"Keep it light, fun, happy and professional at all times"

"Keep an eye on your online profile: It's crucial to remember that everything you do online can be seen by everyone. So no political rants, no passive-aggressive behaviour – keep it light, fun, happy and professional at all times."

Advice to arts graduates from Katy Cowan, director, Boomerang Communications Ltd.

I'm in trouble, then.

Source The Guardian "Life after university – 14 careers tips for arts graduates"

Thanks to Taryn Storey for drawing my attention to this.

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit 2012 Judicial Conference

I'm honored to be a speaker at this year's U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit Judicial Conference. The conference will be held next month, from August 8 to August 10, in Kansas City. This year's conference title is "“Landmark Litigation in the Eighth Circuit Courts: Views from the Bench, Bar and Academy”. The conference agenda can be read here and information on attending can be found here.

More so than any other federal circuit in recent years, the Eighth Circuit has played a pivotal role in the development of U.S. sports law. This includes deciding Tom Brady et al. v. NFL, a decision which led to the NFL and NFLPA ending the 2011 NFL Lockout.

I'll be on the labor relations in professional sports law panel with Indiana University Dean Gary Roberts, who previously represented the NFL, and former St. Louis Rams Executive VP and General Counsel Bob Wallace. Judge Mary Vasaly will moderate the panel, which will begin at 9:15 am on Thursday August 9.

Labor Relations in Professional Sports:
Does Federal Law Level the Playing Field

Introductions:

Judge Mary R. Vasaly
Minnesota Judicial Branch
Fourth Judicial District

Panel:

Professor Michael McCann
Professor of Law & Director of Sports Law Institute
Vermont Law School

Dean Gary R. Roberts
Gerald L. Bepko Professor of Law
Robert H. McKinney School of Law
Indiana University

Mr. Robert E. Wallace, Jr.
Partner
Chair, Sports Law Group
Thompson Coburn LLP

The conference has a number of distinguished speakers with sports law ties, including Paul Clement, who argued for the NFL in Brady v. NFL and for NBA players in Carmelo Anthony et al. v. NBA, and Ted Olson, who argued for the NFLPA in the Brady case. Other notable speakers include U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, Baylor University President Dean Ken Starr, who served as Independent Counsel while Bill Clinton was President, and Ohio State Law Professor Douglas Berman.

Why have nationality rules for Olympics?

The New York Times has a thoughtful debate on nationality rules for the Olympics. Are they even necessary? Could the Olympics take place without them - where the best athletes play regardless of their country?

Law Professors Peter Spiro, Ayelet Shachar, Ian Ayres, Jim Nafzinger, and former IOC official Jean-Loup Chappelet all contribute.

Richard Epstein: NCAA bypassing process in review of Penn State is wrong and a function of its monopoly status

University of Chicago Law Professor Richard Epstein writes a provocative column for Richochet titled, "Does the NCAA Wear the White Hat?". Here are excepts:

In this case, the longish process that gives Penn State 90 days to respond was waived. It seems that everyone wanted to get something done on this issue as quickly as possible. But the concentration of all powers in the hands of a single individual, NCAA President Mark Emmert, has real dangers – and would even if Emmert were the wisest person on the face of the planet.

* * *

It is not enough to say that there is abuse at the school level. It is also necessary to ask whether there is abuse at the NCAA level as well. On the latter point, the NCAA cannot get a clean verdict. The blunt truth is that the NCAA is the only game in town and has a power disproportionate to its wisdom. Put otherwise, the NCAA enjoys a monopoly position as a regulator and thus cannot be immune from the temptations that face all organizations with such power. Just to be summoned before the NCAA to explain why a college is not in compliance with this or that rule is a hugely expensive undertaking, which goes a long way to dull criticism of its behavior.

To read the rest, click here.

FCC Upholds Conclusion that Comcast Discriminated Against the Tennis Channel

A two-year dispute involving the cable tier placement of the Tennis Channel (not owned by Comcast) and the Golf Channel and Versus, recently renamed the NBC Sports Network, (both owned by Comcast) has been making its way through the FCC. This week,the majority of the FCC commissioners concluded that Comcast illegally discriminated in placing the Tennis Channel in a more limited and more expensive tier than the other two sports channels and ordered the firm to pay a fine and move the Tennis Channel to the same tier as the others.

The commission’s party-line 3-2 ruling by its Democratic majority upheld an administrative law judge’s conclusion that ordered Comcast to pay a forfeiture of $375,000 and required Comcast to carry Tennis Channel at the same level of distribution as Golf Channel and Versus. The ALJ also required Comcast to provide Tennis Channel with equitable treatment as to channel placement. The full commission ruling affirming the ALJ’s determination was the first time an MVPD was held liable under the law. The decision is lengthy, with a fair amount of space devoted to procedural issues.However, the areas of particular interest for sports and broadcast lawyers involve the determination of what facts justify a affiliation discrimination and the general First Amendment standards that should be accorded such cases.

The majority concluded that this policy unreasonably restrained the non-Comcast affiliated Tennis Channel from competing with the Comcast-affiliated Golf Channel, a violation of Section 616 of the Communications Act and its accompanying regulations. Such disputes are considered on a case-by-case basis and there are many factual questions that must be determined before concluding that competitive discrimination occurs.The majority, in upholding the ALJ, found that these conditions existed. Looking at the similarities in programming, ratings and demographics, along with circumstantial evidence, the majority concluded that discrimination due to affiliation existed. The opinion also discussed First Amendment considerations and concluded that since the anti-discrimination rules were based on “content-neutral” standards, the lesser intermediate scrutiny test would be applied. Citing earlier precedent involving cable television’s mandatory carriage requirements, the majority concluded that the test was warranted and that the it “easily” met the standard of a substantial governmental interest to prevent such unfavorable policies and that the rule was not burden substantially more speech than necessary.

The two dissenting commissioners contested the methodology of the majority’s conclusion about discrimination,noting the general cable industry practices involving the place of the Tennis Channel. It also issued a warning worth pondering: “. . . in order to shield themselves from discrimination complaints, Comcast and other MVPDs will be more likely to carry networks they do not want, on tiers with broader penetration,and at higher prices than ever before—at least if they are foolish enough to be willing to invest in content creation. And the Commission should not kid itself. These additional programming costs will come out of the pockets of consumers, not from MVPDs’ bottom lines.”

For the Tennis Channel, this is a huge shot in the arm. Comcast must now add Tennis Channel, currently available in 34 million homes nation wise, into an additional 18 million more households just weeks before the U.S. Open. This case will be appealed by Comcast and it is an important one to watch for cable operators, sports programmers and viewers.

PSU Board meeting to see if Consent Decree Invalid

This could be prove huge: Penn State Board of Trustees is meeting to discuss if President Erickson lacked the legal authority to sign the consent decree with the NCAA without first getting its approval. As I discussed yesterday, the invalidation of the consent decree strategy may be the best one for those who believe Penn State should fight the penalty.

Update 7/26: The Board met into the evening, but declined to vote on whether to rescind the consent decree. The board was apparently deterred by the possibility of a worse sanction from the NCAA if it fights it. Of course, the decision not to fight traces back to an on-going discussion on this blog about the NCAA not having to provide its members due process because of the Supreme Court's decision in NCAA v. Tarkanian.

Atheists, lies and suppressed knowledge of God

In the second half of Craig’s latest "Reasonable Faith" podcast, he talks about how, he supposes, atheists know that God exists, despite the fact that they assert that they don’t. I’d previously said in a post that Craig’s view would seem to have the consequence that atheists are lying about that, then. Actually, maybe that doesn’t follow. In the podcast, Craig denies his view is that atheists are lying when they deny they know God exists. We should accept that denial.

However, Craig’s explanations for why atheists are not, then, lying when they claim they don’t know when they do is not, I think, very convincing.

First he draws an analogy with someone who tries to rationalize away or suppress what they know. His example is of a married man who has an affair.

The human psyche is so capable of rationalization and suppressing things that we find uncomfortable that I think it's very plausible to think that an atheist could somehow suppress the knowledge of God or rationalize it away so that he doesn't have to face it overtly. You can think of cases, especially involving moral misbehavior, where this human ability to rationalize comes out. For example, men who get caught in sexual affairs will, at least in the beginning stages of the affair, typically rationalize away the behavior even though they know that what they are doing is wrong.

Another example would be, I suppose, a man that does not love his wife, but suppresses this knowledge and behaves like and says that he does in a attempt to fool both himself and his wife.

These are plausible examples of suppressed knowledge. But do they make the point Craig wants? Suppose the first man says, “I did nothing wrong,” when asked about his affair. He knows deep down that he did do something wrong. Would we say that this man is lying? Would you?

I’d say he was, both to others and also to himself. True, he may at that the moment he says it mean what he says. But what he says is nevertheless, deep down, a lie.

But if that is right, then Craig’s chosen analogy backfires on him. If the atheist similarly suppresses his knowledge that God exists, and says, meaning it, “I don’t know God exists”, he is also, deep down, lying both to others and himself.

Perhaps Craig would deny the man who has the affair is lying. "A lie", Craig might insist, "Cannot be sincerely asserted. It cannot be meant."  But is this true? It doesn't seem to me to be true (the above example involving the man having an affair seems to be a counter-example, in fact - he means what he says when he says it, but, it seems to me, he's still lying). At the very least, the affair example does not strike me as a clear cut example of someone's not lying. But then it doesn't really help support Craig’s case much, if at all.

Craig’s other thought is to borrow Plantinga’s idea that atheists may have a malfunctioning sensus divinitatis or God-sense. A religious person may know God directly via the operation of their healthy sensus divinitatis. But the poor atheist’s God-sense does not operate properly. It's been corrupted by sin.

That’s an interesting idea, but it hardly helps Craig given that the result of atheist’s non- or mal-functioning sensus divinitatis will be that they don’t know God exists (at least not by that route). Craig's view is precisely that atheist does know God exists – so, as it stands, his appeal to Plantinga actually ends up undermining Craig’s position, not supporting it. It’s odd Craig doesn’t spot this.

Of course, Craig may want to develop his Plantingian explanation in some way, but as it stands it fails.

So, perhaps Craig is right that the view that atheists know that God exists does not have the consequence that they are lying when they say they don't. But Craig has so far failed to come up with a clear explanation of why they aren't lying.

However, the really interesting issue about Craig’s suppressed knowledge thesis is not whether atheists are lying when they say they don’t know God exists. That's not a very significant question.

Craig seems to think we atheists just want an excuse to take offence at the suggestion that we are liars. He says: “I think the reason atheists raise this is because they want to be able to get their backs up and take righteous offense and indignation at being called liars by these Christians and theists.”

Frankly, I’m not bothered at all about that. The more interesting issue is whether we atheists do know God exists, choose to suppress that knowledge, and so do deserve to burn in hell for eternity as a result. Once it’s been suggested that we atheists are so morally depraved and disgusting that we deserve infinite torture (P.S. or punishment, or whatever you want to call it), adding “Oh, and by the way, you’re also lying,” is hardly much of an additional insult.

The main reason I’m interested in this issue is not that I want to take righteous offense at the claim that I'm lying, but rather that this sort of Craigian "suppressed knowledge" view and its connection in his mind with the concept of damnation involves such a foul and twisted – and I think potentially dangerous - vision of humanity. And also that it is pretty obviously false. I’ll post on that shortly.