Clarence Thomas needs to return his law degree to Yale

October 23, 2007 — Shannon Quadros

I figured it would take quite a bit to get me out of my workload induced exile from blogging but it only took a four column article in the other day’s Houston Chronicle for me to be unable to contain myself.

So the Hon. Clarence Thomas, one of conservative Fab Four in the Supreme Court in his book, My Grandfather’s Son, seems to think that Yale did him a disservice by letting him in to its law school via its affirmative action program. The icing on the cake or rather the spit in the face of Yale is that he stores his degree in his basement with a 15-cent sticker from a cigar package on the frame.

A quote from the article is rather revealing:

“I’d graduated from one of America’s top law schools but racial preference had robbed my achievement of its true value.”

I’m sorry Justice Thomas but I don’t buy your logic. It’s one thing to suggest that you might not have gotten into Yale if you weren’t black, casting aspersion on your own academics but it’s another thing to suggest that Yale’s letting you in did you harm. Racism does the harm. Denial of opportunity does the harm. And very silly things like suggesting you’re worse off because Yale let you in and ,perhaps a poorer decision on their part, let you out, suggests that the prejudice that preceeded you was correct.

In the words of Lady MacBeth, Fie! Justice Thomas Fie!

I would urge J. Thomas to reconsider his position because someone who was head of the EEOC and now a member of the Supreme Court cannot in all truth be said to be harmed. What’s that in Constitutional Law? To have standing the plaintiff must demonstrate an injury. I see no injury here to Justice Thomas. I do however see an injury, a tarnish, on a hardworking Grandfather’s repute because of the ills of a prodigal son.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/nation/5233265.html

P.S.: I suppose there goes one vote, if I ever go up for appeal to the Supreme Court.

Posted in America, Law. Tags: , , , , . 6 Comments »

Cleavage Cacophony

August 9, 2007 — Shannon Quadros

So I’m sick of this incessant talk about Cleavage-gate and the non-stop press about a one-off incident of a dipping neckline. Gosh, America is so prudish. On the one hand we have Hustler and Playboy and Girls Gone Wild, yet a peeping breast, let alone a protruding one sends the whole nation in a FCC-phoning and complaining tizzy and a media frenzy. There are some good men and women being thrown into the Iraqi version of Hamburger Hill and we don’t spend our time thinking about how we can get them safely home. But the media goes ga-ga over a sexegenarian’s breasts. There ends the future of the Fourth Estate.

I think Jay Leno put it best when he said, “Those are not the boobs in Congress you should be worried about!”

Too true Jay, too true.

Posted in America, Communication, Custom, Internet, Media, Politics. No Comments »

Another way for justice to go blind

August 3, 2007 — Shannon Quadros

In another case of “I don’t know whether to laugh or cry” with regards to the legal system, we have a sherrif in Florida seeking prosecution of inmates for indecent exposure etc. who were err ’shaking hands with mr. happy’ (as Robin Williams once called it) in their cells.

The author of a Miami Herald article on the case, Fred Grimm, put it best when he said “It’s no longer enough to warn hairy-palmed drooling deviants that self-indulgence risks stunted growth, blindness, sallow skin, slackened jaws, amnesia, shrunken testicles, impotence and, for Catholics in particular, eternal damnation”

Brings a whole meaning to the notion of someone who selectively prosecutes being a total wanker (All apologies for the horrific pun).

Posted in America, Criminal Law, Law, Public Policy. No Comments »

Boxer or the Bag: Lily Ledbetter speaks!

August 1, 2007 — Shannon Quadros

The case I had to comment on for the Law Review write-on was Ledbetter v. Goodyear (127 S. Ct. 2162) which is essentially a gender discrimination case gone awry because the lady didn’t know she was being discriminated against for a very long time. Goodyear just paid her less than the men who did the same job and after years of diminshed pay raises Ms. Ledbetter ended up with a salary that was close to half of what the men were getting. The Supremes busted Ms. Ledbetter on a statute of limitations issue which was rather horrid. In fact in my paper I called the Supreme’s reasoning, ‘a bacchanalian feast of tepid reasoning’. I frankly thought that she probably would have lost on an evidentiary basis. And if anything that’s the way you should lose. Congress is in the midst of debating an amendment to the civil right’s act that says if you continue to pay someone based on a discriminatory pay decision then every paycheck constitutes a discriminatory act. It’s affectionately called the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2007. Obviously the Bush administration has threathened to veto.

I didn’t realise how much of a feminist an egalitarian I was until I wrote this paper. Thinking about the Ledbetter case just had me so riled up because it was so unfair to Ms. Ledbetter to get treated like pish just because she is a woman. But then I shouldn’t expect much. Out here in the upper echelons of education and the rarefied air of reasoning, female law students are ‘fatwa’-ed into wearing skirt suits for interviews and pant suits are proscribed. Funny I didn’t know the location of the female reasoning cells were below their knees. Ridiculous isn’t it. Female law students, forget interviewing in your ‘conservative pumps and pearls’ and move to Afghanistan. At least there they’re not hypocrites and hate you for what you are - a woman!

To hear what Ms. Ledbetter has to say check out  her op-ed yesterday in the Christian Science Monitor

Posted in America, Custom, Law, Law Review, Law firms, Life, Public Policy, Work. No Comments »

This is ladies night and feelings right……

July 13, 2007 — Shannon Quadros

So some guy in NY is pursuing a class action against Manhattan nightclubs for unlawful gender discrimination by hosting a “ladies night”. While this isn’t a case I would normally be pursuing there is something to be said for for whether ‘ladies night’ constitutes gender discrimination. Working on a paper on workplace gender discrimination has opened my eyes to the so-called world of gender neutrality. Much of this I think is cultural, from places that won’t let women in to some clubs in some parts of the world where you can’t get in unless you have a date. That’s right they won’t let single men or women in. The fun part about that is that it makes strange bedfellows (no pun intended) of the single men and women that want to get in: If you’re flying solo or are with a bunch of friends and the numbers aren’t even you go trawling the line to see if anyone’s got a spare member of the opposite sex to even out the group. Funny things we nightclub patrons do to go to someplace where they overcharge us for drinks, nuke us with cigarette smoke (well they used to anyway) and tear out our eardrums with excessively loud music.

Oh how I long for those days again!!!

More on the gender discrimination at the NYC nightclubs at http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1184144791036&rss=newswire

Posted in America, Custom, Law, Life. No Comments »

Happy Birthday America!

July 4, 2007 — Shannon Quadros

I woke up this morning as usual with NPR blaring on my clock radio. The news this morning was interspersed with patriotic tunes and eventually a rather rousing rendition of the Star Spangled Banner. I figured then was as good a time as any to finally get out of bed and as I stood and listened I realised I knew all the words to the anthem. Now you may not think this is terribly remarkable but you must understand that this immigrant brown boy has been under many a flag, has now learnt to sing three different national anthems in three very distinct languages and still not think twice about where home is. It’s right here.

I repeat this line often and I’ll say it again today: “America isn’t the promised land but it’s the best darn Babylon out there”.

So all of you who have never left its shores to see how remarkably lucky you are to be in a land that’s about as close to free as one could possibly get, you need to take a trip and perhaps finally understand what Neil Diamond was singing about when he said “They Come to America”.

So with that I will leave you with one thought: They call this great land, this wonderful country, my home - ’The Land of the Free’. All I ask is what have you done to keep it that way?

Posted in America. 1 Comment »

Overheard in a coffe-shop

May 5, 2007 — Shannon Quadros

The saturday night before a big final means I’m either at home languishing between the pages of my text books or am somewhere like Cafe Artiste languishing between the pages of my text book. The interesting thing about Cafe Artiste is that every once in a while I’ll hear something over the background noise and here’s what I heard tonight: 

Gay man telling female friend: “I came out to my parents over breakfast. My Mom was pouring us all coffee. ‘Mom’, I said,  ‘I like my coffee like I like my women……..I don’t like coffee…‘ “

Posted in America, Family, Humor, Life. No Comments »

A gift for Father’s Day

May 3, 2007 — Shannon Quadros

As part of a promotion at work, the company is doing a little extra for the Mother’s Day and Father’s Day season. It’s throwing a little sop at prospective buyers if they close on their home a little earlier, all in the name of ‘honouring thy Father & Mother’.  Growing up in the old country, we celebrated both those days at a different time then they do here in the States. Mother’s day was along the lines of the UK which was on the Fourth Sunday in Lent as opposed to the second Sunday in May here. Father’s day was always on St. Joseph’s day (March 19) while here it is on the third Sunday of June.

I had no clue when Father’s Day was celebrated here so I looked up trusty ole Wikipedia to help me out. As I was perusing the page on Father’s Day I stumbled upon this:

” In the UK, Father’s Day is nine months before Mothering Sunday - suggestions have been made that Father gets his present on Father’s Day, and Mother gets hers nine months later. “

Charming. Absolutely charming.

Posted in America, Custom, Research, Sales, Tradition, Work. No Comments »