Home »Unlabelled » Law & Humanities Blog

Law & Humanities Blog

Working Together: Law and Social Science

Posted: 09 May 2013 08:21 AM PDT

Tristin Green, University of San Francisco School of Law, is publishing It's Not You, It's Me':  Assessing an Emerging Relationship between Law and Social Science in the Connecticut Law Review. Here is the abstract.

This essay isolates and assesses an overlooked consideration on an emerging and significant issue in employment discrimination law. The emerging issue: When should employers be held liable for established widespread differential treatment within their organizations? The overlooked consideration: the relationship between law and social science.

Although the essay focuses closely on a specific doctrinal issue in employment discrimination law, it also sets broad theoretical groundwork for thinking about the implications of the various relationships that might emerge between law and social science in a variety of legal realms.Download the full text of the article from SSRN at the link.

The Law of Offense

Posted: 09 May 2013 08:16 AM PDT

Ronald L. K. Collins, University of Washington School of Law, has published Comedy and Liberty: The Life and Legacy of Lenny Bruce at 79 Social Research 61 (2012). Here is the abstract.

Comedy takes liberties. Hence, it depends on liberty to survive. Sometimes it is divine, other times farcical, sometimes operatic, other times poetic, and still other times shamelessly vulgar. As it moves from sauciness and scandal to sacrilege and sedition, comedy mocks everything in its sardonic path. Over the ages comedy has been tapped to punch out the likes of the mighty or to make swift shrift of their imperatives. Such actions point to the role of the First Amendment in all of this. Conceptually, the two intersect whenever comedy is offensive, that is, when it mocks, scorns, derides, ridicules, or pokes fun at person, creed, or cause. In this regard, no figure stands out more in American history than the always offensive and often funny Lenny Bruce. How a society protects or prosecutes the likes of Lenny Bruce is a barometer of how much it values freedom of speech.

Download the full text of the article from SSRN at the link.