Saturday, October 01, 2011

Hassin Calls It Right

Waukesha County has a couple of very good circuit judges.  Don Hassin is one of them.

A Waukesha County judge has ruled that the state's effort to strip Mukwonago High School of its Indians nickname was unconstitutional because an administrative hearing on the case was unfair.

Circuit Judge Donald Hassin Jr. granted summary judgment Thursday in favor of two residents who challenged the 2010 state law that allowed complaints about Indian nicknames and mascots.

While he did not find the law itself unconstitutional, he said found it "an uncommonly silly law," quoting from a famous U.S. Supreme Court case on privacy. But eliminating it, Hassin wrote, is up to the Legislature.

Now THAT'S what I call concise.

...He noted that Sherman's bosses at the DPI clearly favored elimination of all Indian nicknames, and further, that Sherman admitted he couldn't say just what evidence the school district would have to present to prove use of Indians did not "promote discrimination, pupil harassment or stereotyping."

"If Sherman could not articulate what evidence was required for the District to meet its burden of proof," Hassin wrote, "then it is reasonable to assume that no evidence that the District could have provided would have, in Sherman's mind, met the burden."

You mean that "It FEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELS good!" isn't sufficient?

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