The New York Times picks up on the story of the lawsuit against the University of Iowa Law School brought by an applicant who says she was not hired because she was considered too conservative. In his Sidebar column, Adam Liptak asked Walter Olson of Overlawyered about the case, and got this interesting response:
“I have serious misgivings about asking the courts to fix this through lawsuits,” Mr. Olson said. “It threatens to intrude on collegiality, empower some with sharp elbows to sue their way into faculty jobs, invite judges into making subjective calls of their own which may reflect their assumptions and biases, all while costing a lot of money and grief.”
“At the same time,” he added, “there’s a karma factor here. Law faculties at Iowa and elsewhere have been enthusiastic advocates of wider liability for other employers that get sued. They’re not really going to ask for an exemption for themselves, are they?”
