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Separate marathons Post Date: Sun, 24 Aug 2008 01:29:00 +0000
Why don't they run the men's and women's Olympic marathons together? They run every other world-class marathon together. And this is the one sport (or event) in which space, rules, and logistics allow the separate competitions to be played simultaneously. And wouldn't it be a nice symbol for gender equity? Update: Sunday, 7:30 a.m. In response to Joshue'a comment that inertia trumps absent a compelling reason for combining them, let me rework my point to make it an assertion rather than a question: They should run both marathons together. The compelling reasons for doing so are that they run all other road races together anyway, the symbolic value of having men and women compete together is socially meaningful and furthers one element of the "Olympic spirit," and this is one sport where they can compete together--the fastest women run about 11 minutes behind the fastest men and the logistics allow it. So I hereby propose this change for 2012.

Autor of the post: noreply@blogger.com (Howard Wasserman)

Tom Crean Better be "Mr. Clean" Post Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2008 12:35:00 +0000
Tropical storm Fay is getting closer and has caused us to shut down school today and tomorrow. So it's a good time to blog about IU's new contract with head basketball coach Tom Crean signed last week and announced yesterday -- a 10-year deal that could be worth up to $23.6M. <a href="http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080820/SPORTS0601/808200384/1004/SPORTS">Mark Alesia of The Indianapolis Star</a> highlights the fact that Crean's contract "includes far more strict language on rules compliance, disciplinary action and personal behavior than that of his predecessor, Kelvin Sampson." IU spokesman Larry MacIntyre told Alesia, "Obviously, after our experience, president (Michael) McRobbie wants to make sure we never undergo anything like that again, and I don't think we will with Tom Crean." The provisions in Crean's contract regarding NCAA rules compliance and for cause termination are definitely stricter than Sampson's, and are some of the most stringent provisions I have ever seen in a college coach's contract. A complete copy of the agreement can be accessed <a href="http://www.indystar.com/assets/pdf/BG115917819.PDF">here</a>. For starters, Section 2.01 A. 2. creates an obligation of "strict adherence" with all NCAA rules, including strict compliance by assistant coaches, staff, players and all other individuals under his direct or indirect supervision, direction or control. In the event of any violation of NCAA rules by any of such individuals (including the university), or any act or omission that may give rise to a violation of NCAA rules, Section 2.02 provides that IU, in its sole discretion, may take any disciplinary or corrective action against Crean as determined by IU. [Yes, that is what it actually says.] The for cause termination language in Section 6.02 B. is also very favorable to IU. Among the definitions of "Cause" worth noting are (1) any violation of Section 2.01 [see 6.02 B.1.] and (2) any act or omission of Crean that may give rise to a finding of a violation of any NCAA rules [see 6.02 B.3.]. Compare those definitions with the definitions of cause in Sampson’s contract, which required (1) “a significant, intentional, repetitive violation of any law, rule (or) regulation” of the NCAA; (2) “failure to maintain an environment in which the coaching staff complies with NCAA … regulations”; and (3) in IU's “sole judgment” Sampson’s conduct “reflects adversely upon the university and its athletic program.” It is also worth comparing Crean's contract with the for cause termination language in Jim O'Brien's contract with Ohio State, which required "a material breach" by O'Brien or "an NCAA violation that results in a major infraction investigation and which results in a finding of a lack of institutional control or sanctions imposed upon Ohio State." Section 6.02 B.3. is something all schools may want to take note of, because it permits the school to fire the coach for cause prior to a final determination by the NCAA, which is favorable to the school if confronted with a wrongful termination claim. Last but not least, Section 6.02 C. contains a highly unusual process for terminating Crean for cause. The athletics director may, in his sole discretion, make a determination that "Cause" exists, without conducting any prior review or investigation, in which case the university can immediately suspend him without pay. Crean then has the right to have the AD's determination reviewed by the university President, and if the President decides that the AD's determination was proper, the effective date of termination for cause commences on a date determined by the President. And if you're thinking that Crean would still be able to challenge a for cause termination in court, the contract further provides that the decision of the President "shall be final and binding on the Employee for all purposes" and that it is "the exclusive procedure that will apply to any determination (or review or appeal of any determination) of Cause sufficient to terminate the employment of the Employee." Interestingly, if President McRobbie resigns or is terminated, then Crean has the right to renegotiate a post-termination procedure that includes "impartial members of the University community." In summary, IU can do whatever it wants to Crean if he or any member of his staff or any player does anything that results in a violation of any NCAA rules or that may give rise to a potential violation, regardless of whether Crean knew about it and regardless of whether a minor or major infraction. The agreement essentially imposes strict liability on Crean and makes him vicariously liable for the acts and omissions of anybody under his direction or control. I know there are some out there who would say, "What's the big deal? If he keeps a clean program then he has nothing to worry about." Well, Tom Crean could be Mother Teresa and it wouldn't guarantee a clean program in today's compliance environment.

Autor of the post: noreply@blogger.com (Rick Karcher)

The Return of The Single Entity Defense for Sports Leagues Post Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2008 01:30:00 +0000
The Seventh Circuit ruled yesterday in American Needle v. NFL (No. 07-4006) that NFL teams act as a single entity “when promoting NFL football through licensing teams’ intellectual property“ and are therefore not subject to scrutiny under Section 1 of the Sherman Act. To give some brief background on this case, the plaintiff (American Needle) designs, manufactures, and sells apparel bearing the names and marks of pro sports teams. For more than 20 years, American Needle held a non-exclusive license from the NFL to manufacture and sell headwear with each of the NFL’s team logos. In 2000, the NFL teams authorized NFL Properties to solicit bids from vendors for an exclusive headwear license. Reebok won the bidding war and received a 10-year exclusive license. At that point, American Needle’s non-exclusive license was terminated and it responded by filing an antitrust claim against the NFL, NFL Properties, each of the NFL teams, and Reebok. The district court granted summary judgment for the NFL defendants, ruling that the NFL and the NFL teams “act as a single entity in licensing their intellectual property.” The district court opinion was discussed <a href="http://sports-law.blogspot.com/search?q=american+needle">here</a>. The single entity issue is obviously very important and has been the subject of much <a href="http://sports-law.blogspot.com/2008/03/second-circuit-affirms-denial-of.html">debate</a> over the years, and I plan to discuss that issue and this case in more detail later on, but I just wanted to give my quick reaction after reading the Seventh Circuit opinion. The court starts from the premise that, under Copperweld (467 U.S. 752 (1984)), “when making a single entity determination, courts must examine whether the conduct in question deprives the marketplace of the independent sources of economic control that competition assumes.” The court then jumps to the conclusion that: <blockquote>NFL teams can function only as one source of economic power when collectively producing NFL football. Asserting that a single football team could produce a football game is less of a legal argument then [sic] it is a Zen riddle: Who wins when a football team plays itself? It thus follows that only one source of economic power controls the promotion of NFL football; it makes little sense to assert that each individual team has the authority, if not the responsibility, to promote the jointly produced NFL football. Indeed, the NFL defendants introduced uncontradicted evidence that the NFL teams share a vital economic interest in collectively promoting NFL football. </blockquote>Putting aside the need for some new Zen riddles, I’m not sure I follow the court’s reasoning, and the opinion seems to conflate the single entity analysis with the ancillary restraints doctrine (discussed in the <a href="http://sports-law.blogspot.com/2008/08/unanimous-jury-upholds-atps-tournament.html">comments to Rick’s post</a>). Nearly every judge and commentator has concluded (sometimes even without a Zen reference) that some degree of cooperation among individual sports teams is necessary for a sports league to exist. To use a simple example, the Jets can’t play the Patriots unless both teams agree to play a game on a certain date, with certain rules of the game, etc. Courts have relied on the necessity of this cooperation to permit sports leagues to avoid per se illegality in Section 1 cases, but the Seventh Circuit seems to be taking the argument to the other extreme and arguing that NFL teams should be considered a single entity whenever they agree on rules that allow them to play the game (ie, that are necessary for the product to exist). Assuming, for the sake of argument, the court’s analysis is correct for the single entity issue in those limited circumstances, I don’t see how that answers the single entity question when the activity in question is the sale of NFL-logoed headwear. Yes, the NFL teams have a shared interest in the survival of the NFL (because, under the court’s argument, they don’t exist unless the NFL exists), but does that also mean that the NFL teams have a shared interest (or an independent source of economic control) when selling hats with their team logos on it? It seems to me that the correct answer to that question has more to do with the fact that NFL teams share merchandising revenue equally than Zen riddles. Yet, the Seventh Circuit does not even specifically mention this fact in its opinion, instead choosing to rely on the generic notion of a shared interested in “promoting the NFL” through the sale of logoed wool hats. There is at least one other troubling aspect of the opinion. The court asserts that: “Simply put, nothing in Section 1 prohibits the NFL teams from cooperating so the league can compete against other entertainment providers. Indeed, antitrust law encourages cooperation inside a business organization—such as, in this case, a professional sports league—to foster competition between that organization and its competitors.” Is the court concluding that the NFL is in the same relevant market as all other entertainment providers (and what is an “entertainment provider”?)? Based on what? And is the Seventh Circuit referring to the market for games (live or televised?) or the market for logoed apparel? I am all for streamlining the determination of the relevant market, but this seems a bit extreme. I’m not surprised that American Needle lost the case—I thought this would have been a relatively easy rule of reason win for the NFL. I am surprised, though, that this case was disposed of based on the single entity issue. The holding in this case is fairly narrow, but the single entity argument for sports leagues is officially alive (at least in the Seventh Circuit), and I suspect the leagues will do their best to expand its use in future cases.

Autor of the post: noreply@blogger.com (Gabe Feldman)

Two Olympic thoughts . . . Post Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2008 19:50:00 +0000
sort of related to law and public policy. 1) This week, I watched the women's beach volleyball (a sport I actually have enjoyed watching) match between USA's Misty May-Treanor and Kerry Walsh (they of the frolicking with W while Russia invaded Georgia) and a team from Cuba. The match was a blowout and no one expected it to be close, so the announcers naturally had to find other stuff to talk about. Nothing unusual; announcers struggle to fill during bad games all the time. What struck me as unusual was the content: Stories about how each one met her husband and of their first dates (which apparently involved some confusion about who was being fixed up with whom) and about what happens after the Olympics, when, the announcers told us five different times, both women would like to get pregnant. I am trying to remember watching a men's sporting event in which conversation turned to how the quarterback met his wife or about the point guard's family planning. Now, in fairness, perhaps it is more relevant for women athletes, who must put their careers on hold for at least a few months, although <a href="http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1143989/index.htm">this story in Sports Illustrated</a> discusses the athletic benefits of pregnancy and childbirth. But I could not get past the feeling that the announcers, needing filler, just wanted to talk about the personal lives of two attractive women whose uniform is a bikini. 2) Had the U.S. athletes not taken gold and silver in yesterday's individual women's gymnastics competition, the headlines this morning would have been about bizarre/unfair/corrupt judging. As it was, the judging did produce 1) apoplexy in the American commentators about inappropriately low scores for the U.S. athletes and inappropriately high scores for the Chinese and Russian athletes and 2) the sight of the head of the technical committee (the chief judge, sort of) walking over to the judges' table after the routine of USA's Nastia Liukin (the eventual winner), it would appear to lecture them about how good the performance was and too make sure the scores were not depressed. I continue to believe that gymnastics is <a href="http://sports-law.blogspot.com/2008/07/more-on-defining-sport.html">not</a> a <a href="http://sports-law.blogspot.com/2008/05/defining-sport.html">sport</a>, because it lacks the possibility of objective scoring or objective determination of victory. And the early grumblings yesterday (which hearkened back to the glory days of the mythical East German judge) show the inherent problem with "judging," especially when what the judges are looking for is so mysterious. One way to eliminate some of the mystery (and suspicion) would be to require the judges to explain their decisions--to identify precisely what points were deducted and for what mistakes. Adjudication requires explanations for decisions and that transparency helps the parties and the public evaluate decisions and outcomes. And even football referees explain what happened on penalties (some refs in painstaking detail). Why not require gymnastics (and figure skating and diving and other "judged" events) provide explanation, thus bringing some transparency to what is, for most viewers, completely opaque. Or put another way: When Harry in <a href="http://www.quotegeek.com/index.php?action=viewcategory&categoryid=629">When Harry Met Sally</a> talks about having sex in front of the Olympic judges and receiving a low score from his mother, disguised as an East German judge, for what "must have been the dismount," it would be better if we knew it was for the dismount.

Autor of the post: noreply@blogger.com (Howard Wasserman)

The NCAA is at it again Post Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2008 15:21:00 +0000
<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_e2pBkjDix40/SKWfhUtTKmI/AAAAAAAAACU/-SOYr5ZHVD4/s1600-h/Andy+Oliver.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_e2pBkjDix40/SKWfhUtTKmI/AAAAAAAAACU/-SOYr5ZHVD4/s400/Andy+Oliver.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5234765536731277922" border="0" /></a>The NCAA is at it again, committing what a parent to a 20 year old college athlete calls <a href="http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/article/122046">“Gestapo tactics”</a> by interviewing his son without an attorney late into the night prior to his getting ready to pitch in a crucial regional championship game. Hours before the game, and presumably as a result of the interview, Oklahoma State declared Andy Oliver ineligible. Oliver has now sued the NCAA and his former “advisors” seeking to regain his eligibility so he can finish his college career and to recover compensation for his damages. The NCAA’s response is typical of the cartel that never understood the concept of due process: it says only the school can seek Oliver’s reinstatement and the pitcher has no standing to sue the organization. It all started when Oliver was still in high school contemplating whether to be drafted by a major club or attend an institution of higher learning. Like other young men in his position, he had advisors, who were certified MLB player agents, who were supposed to help him make an informed decision about his future. The NCAA rules, always a lesson in absurdity, permit such advisors so long as they are not being paid and do not speak on the player’s behalf to Major League clubs. Apparently, the advisors were present when representatives of the Minnesota Twins were trying to woo Oliver to join the ranks of professional athletes. Oliver chose not to. He attended Oklahoma State University where he soon became one of the top pitching prospects in the nation. The trouble started when Oliver started consulting with another unpaid advisor, Scott Boras. When the first advisors learned they had competition, they sent Oliver and his family a bill for $113,000, which the family refused to pay, saying they had never agreed to compensate these advisors who had to be unpaid to comply with NCAA rules. The NCAA and its member schools have made billions off its student athletes while serving as a free farm system for MLB, the NFL and the NBA. The least it can do when it conducts an inquisition into whether a student has violated its arcane and hypocritical rules is to allow that student the opportunity for legal counsel in the proper setting.

Autor of the post: noreply@blogger.com (Alan C. Milstein)

Pro Sports Team Owners' Contributions to McCain and Obama Post Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2008 14:08:00 +0000
<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_zGTe5MsCVYc/SKWTw6ki2SI/AAAAAAAAAjw/nRLqsxW-UIY/s1600-h/Owners+New+York.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_zGTe5MsCVYc/SKWTw6ki2SI/AAAAAAAAAjw/nRLqsxW-UIY/s400/Owners+New+York.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5234752610453608738" border="0" /></a>The political leanings of owners of NFL, NBA, MLB, or NHL teams are often unknown. To the extent the media reports on those owners, it's normally sports reporters who do so, and normally in the context of the team they own or the league in which they are associated. Granted, some of the owners may have party affiliations that are publicly available, while a few owners are well known in party circles, but for the most part, we don't know where they stand on issues (and nor do we probably care). We can still make assumptions about owners' politics, however. Given their vast wealth, for instance, we might assume that owners are more likely to support candidates who propose lower taxes (be it income or capital gain taxes or other forms of taxation). Thanks to Kenneth Vogel and Matthew Lindsey of The Politico, we now have <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0808/12548.html">some suggestive empirical evidence on owners' politics</a>. Vogel and Lindsey studied the financial contributions of NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL owners in this presidential election cycle and discovered they seem to prefer giving money to John McCain over Barack Obama (though often they give to both) . Here is an excerpt of Vogel and Lindsey's piece. <div style="text-align: center;">* * * </div><a href="http://www.politico.com/"><img src="http://images.politico.com/global/v3/homelogo.gif" border="0" /></a> Sports owners fund McCain, shun Obama By: Kenneth P. Vogel and Matthew Lindsey August 15, 2008 06:06 AM EST Sports team owners may not be John McCain’s answer to the Hollywood elite, but they’re overwhelmingly supporting his presidential campaign over Barack Obama’s. Through the end of June, team owners in the four major sports and their families have given or raised more than $3.2 million to McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, compared to only $615,000 to his Democratic rival Obama, according to a Politico analysis of data from the Federal Election Commission, the campaigns and interviews. Not only did McCain raise more than Obama from the owners in each of the four major professional sports leagues analyzed, but McCain even raised six times more from the owners of teams in Obama’s hometown of Chicago. Sam Zell, the owner of baseball’s Chicago Cubs, gave more than $22,000 to McCain’s committees, though he also gave Obama $2,300, as did the owner of the Chicago White Sox and Bulls, Jerry Reinsdorf, who gave that much to both McCain and Obama. * * * Sports team owners are often either loved or loathed in their communities. But most have unquestioned financial clout and fundraising ability, because it takes extreme wealth and connections to purchase a sports team. Though sports moguls tend to skew conservative for the same reasons as other very wealthy folks – aversion to high taxes and regulation – their interests and backgrounds are eclectic, said Andrew Zimbalist, a professor at Smith College who has written extensively about the economics of sport. “Today, a guy who owns a sport team is somebody who has generated a big pile of money in some other industry, and it’s very likely that their primordial financial interests and instincts are rooted in that other industry,” he said. Those industries include oil, construction, real estate, entertainment, casinos, high technology, trial law, ice cream and, of course, family inheritance. But even owners who are major Democratic donors have yet to loosen their purse strings for Obama. The owners of football’s Philadelphia Eagles, baseball’s Baltimore Orioles, San Diego Padres and Los Angeles Dodgers, basketball’s New York Knicks and Sacramento Kings, and hockey’s Anaheim Ducks and their families, for instance, gave a combined $1.1 million in political contributions this presidential cycle, mostly to Democratic political committees and candidates. That sum includes more than $60,000 to New York Senator Hillary Clinton, who Obama narrowly edged out for the Democratic presidential nomination. As of the end of June though—the most recent month for which there are data available – those owners had not given a dime to Obama. Most of the owners who gave to Clinton but not Obama did not respond to requests for comment on why. <div style="text-align: center;"> * * * </div>To read the rest of the piece, click <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0808/12548.html">here</a>.

Autor of the post: noreply@blogger.com (Michael McCann)

Executive Compensation and Professional Sports Post Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2008 15:52:00 +0000
<a href="http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2008/08/nfl-joins-mlb-i.html">Paul Caron (TaxProf)</a> and <a href="http://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/prawfsblawg/2008/08/salaries-at-the.html">Verity Winship (guesting at Prawfs)</a> both discuss recent efforts by the NFL to avoid federal rules requiring not-for-profit organizations to disclose all executives earning in excess of $ 150,000. The New York Times story on the NFL is <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/12/sports/football/12nfltax.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin">here</a>. The NFL follows in the footsteps of <a href="http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2008/03/did-major-leagu.html">Major League Baseball's in failing </a> to disclose salaries for anyone other than the commissioner. The leagues apparently want to argue that they are trade associations, not charities, thus not subject to the new rules. Failing that, the NFL is lobbying Congress for an exemption from the new disclosure requirements.'<a href="http://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/prawfsblawg/2008/08/federalizing-no.html#more">Brian Galle at Prawfs</a> weighs in on some of political issues underlying the federal rule requiring this disclosure and the leagues' resistance to it. The Times feature includes the following: <blockquote> Joe Browne, the N.F.L.’s executive vice president for communications and public affairs, said league lobbyists had not yet found a Congressional sponsor for their proposal. “I’ve been here 40 years,” Browne said. “I finally get to the point where I’m making 150 grand, and they want to put my name and address on the form so the lawyer next door who makes a million dollars a year can laugh at me.”</blockquote> Pretty clever rhetorical device by Mr. Browne--picking on an unpopular group, lawyers, who typically are not the ones making huge sums of money. Note that he did not say the investment banker or the for-profit corporate VP, both of whom make substantially more than the typical lawyer.

Autor of the post: noreply@blogger.com (Howard Wasserman)

Blogging the Olympics Post Date: Tue, 12 Aug 2008 20:03:00 +0000
At <a href="http://opiniojuris.org/">Opinio Juris</a>, a top international-law blog, they have a bunch of posts on the Olympics, including excellent commentary on <a href="http://opiniojuris.org/2008/08/08/the-olympihttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifc-arbitration-procedures-in-a-nutshell/">Olympic arbitration procedures</a>, <a href="http://opiniojuris.org/2008/08/10/citizenship-and-the-olympics-the-end-of-surrogate-warfare/">the role of citizenship in Olympic-team membership</a>, and <a href="http://opiniojuris.org/2008/08/12/the-interplay-between-professional-and-olympic-sports/">the influence of professionalism</a>. They will be doing this throughout the Olympics, so it might be worth checking over there periodically. (H/T: Alert reader Patrick O'Donnell)

Autor of the post: noreply@blogger.com (Howard Wasserman)

Recent Sports Law Scholarship Post Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2008 20:55:00 +0000
Recent scholarship includes:<blockquote>James R. Devine, The Duke lacrosse matter as a case study of the right to reply to prejudicial pretrial extrajudicial publicity under Rule 3.6(c), 15 VILLANOVA SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT LAW JOURNAL 175 (2008) Aaron Brooks and David Davies, Exploring student-athlete compensation: why the NCAA cannot afford to leave athletes uncompensated, 34 JOURNAL OF COLLEGE & UNIVERSITY LAW 747(2008) Todd Crosset and Lisa Masteralexis, The changing collective definition of collegiate sport and the potential demise of Title IX protections, 34 J.C.& U.L. 671 (2008) Shannon Carroll, Note, Golfing on Green Acres: is the acquisition of golf courses an appropriate means of preserving open space in New Jersey?, 32 SETON HALL LEGISLATION JOURNAL 211 (2007) William B. Gould, IV, The 1994-’95 baseball strike and National Labor Relations Board: to the precipice and back again, 110 WEST VIRGINIA LAW REVIEW 983 (2008) Sean Hanlon and Ray Yasser, “J.J. Morrison” and his right of publicity lawsuit against the NCAA, 15 VILLANOVA SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT LAW JOURNAL 241 (2008) Gregory D. Hanscom, Comment, Baseball juiced up: should the increased risk associated with the use of performance-enhancing substances create tort liability?, 15 VILLANOVA SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT LAW JOURNAL 367 (2008) Daniel E. Lazaroff, The NCAA in its second century: defender of amateurism or antitrust recidivist?, 86 OREGON LAW REVIEW 329 (2007) Tiffany D. Lipscomb, Note, Can Congress squeeze the “juice” out of professional sports? The constitutionality of congressional intervention into professional sports’ steroid controversy, 69 OHIO STATE LAW JOURNAL 303 (2008) Robin L. Muir, Casenote, Drunk or disabled? The legal and social consequences of Roy Tarpley’s discrimination claim against the NBA, 15 VILLANOVA SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT LAW JOURNAL 333 (2008) Tyler M. Simpson, Comment, Balking at responsibility: baseball’s performance-enhancing drug problem in Latin America, 14 LAW & BUSINESS REVIEW OF THE AMERICAS 369 (2008) Ryan T. Smith, Note, “Bull’s eye”: how public universities in West Virginia can creatively comply with Title IX without the targeted elimination of men’s sports teams, 110 WEST VIRGINIA LAW REVIEW 1373 (2008)</blockquote>

Autor of the post: noreply@blogger.com (Geoffrey Rapp)

Presidential Debate Moderators as Umpires Post Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2008 17:29:00 +0000
<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_zGTe5MsCVYc/SKB5QGIRwJI/AAAAAAAAAjg/_Opfch-gunY/s1600-h/George+Bush+Jim+Lehrer+Al+Gore.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_zGTe5MsCVYc/SKB5QGIRwJI/AAAAAAAAAjg/_Opfch-gunY/s320/George+Bush+Jim+Lehrer+Al+Gore.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5233316084434714770" border="0" /></a>Over on <a href="http://presidentialdebateblog.blogspot.com/">The Presidential Debate Blog</a>, Aaron Zelinsky has a really interesting piece entitled <a href="http://presidentialdebateblog.blogspot.com/2008/08/latest-call-for-change-in-presidential.html">Debate Moderators as Umpires</a>. Here is an excerpt: <div style="text-align: center;">* * * </div> The problem is that a debate moderator, like a judge, (and as <a href="http://law.fiu.edu/faculty/faculty_wasserman.htm">Professor Howard Wasserman</a> points out in attack on the judge-umpire analogy at <a href="http://sports-law.blogspot.com/2008/08/more-against-judge-umpire-analogy.html">Sports Law Blog</a> , the role of an umpire and almost any other decision maker) is more complicated than merely applying a fixed set of rules. Even a moderator who remains “in the background” will have to choose when to keep “the conversation moving and orderly.” Such decisions are ultimately subjective. When a moderator decides whether the topic discussed is worthwhile, or if all the relevant points have been exhausted, he imposes his own conceptions on the debate. There is nothing inherently wrong with this –indeed, it is an intrinsic part of a good moderator’s job— but there are limits to such discretion. The moderator must walk the fine line between facilitating discussion and becoming party to the debate. <div style="text-align: center;">* * * </div> For the rest of the post, click <a href="http://presidentialdebateblog.blogspot.com/2008/08/latest-call-for-change-in-presidential.html">here</a>.

Autor of the post: noreply@blogger.com (Michael McCann)

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