In a bizarre mid-February opinion in the case of Florida v. Clayton Harris, the US Supreme Court unanimously ruled that a drug-sniffing dog’s credentials—rather than his field accuracy—are what matter in determining whether the dog’s tail-wagging “alert” creates sufficient probable cause for police to conduct a search without a warrant. This elevation of credentials over demonstrated skill should come as no surprise: Of the nine Supreme Court justices, five were full-time academics at some point before joining the Court, three were adjunct professors and only one earned his stripes exclusively in the real world. In my most recent piece for Forbes.com, I explain how the Florida v. Clayton Harris ruling is an invasion of citizens’ privacy rights that nevertheless united a divided Court based on the justices’ shared reverence for impressive curriculum vitae. 

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Massachusetts voters face a question of profound importance on the ballot this November. That is, whether to approve the Death with Dignity Act, which would permit physicians to prescribe life-ending medication to patients with incurable disease and less than six months to live. In a recent column for the Boston Herald, co-authored with my research assistant Juliana DeVries, we argue that personal liberty should govern this most personal area of life: one’s own death. If terminally-ill adults want to end their lives and their suffering, the government should allow them the merciful option of doing so. 

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John Silber, the former Boston University president who passed away last Thursday, September 27^th, was known for many things. I tussled with him here and there, such as when he tried to fire some leftist members of the faculty whose academic freedom, I thought, protected them from such action. However, I also witnessed his principled attempt to fight back against the idiocy of the university thought police that remains a plague in American higher education.

In my most recent piece for ThePhoenix.com, however, I tell a less well-known Silber story that illustrates his courage and integrity. In 1986, federal prosecutors tried to get Silber to finger then Boston Mayor Kevin White in a corruption investigation of City Hall. They subpoenaed Silber to testify before a secret anti-corruption grand jury. Instead of invoking the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, Silber took the witness stand and told it like it is. The feds proved not up to the task of getting Silber (in Alan Dershowitz’ immortal phrase) not only to sing, but also to compose.

The column after the jump...