Atlantic Monthly Contributors's Blog, page 152

Popstar: Celebrity Satire Done Right

Perhaps the biggest compliment you can give Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping is that it absolutely shouldn’t have worked. Woven whole-cloth from the sensibilities of the comedy team The Lonely Island, and inspired by the trio’s years making Saturday Night Live parodies of pop hits, Popstar could have ended up feeling like an overlong series of TV sketches, much like Key & Peele’s Keanu. And yet it mostly dodges those pitfalls by adopting a “mockumentary” approach that forgives its episodic structure.

Popstar doesn’t quite reach This Is Spinal Tap levels of satire (few things could), but as a send-up of the mores of today’s celebrity-obsessed culture, it largely succeeds.The film stars the Lonely Island frontman Andy Samberg as Conner4Real, a Justin Bieber-esque recording artist who left his lyricist Lawrence (Akiva Schaffer) and producer Owen (Jorma Taccone) in the dust on his way to the top, and is now faced with inevitable humbling failure on the fall back down. Like so many genre parodies, Popstar stumbles most when its plotting gets conventional, particularly when Conner rounds the bases for a third-act return to fame. But it makes up for that late swerve toward formula by being—simply put—really, really funny.

Samberg co-wrote the film with Taccone and Schaffer, who directed. Together, they’ve transplanted the strange sensibility of The Lonely Island’s music videos into a weird hyper-reality, where it’s very hard to detect where fiction bleeds into fact. Conner4Real’s songs are ridiculous, intricate anthems of stupidity. In “Equal Rights,” he demands marriage equality for all while repeatedly reminding the camera that he is not, himself, gay. In “I’m So Humble,” he brags about how down-to-earth he is despite his massive celebrity. In “Finest Girl,” he details an encounter with a woman who demanded he treat her like the U.S. military treated Osama Bin Laden.

It’s somewhat absurd that these songs are presented as straight-faced hits from a stadium-filling artist—but only a little. Popstar captures the current moment in the world of pop, where musicians feel more like brand ambassadors for their own fandom than artists: Their style is a mix of braggadocio and plaintiveness, and they broadcast shallow activism directly to their followers over Snapchat and YouTube. Conner’s new anthems are presented as part of the classic hubris of the sophomore album, so it doesn’t even matter that their lyrical content is so peculiar, especially not when each song’s thudding beats and crisp production exactly resemble the music The Lonely Island is mocking.

Popstar captures the current moment in the world of pop, where musicians feel more like brand ambassadors for their own fandom than artists.

Still, there’s something ephemeral about Popstar’s satire, which wouldn’t have landed quite as well if the film had come out just a couple years earlier. It has the same basic structure as Justin Bieber’s biopic/concert film Never Say Never, and apes the strange arc of Bieber’s career, exploring a mix of the hedonistic excess and total sheltering that comes from life nestled within an entourage. But as silly as Conner is (he live-streams his own body waxing and thinks it literally takes 30 seconds to fly to Mars), the film can’t match the ludicrous behavior of its pint-sized, pop-locking, sometimes-dreadlocked target. Perhaps the hardest part of any music parody is actually trying to match the moneyed antics of real rock-stars, and in that sense, Popstar stumbles.

But as a translation of Samberg and company’s goofy sensibilities to the big screen, it’s a triumph. Unlike so many of his contemporaries, Samberg excels at never making the joke about anyone; even the doofy Conner is so lovingly portrayed that he doesn’t feel like a mean send-up. Popstar is loaded with celebrity cameos, like the dire Zoolander 2, but they don’t feel pointlessly jammed in, and its humor is far less cruel. Samberg has always excelled at making himself the butt of every joke, and Popstar maintains that focus—when Conner is singing ridiculous songs like “Equal Rights” and insisting he isn’t gay, the audience instantly recognizes that he’s the fool (though a Ringo Starr talking-head segment does pop up to drive that point home).

Every star who drops by appears to be in on the gag, too—musicians like Nas, Mariah Carey, Usher, Seal, Questlove, and Starr give real performances and seem genuinely invested in Conner’s success, in contrast to the flat cue-card reading of walk-on parts in Zoolander 2 or last year’s Entourage. As he does on his sitcom Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Samberg projects foolish arrogance without ever totally letting go of his base charm. As his sidelined partners, Taccone and Schaffer are agreeably sad-sack, and the real standout of the supporting cast is the SNL veteran Tim Meadows as Conner’s right-hand man Harry. Meadows has always thrived at playing put-upon middle managers whose cheeriness belies hidden rage, and Harry is the best version of that.

Popstar is too frothy to enter the pantheon of endlessly rewatchable modern comedies like Will Ferrell’s Anchorman, Kristen Wiig’s Bridesmaids, and Seth Rogen’s Knocked Up, but that’s partly because it’s trying to hit a constantly moving target. Its jokes about hoverboards catching on fire probably won’t be very funny even a year from now, but Popstar works best as a comedy for the moment, and in this era of six-second comedy videos and Snapchat updates that fizz into the ether after 24 hours, audiences could do much worse.

Do We Need Zoos?

Over the Memorial Day weekend, a 4-year-old boy climbed the guardrail at the Cincinnati Zoo and into the enclosure of a 17-year-old silverback gorilla named Harambe. By now, most people know how this played out. The boy’s mother had lost track of him, long enough that he crawled over a wall and fell 10 feet into a moat at the bottom. Harambe stood over the child, as if protecting him from the people yelling above, then grabbed the boy’s arm and jerked him through the water. Tranquilizing the gorilla wasn’t an option, the zoo director would later say, because the sedative takes time. And no one could predict how a drugged animal that weighs 450 pounds would react. So they shot Harambe dead.

Zoos have changed a lot in the past 50 years. The openness of Harambe’s enclosure, the cliffs separated by a moat, were designed to lend it a more natural feel for viewers, and to simulate wild environment for the gorillas. It is a departure from the bars and sanitized tile floors of past zoo design. As people become more sensitive to the lives of these animals, they’ve understood how flat concrete and tight confinement can cause depression, even phobia, in everything from donkeys to snow leopards.

Someone at the Cincinnati Zoo caught much of what happened on video (not the shooting), and immediately afterward people blamed both the mother—why wasn’t she watching her son?—and the zoo director—was there no other option?

Few people have asked why a zoo, full of dangerous, or not-so dangerous animals, is even necessary. That might be because calling for an end to zoos has typically been the cause of poets and animal-rights activists. Most past arguments against zoos have focused on the insensitivity toward animals. As Benjamin Wallace-Wells wrote two years ago in a piece for New York magazine titled, “The Case for the End of the Modern Zoo”:

I realize that to even raise this issue makes you sound like some kind of sour, rule-bound vegetarian, so let me make clear my position up front: I love zoos. My daughter is not quite 2, and the zoo brings out all of her best and least complicated emotions — awe, delight, empathy.

But concern for caged animals has caught enough mainstream interest that New York and California introduced bills that would outlaw killer whales kept in captivity. Their focus on killer whales is in large part owed to a 2013 documentary called Blackfish, but it proves that it has become a concern for more than a fringe of animal-rights advocates. So much so, that last March, SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment said it would stop breeding captive killer whales. And if keeping an orca in large tank is unethical, then why not an elephant, a tiger, or a 17-year-old western lowland gorilla?

The argument for zoos is often that they serve to educate the public, they give people who can’t afford to travel a chance to see the animals, and that zoos serve as important conservation centers.  There is a distinction, of course, between good zoos and bad zoos. In the 1980s, a study of animals at the San Diego Zoo found some had died from frequent tranquilizing, malnutrition, and that some had suffered repeated injuries while being transported. Since that report, and with a rise in scientists who study animal behavior, zoos have tried to improve conditions for their caged animals. This was partly the cause for more natural-looking enclosures––like the gorilla exhibit in Cincinnati––because “empty, boring, barren enclosures” can cause depression or aggression in some animals, including primates, according to a study by Plymouth University, in England.

In that regard, the Cincinnati Zoo is by all means a good zoo, providing Harambe a relatively comfortable enclosure. It’s not simple to accommodate the world’s largest primate. Gorillas are as strong as eight men, they can be aggressive, and they’re also endangered. For all those reason, they’re fascinating to watch. And unless someone planned to visit the forests of Central Africa, a zoo is the only place a person will likely see one—or for that matter a wolf, a rhino, or a rhinoceros hornbill (a bird kept at the Cincinnati Zoo). Of course, there’s TV, “but that really does pale next to seeing a living creature in the flesh, hearing it, smelling it, watching what it does and having the time to absorb details,” wrote David Hone, a paleontologist and writer who has defended zoos.

So zoos teach. Or do they?

In 2014, Eric Jensen, a sociologist at the University of Warwick, published a study in the journal Conservation Biology that surveyed 3,000 children before and after a zoo visit and found only one-third had a “positive” learning experience, meaning they’d learned something factual. About 15 percent of the kids picked up incorrect information. But perhaps what pro-zoo people mean, and more in line with what Hone argued in his article, was that zoos are a type of consciousness expander. They expose people young and old to something they’d never otherwise be able to see. For example, a child’s parents may take her to the Cincinnati Zoo and years afterward she might remember that moment and dream of a job working alongside animals—and achieve that goal.

Obviously, children are not the only group to learn from zoos. Researchers visit them, observe and study the animals, and help animal conservation. In this case, zoos act like temples of sanctuary, where human intervention inside protects a species from human threats outside. This happened with the California condor, of which there were only 23 left in 1982. By 1987 researchers and conservationists had captured every last one and moved them into a captive-breeding program. Today, thanks in part to the Los Angeles Zoo, there are hundreds of condors living in captivity, and about 75 have been released back into the wild.

It is true zoos have played a massive role in conserving, and in the recovery of, some species, but this is a relatively small portion of the animals zoos work with. As Tim Zimmerman pointed out in an article for Outside magazine last year, the Association of Zoos & Aquariums reported that of all the animals at the 228 zoos it accredits, only 30 species are being worked with for recovery. And of those 30 cases, most can’t be re-introduced into the wild. So the species will exist, but never as they once did.

Humans have always caught and caged animals, either for entertainment, or as an assertion of power. The Sumerians in ancient Mesopotamia did it more than 4,000 years ago. Later, Alexander the Great was said to take special care of his menagerie of bears and monkeys. The Aztecs in the Americas, the early Chinese––both caged animals. The first modern zoos emerged in the 19th century, but have changed drastically since, slowly becoming more hospitable toward animals as people’s empathy toward them grows.

Now, in Denmark, the human/animal role of zoos is already being reversed. At Zootopia, BIG, the architecture firm, designed a 300-acre zoo without bars, fences or glass, which it said makes for the “best possible and freest possible environment for the animals.” The first phase is scheduled to open in 2019. It’s not a preserve––as those who want zoos shut down have called for––but it is an advancement in how people think of holding captive animals. Zootopia’s layout would let animals roam land that encircles a doughnut-hole observation center. And though people can walk through tunnels and poke their heads up for a closer look, in this design it’s not dangerous animals like the silverback gorilla that are caged, it’s the humans.

No Civil-Rights Charges in Minnesota Police Shooting

Federal prosecutors won’t bring civil-rights charges against two Minneapolis police officers for the fatal shooting of Jamar Clark last November, citing “insufficient evidence,” the U.S. attorney’s office for Minnesota announced Wednesday.

Clark died under unclear circumstances after being shot in the head during an arrest by two Minneapolis police officers. The 24-year-old man survived but was taken off life support the next day. Black Lives Matter demonstrators soon gathered to protest the shooting, and Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges asked the federal Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division to investigate Clark’s death.

The Washington Post has more:

Investigators said that people in the area differed on whether Clark was handcuffed when he was shot, described by local and federal officials alike as a pivotal question in their probes. Federal officials said they focused heavily on this, because the question of whether Clark was cuffed could change whether the officers were deemed to have used reasonable force.

The Justice Department said Wednesday that evidence suggested that Clark was not handcuffed during the encounter. Mike Freeman, the Hennepin County attorney, had said a dozen witnesses said one or both of Clark’s hands were cuffed, two others said he was not cuffed and several others were not sure. Law enforcement agents and paramedics all said he was not cuffed, Freeman said.

The federal probe found that while half of the civilian witnesses who spoke to the FBI said that Clark was handcuffed, their accounts “varied significantly,” which investigators determined undermined whether they could prove that he was cuffed. In addition, the federal probe said that neither an autopsy nor an independent autopsy review found that Clark’s wrists had injuries suggesting he was handcuffed.

Hennepin County District Attorney Mike Freeman previously declined to bring criminal charges against the two officers in March. Wednesday’s announcement might not be the end of legal proceedings, however. The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported Clark’s family is planning to file a civil complaint against the two officers over his death.

The Death of Corey Jones: Six Shots, Two Charges, Few Answers

Corey Jones’s only crime was having his car break down in the middle of the night.

The 31-year-old drummer was on his way home from a gig when his car broke down on October 18 in Palm Beach Gardens. Jones, who was black, had called for a tow and was waiting when Officer Nouman Raja of the Palm Beach Gardens police arrived, driving an unmarked car and wearing plainclothes. Raja questioned Jones, then shot him six times, killing him. A grand jury indicted Raja on Wednesday, charging him with attempted first-degree murder with a firearm and manslaughter by culpable negligence. If convicted, he could spend his life in prison.

Raja never identified himself as a police officer, prosecutors said. Jones had a license to carry a concealed weapon, and his gun was found 72 feet from his body, unfired. In a bitter irony, he had been reluctant to leave his van with a bandmate because he was afraid some harm might come to his drum set. When Raja arrived, Jones was on the phone with an AT&T roadside assistance officer. A recording of the call captures a horrifying turn of events, as Raja arrived—driving the wrong way down an interstate exit ramp—accosted Jones without ever explaining that he was an officer, and then fatally shot him. Here’s a passage of dialogue from the recording, included in the probable-cause affidavit released Wednesday:

Jones: Huh?

Raja: You good?

Jones: I’m good.

Raja: Really?

Jones: Yeah, I’m good.

Raja: Really?

Jones: Yeah.

Raja: Get your fucking hands up! Get your fucking hands up!

Jones: Hold on!

Raja: Get your fucking hands up! Drop!

Two seconds later, Raja opened fire, shooting six times and hitting Jones three times.

The arrest report notes that Raja had been an officer for more than seven years, and had even taught training courses in criminal justice at a local institution. “Despite his experience, his extensive police training, and the direction of a superior officer to wear a tactical vest with police markings on it to clearly identify himself as a police officer, Raja chose to approach Corey Jones’ vehicle in a tactically unsound, unsafe and grossly negligent manner,” the affidavit states.

The Palm Beach Gardens Police Department fired Raja less than a month after the killing. Family members had been concerned that the prosecutor had turned the case over to a grand jury rather than simply charge Raja himself. In many cases of deaths at police hands, including ones that have attracted public outrage like the killing of Tamir Rice, officers have been not been indicted. But even when officers are charged, it’s often challenging for prosecutors to convict: Evidence can be muddy, and juries often give officers the benefit of the doubt.

The Bombing Attack in Somalia's Capital

At least 10 people were killed and dozens injured after attackers detonated a bomb outside a hotel in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu.

The car bomb exploded near the gates of the Ambassador Hotel Wednesday. Shortly after the blast, three gunmen swarmed inside the building. Somalia’s National Intelligence and Security Agency tweeted it had rescued survivors from inside and sent security forces to clear the upper levels of the hotel.

Al-Shabaab, a terrorist group affiliated with al-Qaeda, quickly took responsibility for the attack, Reuters reported:

"We targeted the members of the apostate government ... We killed many of them inside and we shall give details later. Our mujahideen are on the top floor of the hotel building," Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, al Shabaab’s military operation spokesman, told Reuters.

The terrorist group has remained a large threat in Mogadishu, even after African Union troops pushed them out of the city in 2011. The U.S. has also targeted them in bombings as recently as March. Al-Shabaab has repeatedly attacked towns and cities in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia, including another hotel bombing in Mogadishu this February.

UCLA Shooting: Two Dead in Likely Murder-Suicide

What we know so far:

—Two people are dead after a possible murder-suicide on the University of California, Los Angeles campus.

—The shooting took place Wednesday morning at an engineering building on campus.

—Los Angeles police confirmed the shooting was likely a murder-suicide and lifted the lockdown.

—Reports of the shooting led to a massive law-enforcement response, including ATF and FBI agents and a citywide “tactical alert.”

Follow the story with updates below.

3:41 p.m. EST

In a statement, UCLA confirms the situation is “contained.”

“The campus has reopened and the lockdown is lifted. Classes are cancelled for the day and are expected to resume tomorrow,” the university said.

3:13 p.m. EST

The Los Angeles Police Department is describing the shooting as a murder-suicide and lifting the lockdown, according to the Los Angeles Times:

LAPD Chief Charlie Beck confirmed that the shooter was one of the two men killed inside a small office in the campus’ engineering complex.

”The important thing for people to take away from this is the campus is now safe,” Beck told reporters in a news conference that took place shortly after noon.

The shooting, which led to a campus lockdown just after 10 a.m., prompted a massive response from local and federal law enforcement.

While stressing that the threat had passed, the LAPD also said it would continue to search the site of the shooting.

#LAPD News: @LAPDChiefBeck Out of an abundance of caution, search will still continue in bldg where incident took place. @UCLABruinAlert

— LAPD HQ (@LAPDHQ) June 1, 2016

2:57 p.m. EST

The Los Angeles Police Department said in a statement it first received reports of shots fired on campus at 10 a.m. local time. According to NBC News, UCLA students are taking final exams this week.

2:27 p.m. EST

The university confirmed that the two victims shot earlier Wednesday have died.

Police confirm 2 dead in shooting at UCLA. Police are sweeping Engineering IV building for a possible shooter. Watch for updates.

— UCLA Newsroom (@UCLAnewsroom) June 1, 2016

Officials did not release the victims’ names pending notification of their families.

2:07 p.m. EST

The University of California, Los Angeles campus is on lockdown after a gunman shot two people in an engineering building, the university said.

The condition of the two shooting victims is not known.

Campus officials issued the lockdown notice during morning classes on Wednesday.

BruinAlert: Shooting at Engineering 4. Go to secure location and deny entry (lockdown) now!

— UCLA Bruin Alert (@UCLABruinAlert) June 1, 2016

Law-enforcement officials have responded to the scene, including the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, the agency said on Twitter.

BREAKING: ATF responding to #UCLA, agents en route.

— ATF HQ (@ATFHQ) June 1, 2016

We’ll update this story with more information when it becomes available.

Maya & Marty Shovels Dirt Onto the TV Variety Show

As networks like NBC confront the daunting swell of original content in the ever-expanding online morass that is “Peak TV,” they’ve increasingly looked to the past in an effort to define their present. How else can you explain Maya & Marty, a bizarre curio that rolled out on Tuesday night, seemingly straight out of the Eisenhower era? It’s the latest effort to revive the TV variety show, an old school mix of comedy sketches and song-and-dance numbers that defined the earliest days of the medium but now survives only in the form of Saturday Night Live. Maya & Marty is being pitched as must-see TV, an event chock-full of celebrities that simply has to be watched live, DVRs be damned. But at its best, it feels like a copy of a copy: Tuesday Night Live, if you will.

In the online age, you could be forgiven for thinking that the primary appeal of a variety series would be its ability to offer something topical and relevant—to instantly react to news and pop culture. Maya & Marty seems to be aiming for none of that. It has two veteran stars of sketch comedy as its hosts, Maya Rudolph and Martin Short, and its ensemble of recurring players and guest stars are ripped right from SNL: Kenan Thompson, Larry David, Jimmy Fallon. The frequent SNL hosts Tom Hanks and Miley Cyrus even popped in for episode one, which was shot in the very same studio SNL uses on Saturdays. The show’s second sketch saw Thompson revive the Steve Harvey impression he’s deployed multiple times on … well, you get the idea. In episode one, Maya & Marty felt less like an essential piece of live television and more like a patchwork of material from Saturday Night Live’s cutting-room floor.

In a way, that makes it a safer bet than NBC’s last attempt at a variety series, Best Time Ever With Neil Patrick Harris, which aired eight episodes last year to low ratings before being quickly put out to pasture. That show ditched comedy sketches for a bizarre mix of live stunts and pre-taped “pranks,” which involved Neil Patrick Harris essentially stalking members of the public for months and revealing his behavior to them in front of a cheering studio audience. It wasn’t good either, but it was certainly unique: an odd blending of Candid Camera and NBC cross-promotion (the show would visit the set of network hits like American Ninja Warrior or Last Call With Carson Daly).

Maya & Marty maintains the cross-promotion effort, mixed in with a little bit of shameless on-camera advertising (which will, apparently, become a part of SNL sketches in the future to cut down on the commercial breaks that everyone just fast-forwards through now). Perhaps you tuned into Maya & Marty to see Tom Hanks participate in a sketch where he played an astronaut bidding goodbye to his sad wife (Rudolph)? Well, then you got to see him chowing down on some Burger King-branded “chicken fries,” which he prominently plugged to the camera. Also mentioned on the show? NBC’s hit drama Chicago Fire (which Hanks watched a clip from on his iPhone in one sketch), and the Steve Harvey-fronted Little Big Shots (an excuse for some free advertising, and for Thompson to mug at the camera for five minutes).

It’s like NBC decided to replicate the formula of SNL and took all the wrong lessons from it. People aren’t going to tune into a new show for half-baked celebrity impressions they can see somewhere else. But there’s still ample room for a comedy series that plays on topical issues, as late-night talk shows continue to scramble to fill the void left by Jon Stewart. Short and Rudolph are both brilliant impressionists, and they clearly have the ample cast of SNL at their disposal for this series, but the only sketch that played in that territory saw Rudolph crushing diamonds between her teeth as Melania Trump, while Kate McKinnon dropped by to reprise her role as Heidi Cruz (some weeks after Ted Cruz suspended his campaign for president).

In episode one, Maya & Marty felt less like essential live television and more like a patchwork of material from SNL’s cutting-room floor.

The hosts of Maya & Marty are clearly having fun: Short got to revive his character Jiminy Glick, an overweight celebrity journalist who he created for his short-lived Martin Short Show in 1999, trading barbs with a bemused Larry David. Rudolph delighted in playing a drunken rabbit in a strange parody of the children’s book Goodnight Moon that seemed very distantly connected to its source material. But it’s hard to imagine what NBC was thinking in ordering this show to series (it will air six episodes over the summer), or exactly who the audience might be for a Goodnight Moon parody. (Jaded 4-year-olds up past their bedtime?)

When interviewed about the show, its producer Lorne Michaels (he of, yes, Saturday Night Live) insisted there was a place in modern TV for the classic variety show. “I think there’s a real audience for it,” he told Variety. “It was such a staple of television, really for the first 30 or 40 years. And then I think elements of it are in shows like Dancing With the Stars or The Voice, where they have that feeling—they are all just based on performance.”

Michaels isn’t wrong, and he’s tapped into that appeal with a lot of NBC’s other late night offerings like The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon, which gives celebrities a chance to gently mock themselves and sing silly songs in a bite-sized format that can easily go viral. But an hour-long variety special every week demands more than just a cheap celebrity walk-on: Maya & Marty feels like reheated leftovers rather than something that could demand popular attention every week. Its opening ratings were solid, with about 6.5 million people tuning in, but there was a reason for that—it aired before the season premiere of America’s Got Talent, featuring Simon Cowell as a judge for the first time in that show’s history, which drew almost 12 million viewers. Whatever your opinion, that’s a variety show that actually commands interest from a live audience.

Another Win for Transgender Rights in the Federal Courts

On Tuesday, a federal appeals court in Richmond said it would not rehear a case involving a transgender Virginia student who sued for the right to use the boy’s bathroom at his school.

The legal wrangling is somewhat elaborate: In April, a three-judge panel ruled the U.S. Department of Education could deem gender identity to be covered by Title IX of the Civil Rights Act. As a result, it said a lower court should re-evaluate the request from Gavin Grimm, who was born female, to use male restrooms. The local school board then requested that the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals rehear the case “en banc,” which is to say with every judge on the circuit. That request was denied. Grimm said in a statement:

Now that the Fourth Circuit’s decision is final, I hope my school board will finally do the right thing and let me go back to using the boys’ restroom again. Transgender kids should not have to sue their own school boards just for the ability to use the same restrooms as everyone else.

The decision is important not just as part of a growing national debate over gender identity, but also for its precedent. After North Carolina passed a law in March requiring transgender people to use the bathrooms in public facilities corresponding to the sex on their birth certificate, the federal government threatened to withdraw funding to the state under Title IX. Governor Pat McCrory sued for a ruling clarifying the law, and the Justice Department promptly sued the state right back. The refusal to rehear the Grimm case en banc suggests that precedent in the Fourth Circuit, which includes North Carolina, is clear.

But since the Obama administration issued an order in May requiring all schools to allow transgender bathroom access, several states have sued the federal government. That means the final arbiter might be the Supreme Court.

Ken Starr Stepping Down as Baylor University's Chancellor

Ken Starr is stepping down as chancellor of Baylor University, he told ESPN, just days after the school in Waco, Texas, demoted him from its presidency and fired Art Briles, the head football coach, over the handling of accusations of sexual assault on campus.

He said he was resigning as chancellor effective immediately “as a matter of conscience,” but added he will continue to teach in the law school.

Starr served as president of Baylor until the university announced in a statement May 26 it was demoting him and firing Briles. The statement said Starr would serve as Baylor’s chancellor and remain a professor at the university’s law school. Additionally, the statement said, Ian McCaw, the athletic director, has been sanctioned and placed on probation. Baylor named David Garland interim president.

At issue were complaints of sexual assaults that victims said the university had not taken seriously. An independent investigation of the allegations, conducted by Pepper Hamilton, the law firm, reported on May 26:

Based on a high-level audit of all reports of sexual harassment or violence for three academic years from 2012-2013 through 2014-2015, Pepper found that the University’s student conduct processes were wholly inadequate to consistently provide a prompt and equitable response under Title IX, that Baylor failed to consistently support complainants through the provision of interim measures, and that in some cases, the University failed to take action to identify and eliminate a potential hostile environment, prevent its recurrence, or address its effects for individual complainants or the broader campus community.

The allegations came to light after Sam Ukwuachu, a former football player at Baylor, was convicted in 2015 of raping a student. During his trial, it emerged Ukwuachu had been investigated, but not punished, by the university. Several similar reports have since emerged, including at least five women who said they were raped by Tevin Elliot, another former Baylor football player, who was sentenced in 2014 to 20 years in prison for rape.

The investigation by Pepper Hamilton found that two Baylor administrators, who were unnamed in the report, discouraged complainants from reporting or participating in student-conduct processes, “or that contributed to or accommodated a hostile environment.”

“In one instance,” the investigation found, “those actions constituted retaliation against a complainant for reporting sexual assault.”

The report singled out Baylor’s football program, saying the findings “reflect significant concerns about the tone and culture within” the program.

“Leadership challenges and communications issues hindered enforcement of rules and policies, and created a cultural perception that football was above the rules,” the report said.

Baylor failed to take appropriate action to respond to reports of sexual assault and dating violence reportedly committed by football players. The choices made by football staff and athletics leadership, in some instances, posed a risk to campus safety and the integrity of the University. In certain instances, including reports of a sexual assault by multiple football players, athletics and football personnel affirmatively chose not to report sexual violence and dating violence to an appropriate administrator outside of athletics. In those instances, football coaches or staff met directly with a complainant and/or a parent of a complainant and did not report the misconduct

“We were horrified by the extent of these acts of sexual violence on our campus. This investigation revealed the university’s mishandling of reports in what should have been a supportive, responsive and caring environment for students,” Richard Willis, chair of the Baylor Board of Regents, said in Thursday’s statement from the university. “The depth to which these acts occurred shocked and outraged us.”

Ron Murff, chair-elect of the Baylor Board of Regents, added: “We, as the governing board of this university, offer our apologies to the many who sought help from the university.  We are deeply sorry for the harm that survivors have endured.”

Speaking to ESPN on Wednesday, Starr called for more transparency at Baylor.

“We need to put this horrible experience behind us,” he said. “We need to be honest.”

Twitter's Suspension of (and About-Face on) a Parody Account

Updated on June 1 at 2:06 p.m. ET

Twitter appears to have reactivated Wednesday a popular account that satirized Russian President Vladimir Putin, a day after the @DarthPutinKGB account was suspended.

My security services have thwarted yet another CIA attempt at regime change in Russia.