“Law Lords” to JFS: You’re Not So Free

JFSThere has been a fair amount of commentary regarding a decision of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom (formerly the Lords of Appeal in Ordinary and part of the House of Lords) in a matter called R (on application of E) v. Governing Board of JFS. 

The case involved the desire of a man referred to only as E to have his son, M, admitted to London’s prestigious Jewish Free School. There are many more applicants than spaces in the school and it gives preference to children who are recognized as Jewish either by the rule of matrilineal descent derived from Deuteronmomy 7:3-4 (“… neither shall his daughter take on to thy son/For  they shall turn thy son away from following me”) or by an Orthodox conversion (i.e., one recognized by the Office of Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregation of the Commonwealth). 

E is Jewish but M’s mother is a former Roman Catholic whose conversion was supervised by a Reform rabbi, so was not recognized by the OCR.

M was denied admission and E sued, arguing that the preference violated the Racial Relations Act of 1976 which forbids discrimination on the basis of ethnicity. Is that what happened?

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I Started Law School . . .

booksThank you to Professor Slavin for asking me, back in my first month as a wide-eyed 1L, to be on the blog. I thank you for both your confidence in me and this opportunity to attempt to prove you correct.

I started law school at a disadvantage; I didn’t want to be a lawyer. I say this is a disadvantage because I met many people who not only wanted to be a lawyer but had known this about themselves since childhood. Some followed in the steps of a family member and some found their way by other means. That wasn’t me. I don’t want to dwell on myself for very long; I only introduce this to preface my assessment of the legal community in Milwaukee.

As a woman who knew nothing more about being a lawyer than the little that I had seen on television, I was surprised and pleased by what I have found through Marquette. I moved from one of the largest cities in the country with a huge, and quite imposing, legal community to Milwaukee—for reasons other than to go to Marquette University Law School. I allowed myself to be swayed by the sparse contact that I had with Marquette officials to move to a city that I had previously given little thought to, let alone visited.

I’m glad that I did.

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Mother and Daughter, Justly Proud

Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Pat Roggensack and Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Ellen Brostrom are wary of almost all of the labels that people try to put on them and on other justices and judges.

But one label they are proud of is mother and daughter, and that was clear Thursday during an “On the Issues with Mike Gousha” session at the Law School. The two are believed to be the only mother and daughter to serve on the bench at the same time in Wisconsin history, Gousha said.

“You’ve just been an incredible role model for me,” Judge Brostrom told her mother. Justice Roggensack said she never intentionally put her daughter on the path to being a judge, but she agreed she was very pleased when Bostrom narrowly won election in 2009.

When Gousha asked how the two of them react to labels such as “conservative” or “liberal” when it comes to describing judges, Justice Roggensack said, “I think it’s a lazy definition.” The use of labels reflects the high degree of partisanship of the times, especially when it comes to elections. She said labels are useful in negative campaigning, which is the way campaigns “can hit hardest fastest.”

Most cases that come before the state Supreme Court don’t fit on a liberal-conservative axis, she said.

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