Ann Althouse

Ann Althouse (born January 12, 1951) is an American law professor and blogger.

Born in Wilmington, Delaware, Althouse has a degree in fine art from the University of Michigan, B.F.A. 1973, and graduated first in her class from New York University School of Law, J.D. 1981. She clerked for Judge Leonard Sand in the Southern District of New York and practiced law in the litigation department of Sullivan & Cromwell.

Since 1984 Althouse has taught federal jurisdiction, civil procedure, and constitutional law at the University of Wisconsin Law School and written extensively on federalism (her central thesis being the normative value of federalism in protecting individual rights), sovereign immunity and other legal issues. She is currently the Robert W. & Irma M. Arthur-Bascom Professor of Law at the University of Wisconsin Law School and a resident of Madison, Wisconsin.

Blogging

Althouse created and has moderated a weblog on law, popular culture and politics under her own name since January 2004, "as an art project and an exercise in personal freedom." Althouse has also served as a guest blogger for Glenn Reynolds on Instapundit. She is characterized by many self-identified "left-wing/ progressive" observers as to the right of the political spectrum, as suggested by her association with Instapundit. She does not endorse this characterization, and represents herself as a disaffected Democrat.

Jessica Valenti / Bill Clinton Controversy

Initial controversy

Althouse's blog generated significant controversy with postings and commentary [3] regarding Jessica Valenti of feministing][4] for her appearance in a group photograph including Bill Clinton and selected bloggers. Althouse characterizes her principal criticism of Valenti as relating to "Bill Clinton and sexual harassment. My point was then and is now ... that feminists sold out to support the Democratic Party and that Bill Clinton destroyed years of work that feminists had done on the issue of sexual harassment. The bloggers posing proudly in front of Bill Clinton enraged me for that reason." [5] The controversy turns on whether one believes that the foregoing is an accurate characterization of Althouse's criticism. The original post (9/13/06 7:59 AM) was about how bloggers sold out for a lunch with Bill Clinton, and the article was about how a young woman was posed in a group photograph. This is evidenced in that her original post linked to two blogs, TalkLeft and America Blog. The link to TalkLeft was to a post in which the TalkLeft owner, defense attorney Jeralyn Merritt, said that Bill Clinton was not as bad on defense issues as they had thought, and the post to America Blog contained text that complimented Clinton on his looks after heart surgery. Neither of those posts were about feminism, and so it seems doubtful as to whether it implied the point Althouse claims to have been intended; she first made the point in a comment four hours later, and only after many of her readers had attacked Jessica Valenti with sexist comments about her breasts and implying that Bill Clinton was sexually desirous of Valenti. Prior to making a claim that her post was about feminism, Althouse said:

I agree that Clinton looks really pink, but why are you assuming it's some generic old white man thing? He could be inflamed with sexual desire. Or teetering on the edge of a heart attack.9/13/06 11:22 AM

Four hours after her initial post, and after Valenti had identified herself, Althouse stated:

I really don't know why people who care about feminism don't have any edge against Clinton for the harm he did to the cause of taking sexual harrassment seriously, and posing in front of him like that irks me, as a feminist. So don't assume you're the one representing feminist values here.9/13/06 12:03 PM

Critics have interpreted Althouse's statements (and those of various commenters at her blog) regarding Valenti's attire, pose and posture, and inferred "behaviour", with specific attention drawn to her breasts [6], and comparisons to Monica Lewinsky. Several feminist and liberal bloggers (many of whom had previously been critical of Althouse for her support of the war and 2004 vote for George Bush), including Valenti, regard these comments as derogatory and inappropriate, to which Althouse responded with a follow-up post - titled "Let's Take A Closer Look At Those Breasts" - maintaining that her real issue was not regarding Valenti's appearance, but rather the perceived hypocrisy of a "feminist" meeting and posing with the former President, as had been stated in her 9/13/06 12:03 PM comment.[7]

In a follow up post four days after the first titled "Pursued by boobs.", Althouse again discussed her motivations:

Garble: No, you've mischaracterized the original post, which mocked the bloggers for effusing over Clinton. A commenter made a wisecrack about Monica Lewinsky. The person you refer to as "woman with the rack" showed up in the comments to refocus things on her, at which point, I decided to write a post making fun of her for sort of unwittingly and indirectly claiming to be good-looking.

To write the post, I visited her blog and saw that it was loaded with breast images! She was a total breast-blogger! How is that not hilarious? I then made fun of her ridiculous hypocrisy.[8]

Several left wing or feminist bloggers have castigated Althouse roundly.[9][10][11]

Bloggingheads.tv: the controversy reprised

At some point after the original controversy, Valenti wrote a book, which was scheduled for release in late April 2007.[12] Shortly before the release date, Garance Franke-Ruta - a journalist with the liberal publication The American Prospect and a friend of Valenti[13] - was invited to participate in one of Bloggingheads.tv's diavlogs with Althouse.[14]

During a dicussion of why liberal bloggers have significant antipathy towards Althouse, Franke-Ruta offered the example of the "Jessica Valenti breast controversy," which was not on the agreed-upon topic list [15]. At this point, Althouse became visibly upset and angry [16], and protested the unfairness of bringing up the topic "out of context" to a visibly taken-aback Franke-Ruta. The characterization of the controversy as being about breasts, rather than being about feminists and Bill Clinton, is the characterization popularized by Althouse's critics, and is regarded as a loaded term by Althouse supporters. Althouse has also observed that the opening section of the diavlog spent much time dwelling on Franke-Ruta's techniques of prodding sources to certain results, at least two of which were arguably on display during the section of the diavlog at issue.[17], and has since offered the explanation that

I'm not claiming to know what Garance really meant. But the form of expression, throwing "breast" at me, offended me a lot. ... [Then] the precise thing that ma[d]e me mad [was that] I say I will stand my ground, then I say I don't appreciate the "breast controversy" locution, and she interrupts me. It's that sequence that pushes me over the line. I'm not saying it's right or I'm glad I did it. Just explaining myself.[18]

Althouse has since apologized for losing her temper, while maintaining that she felt unjustifiably attacked.[19] Franke-Ruta maintains that her "use of the phrase 'Jessica Valenti breast controversy' ... was neither intended to provoke nor chosen out of a a soup of total ignorance."[20]

Robert Wright, the organizer of Bloggingheads.tv, has also added that several aspects of the manner in which he invioted Althouse to participate in the diavlog with Franke-Ruta may have contributed to the context in which Franke-Ruta's comments seemed infflammatory.[21]

Key scholarly works

• The Use of Conspiracy Theory to Establish In Personam Jurisdiction: a Due Process Analysis, 52 Fordham L. Rev. 234 (1983)
• How to Build a Separate Sphere: Federal Courts and State Power, 100 Harv. L. Rev. 1485 (1987)
• The Misguided Search for State Interest in Abstention Cases: Observations on the Occasion of Pennzoil v. Texaco, 63 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 1051 (1988)
• When to Believe a Legal Fiction: Federal Interests and the Eleventh Amendment, 40 Hastings L.J. 1123 (1989)
• The Humble and the Treasonous: Judge-Made Jurisdiction Law, 40 Case W. Res. L.Rev. 1035 (1990).
• Standing, in Fluffy Slippers, 77 Va. L. Rev. 1177 (1991)
• Saying What Rights Are - In and Out of Context, 1991 Wis. L. Rev. 929 (1991)
• Tapping the State Court Resource, 44 Vand. L. Rev. 953 (1991)
• Beyond King Solomon's Harlots: Women in Evidence, 65 S. Cal. L. Rev. 1265 (1992)
• Thelma & Louisa and the Law: Do Rape Shield Rules Matter? 25 Loy. L.A. L. Rev. 757 (1992)
• Variations on a Theory of Normative Federalism: a Supreme Court Dialogue, 42 Duke L.J. 979 (1993)
• Who's to Blame for Law Reviews?, 70 Chi.-Kent L. Rev. 81 (1994)
• The Lying Woman, The Devious Prostitute, and Other Stories from the Evidence Casebook, 88 Nw. U. L. Rev. 914 (1994).
• Time For the Federal Courts to Enforce the Guarantee Clause? A Response to Professor Chemerinsky, 65 U. Colo. L. Rev. 881 (1994)
• Federalism, Untamed, 47 Vand. L. Rev. 1207 (1994)
• Late Night Confessions in the Hart & Wechsler Hotel, 47 Vand. L. Rev. 993 (1994)
• Federal Jurisdiction and the Enforcement of Federal Rights: Can Congress Bring Back the Warren Era? 20 Law & Social Inquiry 1067 (1995).
• Enforcing Federalism after United States v. Lopez, 38 Arizona L. Rev. 793 (1996)
• The Alden Trilogy: Still Searching for a Way to Enforce Federalism, 31 Rutgers L.J. 631 (2000)
• On Dignity and Deference: The Supreme Court's New Federalism, 68 U. Cin. L. Rev. 245 (2000)
• Inside the Federalism Case, 574 Annals of the Am. Acad. 132 (2001)
• Why Talking about States Rights Cannot Avoid the Need for Normative Federalism Analysis, 51 Duke L. J. 363 (2001)
• Electoral College Reform: Deja Vu, 95 Nw. U. L. REV. 993 (2001)
• The Authoritative Lawsaying Power of the State Supreme Court and the United States Supreme Court: Conflicts of Judicial Orthodoxy in the Bush-Gore Litigation, 61 Md. L. Rev. 508 (2002)
• The Vigor of the Anti-Commandeering Doctrine in Times of Terror, 69 Brook. L. Rev. 1231 (2004)
• Vanguard States, Laggard States: Federalism and Constitutional Rights, 152 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1745 (2004)
• Chief Justice Rehnquist and the Search for Judicially Enforcable Federalism, 10 Tex. Rev. of L & Pol. 275 (2006)

External links

• Althouse
• Audible Althouse (podcast)
• Althouse's photos on Flickr
• Althouse University of Wisconsin Biography
• The Normblog profile
• Radio interview