Samir Chopra's Blog, page 119

The Closing of the NYPD’s Mind

Today, Brooklyn College hosted a panel titled ‘Are We Safer? Costs, Benefits, and Alternatives to 20 Years of Aggressive Street Policing” (organized by the Herbert Kurz Chair in Constitutional Law and Civil Liberties, Professor Anna Law.) The panel’s discussants were: John DeCarlo, Michael Powell (New York Times), Alex S. Vitale, and Franklin E. Zimring.  The range of topics covered in this discussion between three academics (DeCarlo has served in the police in the past) and one journalist were wide-ranging: the significance of statistics pertaining to police-citizenry contact (racial divisions, nature of contact, outcomes of contacts etc); the gap between academic and press coverage of police and criminology issues; the insularity of the New York City Police department; the tactics and strategies of New York City policing; their effectiveness in reducing crime in New York City; hidden causal factors in crime reduction; the constitutionality of the NYPD’s tactics; and so on.

I will not try and recapitulate the entire discussion as I did not take detailed notes. Here, however, is what stood out for me the most.

Both Powell and Vitale reported on a culture of seclusion that exists within the New York City Police department: it does not reach out to make, or invite, contact with journalists or academics who might be reporting on, and studying, it. There is no attempt by the department to offer insight or perspective into its decisions, to clarify and elucidate its  responses to past events, to engage in debate with scholarly or informal analysis about their operations and methodologies. It is, in sum, a closed and opaque system: it does not seek transparency in any way. Perhaps its members might complain of being misunderstood as a result of the lack of any meaningful full duplex communication, but this is a situation that  the department seems to have willfully created. Vitale reported that while he occasionally receives requests for copies of his writings on the NYPD, he has never been able to enter into a dialog with police officers; this is in sharp contrast to his interactions with other police departments elsewhere–both in the US and overseas–who have organized conferences and meetings with their officers for him, and thus sparked off an ongoing conversation, one hopefully educational for both parties. (On a side note: Professor Law invited the NYPD to participate in today’s panel and they either declined or did not return her email.)

The culture of seclusion at the NYPD is alarming in several dimensions. For one thing, it contributes to groupthink within the department; it remains embroiled in an echo-chamber of its making, content to suspiciously peruse the offerings of those who would dare write on it, but never bothering to engage in argument with them, either to change their minds or to entertain the possibility of having theirs changed. Engagement with commentary on the NYPD should not be viewed by it as an optional, supererogatory public relations exercise; rather, it should be understood as an essential part of its communications with the ‘community’ it polices. This is what one segment of the community thinks and understands about it, this is what it reports to its remaining members; it behooves the NYPD to be part of this conversation. Both parties would be enriched by the other’s perspective.

The NYPD and the communities it polices, are hurt by its barricading itself in its precincts and the subsequent closing of its mind.

Courage in the Face of Terror, Elsewhere

After 9/11, we were told how brave New Yorkers were, how resilient this city was, how its people would come together in the face of adversity, how it had seen worse and endured and would do the same again. After 7/7 we were told that Londoners, who lived in a city that had survived the Blitz and fought off Nazi attacks, would live to fight another day, that the day after the attack, stoic Londoners who could take a punch and roll with it were already back at work determined to move on, keeping upper lips stiff, and their chins up. Now, after 4/15 we are told Boston was the wrong city to mess with, that it and its residents will take this and move on, that the terrorists will find no victory here, that the city is strong and will endure.

I trust I sound repetitive above. For there is a pattern in there. (One whose details could be unpacked in even greater detail had I been more diligent in tracking down the original sources of commentary that I refer to.) Its outlines are clear: some places, some locales, which bear the brunt of acts of ‘terror’ and ‘dastardly attacks’ committed by ‘terrorists’ and ‘cowards’ are sites for the display of resilience and courage and fortitude. They serve as showcases for local character on occasions on which the accumulated history of resistance that they have built up can be unfurled in the face of the offender.

These tributes, well-meant and sincere and full of compassion for those whose lives have been afflicted by the scourge of the anonymously violent, give me occasion for pause. I wonder if other sites, other venues for the display of terror, are inhabited by people who show similar fortitude and courage. I wonder whether Baghdad–where improvised explosive devices like those used in London and Boston are exceedingly common, as are the tangled masses of flesh and blood and torn limb that are their inevitable result–is populated by the brave or by the cowardly, by the determined or by the milquetoast.  I wonder whether its citizens get up in the morning and go to work the day after a bombing; I wonder whether the parents who live there dare to send their kids to school the day after a massacre in their neighborhoods, and if they do, whether they are congratulated for their non-quivering upper lips and their chins held upright. I’m curious about whether the citizens of Gaza recover quickly after an aerial assault causes the loss of life of their loved ones. Do they just flop around, wailing and mourning, unhinged and disconsolate, plotting their next dastardly revenge? I wonder about those who live in Afghan villages, subjected sometimes to the invasive patrol, the droning drone, the unexploded ordnance or mine, or a local warlord’s imprecations. Do they display ‘stubborn resilience’ as well? Or are all these folks–the ones in Baghdad, Gaza, or Afghanistan–just fatalistically resigned to their fates?

Depending on how we view their actions, we might find the  people who live in places like these deserve our admiration too.

The Boston Bombings Are Bad News

By now, the bombings at the Boston Marathon are ‘old news’ for our  24-hour news and social media cycle. We’ve now run through the standard template of responses to such an attack: suspicion of the usual suspects,  rallying cries of support for the afflicted, stern, righteous denunciations from political leaders, racist rants of revenge and retribution, speculation about the identities of those responsible, unhinged conspiracy theories, and lastly, suggestions that those indulging in outpourings of grief for the injured and the killed should extend their empathy to a community that includes others beyond Americans. (This last points cuts home deeply. It is hard to react to news of the death of the eight-year Martin Richard–and the serious injuries to his mother and sister–in any way other than shock and horror, an emotion that quite directly evokes memories of fatal drone attacks on children in Afghanistan, acts of brutality that we have now become used to.)

The Boston bombings are the kind of terrorist attacks that have the most corrosive effect on a polity. They immediately provoke calls for heightened security, in a tone of resignation that accepts a police state as the natural consequence of these provocations. See for instance, this comment by Tom Brokaw yesterday (as cited by Glenn Greenwald in an excellent series of notes summing up the responses to the Boston bombings):

Everyone has to understand tonight that, beginning tomorrow morning early, there are going to be much tougher security considerations all across the country, and however exhausted we may be by that, we’re going to have to learn to live with them, and get along and go forward, and not let them bring us to our knees. You’ll remember last summer, how unhappy we were with the security at the Democratic and Republic conventions. Now I don’t think we can raise those complaints after what happened in Boston.

9/11 saw a bothersome, poorly-directed, and often unjust security strategy directed inward at the US; these attacks have the promise to extend those security responses to relatively undisturbed pockets of American life, conjuring up images of ever more invasive search, frisk, question and detainment procedures at railway stations, bus stops, sporting events, movie houses; in short, just about any public space in heavy use. Because of their insidiousness–deadly explosive devices hidden in a public space, designed to hurt any and all innocents–these kind of terror acts generate the most fear and paranoia; the normal, the secure, the mundane is violated, and all that is solid and impenetrable seems vulnerable and threatened. And because these deadly attacks were covert, relied on subterfuge and deception, and are still exceedingly uncommon here in the US, they inspire even more fear and loathing in response, and thus provide plenty of cover for those who would suggest civil liberties are an indulgent luxury, that law enforcement agencies need ever more power and license, that American communities need to be subjected to ever greater profiling.  Politicians and a motley gaggle of provocateurs will no doubt make the case for these actions in the days to come.

These attacks in more ways than one–and for many more people than those sadly killed and injured yesterday–are very bad news indeed.

Learning from Babies

What a baby does best is make the world new all over again. It does so by reminding us how the  ordinary is just the extraordinary taken for granted, how the most elemental facts about ourselves give us the greatest occasion for wonder. They are the commonest creatures of all, with thousands born every minute; you’ve been one yourself, and you’ve seen thousands of them. But to have one growing up close by (like, in your home), is a quite distinctive novelty, one that polishes and waxes the mundane and renders it anew.

A baby demonstrates how the most essential and vital of human activities, sleeping, does not, in fact, come naturally to us, that we might have to be ‘trained’ to learn how to simply fall asleep; it shows us how the simplest of sensations–like drowsiness–if not understood and interpreted appropriately, can be experienced as uncomfortable invasions of our sensory fields, requiring loud and persistent protest in response.  It gives us cause for pride; not the usual one associated with proud parents, but the kind that we experience when we realize that over the years we have mastered the many skills that seem so insuperably difficult for the infant.

A baby is a laboratory in action; one conducting relentless experiments to determine the world’s causal mechanisms and its own perceptual responses to its stimuli. We ensure and create safe spaces for it to conduct its experiments and watch it, slowly, ever so gradually, begin to build up a catalog of regularities and correlations, and consequent expectations. And as we observe a baby and consult the gigantic reams of literature published on its psychological and physical capacities, we are struck by just how little we truly know of the baby’s merkwelt; it is not a member of our linguistic community and does not speak our language; what can we coherently say about its experiences? Does it make sense to describe its actions using predicates and terms that have only acquired meaning among us?

A baby experiencing the world with its own peculiar mix of puzzlement and curiosity reminds us that the world become weekday for us was once a source of perplexity and wonder; a fount of fantasy in which lurked endless material for play. Every turn of its head, every startled look, every grasp and reach is a reminder of this. Its reflexes–the strong grip, the sucking, the startle–remind us of its evolutionary history and ours; they point to our pasts, to our slow, persistent maneuvering into our present ecological niche.

As a baby encounters the world’s textures and contours we are reminded of how elemental these initial interactions with the world are: something gives, something resists, something offers succor, something hurts. We slowly differentiate and distinguish and classify, aided at every step by our fellow travelers, beginning with our parents. These maps we construct finally place us in the world, in a spot made familiar for us by the language that surrounds us, coats the world with meaning and tells us how to interpret the new.

A baby might know little, but to watch it is to learn a great deal.

God as Therapist, Existent or Non-Existent

In ‘When God is your Therapist‘, (New York Times, 13  April 2013) T.M Luhrmann suggests that the evangelical relationship with God often resembles that between client and therapist:

I soon came to realize that one of the most important features of these churches is that they offer a powerful way to deal with anxiety and distress, not because of what people believe but because of what they do when they pray.

One way to see this is that the books teaching someone how to pray read a lot like cognitive behavior therapy manuals…. the Rev. Rick Warren’s “The Purpose Driven Life,” teaches you to identify your self-critical, self-demeaning thoughts, to interrupt them and recognize them as mistaken, and to replace them with different thoughts. Cognitive-behavioral therapists often ask their patients to write down the critical, debilitating thoughts that make their lives so difficult, and to practice using different ones…..Warren….spells out thoughts he thinks his readers have but don’t want, and then asks them to consider themselves from God’s point of view: not as the inadequate people they feel themselves to be, but as loved, as relevant and as having purpose.

In many evangelical churches, prayer is understood as a back-and-forth conversation with God — a daydream in which you talk with a wise, good, fatherly friend. Indeed, when congregants talk about their relationship with God, they often sound as if they think of God as some benign, complacent therapist who will listen to their concerns and help them to handle them….[F]or [evangelical Christians] God is a relationship, not an explanation….What churches like these offer is a way of dealing with unhappiness.

Luhrmann’s observations on the practice of evangelical Christianity are interesting and instructive. They show how the truth of the various existential claims–about God or evil–that might be made by the faithful in the groups she observes is besides the point: what matters is the efficacy of the therapeutic relationship that is set up with the entity referred to as ‘God.’ This non-realist reading of evangelical Christianity suggests that what grants its doctrines and practices their particular resilience, accessibility and popularity is not their correspondence to some transcendent reality, but their success in catering to the felt and expressed emotional and psychological needs of its adherents.  The ‘faith’ of the evangelical Christians that Luhrmann studies is not a set of epistemically evaluable claims made about the theological domain; rather, it is a set of visible practices and utterances directed towards achieving definite outcomes like greater equanimity in the face of life’s uncertain offerings.  This faith is a set of tools, tactics and strategies that orient the believer in this life; to inquire into its ‘truth’ would be to make a category mistake; its evaluation lies elsewhere, in an instrumentalist assessment of its success in providing a new self-recounted narrative. The imperviousness of the evangelically inclined to the demonstration of the falsity of a substantive theological claim becomes comprehensible; that refutation cannot be accepted so long as the need underwriting the claim continues to be met by practiced belief in its truth.

What the Brain Can Tell Us About Art (and Literature)

In ‘What the Brain Can Tell Us About Art‘ (New York Times, April 12, 2013), Eric R. Kandel writes:

Alois Riegl….understood that art is incomplete without the perceptual and emotional involvement of the viewer. Not only does the viewer collaborate with the artist in transforming a two-dimensional likeness on a canvas into a three-dimensional depiction of the world, the viewer interprets what he or she sees on the canvas in personal terms, thereby adding meaning to the picture….In addition to our built-in visual processes, each of us brings to a work of art our acquired memories: we remember other works of art that we have seen. We remember scenes and people that have meaning to us and relate the work of art to those memories. In order to see what is painted on a canvas, we have to know beforehand what we might see in a painting. These insights into perception served as a bridge between the visual perception of art and the biology of the brain.

Kande’s focus in his article is on visual art, but these considerations apply equally to the printed word. Here are the passages excerpted above with very slight emendation:

Literature is incomplete without the perceptual and emotional involvement of the viewer. Not only does the reader  collaborate with the author in transforming two-dimensional printed words on a page into an imaginative depiction of the world, the reader interprets what he or she sees on the page canvas in personal terms, thereby adding meaning to the text….In addition to our acquired reading abilities, each of us brings to a work of literature our acquired memories: we remember other works of literature that we have seen. We remember scenes and people who have meaning to us and relate the work of literature to those memories. In order to read what is printed on a page on a page, we have to know beforehand what we might read in the text.

So, we get the collaborative theory of the reader: a literary work is brought to life by the reader, it acquires meaning in the act of reading.  This ensures that the work serves as raw material for an act of active engagement with the reader, who brings a history of reading, a corpus of memories, and thus, an inclination and disposition toward the text. The more you read, the more you bring to every subsequent act of reading; the more you engage with humans, the more varied the archetypes and templates of the human experience you have playing in your mind as you read.

The classic work then, which endures over time and acquires a new set of readers in each successive generation, becomes so because it remains reinterpretable on an ongoing basis; newer bodies of text and human histories surround it and it acquires new meanings from them.  We are still unable to analyze this phenomenon, to determine what makes a particular text receptive to such reimaginings over time; its success is the only indicator it has what it takes to acquire the status of a classic.

Get Your Computer’s Hands off my Students’ Essays

Last week, the New York Times alerted readers to the possibility of computers grading college-level student essays. As with any news featuring the use of ‘artificial intelligence’ to replace humans, reactions to this announcement feature the usual skewed mix of techno-boosterism, assertions of human uniqueness, and fears of deskilling and job loss.

First, a sample of the boosterism:

Anant Agarwal, an electrical engineer who is president of EdX, predicted that the instant-grading software would be a useful pedagogical tool, enabling students to take tests and write essays over and over and improve the quality of their answers. He said the technology would offer distinct advantages over the traditional classroom system, where students often wait days or weeks for grades.

“There is a huge value in learning with instant feedback,” Dr. Agarwal said. “Students are telling us they learn much better with instant feedback.”

Then, the assertions of human uniqueness.

From the Professionals Against Machine Scoring of Student Essays in High-Stakes Assessment:

Let’s face the realities of automatic essay scoring. Computers cannot ‘read.’ They cannot measure the essentials of effective written communication: accuracy, reasoning, adequacy of evidence, good sense, ethical stance, convincing argument, meaningful organization, clarity, and veracity, among others.

From  Professor Alison Frank Johnson at Harvard University (Letters Section):

Only a human grader can recognize irony, can appreciate a beautiful turn of phrase, can smile with unanticipated pleasure at the poetic when only the accurate was required.

From Professor Cathy Bernard of the New York Institute of Technology (Letters again), resisting the submit, get feedback, revise, resubmit model (which to my mind, sounds a great deal like a standard iterative writing process):

Writing is thinking, and revision is a slow process, unpredictable and exploratory. A piece of writing, like a cake taken from the oven, needs some time to cool before the revision process can even begin.

Finally, on Twitter, there was ample commentary to the effect that the ‘other tasks’ in ‘freeing professors for other tasks’ would merely be the the revision of resumes as professors looked for work elsewhere, outside the academy, their jobs taken over by the latest technological marvel promoted by the Borg-like combination of corporate rent seekers eager to enter the academic market, and university administrators eager to let them in. Fair enough.

Still, I wonder if matters are quite so straightforward.

First, the assertions of human uniqueness in the domain of reading and writing leave me cold. They do not take into account the possibility that greater exposure to human examples of writing, especially essays graded by human professors–better learning data–will significantly improve the quality of these automated graders, which rely on statistical machine learning techniques. (I’m note sure what ‘realities’ the PAMSSEHSA want us to face; computers can read; you can verify this the next time you enter your name in an online form. As for the lacunae they point out, I fail to see an argument that these are not achievable in principle.)

Second, I note that both Professors Johnson and Bernard are writing from private institutions where, I presume, professors often have teaching assistants to help them with grading. From my vantage position at a severely underfunded public university, I admit to wanting help with grading student assignments. I would be able to assign more assignments–especially in upper-tier core classes–if I could rely on some assistance with grading. In general, as with the discourse surrounding online education, the same fallacy is committed here: comparing the worst of A with the best of B. The original New York Times article features the obligatory story of ‘stupid computers’ fooled by human trickery, and the letter writers wax lyrical about the magic of professors grading student writing. But what about tired, overworked professors who can only provide cursory feedback? Would their students do better with computer grading? Would every human professor always do better than an automated grader?

Bohm and Schrödringer on the World, the Self, and Wholeness

Sans comment, two physicists of yesteryear on matters that might be considered philosophical.

First, David Bohm on ‘the world’:

[T]he world cannot be analyzed correctly into distinct parts; instead, it must be regarded as an indivisible unit in which separate parts appear as valid approximations only in the classical [i.e., Newtonian] limit….Thus, at the quantum level of accuracy, an object does not have any ‘intrinsic’ properties (for instance, wave and particle) belonging to itself alone; instead, it shares all its properties mutually and indivisibly with the systems with which it interacts. Moreover, because a given object, such as an electron, interacts at different times with different systems that bring out different potentialities, it undergoes…continual transformation between the various forms (for instance, wave or particle form) in which it can manifest itself.

Although such fluidity and dependence of form on the environment have not been found, before the advent of quantum theory, at the level of elementary particles in physics, they are not uncommon…in fields, such as biology, which deal with complex systems. Thus, under suitable environmental conditions, a bacterium can develop into a spore stage, which is completely different in structure, and vice versa.

Next, Erwin Schrödringer on the relationship between the world and the self:

It is not possible that this unity of knowledge, feeling and choice which you call your own should have sprung into being from nothingness at a given moment not so long ago; rather this knowledge, feeling and choice are essentially eternal and unchangeable and numerically one in all men, nay in all sensitive beings. But not in this sense–that you are a part, a piece, of an eternal, infinite being, as in Spinoza’s pantheism. For we should have the same baffling question: which part, which aspect are you? What, objectively, differentiates it from the others? No, but inconceivable it seems to ordinary reason, you–and all other conscious beings as such–are all in all. Hence this life of yours which you are living is not merely a piece of the of the entire existence, but is in a certain sense, the whole; only this whole is not so constituted that it can be surveyed in one single glance.

….

Thus you can throw yourself flat on the ground, stretched out upon Mother Earth, with the certain conviction that you are one with her and she with you. You are as firmly established, as invulnerable as she indeed a thousand times firmer and more invulnerable. As surely as she will engulf you tomorrow, so surely will she bring you forth anew to new striving and suffering. And not merely ‘some day’: now, today, every day she is bringing you forth, not once but thousands upon thousands of times, just as every day she engulfs you a thousand times over. For eternally and always there is only one now, one and the same now; the present is the only thing that has no end.

Note: Bohm quote from: David Bohm, Quantum Theory, Prentice-Hall, New Jersey, 1958. pp. 161-62. Schrödringer quote from: Erwin Schrödringer, My View of the World, Cambridge University Press, 1964. pp. 21-22.

With Trustees Like These, Who Needs Enemies? Part Two

Today’s entry–after yesterday’s union-busting lawyer Peter Pantaleo–in the City University of New York‘s Board of Trustees Roll of Dishonor is  Jeffrey S. Wiesenfeld. He is:

[A]n investment banker at Bernstein Global Wealth Management, appointed to the Board of Trustees by Gov. Pataki in 1999. Wiesenfeld’s primary qualification for being a trustee is his loyal service to a string of local politicians, including Senator Alfonse D’Amato, Congressman Thomas Manton, Mayor Ed Koch, Borough President Clair Shulman, and Governor George Pataki.

Like yesterday’s entry in this series, Wiesenfeld’s presence on the Board of Trustees of a public university is especially problematic because:


Wiesenfeld’s primary accomplishment during 13 years on the Board has been to instigate a series of scandals in which he has denigrated local politicians and undermined academic freedom.

Things get worse, of course, because Wiesenfeld has distinguished himself by a not-so-covert racism:


In his role as Trustee, he sought to block the awarding of an honorary degree to playwright Tony Kushner by John Jay College. In his speech at the Boardand in subsequent comments he attacked the Jewish playwright as an anti-Semite and went on to accuse Palestinians who support attacks against Israel of being “non-human.”….In 2007, Wiesenfeld, as part of “Stop the Madrassa,” worked to block the opening of the Khalil Gibran InternationalAcademy and succeeded in ousting its first principal over the use of the word “intifada” on a sweatshirt being sold by a group that supported the school. Wiesenfeld claimed that, “while not all Muslims are terrorists, almost all terrorists are Muslims.”….[A]ccording to the Daily News, during Wiesenfeld’s conformation process for appointment to the Board there were “allegations that he referred to blacks as ‘savages’ and Hasidic Jews as ‘thieves,’ leading Sen. Daniel Hevesi tospeak out against his confirmation.

I have had an indirect encounter  with Wiesenfeld. In February 2012, in my capacity as Faculty Associate at the Wolfe Institute for the Humanities, I organized a reading group of Corey Robin’s The Reactionary Mind. The selection of this book for reading and discussion resulted in an angry outburst from Professor Mitchell Langbert, protesting the choice of the book, and who, in reading from the Alan Dershowitz playbook, demanded ‘balance.’ Langbert also alerted Wiesenfeld to the subversive act of reading a book on campus, who then wrote in an email:


This is the curse of academia: no honest debate. Just shut your opponents down. Ahhh…but if political islamists come along, the liberalls[sic] cower. Nothing like implied or real threats of violence to take campus control. Checkpoints and BDS conferences anyone?

Mention of BDS conferences reminds us, of course, of:


Wiesenfeld played a similar role in trying to block the BDS event at Brooklyn College. He accused the Political Science Department of staging a racist, anti-Semitic, and “Nuremberg- type event.” He again worked closely with Dov Hikind, who organized a protest outside the College gates, attacking the rights of faculty to co-sponsor the event. Some of those involved, including City Council members, went on to write letters threatening the College’s funding, a position Wiesenfeld has never publicly denounced.

So, we have a racist ideologue who sits on the Board of Trustees of a public university with one of the most racially and ethnically diverse student bodies in the nation. A perfect fit.

With Trustees Like These, Who Needs Enemies? Part One

The City University of New York is a public university. Presumably, its Board of Trustees is staffed by those who have the interests of their constituency–students and teachers–first and foremost. Not so. As faculty and students find out, the Trustees includes many members whose qualifications for this job appear radically antithetical to this university’s mission. The staff union for the City University, the Professional Staff Congress, has started to publish a series of articles on their blog, detailing these folks’ backgrounds, careers, and achievements, all of which make for very sobering reading. I intend to link to these posts and post excerpts here.

Some background:

The CUNY Board of Trustees has 17 members, including two ex officio members: the head of the CUNY University Student Senate, and the head of the University Faculty Senate (who cannot vote).  The other members are appointed by either the Mayor or the Governor. Eight members were initially appointed by Pataki, four by Bloomberg, and one each by Giuliani, Patterson, and Cuomo. They serve seven year terms and can be reappointed for additional terms. The Chairman of the Board is Benno Schmidt, the only educator appointed to the Board, though his interests in for-profit education and corporate led “reform” movements will be discussed in a later post. Official bios can be found at http://www.cuny.edu/about/trustees/board.html.

Now for today’s exhibits. First up, a ‘union-busting lawyer’, Peter Pantaleo:

Democratic Governor David Paterson appointed Peter S. Pantaleo, a top professional in the lucrative field of anti-unionism. The Board of Trustees website (http://www.cuny.edu/about/trustees/board.html.)  identifies Pantaleo as a “Partner at DLA PIPER,” adding: “Mr. Pantaleo represents both domestic and international employers in labor, employment, and civil rights matters. While he has substantial experience litigating cases before courts, administrative agencies, and arbitration panels, the principal focus of Mr. Pantaleo’s practice is advising employers in complex, politically sensitive labor and employment matters.”

DLA PIPER is the largest law firm in the U.S. by attorney headcount, reportedly representing half the Fortune 500. Its website includes a “Labor and Employment Alert” giving employers step-by-step instructions on how to use a recent decision of the anti-labor NLRB to “prohibit use of email for union organizing purposes.” This is remarkably similar to what happened at CUNY’s LaGuardia Community College, which banned faculty from using email to discuss union business until this gag rule was defeated by the union. http://archive.psc-cuny.org/Clarion/LAGCCfreespeech.pdf.

Pantaleo has worked for the Las Vegas MGM Grand hotel during its campaign to stop a unionization drive (New York Times, 10 March 1997). His old firm Pantaleo, Lipkin & Moss represented Las Vegas bosses at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) who banned three workers from handing out pro-union leaflets at the entrance to a casino/hotel complex.

In May 1998 Pantaleo co-authored an article in Gaming Law Review describing strategies for “lessening the power” of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union.  Another Pantaleo piece, from 2004, tells employers in non-union workplaces how to use a NLRB rulings to prevent employees from having a coworker present during “investigatory interviews” (Monday Business Briefing, 5 July 2004).

 So in sum, we have a trustee appointed to the board on the basis of his experience in attacking unionized workers. The staff of the City University are unionized; this trustee’s role is a purely antagonistic one toward them. How reassuring.

In tomorrow’s post, we will consider another stellar member of this elite group. Stay tuned.