“Well, a satirical piece in the Times is one thing, but bricks and baseball bats really get right to the point.”

Nazis Highway

So said Woody Allen (as Isaac Davis in Manhattan) in response to the suggestion that a Nazi march was “devastated” by a mocking piece in the New York Times.

In Sunday’s  Times, there was an article about a group calling themselves “The Nationalist Socialist Movement – Springfield Unit.”  It has been allowed to participate in Missouri’s adopt-a highway program. Under the program, a group agrees to pick up trash along a stretch of roadside and, in return, a sign is erected at the onset of the “adopted” segment, acknowledging their participation. The Nazis apparently pick up litter in full regalia. 

What to do? Allen’s character suggested picking up bricks and baseball bats and going to “really explain things to them.” Let’s take that off the table.

There is no question that the Nazis have a right to participate. The Supreme Court has held that groups may not be excluded from such programs on the basis of their political beliefs. That case (also arising from Missouri) involved adoption of a highway by the Klu Klux Klan. State officials responded by renaming the road after Rosa Parks.

Legislators have proposed calling the highway on which the Nazis collect trash, the Abraham Joshua Heschel Memorial Highway after the prominent rabbi and philosopher.Although Heschel’s daughter is not happy with the proposal (and her wishes are entitled to great consideration), I sort of like it. Absent the preferred option, i.e., that such people not exist, there is something about having Nazis pick up the garbage on what is, symbolically, a Jew’s road. “Excuse me, there, Horst, but I think you missed that Toblerone wrapper. Be a good little Aryan and pick that up for me.”

I appreciate that people will look at the propriety of such a response in different ways. One argument would be, I suppose, that to do anything more draws attention to the Nazis. But fanatics have a way of drawing attention to themselves. I prefer to see honoring Heschel in the face of these jamokes as the wages of hatred. The Nazis are marginalized and Heschel, who barely escaped the charnel house, is honored.

But this is the faculty blog so let’s explore a legal point.

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Duality or Trinity, Scales or Circles: What Approach for Justice in a New Generation?

justiceThis week, I want to try to tie together some aspects of three experiences I recently had, and tell why I believe they reflect something about the evolving nature of justice at this point in human history.

A. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. and Jr.: A first generation poet; a second generation jurist. I was rooting around in the attic, sorting out books for donation to a local charity, and came across my husband’s grandmother’s 1952 edition of The Family Book of Best Loved Poems, which randomly flipped open to “The Last Leaf” by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. I read it and was reflective about the beautiful minds that manifested over the course of two lifetimes, father and son, one as a physician and poet and one as a jurist, each achieving excellence in their unique ways. 

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What Is So Special (to Me) About Intellectual Property?

gone-with-the-wind-11Last week I announced a future post about “why I like IP” and what brought me to specialize in this area. First, as with many-and often the most successful-things in life, IP more or less happened to me. I graduated from the University of Bologna Law School with a thesis (very much like a master’s thesis) in Antitrust Law. During my time at Berkeley and while attending my Doctorate Program I still worked on Advertising and Antitrust Law, increasingly, however, focusing on the relationship between Antitrust and Intellectual Property. As I mentioned before, my mentor and guide of my whole career, professor Vito Mangini, played a vital role in “pushing” me further and further into the IP world. In fact, IP in general, and trademarks in particular, became my main focus of both writing and practicing when, following the suggestion of my professor (who also found scholarships to support my stay and study) I moved to London to attend the Queen Mary and Westfield College and the London School of Economics. Since then, my love for IP has just grown, and I have never thought of a better field of law in which to practice, teach, and write.

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