“We have functioned for far too long as a country not operating on all of its cylinders when that many people are in federal and state prisons.” —JANET RENO, former U.S. Attorney General, speaking at a two-day Stanford Law Review symposium, “Punishment and Its Purposes,” held at the Law School on February 20 and 21. Reno received a standing ovation after pointing out that far more people are imprisoned in the United States than in other Western countries and calling on students to help make the criminal justice system more equitable. 

“There’s a conspiracy of silence among entertainment executives—they’re no different than the tobacco executives who refused to admit that cigarettes caused cancer. . . . We’re not blaming all of society’s ills on them, but to say they bear no responsibility for violence, sexual behavior, and other health issues among young people flies in the face of reality.” —JAMES STEYER ’83 (BA ’78), founder and CEO of Common Sense Media, as quoted in the Los Angeles Times. The March 28 article, “The Decency Debate,” explored the uproar among conservatives and liberals alike over the type of entertainment produced by mass media

“A name is now no longer a simple identifier: it is the key to a vast, cross-referenced system of public and private databases, which lay bare the most intimate features of an individual’s life.” —MARC ROTENBERG ’87, Executive Director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, writing in a friend of the court brief on behalf of Hiibel, in Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court of Nevada. The case, now before the U.S. Supreme Court, will decide whether Dudley Hiibel was acting within his rights when he refused to identify himself to the police.

“We’re starting to see the death of identity politics. It’s not dead yet, because there’s not a panel tomorrow on the rise of white conservatism, right? . . . But I think it’s on its way out.” —G. MARCUS COLE, Professor of Law, Helen L. Crocker Faculty Scholar, and Academic Associate Dean for Curriculum, speaking on a February 24 panel titled “The Future of Black America: The Implications of the Rise of Conservatism in Black America,” sponsored by the Stanford Black Law Students Association and the Federalist Society.

“[San Francisco’s] argument—that local officials can act in contravention of state law based on their own untested interpretation of the constitution—is dangerous. My sympathies lie with the city—this time. But I worry about the types of constitutional revelations we might expect in other cities with different political constituencies.” —RICHARD THOMPSON FORD, Professor of Law and Justin M. Roach, Jr. Faculty Scholar, writing in Slate. His February 23 column, titled “Civic Disobedience: San Francisco Chooses the Wrong Way to Flout the State,” argued against the city’s decision to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. 

“If we believe that we are fighting a war against terrorism, and that it is a just war, then we must not forget that a prerequisite of fighting a just war is a readiness to fight the war in a just manner.” —HON. SOLI SORABJEE, Attorney General of India, speaking at the Law School on February 24. Sorabjee delivered a lecture titled “Combating Terrorism in a Democratic Society Based on a Rule of Law,” sponsored by the Stanford Center on Conflict and Negotiation