I recently became an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute. The flagship journal of MI is City Journal, where I will contribute on a regular basis. For my inaugural essay, I decided to do something totally different, that is only tangentially about the law.
I have long had problems with how the calendar of holidays is structured. These holidays were not organized in a single plan, but instead were added in a piecemeal fashion over the years. Professionally, I see the difficulties of optimizing the law school academic calendar. I usually teach on Mondays. As a result, there is a gap for both the fall and spring semesters with Labor Day and MLK Day, respectively, which requires making up a class at an irregular time. Some years ago, I tried to move Labor Day till later in the semester to give students another reading day before exam; my motion failed. And, as a parent, I am repeatedly frustrated with how many days my kids have off from school. It is an abomination to hold back-to-back half days--all the frustration of getting kids ready in the morning, only to have to pick them up a few hours later. Anyway, calendars could improve. And one way to start is by realigning the holidays.
My essay is titled, Let's Fix Our Federal Holiday Schedule.
