Thursday round-up
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on Oct 24, 2013 at 8:51 am
In response to a request from the Court, the parties in the greenhouse gases cases have agreed to reduce both the length and number of their briefs on the merits. Tony Mauro reports for the Blog of Legal Times on this recent development in those cases, in which the Court will consider the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases stemming from stationary sources such as power plants.
In USA Today, Richard Wolf observes that “[i]f there is anything a visitor to the nation’s highest court can count on beyond the justices’ rapid-fire questions, it is their affinity for hypotheticals, or ‘hypos’”; his story provides some recent illustrations, including “tales of imaginary psychiatrists, robber barons on horse and carriage, luxury German automobiles crashing in Poland and — perish the thought! — lawyers forced to retire at 60.”
At ACSblog, William Kidder – the assistant provost at UC Riverside – counters assertions made by Michigan Solicitor General John Bursch regarding diversity in the University of California system during the oral argument in Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, the challenge to Michigan’s ban on the use of affirmative action by public universities.