A collection of Jerry Falwell posts

Saturday, January 07, 2006
The Falwell forecast on Alito

In this story from the Lynchburg paper, the Reverend Jerry Falwell predicts that the number of votes in the U.S. Senate in favor of the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court will be "in the high 50s or low 60s."

Monday, November 21, 2005
Jerry Falwell hoping for Protestant Knute Rockne

Explaining why he fired the football coach at Liberty University, Jerry Falwell here: "I don't have much time to get the football program in the Top 20."

Sunday, August 28, 2005
Falwell's sterling character denies him relief once again in the federal courts

Years ago, in the libel case brought by the Rev. Jerry Falwell against Larry Flynt over an ad parody in Hustler magazine, the jury found for the defendant, finding that "no reasonable man would believe that the parody was describing actual facts about Falwell." Falwell v. Flynt, 797 F.2d 1270, 1273 (4th Cir. 1986). The U.S. Supreme Court relied in part on this finding to overturn the verdict in favor of Falwell on his claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress. See Hustler Magazine v. Falwell, 485 U.S. 46, 56 (1988) ("We conclude that public figures and public officials may not recover for the tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress by reason of publications such as the one here at issue without showing in addition that the publication contains a false statement of fact which was made with 'actual malice,' i.e., with knowledge that the statement was false or with reckless disregard as to whether or not it was true.")

Last week, in Lamparello v. Falwell, the Fourth Circuit in an opinion by Judge Motz, joined by Judges Michael and King, reversed the district court's entry of an injunction prohibiting the defendant from maintaining a "gripe website critical of Reverend Jerry Falwell." The Court concluded that there was no likelihood of confusion between Falwell's trade names and the defendant's "gripe website." The Court said: "After even a quick glance at the content of the website at www.fallwell.com, no one seeking Reverend Falwell’s guidance would be misled by the domain name — www.fallwell.com — into believing Reverend Falwell authorized the content of that website. No one would believe that Reverend Falwell sponsored a site criticizing himself, his positions, and his interpretations of the Bible."

So, I conclude from these two cases, under these cases based on the First Amendment, Rev. Falwell's protection from those who would say transparently bogus things about him is that no one would believe them, and he can obtain a judicial remedy against only those commentators with expression that has some verisimilitude (but is not quite true, as truth, presumably, might also defeat some kinds of claims).

Here are reports on the opinion from Anne Broache of CNET news.com, Eric Goldman, Paul Alan Levy, the AP, Brian Peterson, SC Appellate blog, Susan Crawford, and Warwick Rothnie, among the many to comment on this case which involves the intersection of intellectual property law with the underlying clash of views between Mr. Lamporello and Rev. Falwell over homosexuality - there's something in it for all variety of different blogs.

Tuesday, July 19, 2005
Might as well, since the law and politics thing did not work out

In this story about a Eastern Kentucky politician who was sentenced today in federal court, where the defendant explained what he has been doing lately while he waited for his case to get finished: "With his law license suspended, Hays said, he has been attending Liberty University Baptist Theological Seminary, run by Jerry Falwell in Virginia."

Friday, July 15, 2005
Falwell says he's not recommending anyone for the Supreme Court

How Appealing links here to this article from the Lynchburg paper in which the Rev. Jerry Falwell says he's not making any recommendations to the White House about who should be named to the Supreme Court.

Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Two more summaries on the candidates for the Republican nomination for AG

This article by Christina Nuckols for the Norfolk paper about Steve Baril and Bob McDonnell is sort of a fair summary of the main points that have come across in the media during the campaign.

It does not mention some other things, like tort reform or where their money comes from, that might be of interest to some voters. This article by Tammie Smith in today's Richmond paper fills in some of that gap.

In this post, Barnie Day says that "Main Street Republicans" like Baril because, well, he is a Main Street lawyer, which I always thought was the main part of his appeal, although his campaign has not made it a point of emphasis in any way that I have noticed, preferring more populist themes. Strangely, Day points out that McDonnell is tied to Pat Robertson, without mentioning that Jerry Falwell was an early supporter of Baril.

Saturday, April 30, 2005
Rev. Falwell double-dog dares Sen. Warner to defy him on filibuster vote

Via How Appealing, I see that the Lynchburg paper is reporting here ("Falwell lays down marker for Warner," 4/30/05) that SW Virginia's own Rev. Jerry Falwell is challenging Sen. John Warner to come across on the vote to limit filibusters on the President's judicial nominees.

Senator Warner, I suspect, is not going to run again and will do whatever he pleases.

Wednesday, November 24, 2004
Look, bloggers made Jerry Falwell's Thanksgiving prayer list

It says here that among other things for which Jerry Falwell is offering a prayer of Thanksgiving: "I thank God for the Internet bloggers."

Monday, September 27, 2004
Falwell gives law clinic for church leaders on how to politic from pulpit

The AP reports here that Jerry Falwell and his lawyer son and others gave a how-to session for ministers on where to draw the line when mixing religion and politics.

Friday, September 03, 2004
More on new Liberty Law School

Somebody sent me a link to this humor piece published by the ABA e-journal. Apparently, the idea that Jerry Falwell plans to turn out Christian lawyers to infiltrate the legal profession is viewed to be almost as funny as his pronouncement years ago that the Liberty football team would beat Notre Dame.

I believe that there are people - not most, and perhaps not even many - who go to law school, every law school, with the intention of changing the world, and a few of these highly-motivated people manage to pull it off, and when they make their mark, their law schools send out a press release bragging of the connection. Some of these people are conservatives and even Christians, and I won't be surprised if some Liberty graduates create some noticeable ripples in the flowing river of the law - and that this happens even before Liberty beats Oklahoma or even Notre Dame in football.

Wednesday, September 01, 2004
Can Liberty Law School be accredited?

Law.com has this article describing "questions" about whether the new law school at Liberty in Lynchburg can ever be accredited.

Since Regent is accredited, and Ave Maria is provisionally accredited, I'd have to say that this article is mainly full of anti-Christian nonsense, which is never hard to find, but probably the whole thing is part of the marketing plan cooked up by Rev. Falwell. I'm thinking maybe he called up Barry Lynn and said, hey, why don't you put out some outrageous quotes against my law school, and that will get us some publicity, and help with our admissions and fund-raising, and if you do, I'll treat you to a fried-chicken dinner after church the next time you come to see us down at the Thomas Road Baptist.

Wednesday, August 25, 2004
Catholics and Baptists unite at Liberty Law School, wherever that is

I enjoyed this Bainbridge post about Catholics (including the Dean) and Baptists (including Jerry Falwell) at the new Liberty law school, until I got to the part where he said it was in "southeast Virginia." No place called the "Hill City" and the "City of the Seven Hills" can be found over in the flatlands of Southeast Virginia.

I myself grew up going to the Abingdon Baptist Church (until we moved away) then was married (by a Jesuit priest) in Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Georgetown.

Thursday, August 19, 2004
Virginia Democrats on the new Jerry Falwell law school

From the Virginia Democrats' blog, this post laments the opening of the new law school at Liberty as likely to result in the further breakdown of the separation of Church and State.

Now, to me, there's something wrong in singling out for criticism the Southern Baptists and other Christians, when they engage in the naked pursuit (so to speak) of their agenda, as they are surely entitled to do, as much as anyone else. The Southern Baptists are not a threat to Our American Way of Life - anyone who has ever been to a Sunday School picnic knows that.

Wednesday, August 18, 2004
Opening of the Liberty University School of Law

Jurist has this post with links about the opening next week of the new law school at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University in Lynchburg, including this AP report and the Dean's blog.

Wednesday, August 11, 2004
More on the Falwell case

Here from Slashdot is a string of comments on the "Jerry Falwell" trademark beats fallwell.com case.

Tuesday, August 10, 2004
Website of gay rights activist held to infringe on the IP of Jerry Falwell

The AP reports here that Judge Hilton of the E.D. Va. has ruled that the domain name "fallwell.com" was too close to the registered trademark "Jerry Falwell" and was likely to confuse web surfers.

Tuesday, December 16, 2003
Best law school in Michigan

Via Politics & Law, this story ("Hail Mary Passes - How to build a great law school," 12/2/03) from the National Review Online about the Ave Maria Law School in Michigan makes me think that this kind of success is what Dr. Pat Robertson had in mind for Regent and what the Rev. Jerry Falwell hopes to accomplish with the law school coming to Lynchburg, but neither of them ever owned Domino's Pizza (or the Detroit Red Wings).

Monday, December 01, 2003
Jerry Falwell endorses Steve Baril for Virginia AG in 2005

According to this report ("Baril picks up endorsement from Falwell," 11/29) from the Richmond paper, the minister of the Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Jerry Falwell, has endorsed Steve Baril for Attorney General. Baril is a partner in the Williams Mullen firm and the son-in-law of the late former Governor John Dalton.

Saturday, June 21, 2003
Jerry Falwell's explanation of how he got back jerryfalwell.com

Jerry Falwell, the Baptist minister from Lynchburg, explains here the legal strategies he employed in an effort to wrest from one of his opponents the use of "jerryfalwell.com."

Thursday, June 19, 2003
SW VA's own Jerry Falwell gets rights to jerryfalwell.com without litigation

This press release describes how Jerry Falwell, the Baptist minister from Lynchburg, got the rights to jerryfalwell.com, without litigation.

Still more on the Liberty law school, this time from the NY Times

The New York Times reports here ("Giving the Law a Religious Perspective," 11/22/04) on the new law school at Liberty University, beginning with this sentence:

"The class in civil procedure, at the new Liberty School of Law here, began with a prayer."

The topic in class that day was the Supreme Court's decision in Erie v. Tompkins, and the professor declared it was bad:

"The Erie decision, which is viewed as uncontroversial in much of the legal academy, represented a disastrous wrong turn, Professor Tuomala said. In ruling that federal courts may not apply general principles in some cases but must follow state laws, he said, the Supreme Court denied the possibility of 'a law that's fixed, that's uniform, that applies to everybody, everyplace, for all time.'"

Now, that's odd. I can't remember what if anything we learned in law school about the Erie doctrine, but that wasn't it. Just the other day I was thinking that questions of federal common law are a royal pain to unravel.

Ann Althouse has more here. She says, in essence, don't teach those kids to go around arguing against the Erie doctrine, that would really be a legal argument without a prayer (or something like that).

More on new Liberty Law School

Somebody sent me a link to this humor piece published by the ABA e-journal. Apparently, the idea that Jerry Falwell plans to turn out Christian lawyers to infiltrate the legal profession is viewed to be almost as funny as his pronouncement years ago that the Liberty football team would beat Notre Dame.

I believe that there are people - not most, and perhaps not even many - who go to law school, every law school, with the intention of changing the world, and a few of these highly-motivated people manage to pull it off, and when they make their mark, their law schools send out a press release bragging of the connection. Some of these people are conservatives and even Christians, and I won't be surprised if some Liberty graduates create some noticeable ripples in the flowing river of the law - and that this happens even before Liberty beats Oklahoma or even Notre Dame in football.

The Richmond paper takes on the law schools at Liberty and Regent

Sunday's Richmond paper has this article ("New faith in the law," 1/16/05) about the new law school at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University, this article ("Faith is not held in contempt," 1/16/05) about the law school in Virginia Beach at Dr. Pat Robertson's Regent University, and this article ("A partnership of education - and action," 1/16/05) about the collaboration between Regent students and alumni and Jay Sekulow's ACLJ.

The articles say, among other things, that Liberty plans to have 450 students within 5 years, and that Regent's study body is around 500. The new dean at Liberty is a graduate of Regent. Del. McDonnell, one of the two Republican candidates for Attorney General, is an early graduate of Regent. 15 or 20 Regent students per year work as interns for the ACLJ.

One paragraph says: "If the law schools at Regent and Falwell's Liberty University cause any uneasiness, it appears to be the fear they will train their students to specifically attack abortion rights and other issues that some Christians see as immoral."

The only lawyer I've ever met who actually litigated an abortion rights case was the former Wailing Cat, Ed McNelis, who litigated the partial-birth abortion statute before Judge Williams. I'm thinking that not more than 1 out of every 1,000 of the 1,000,000 lawyers in America will ever have anything to do with litigating abortion rights. The idea that any law school will "train their students to specifically attack abortion rights" is sort of like saying that Virginia Tech is going to specialize in producing astronauts, or Georgia Tech is gearing its student body towards becoming infielders in the National League.

More on the ABA's proposed new standard of bar passage rates for law schools

Here are some articles worth reading by anyone who cares about Appalachian School of Law or the law school at Liberty or Regent or any new(er) law school in a state where there are several:

ABA Proposal Threatens Diversity In Legal Education, 7/3/07 - "As the Patton Study showed, the proposal will put almost all of the diversity-friendly schools out-of-compliance and worsen the state of minority enrollment."

ABA Moves to Tighten Bar Standards: What it Means, 7/6/07 - "Because of the explosive growth in the corporate law sector, large number of top law students from across the country take the New York, Virginia, and California bar exams. Further, this trend will only become more pronounced in the coming years. This means that lower-ranked schools in these jurisdictions (or bordering states, who will likely be affected by the 20% graduates/70% passage rule) will be tilting into ever-greater headwinds."

The Bush Department of Education Tries to Gut Grutter Below the Radar Screen, 7/11/07 - "Officially, the Department of Education and the ABA (under pressure) are concerned about the quality of education, but this is pretty clearly also a means of limiting affirmative action at non-elite law schools. (The bar passage rates at elite law schools are sufficiently high that admissions policies would be largely unaffected by the new rule.) Students with weaker numerical qualifications coming into law school fail the bar in larger numbers than those with stronger ones; by requiring higher bar passage rates at the back end, the new standard would limit the ability of law schools to admit students with weaker numbers (but with other qualifications, including their contributions to student body diversity) at the front end."

ABA Proposes Bar Pass Rate Standard, 7/31/07 - "(1) The first slightly odd thing about this rule is that the first prong compares the school to all test takers from ABA approved schools, including out-of-state test takers. I’d like to know how out-of-state test takers do compared to in-state. In Florida they do about average; but what about, say, New York and California? Do the many out-of-staters make things easier or harder for local schools? [See (3) below for a discussion of whether a bright-line makes sense.]

(2) For law schools on the cusp, this will create real pressure to do bad things.

(A) They will have an even greater incentive to play it safe on admissions. We know that the one thing the LSAT predicts well is your ability to take tests, and the bar exam is a test. This rule will inevitably work against people with lower LSATs, and that means disproportionately against people whose families have less money and who are not white.

(B) Alternately, if these schools want to keep taking risks in admissions, they’re going to have to flunk out more students in order to only graduate those with a high probability of passing the bar. The downside of this policy is a “One L” atmosphere: schools become much more stressful, meaner, places — which may not be conducive to learning.

(C) A correlative pressure will be to teach even more to the bar; and while the bar arguably may test stuff most lawyers should know, nobody could seriously argue that a three-year bar course will tend to produce good lawyers.

(D) Lastly, for schools right on the knife edge, there will be enormous pressure to manage who takes the bar by having weak students delay test-taking: stuff all your at-risk students into one calendar year, and thus improve your outcomes in the alternate year. As a result, I predict an increase in the annual variation in the bar pass rate scores of schools in the at-risk zone.

(3) Some law schools could be in real trouble. I have absolutely no idea what the second and third time pass rates look like; it may be that enough people make it eventually so that the 80% within three tries within three years rule saves schools that would fail the first test. But I rather doubt this is true in all cases. (The conventional wisdom is that anyone can fail once but if you don’t pass on second try your chances of ever passing are quite low.)"

No way

If the Solomon Amendment litigation is a civil procedure and constitutional law quiz, and this Third Circuit opinion in FAIR v. Rumsfeld has all the answers, I think I would get an 'F,' because I disagree with almost every single bit of this opinion from standing on down. Law schools as victims of civil rights violations! Why not a suit brought on behalf of the philosophy department? Or the field hockey team? The comic book section of the library? These are bogus plaintiffs, with bogus injuries, incapable of speech in any sense that makes sense to me. "The law schools are expressive associations," said the Court. As one of my old clients would say: "Balderdash!" If they are, they should not be. I say this having read all the recent Liberty Law School-bashing in recent weeks.

I wonder, how can a state allow its public-funded law school to have a particular "message", but can't sell "Choose Life" license plates? (Then again, maybe none of the unidentified members of the plaintiff association were state schools.) Also, in the brave new world of law schools as civil rights victims, I wonder, what sort of lawsuits will be filed by the law school at Liberty?

On Kagan and McChrystal

This morning I saw this article which says among other things: "The solution to a less politicized military can be accomplished via dilution, but for this to happen more political centrists and liberals would have to join the military. I doubt this will happen. According to tens of thousands of surveys conducted by University of Virginia social psychology professor Jonathan Haidt, politically conservative individuals disproportionately value both respect for authority and loyalty — values that perfectly align with military culture. By contrast, those on the political left disproportionally value caring for others and fairness. These are admirable preferences, but they don't immediately comport with a military career."

And, it reminds me of some things I've thought about before. One is that there is nothing wrong with making lawyers to change the world, notwithstanding for example the views of the critics of the law schools at Liberty and Regent. There are a few posts here about the start-up of the Liberty law school, a few years ago.

The Rumsfeld v. FAIR case always struck me as an outrage, both because it was legally unsustainable and because the means never fit the end. In the FAIR case, the law schools claimed that the Solomon Amendment that punished schools for banning military recruiters violated the First Amendment rights of the law school, or some part of it. The Supreme Court rejected this claim, 8-0.

One of the law school administrators at the front of the military recruitment ban was Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, whose hearings are this week. If people like her really wanted to change the military, they should have taken a page from Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson's playbook and been trying to get more Harvard lawyers in the JAG corps, rather than less. The military recruitment ban was unjustified and unjustifiable, legally and practically. If it's true that liberals and centrists are less likely to choose the military of their own accord, then would-be liberal reformers like Ms. Kagan should have been trying to do more not less to encourage them to pursue military careers. It would appear that General McChrystal could have have used a few on his staff, so that he might at least have had more of a clue when he or others around him were saying stupid things.

Can Liberty Law School be accredited?

Law.com has this article describing "questions" about whether the new law school at Liberty in Lynchburg can ever be accredited.

Since Regent is accredited, and Ave Maria is provisionally accredited, I'd have to say that this article is mainly full of anti-Christian nonsense, which is never hard to find, but probably the whole thing is part of the marketing plan cooked up by Rev. Falwell. I'm thinking maybe he called up Barry Lynn and said, hey, why don't you put out some outrageous quotes against my law school, and that will get us some publicity, and help with our admissions and fund-raising, and if you do, I'll treat you to a fried-chicken dinner after church the next time you come to see us down at the Thomas Road Baptist.

Catholics and Baptists unite at Liberty Law School, wherever that is

I enjoyed this Bainbridge post about Catholics (including the Dean) and Baptists (including Jerry Falwell) at the new Liberty law school, until I got to the part where he said it was in "southeast Virginia." No place called the "Hill City" and the "City of the Seven Hills" can be found over in the flatlands of Southeast Virginia.

I myself grew up going to the Abingdon Baptist Church (until we moved away) then was married (by a Jesuit priest) in Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Georgetown.

Update on Liberty law school

This article ("Liberty adds 2 majors, 6/28/04) has an update on the upcoming start of the law school at Liberty University in Lynchburg. It says so far they have 40 acceptances for the incoming class, and expect to get more.

LA Times discovers Liberty law school in Lynchburg

Via Yahoo! News, the LA Times has this story on the new law school at Liberty University in Lynchburg.

Liberty law school in Lynchburg has blog

Robert Ambrogi has this post on the coming law school at Liberty University in Lynchburg and the blog by its founding dean.

Virginia Democrats on the new Jerry Falwell law school

From the Virginia Democrats' blog, this post laments the opening of the new law school at Liberty as likely to result in the further breakdown of the separation of Church and State.

Now, to me, there's something wrong in singling out for criticism the Southern Baptists and other Christians, when they engage in the naked pursuit (so to speak) of their agenda, as they are surely entitled to do, as much as anyone else. The Southern Baptists are not a threat to Our American Way of Life - anyone who has ever been to a Sunday School picnic knows that.

Fun items

Liberty's law school is bragging on its 90+% bar passage rate from this summer, as shown here.

The Episcopal Church vows here to endeavor to persevere, meaning more church law for the rest of us.

This post describes an ERISA case that went to the Fourth Circuit over a $40 dispute.

This post says John Fishwick is talking up a run for Attorney General; imagine a race between Fishwick and Brownlee, Roanoke v. Roanoke. I met John Fishwick just the other day in Charlottesville.

This article on Jim Gilmore says that when he was in high school, all he cared about was music. It is well-known that band geeks make better Senators.

Law school at Liberty hopeful on provisional accreditation vote

The Lynchburg paper reports here that the law school at Liberty University is hopeful that the American Bar Association will grant it provisional accreditation at its mid-winter meeting in Chicago.

Falwell law school update

Via VLW, the Lynchburg paper has this update on the plans to open a law school as part of the Reverend Falwell's Liberty University in Lynchburg in the Fall of 2004.

Rev. Falwell's university delays opening doors on new law school until fall of 2004

This article describes the decision to postpone the opening of the new law school at Liberty University in Lynchburg

Opening of the Liberty University School of Law

Jurist has this post with links about the opening next week of the new law school at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University in Lynchburg, including this AP report and the Dean's blog.