there to protest the harsh treatment that Vick received, and, in their view, continues to receive, from animal rights groups and the American legal system.

The national debate triggered by Vick’s arrest and conviction revealed that most middle and upper class Americans viewed dog-fighting as barbaric and properly criminal.  On the other hand, it also made many aware for the first time that there were racial, socio-economic, and regional dimensions to the debate.  While few openly called for the repeal of all dog-fighting laws, it became clear that many African-Americans and rural whites, particularly Southerners and those with lower incomes, did not view dog fighting as a particularly serious offense.  Many in these groups still find it a fascinating and exhilarating spectator sport, and, consequently, view the laws against it as trivial and unfair.  From their perspective the issue was not so much one of animal rights but the ability of the majority to impose their cultural views on a relatively powerless minority.

Although dog-fighting has been illegal in every state for some time now—Vick’s home state of Virginia outlawed “commercialized” dog-fighting and betting on dog-fights at the end of the 19th century—the sport once had a long and surprisingly upper class pedigree.  Queen Elizabeth I was a great fan of dog-fighting and prevented Parliament from outlawing the sport during her reign.  Dog-fighting, along with bear baiting, cock fighting, gander pulling, and other blood sports were quite popular in colonial Virginia and helped to unite individuals of different races and economic classes, including slaves and their masters.

Even after dog-fighting was outlawed, at least in the South there was a long tradition of law enforcement officials looking the other way, or sometimes joining in the activity.  (In that regard, it was like “moonshining.”) To this day, the kindred sport of cock fighting remains legal in Virginia (so long as it is done solely for the enjoyment of the spectators and no money changes hands), and a recent effort to abolish it in the Old Dominion failed, in part because the state’s farmers are among the nation’s leading breeders of fighting roosters.  More over, hunting, fishing, and horse racing continue to be perfectly legal although it is hard to believe that the animals involved derive much pleasure from the sport.

I spent a good part of the summer in my hometown of Pearisburg, Virginia (pop. 2200).  While I was there, the topic of conversation frequently turned to Michael Vick.  Although the town has a black town councilman which it elected in at large voting, it is predominantly white and very conservative.  Almost without exception, however, everyone seemed to view seemed to feel that Vick had gotten an extremely raw deal.

While it is true that the town is overwhelming populated by fans of Virginia Tech (Vick’s alma mater), I don’t think that that was the reason for their views.  (They would have felt the same, I think, even if he had played for UVa or West Virginia University.) For what they viewed as at best a minor infraction against an animal, Vick was punished as though he had committed a serious offense against another human being.

I am sure that nothing would please Michael Vick more than for the public to completely forget about his dog-fighting experiences.  However, as the focus of civil rights disputes increasingly shifts from issues of race to issues of culture, Vick may be a symbol of resistance for those who embrace rural, lower class Southern values instead of those of the middle-class majority.

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