Public/Private Rules

By Nan Stein

On one side of the street, the U.S. Senate is trying the president. On the other side of the street, the U.S. Su-preme Court is hearing a case about a school's responsibility to prevent sexual harassment between students. The chief justice of the United States goes back and forth between these two buildings. And, down the street, at the Library of Congress, there is an exhibit of the private papers of Sigmund Freud, the pre-eminent theoretician of the unconscious and writer on the role of sex in everyday life.

Putting aside all this powerful symbolism of proximity and timing, much is at stake on both sides of the street...