You're an engineer if you do engineering, regardless of your credentials. You aren't an "<insert-credential-here> Engineer", but the mere noun doesn't assert that. The Minnesota Board of Engineering Licensure is a bully that should be leashed by the first amendment.
This is how every state backed/endorsed (or state operated, but those are less common) professional licensure board or trade association that gate-keeps licensing works. They all aggressively defend and try to expand their turf, even when it's stupid and harmful to society.
The only reason we don't hear about the plumbing cartel going after the home repair business that isn't licensed for plumbing in every state it operates in but wrote "plumbing" on its vans in all states is because HN doesn't really concern itself with those sort of matters.
>This is how every state backed/endorsed (or state operated, but those are less common) professional licensure board or trade association that gate-keeps licensing works.
I wouldn't limit that statement to state-backed: it is how most (or at least many) private organizations and unions work too, from teamsters to fifa to the NRA. State backed organizations just have the extra advantage of being explicitly state backed.
It's a really hard task to compare engineering to plumbing.
I mean the board that licenses Civil Engineers, for example, should be very stringent. We don't live in buildings that aren't structurally sound or drive on half-assed bridges.
Professional Engineers hold themselves to an ethical standard that they're not even legally required to uphold, yet they still do because this organization keeps them in check.
I've been a hardware engineer for 15 years. I've designed medical devices, DSP chipsets, and audio chipsets. for me to call my self a "Professional Engineer", I have to pass a test almost wholly focused on Civil Engineering. There is not a single "Professional Engineer" in my office.
That may not be true anymore - I looked into the engineering exams (FE and PE), and they've been much more specialized. I think this happened fairly recently.
List of Engineering Disciplines that can take the PE exam:
- Agricultural and Biological Engineering
- Architectural Engineering
- Chemical
- Civil
- Control Systems
- Electrical and Computer
- Environmental
- Fire Protection
- Industrial and Systems
- Mechanical
- Metallurgical and Materials
- Mining and Mineral Processing
- Naval Architecture and Marine
- Nuclear
- Petroleum
- Structural
This is new (within the last 10-15 years). When I graduated in 2006, there was only 1 test and it was 95% Civil Engineering, mostly intended for signing off on electrical and structural plans.
One issue I see is that many (most?) such certifying organizations exclude themselves from having liability when they fail. In some use cases, I think exploring alternatives may yield a better blend of trade-offs. One example would be insurance-based approaches which incentivize more accurately pricing risk.
> certifying organizations exclude themselves from having liability when they fail
That's convenient. The organizations assert that they can tell certified persons what's allowed and not, but if the certified person follows all the rules and something still goes sideways, the license ends up being worthless, because they can't say, "I did it this way because that's what the standards I'm required to adhere to say"?
As a programmer (who gets titled "software engineer" whether I liked it or not) this is terrible. What incentive would I have for getting a license if it doesn't protect me from liability?
When you get your Professional Engineering license. You also get the PE stamp which allows you to approve public projects.
When you give your stamp of approval on a project then you're legally liable for it.
You can be sued for incompetence. Then, you have to go to court and defend yourself. Or, more commonly, your company will send a lawyer but you still may be called to testify.
Plumbing is an applied discipline where you do stuff within a protocol.
Most public works and building is template driven with standardized components. Highway bridges pretty much look the same if they were built at the same time. There’s probably 10-15 guys in the average state who periodically update the standards. 80% of the rest of the work is drudgery done by overworked, underpaid assistants and non-professional engineers, signed off on by a PE later.
What PEs do accomplish is making it outrageously expensive to perform basic public works that were accomplished successfully by a DPW guy with a paint roller 40 years ago. Painting a crosswalk and installing a traffic light costs nearly $1M, because you need to hire an engineering firm to duplicate a template, and sign off on placement of lines, etc.
Yeah? Here in Minnesota we ended up driving around on half-assed bridges about a decade ago with predictable results. (Remember the I-35W bridge collapse?)
Just based on the number of idiotic major bridge designs we have had over the Mississippi river, I'm inclined to go with Marohn on this one. Kick all of the bozos more interested in politics than actual real engineering out.
It's only hard if you are viewing the world through classist glasses. Plumbing is a skill with real world consequences when that skill is executed poorly, just like engineering.
Any university can hand out an honorary doctorate. You can also call yourself Dr. Whatever with zero credentials without getting into legal trouble. You will not have the license to practice medicine in the state, but that's not really what the word "doctor" means anyways.
I’m guessing you’re referring to the Latin doctore, which means teacher, and how it’s different from medicus, which means medical doctor or at least something much like it. The only place I’ve seen doctor used in English to mean doctore is in Catholic contexts.
But in English using the title Doctor is assumed to mean medical specialist in general circumstances. Any Ed.D that stands up when the flight attendant asks, “Is there a doctor on the plane?” deserves a scolding at the very least.
Interestingly every single American with any kind of a technical Ph.D that I’ve ever met goes by first name and doesn’t balk at being called mister in all but the most formal circumstances (Germans are an entirely different matter). It’s the ones with Ph.Ds in things like English that get demanding about being called doctor in everyday life.
> But in English using the title Doctor is assumed to mean medical specialist in general circumstances. Any Ed.D that stands up when the flight attendant asks, “Is there a doctor on the plane?” deserves a scolding at the very least.
I dunno... Jill Biden made an ad in which she called herself by her title 'Doctor' (which is proper, since she has an EdD) and then gave advice on COVID, and we were told that this was sexist because she's really a doctor by many mainstream news outlets.
This seems like an odd point to make, since Marohn did pass all the necessary exams and had been previously licensed. Are you saying that, in addition to not practicing civil engineering professionally, that he has to scrub the entire internet of his title the moment his license expires?
That seems like a strawman. The complaint is that he described himself as a professional engineer while his license had expired. As in, during that period, he wasn't a licensed engineer, and therefore shouldn't have called himself one.
> Now, for the second time, a professional engineer has filed a complaint with the state licensing board alleging that the writing, speaking, and advocacy for reform of Charles Marohn—the founder and president of Strong Towns—constitutes a violation of Minnesota law.
The complaint is that, in his advocacy, he described himself as a professional engineer, which he obviously is. The idea that one needs to stay in the good graces of the state in order to reference one's experience in their field as part of their political advocacy cannot possibly withstand genuine first amendment scrutiny, can it?
> The idea that one needs to stay in the good graces of the state in order to reference one's experience in their field as part of their political advocacy cannot possibly withstand genuine first amendment scrutiny, can it?
Being licensed isn't to be within the good graces of the state, it's to prove the licensee has the requite knowledge and experience to design and construct things which, when fail, people die. This is something we want in society.
> Being licensed isn't to be within the good graces of the state, it's to prove the licensee has the requite knowledge and experience to design and construct things which, when fail, people die. This is something we want in society.
First, I don't agree that licensure accomplishes this.
But second, it sounds like you agree with the plaintiff here. Nobody is asserting that he had a legal right to perform civil engineering after his license lapsed. What he's arguing is that he had a right to reference his experience in civil engineering as part of his political advocacy.
It isn't credible to assume that anyone who identifies themselves as an engineer is fraudulently asserting to be a National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying Professional Engineer. It's a huge linguistic power grab to call that confusing. "Here's a common noun for a profession, and now you can't use it without paying us" is a nice business plan for collecting rents indefinitely.
The issue as described in the article is holding himself out as a “professional engineer” because that implies licensure. Specifically here the issue is that it is a claim to a legally relevant credential...i.e. as qualified to render expert opinion in a legal context.
> The issue as described in the article is holding himself out as a “professional engineer” because that implies licensure.
I will guarantee you that is not how that vast majority of the population would interpret it. Very few people even know that there is such a thing as a licensed professional engineer.
Most reasonable people would take the term "professional engineer" to mean somebody who performs engineering work of some sort in a professional capacity.
Actual doing something should take precedence over some license primary used to gatekeep a profession and fill state coffers with licensing fees.
The fact that we still have guilds operating in the 21st century is embarrassing.
>I will guarantee you that is not how that vast majority of the population would interpret it.
I disagree.
>Very few people even know that there is such a thing as a licensed professional engineer.
>Most reasonable people would take the term "professional engineer" to mean somebody who performs engineering work of some sort in a professional capacity.
Not really. I have an EE degree and know all about PE. My point is people commonly call themselves a professional _xyz_ for many other professions. Why should engineering be any different? Just because some organization wants you to? It is fine if you are required to have a cert to say sell things to the general public, or to have plans approved for buildings etc. but no so to try and control who gets to be called a "professional" or to regulate speech in general.
If you don't like the law, complain to your local state legislator. For me, it didn't affect my ability to do my job or get employed, so I never cared about it. I supposed they could change the name to "licensed engineer. It doesn't bother me that the person designing roads, buildings or electrical distribution systems has to be licensed. My wife has a friend (Civil Engineer, PE) and it seems like all she does is review/approve stuff done by architects.
That's kind of the point of the whole conversation. You can't have a law that restricts what one can call yourself that does not violate the 1st amendment. Certainly you can require one to have a certificate to do certain kinds of work however.
I'm not a lawyer, but I'm assuming whoever wrote the act at least reviewed it with one. Here is a snippet what is says.
6787. Acts constituting a misdemeanor ...
(h) Use the title, or any combination of that title, of “professional engineer,” “licensed
engineer,” “registered engineer,” or the branch titles specified in Section 6732, or the authority
titles specified in Sections 6736 and 6736.1, or “engineer-in-training,” or use any abbreviation of
such title that might lead to the belief that the person is a licensed engineer, is authorized to use
the titles specified in Section 6736 or 6736.1, or holds a certificate as an engineer-in-training,
without being licensed, authorized, or certified as required by this chapter.
So it seems like we do have a law (at least in California) that say something like that.
In this specific case is it the law that's restricting his speech, or the licensing's boards actions? I'm not necessarily taking an opinion on the actual merits of the case in the article, if anything I does sound like they are infringing on his right to free speech. But that doesn't necessarily mean the law is unconstitutional. It's easy to say something is or is not constitutional, but the end of the day we have courts to decide these questions. If I still disagree I feel strongly about it I need to contact somebody who can actually change it. Am I really going to make my beliefs about what is or isn't constitutional based on some comment posted on the internet?
Yeah I have to say I also disagree. I'm EE, 20+ years of "professional" experience and I would never use the the term "Professional Engineer" to describe myself and I don't ever recall any collegues using that term who were not licensed. Pretty much every Engineer I know understands the difference and would never use the term. It's like saying you are a lawyer when you haven't passed the bar. In fact within the industry you would typically refer to those people as a "PE" (even if they were Civil, Mechanical or Electrtical in training). Of course it is totally fine to use the term professional in a descriptive manner, i.e. "We expect you to act in a professional manner when speaking with the customer". Of course this is only an American thing as far as I know, I have no idea what the practice would be in say Australia.
'Professional Engineer' is a specific legal qualification. Further this isn't a case of lay people using a term incorrectly, this is a case of a professional engineer leading a movement to change professional engineering, using the term to help establish his expertise in marketing material.
He's not representing himself as such to a potential client or in the context of a for-pay project, but as part of a talk. He's a person who made his living from engineering, so in that context it makes perfect common sense.
The term "professional engineer" is protected much like the term "medical doctor." Practicing medicine without a license is illegal in all states. It is perfectly credible that someone practicing an occupation is licensed to practice that occupation. The license mandates training and achievement of a minimum level of competence, which serves the public good.
While I generally oppose attempts to regulate the term "engineer", I do think Reason was a little fast and loose here. It wasn't like they went in and objected to the term "sound engineer" in a recording studio or "software engineer" at google. This was a case of using a term in a situation where it could cause confusion, although even in this case, I side with the person who wants to use the term, and against the PE regulators. I do think that professional engineering associations do have the right to create a terminology. I would just be much more restrictive in scope.
I looked into regulations around Industrial Engineering, since I have an MS in this field (my undergraduate is in math). As far as I understand, licensure in Industrial Engineering is a title designation. In other words, there's no specific practice you're allowed to do as a licensed professional industrial engineer that you wouldn't be allowed to do without this license. It simply gives you the right to professionally represent yourself as a licensed PE.
I support the licensing bodies rights to restrict narrowly defined terminology that clearly references licensure, but my personal feeling is that the scope should be very limited. In other words, I believe I should be allowed to casually refer to myself as an engineer, I think it's fine to say you're a data engineer rather than a data scientist depending on what you do. I even think it's ok to refer to myself as an industrial engineer (though I wouldn't personally especially want to).
The ambiguity creeps in if I refer to myself as a "Professional Industrial Engineer". I personally wouldn't do that, it would feel a little fraudulent, but that's a feeling, not something I'd enforce through law or even social pressure. To stay on the right side of scope, I think I'd be ok with someone doing that as long as they didn't throw in "licensed".
As for "engineering" as a general term, I think it's truly absurd that PE bodies would think they have a general right to prevent others from using this descriptive term in job or work titles, it's as general as "scientist".
Which is interesting, because I have a Bachelor of Software Engineering from Australia, and am certified by the Australian Institute of Engineers... but there were a TON of Engineers at the big Canadian Telco I worked for who were hell-bent on me NOT calling myself an Engineer.
And when I last looked at doing certification, the core requirements had literally nothing to do with what I practiced (fluid dynamics for a software engineer? Take a hike)
It's all a racket. I'm an unlicensed, non-PE software engineer. Am I allowed to call myself that?
>I'm an unlicensed, non-PE software engineer. Am I allowed to call myself that?
In many areas, yeah, you can refer to yourself as a software engineer, but the title doesn't mean anything because anyone can refer to themselves as a software engineer; there is nothing defining what that means.
> Software engineering is deemed to fall within the practice of professional engineering:
> Where the software is used in a product that already falls within the practice of engineering (e.g. elevator controls, nuclear reactor controls, medical equipment such as gamma-ray cameras, etc.);
> Where the use of the software poses a risk to life, health, property or the public welfare; and
> Where the design or analysis requires the application of engineering principles within the program (e.g. does engineering calculations), meets a requirement of engineering practice (e.g. a fail-safe system), or requires the application of the principles of engineering in its development.
In other words, the vast majority of software engineering does not fall within the practice of professional engineering.
It's not a racket. Rather it means that you have not undergone the training that an engineer in Canada had undergone. The term Engineer is not protected, but the term "Professional Engineer" is. If you call yourself a Professional Engineer without a license, the provincial engineering organization is within grounds to fine you and issue a court order to cease the use of the term.
The engineering council makes it easy to get the license. Demonstrate the knowledge through a raft of exams and you will qualify. Alternatively, demonstrating 20 years of engineering experience in your field will also let you qualify.
Would you ask this question as a chartered accountant? A lawyer? An actuary?
If you already have the education and the experience (you need both), why not complete the ethics exam and earn the license? Is it about the fees? The annual fee in California is $180.00 [1]. The annual fee in Ontario, Canada is $299.45 [2]. Does your company not pay you enough? Are you living on hardship as a software engineer to not be able to afford that?
The real question is this: Why do you feel entitled to a designation without completing the requirements for it?
Well, yeah. You can call yourself a lawyer even if you aren’t licensed to practice law. Many politicians still call themselves lawyers but they only practiced for a year or two out of college.
Similarly, Doctors are still doctors even when they cross borders. They just can’t practice medicine for money without a license.
That's a myth. You can absolutely work an engineering job and call yourself an engineer in Canada without any certification. Look up all the "software engineer", "systems engineer", "marine engineer", "audio engineer", "application engineer" etc. job listings in any Canadian city. None of them are looking exclusively for certified/licensed engineers, and the people working for them aren't doing so illegally. Canadian courts have ruled many times over that professional licensing organizations do not have exclusive rights to the word "engineer".
>"A licensee shall avoid any act which may diminish public confidence in the profession…."
putting critique into this category does seem to be such an act on its own. On the other side aggressively squashing any heresy - even if it is just a minor deviation from the Party line - has been working great for the Church for 2000 years already.
Let’s say I were a professional engineer and noticed some design flaw in a busy bridge crossing a deep gorge, and that design flaw dramatically increases the likelihood of the bridge plunging into said gorge.
If I point out the design flaw, I may diminish public confidence in the profession. If I do not point out the design flaw, the inevitable collapse of the bridge may also diminish public confidence in the profession, but only if the subsequent investigation reveals the design flaw and/or my knowledge of it.
Public confidence in the engineers comes from the ethical standard to put public & environmental safety paramount to all other requirements. An engineer noticing a fault and ignoring it goes against those ethics so your example is a bit poor, though I do see the relation to the topic at hand.
Reading StrongTown's account of things is one side of the story, and they really do make it sound like a bunch of grumpy old assholes are throwing their weight around where they shouldn't be. Assuming this account of facts is accurate and not embellished, I really hope they win and people like the engineers pushing this bullshit get a reality check.
I am a P.Eng... Canadian though, and even though I hold the title I do not use the stamp or really work as a traditional engineer a whole lot. I just feel its important to point out that our ethical standards aren't so easily circumvented as ignoring a safety hazard because it might make us look bad.
I believe that my example demonstrates the contradiction in the rules.
I’d be willing to bet that when this case goes to trial a similar example will be used - perhaps the I-35 bridge collapse for which a design flaw was ultimately identified as a major factor in the collapse. The state will have to admit that a professional engineer is obligated to speak up about problems in design, which is exactly what they are seeking to punish him for. This isn’t going to end well for Minnesota.
I'm getting so sick of entrenched institutions and organizations acting like this. I know history and I know that is has always been like this to some degree but it seems that the level of centralization brought about our ability to rapidly communicate is causing us to revert more and more to entrenched powerful interests, and whereas before you could run away to somewhere new, a new town, a new country, a new frontier now you can't escape it.
The powerful multi-billionaires and oligarchs are the new fueduel Lords who are wheeling and dealing and playing their own little games not caring about the millions of people effected by their decisions.
We now see the guild is making a come back to ensure only those that toe the party line are allowed to profit from a business.
> whereas before you could run away to somewhere new, a new town, a new country, a new frontier now you can't escape it.
I genuinely think about this a whole lot. It's wild to think about this being an actual thing...
> What can we do to fight it?
Organizing and labor unions. The latter isn't the most popular thing around here but it's really the last thing we have. We broke out the guild system and forced fundamental changes in the past and it can be done again, but do we have the will to do so?
But he won his case and the court declared that he could say he's an engineer, even though he was not a "licensed professional engineer" according to the Oregon state licensing board.
disclosure: I am not a licensed professional engineer (PE), but I do research that intersects frequently and extensively with the boundary negotiation between engineering training, licensure, the profession, and calling oneself an engineer.
My immediate take is two groups that dislike each other mutually acting like children in hopes of scoring cheap points and feeling superior.
I assume/expect that the professional speech doctrine will come heavily into play here [0]. This doctrine is grounded in either a 1985 or a 1945 supreme court case depending on who you ask. It has come into play in weird ways in engineering before because the term 'engineer' vs. 'professional engineer' vs. 'licensed professional engineer' may or may not be confusing to lay people...or at least confusing enough that people are willing to spend money on lawyers related to bicker about it [1].
Basically, if one is speaking using the auspices of a regulated and licensed profession, than commentary and comments related to that profession are bound by the responsibilities, ethics, laws, etc. governing it. If one was speaking as a member of the public - does not apply - but the boundaries are fuzzier than I think a lot of people would like. That being said, generally the red line has been the use of professional knowledge and expertise with a specified client. In those cases, it has been deemed in the public interest for the state to regulate speech...because the person is speaking in part with the backing of an assertion of qualification from the state. I suspect this is one of those cases where someone on the board took whatever strong towns has been doing (never heard of them before) a little personally...and is willing to cause problems by investigating whether this engineer stepped over the line.
Examples of its application include:
* preventing doctors from advocating for sexual orientation conversion therapy (CA)
* compelling doctors to make certain statements about abortion (e.g., PA)
The board’s concern is pretty well precedented. Holding one’s self out as a professional engineer when unlicensed is bog standard violation for licensed AEC professions.
Neither is there anything unusual about the circumstances of the board’s concern.
Investigations are almost always complaint driven...boards don’t have the resources to conduct dragnet operations.
Finally, inattention to details is a piss poor defense in the context of professional engineering. The whole idea is that professional engineers are aware of and beholden to compliance with all things legal and regulatory.
This is just StrongTowns making drama. At worst there is a small fine, some administrative costs, and maybe some educational requirements.
Or to put it another way, the response to the issue is unprofessional.
"Professional engineers" in USA should make sure that structures are built well enough to be safely used by the public. They have no business weighing in on the sorts of issues addressed by Strong Towns. The fact that they have done so in the past is proof of this, because streets and roads in USA are organized very poorly when compared to those in similar nations.
It's "ordinary" for a random person in a different state to make such a complaint, after the license was already reinstated? It's ordinary to require one stipulate to "dishonesty" when he was never actually dishonest? Such travails await every engineer who misses some mail? That seems like... dishonesty to me.
All people, whether they are engineers or not, have the right to sue for equal treatment under the law.
Yes. It is pretty ordinary. Given that the Dakotas neighbor Minnesota, it would not be unusual for an out of state engineer to have a license in a neighboring state. Indeed it is ordinary for professionals to have licenses in many states because clients often have work in many states.
In addition the motivation for the complaint, is different from the motivation of the license board. The license board almost certainly treating the case the same way it treats other cases. If it were not, StrongTowns would have sound procedural grounds for challenging the board.
There is nothing unusual here. The First Amendment suit will almost certainly be thrown out.
There does not appear to be any supporting case law. And lots of precedent against it.
>The board’s concern is pretty well precedented. Holding one’s self out as a professional engineer when unlicensed is bog standard violation for licensed AEC professions.
How so? Do you prefer people without the requisite knowledge, skill, and experience to design and construct the infrastructure you and you family use on a daily basis?
>I think licensing boards shouldn't be able to fine people for giving speeches.
You'll be glad to know that this one didn't. The issue being presented isn't that someone gave a speech -- because that would be ridiculous -- it concerns a very specific thing stated within that speech. But you know that already so I'm not sure I understand your comment.
I think a licensing board shouldn't be able to fine people who previously worked as professional engineers who call themselves professional engineers in a brochure about there speech.
The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience... The law embodies the story of a nation's development through many centuries, and it cannot be dealt with as if it contained only the axioms and corollaries of a book of mathematics. Oliver Wendell Holmes
This feeds into a bigger issue that Freakonomics rails against often: Restrictive licensing.
In a lot of states you need special qualifications or licenses to do all sorts of jobs. You can't cut hair without spending thousands on a hair cutting course and passing an exam and paying a registration fee.
Sure, that makes sense for (say) doctors. Maybe engineers too? But barbers? Why bar-people? Interior decorators?
Any occupation where there is a risk of personal (or pecuniary) injury to the client should (and does) require some form of licensing. The license ensures that a minimum standard of competency has been met by the person offering the service.
Wasn't the same thought of with taxis and hotels though?
But we found that an Uber drive isn't meaningfully more dangerous than a licensed taxi drive. And an Airbnb stay isn't meaningfully more dangerous than a licensed hotel stay.
In my travels, I have been to multiple cities where the advice is, NEVER USE UNLICENSED TAXIS. Tourists are grifted or worse by unlicensed drivers. I read a tragic hand written warning at a youth hostel by a victim who was held a knife point and driven around to every ATM in the city, draining their account $200 per machine (local limit.)
Closer to home, in my province, there have been issues with AirBnB operators not being properly insured. If you were injured because of something unsafe on the property, compensation could be difficult or impossible. There have been instances of airbnb rentals that have hidden cameras in rooms you would assume to be private. I personally would feel safer if bad behaviour can get a person banned from renting rooms.
Most of the benefits of licensed professions come from the ability to revoke licenses, not from the ability to grant them. There are some professions where you genuinely need them but the vast majority of professions only need to get rid of the bad apples to set an example, the rest will follow the law on their own.
I legitimately think we should consider replacing all licenses with certifications and just require anyone who practices a profession without a certificate to be totally upfront with their clients about that
This September, Wiley & Sons will publish Confessions of a Recovering Engineer: A Strong Towns Approach to Transportation, a book written by Charles Marohn that is deeply critical of the standard approach to transportation used by many American engineers.
The complaint here is literally that the strongtowns founder has criticized other engineers. That's it (edit: the complaint also involves a technicality motivated by this criticism, see below).
The thing about this situation is that, in the US, a large number decisions that are effectively "policy", questions of how we live, wind-up buried inside supposedly technical/professional regulations - zoning, codes and other standards.
This situation means that attacks for "violations of technicalities" easily wind-up the means by which special interests maintain their position.
No? The whole complaint, with the backstory, is linked to the article. Marohn was a practicing civil engineer until 2012; he kept his license in good standing until 2018, when it lapsed; between 2018 and 2020, he gave talks identifying himself as a professional engineer despite not having a license in good standing; someone complained (in May 2020); he reinstated his license (in June 2020); the licensure board fined him; he sued.
He has my sympathy in this case and I hope he wins, but the details are more complicated than your summary suggests. It's pretty basic stuff, as I assume a lot of us know, that part of the deal with licensed engineering professions is that you have to have the license to represent yourself as such --- people are always coming up with dopey arguments that the same applies to software engineers.
Edited above - the first complaint was for criticizing engineers, the second was saying he was an engineer during the time his license had lapsed. So sure, technically more was involved in the complaint. Effectively, the complaint was about the criticism.
The final order requires Marohn to agree that he made an “untruthful statement,” a “false statement,” and “engaged in conduct involving misrepresentation.”
Sure. I think it's a fight worth having. I'm in his corner. But it isn't a simple matter of Malohn being charged literally with criticizing engineers; he gave a talk and wrote a blog post that pissed someone off, they looked him up, he was unlicensed, they complained.
It is a fair bet that the complainant was more pissed off by the misleading claim of license than the content of the writing. It’s the difference between a difference of professional opinion and a difference of professional ethics.
The analogy is the difference between a lawyer encountering ordinary bad legal advice on the internet and encountering bad legal advice on the internet by a person claiming to be a lawyer.
- Marohn renewed his license before the licensing board presented a complaint against him.
- License lapses like this are common and there's a standard procedure for "late renewal" which Marohn followed, including paying a late fee, and the board accepted the renewal.
That is correct, and I edited my comment to remove ambiguity. What I meant was to emphasize that Marohn was not aware of a complaint against him until after his license had already been renewed, as the MN board pressed action after the license renewal had already taken place. The complaint that led to the board action did happen during the lapse period.
Yeah, this will be an interesting case, and touches on several issues.
Does the Minnesota law prohibiting misrepresenting oneself as a professional engineer apply only when performing work that requires a license, or in all facets of life? If the later, does the First Amendment allow such restrictions on speech? Does the fact that enforcement of minor administrative lapses in licensing is unevenly biased against activist speech push it over the threshold?
On the other hand this may end up turning on less interesting details, like did the board's order misrepresent the facts, and were they overstepping their authority by requiring him to agree to sign a statement that was not (entirely) true? In face of a lawsuit will they finally come to a settlement with wording that both parties can agree upon?
Remember Mats Järlström? He was an engineer, but not a "licensed professional engineer" who complained about traffic light timings, and the state board tried to fine him $500?
Yes, although if I recall, that case turned in large part on whether the law could restrict calling oneself an engineer in general as opposed to misrepresenting oneself as a Licensed Professional Engineer.
In this case, Marohn was unambiguously representing himself as a PE, for example in this article that was written during the period in which his license has lapsed (see author bio at bottom of page):
Federal courts and precedents don't work that way. The ruling came from the federal district court for Oregon. As such, it's only binding for the district. If a federal court in another district comes to a different conclusion, then an appeal to the circuit court might happen. Michigan and Oregon are in different appellate circuits (6th and 9th, respectively) so if there were different rulings in each circuit, and an appeal to the Supreme Court succeeds and the court rules, only then does the ruling become binding across all states an jurisdictions.
For now, the ruling is only binding in the District of Oregon.
> The ruling came from the federal district court for Oregon. As such, it's only binding for the district.
No, trial court rulings aren’t binding precedent even on the same trial court.
> If a federal court in another district comes to a different conclusion, then an appeal to the circuit court might happen
Appeal to circuit courts from district court are a matter of right, a split between districts is immaterial not only as to whether such an appeal is filed but also to whether it is heard.
> Michigan and Oregon are in different appellate circuits (6th and 9th, respectively) so if there were different rulings in each circuit, and an appeal to the Supreme Court succeeds and the court rules, only then does the ruling become binding across all states an jurisdictions.
At this level, a circuit split is traditionally a factor which weighs in favor of the Supreme Court hearing an appeal (as its appellate jurisdiction is generally discretionary), but it is neither in itself either necessary or sufficient. But, yes, it is only when the Supreme Court rules that precedent is universally binding rather than persuasive.
> For now, the ruling is only binding in the District of Oregon
No, for now it is only binding between the parties to the earlier case (and only as regards the specific facts of that case), under the principle of res judicata rather than stare decisis which makes decisions binding on particular (or all) courts.
1) He is not a professional engineer. And it only takes a bit of time and probably about $500 to become a PE. His not taking the time to become a PE speaks mountains. The $500 was a "nuisance fine" because he was being a pain in the ass with his complaints without being a PE.
2) He is funded and supported by some heavily suspect people.
I 100% agree with everything you're saying. Saying he was being a pain in the ass is being nice about it. The case was a terrible one for testing the limits of what a professional licensing organization can do. However, it's now legal precedent and almost certainly impacts the Strong Towns case.
Correct. The only court in the US that could issue a decision binding in both cases would be the Supreme Court, should any appeals make it that far. However, courts can and do look to existing opinions in case law.
Sorry if I'm being dense, but can you be more clear? I looked at the ij.org link as well as the linked case document, and don't see anything nefarious?
Thanks, that's helpful. I have no love for the Koch brothers or libertarians in general, but TBH I think this is a "broken clock is right twice a day" scenario. After reading the case PDF, I'd have to agree with the decision that "engineer" is such a vague term that it shouldn't be restricted like that. It's like trying to limit calling yourself a "thinker" or something. I can see how the radical anti-government folks picked up on that case. FWIW, if he had tried claiming he was a "licensed professional engineer", I would definitely see that as a false/fraudulent claim that the state absolutely has the right to disallow.
Regardless, thanks for actually listing names of who's involved. No offense intended to the GP, it just annoys me when people use terms like "heavily suspect people", as that casts aspersions without actually saying who or what. Your links were much more helpful.
I'm no libertarian, but two things free-market absolutists have strong arguments about are local infrastructure financing and occupational licensing. When it comes to the Kochs, you don't have to take the bad with the good. You can just take the good. You don't even have to say thanks (I sure won't).
>dopey arguments that the same applies to software engineers
Which used to be a thing but were so unpopular they were discontinued.
Whether this lawsuit is silly or not, it's hard to be completely unsympathetic to the idea that someone claiming a specific professional certification who does not in fact have it is in the right.
(While being completely in the camp that one can call themselves an en engineer is they want to.)
> in the US, a large number decisions that are effectively "policy", questions of how we live, wind-up buried inside supposedly technical/professional regulations - zoning, codes and other standards.
While I see your point, I would state it somewhat differently: in the US, there are, roughly speaking, two opposing viewpoints on "policy" about "how we live":
(1) The viewpoint that a central authority should figure out some "best" way to live, and impose it on everyone, or at least everyone in a significantly-sized geographic area, via technical/professional regulations, zoning, codes, etc.
(2) The viewpoint that individual people, or groups of people who have something in common, should figure out how they want to live and set themselves up that way, and decisions about how various people and groups who happen to be in the same geographical area interact should be made by negotiation and consensus among the people and groups who are affected. Input can certainly be sought from technical professionals to inform those decisions, but at the end of the day, the people who make such decisions should be the people who have to live with the consequences. And to the extent that top-down, large-scale policies play a role, it should be to ensure that individuals and groups have the tools they need to make such decisions for themselves.
What strikes me about this dispute, as with pretty much all such disputes that I have seen, is that both sides adhere to viewpoint #1; they just have different views on what the "best" way to live is that should be imposed on everyone. Practically nobody in such discussions even considers viewpoint #2 at all.
One thing we seem to be overlooking is the difference between representing yourself as X versus engaging in the professional rendering of X services to the public.
This is a significant distinction. While I'm generally opposed to the majority of occupational licensing requirements but I can understand the function of regulating professional offerings.
So in both this case and the referenced Oregon case from another comment, the "charge" by the licensure body is that the individuals are using the term engineer while doing things that aren't "rendering the service of engineering for payment."
I am a reasonably decent electrician and feel confident fiddling with my own outlets. The electrician's body does not have the right to regulate that activity. Nor can it regulate my saying I'm a decent electrician.
It does, however, have the right to regulate my rendering those services to the public for payment (with some legal gray area around rendering it for free).
This is what makes this a first amendment case that seems justified.
EDIT: I do understand by using electrician as an example, I invite comments about how I might be breaking fire code or my home insurance covenants. That's correct but it's a different externalities problem.
The actual quote behind Plank's "Science progresses, one funeral at a time" is: "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."
It's as true for rock and roll as it is for science. Metallica never recorded a NuMetal album.
The problem is many times worse when it's instituted in the form of an... erm.. institution. It's as prevalent (in many forms) in companies as it is in professional bodies, government bodies, etc. IDK what the solution is, but institutions don't die, so Max's approach won't work on them.
For those unfamiliar with Strong Towns, here’s a best-effort summary of what they do:
Strong Towns is a non-partisan non-profit that advocates for cities and towns to build financially solvent places. Many cities are perpetually broke because they owe more money in maintenance burden (fixing roads, pipes, etc) than they bring in in tax revenue.
This happens primarily because towns in North America tend to build out large neighborhoods all at once (think: suburbia). At the start, the developers pay for all the infrastructure, and then “give” it to the city to maintain.
At first, everything seems fine. The city gets plenty of new tax revenue! But come 20 or 30 years later, it turns out that the tax revenue is not enough to replace the roads, fix the pipes, and so on.
And so to pay for the repairs, the city then builds yet another neighborhood in the same strategy to collect the initial tax revenue. It’s effectively a Ponzi scheme.
When it crashes, you get Detroit.
The gist is that many low-density spread-out suburban neighborhood with large, expensive infrastructure are a huge cost center for a city. And since most North American cities build this way, we have a lot of cities that are “functionally bankrupt” or will be soon.
If you're a systems thinker who lives in a town that can't seem to fix it's potholes, you may want to check out the book they've published: "Strong Towns" by Charles L. Marohn Jr.
This is a good summary. To add a bit: since most suburban development doesn't generate enough in tax income to pay for its own maintenance, most places that have a steady trickle of suburban development end up in a cycle of decline as the older stuff starts to run down and the city has to use the development fees etc. from new developments to pay for maintenance on old ones, and eventually even that isn't enough, and everything starts to decline.
This can turn into a much worse vicious cycle when added to other issues like pension obligations, declining schools, natural disasters, etc.
You see the most of this today in inner suburban areas across the midwest, where they boomed all at one time, then ran out of land (as the wave of new suburban development moved into the next suburb's jurisdiction). Because the suburban pattern is very hard to redevelop, if an established community loses its appeal for any reason (houses have gone out of style, taxes are cheaper further out, whatever), then they tend to get into financial trouble as the maintenance obligations pile up and there's just not enough tax base to support it.
I have no idea how such an organization gets funded, but I'm glad somebody has the time to think deeply about such matters.
This summary tickled a part of my brain that has had thoughts about how we pay for this stuff. Those thoughts run down a different avenue, but I'll share them here just because.
In the U.S. it seems common that infrastructure is funded in significant ways by the federal government. Witness the current Biden plan. But also, federal money funds local schools, health initiatives, law enforcement, on and on. Some years ago I remember an important bridge falling down in Minnesota or some such place and there was immediately work in the U.S. Congress to pass funding for replacement construction. When the Flint water scandal broke, local and state officials immediately turned their attention (and outstretched hands) to D.C. for help. New York or Florida or well, everybody, immediately lobby D.C. after any natural disaster.
At some level it makes sense that an entire nation can chip in to bail out unfortunate victims easier than the local residents could do so. But I actually think this is false because it isn't everybody helping out on one isolated incident, it is everybody helping out on every single incident. At that point, we might as well have all just paid for our own local incident. The money comes out the same.
Of course, 350 million people can raise $350 million in a day every day of the year for just $1/person/day. So it does improve liquidity. And there are probably other benefits.
But here's the huge downside. All that money flows from little dinky Anywhere, U.S. to Washington. Then it comes back to Anywhere in their time of need. Except that it doesn't all come back. A large chunk is consumed in the federal bureaucracy. And some is eaten by graft. And maybe those two losses would occur at a local or state level, too. But the big gotcha for me is that the money comes back with strings attached.
We'll give federal highway funding to Montana, but they have to comply with speed limits set by somebody from Chicago. Arizona can get funding for a hospital but they have to bow to some immigration policy set by people from Vermont.
The redistribution of the wealth is a source of enormous power and attracts the power-hungry. It is a design for corruption and manipulation. And because it centralizes such enormous money/power, it must be said that it is designed to attract corruption and manipulation on an enormous scale. So while the little hospital in Arizona might have attracted some small fish to take advantage of the opportunity if it were locally funded, federal funding subjects it to the biggest fish in the world.
To bring this back to the subject, imagine if city and state taxes went way up to pay for water distribution, pot hole repair, etc. and federal taxes went way down. Then, property taxes might actually cover regular city maintenance. And at no added cost to taxpayers. The city could reduce its federal lobby budget because they aren't going to get any federal aid so quit paying somebody to keep asking. If they need more money, they can raise local taxes.
I know that this is terribly naive in many ways, and just ignorant in other ways. I'd love to hear any criticism.
> And so to pay for the repairs, the city then builds yet another neighborhood in the same strategy to collect the initial tax revenue. It’s effectively a Ponzi scheme.
> When it crashes, you get Detroit.
> The gist is that many low-density spread-out suburban neighborhood with large, expensive infrastructure are a huge cost center for a city. And since most North American cities build this way, we have a lot of cities that are “functionally bankrupt” or will be soon.
Huh? Wasn't Detroit's problem that it was too dependent a small set of labor-intensive businesses in one industry that have been in a long term secular decline (as foreign competition as increased) while simultaneously becoming more automated?
Also, when city infrastructure needs to be repaired, don't they just assess specials on the affected properties? Metro areas can expand as you describe, but many/most cities can't (because they're boxed in by adjacent cities (i.e. suburbs)). For instance, the only buildable land left in my very suburban city are a couple of defunct golf courses. New construction activity mainly happening two cities away to the south.
(Huge disclaimer that I may be wrong in my understanding here)
> Wasn't Detroit's problem that it was too dependent a small set of labor-intensive businesses in one industry that have been in a long term secular decline (as foreign competition as increased) while simultaneously becoming more automated?
From my understanding, the Strong Towns folks would say that because Detroit spent years going into maintenance debt, and replacing it's financially productive areas with unproductive areas, it was unable to survive a downturn. In contrast, New York, suffered several different financial downturns, but was able to constantly reinvent itself as some other industry town. Though I think Strong Towns would also say that single reliance on any one industry is not considered "strong" either.
158 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 190 ms ] threadThe only reason we don't hear about the plumbing cartel going after the home repair business that isn't licensed for plumbing in every state it operates in but wrote "plumbing" on its vans in all states is because HN doesn't really concern itself with those sort of matters.
I wouldn't limit that statement to state-backed: it is how most (or at least many) private organizations and unions work too, from teamsters to fifa to the NRA. State backed organizations just have the extra advantage of being explicitly state backed.
I mean the board that licenses Civil Engineers, for example, should be very stringent. We don't live in buildings that aren't structurally sound or drive on half-assed bridges.
Professional Engineers hold themselves to an ethical standard that they're not even legally required to uphold, yet they still do because this organization keeps them in check.
https://ncees.org/engineering/fe/
So I could (but almost certainly won't) take the "Industrial Engineering" exam and focus mainly on IE topics:
https://ncees.org/wp-content/uploads/FE-Industrial-and-Syste...
> for me to call my self a "Professional Engineer", I have to pass a test almost wholly focused on Civil Engineering
isn't true. The FE exam has a number of discipline options, including Electrical and Computer[0] and the PE exam is then done be discipline.
[0] https://ncees.org/wp-content/uploads/FE-Electrical-and-Compu...
List of Engineering Disciplines that can take the PE exam:
- Agricultural and Biological Engineering - Architectural Engineering - Chemical - Civil - Control Systems - Electrical and Computer - Environmental - Fire Protection - Industrial and Systems - Mechanical - Metallurgical and Materials - Mining and Mineral Processing - Naval Architecture and Marine - Nuclear - Petroleum - Structural
Hydraulic engineers would probably be scratching their heads at this. The intersection between engineering and plumbing is well charted territory.
That's convenient. The organizations assert that they can tell certified persons what's allowed and not, but if the certified person follows all the rules and something still goes sideways, the license ends up being worthless, because they can't say, "I did it this way because that's what the standards I'm required to adhere to say"?
As a programmer (who gets titled "software engineer" whether I liked it or not) this is terrible. What incentive would I have for getting a license if it doesn't protect me from liability?
When you give your stamp of approval on a project then you're legally liable for it.
You can be sued for incompetence. Then, you have to go to court and defend yourself. Or, more commonly, your company will send a lawyer but you still may be called to testify.
Most public works and building is template driven with standardized components. Highway bridges pretty much look the same if they were built at the same time. There’s probably 10-15 guys in the average state who periodically update the standards. 80% of the rest of the work is drudgery done by overworked, underpaid assistants and non-professional engineers, signed off on by a PE later.
What PEs do accomplish is making it outrageously expensive to perform basic public works that were accomplished successfully by a DPW guy with a paint roller 40 years ago. Painting a crosswalk and installing a traffic light costs nearly $1M, because you need to hire an engineering firm to duplicate a template, and sign off on placement of lines, etc.
Just based on the number of idiotic major bridge designs we have had over the Mississippi river, I'm inclined to go with Marohn on this one. Kick all of the bozos more interested in politics than actual real engineering out.
As someone that spent hundreds of thousands to get answers, and majority of my answers came from other people going through same nonsense.
For anything complicated you have to become your own doctor. Medical community is broken on all but straightforward cases.
But in English using the title Doctor is assumed to mean medical specialist in general circumstances. Any Ed.D that stands up when the flight attendant asks, “Is there a doctor on the plane?” deserves a scolding at the very least.
Interestingly every single American with any kind of a technical Ph.D that I’ve ever met goes by first name and doesn’t balk at being called mister in all but the most formal circumstances (Germans are an entirely different matter). It’s the ones with Ph.Ds in things like English that get demanding about being called doctor in everyday life.
Many doctors these days are women.
I dunno... Jill Biden made an ad in which she called herself by her title 'Doctor' (which is proper, since she has an EdD) and then gave advice on COVID, and we were told that this was sexist because she's really a doctor by many mainstream news outlets.
You can't legally present yourself as a professional engineer without that license.
The complaint is that, in his advocacy, he described himself as a professional engineer, which he obviously is. The idea that one needs to stay in the good graces of the state in order to reference one's experience in their field as part of their political advocacy cannot possibly withstand genuine first amendment scrutiny, can it?
Being licensed isn't to be within the good graces of the state, it's to prove the licensee has the requite knowledge and experience to design and construct things which, when fail, people die. This is something we want in society.
First, I don't agree that licensure accomplishes this.
But second, it sounds like you agree with the plaintiff here. Nobody is asserting that he had a legal right to perform civil engineering after his license lapsed. What he's arguing is that he had a right to reference his experience in civil engineering as part of his political advocacy.
https://www.mn.gov/aelslagid/roster.html
(wow, apparently I can't even ask...)
I will guarantee you that is not how that vast majority of the population would interpret it. Very few people even know that there is such a thing as a licensed professional engineer.
Most reasonable people would take the term "professional engineer" to mean somebody who performs engineering work of some sort in a professional capacity.
Actual doing something should take precedence over some license primary used to gatekeep a profession and fill state coffers with licensing fees.
The fact that we still have guilds operating in the 21st century is embarrassing.
I disagree.
>Very few people even know that there is such a thing as a licensed professional engineer.
>Most reasonable people would take the term "professional engineer" to mean somebody who performs engineering work of some sort in a professional capacity.
Where did you source this information?
https://www.bpelsg.ca.gov/laws/pe_act.pdf
If you don't like the law, complain to your local state legislator. For me, it didn't affect my ability to do my job or get employed, so I never cared about it. I supposed they could change the name to "licensed engineer. It doesn't bother me that the person designing roads, buildings or electrical distribution systems has to be licensed. My wife has a friend (Civil Engineer, PE) and it seems like all she does is review/approve stuff done by architects.
So it seems like we do have a law (at least in California) that say something like that.
Reason magazine posted an article on this:
"https://reason.com/2021/05/25/minnesota-threatens-to-fine-th..."
While I generally oppose attempts to regulate the term "engineer", I do think Reason was a little fast and loose here. It wasn't like they went in and objected to the term "sound engineer" in a recording studio or "software engineer" at google. This was a case of using a term in a situation where it could cause confusion, although even in this case, I side with the person who wants to use the term, and against the PE regulators. I do think that professional engineering associations do have the right to create a terminology. I would just be much more restrictive in scope.
I looked into regulations around Industrial Engineering, since I have an MS in this field (my undergraduate is in math). As far as I understand, licensure in Industrial Engineering is a title designation. In other words, there's no specific practice you're allowed to do as a licensed professional industrial engineer that you wouldn't be allowed to do without this license. It simply gives you the right to professionally represent yourself as a licensed PE.
I support the licensing bodies rights to restrict narrowly defined terminology that clearly references licensure, but my personal feeling is that the scope should be very limited. In other words, I believe I should be allowed to casually refer to myself as an engineer, I think it's fine to say you're a data engineer rather than a data scientist depending on what you do. I even think it's ok to refer to myself as an industrial engineer (though I wouldn't personally especially want to).
The ambiguity creeps in if I refer to myself as a "Professional Industrial Engineer". I personally wouldn't do that, it would feel a little fraudulent, but that's a feeling, not something I'd enforce through law or even social pressure. To stay on the right side of scope, I think I'd be ok with someone doing that as long as they didn't throw in "licensed".
As for "engineering" as a general term, I think it's truly absurd that PE bodies would think they have a general right to prevent others from using this descriptive term in job or work titles, it's as general as "scientist".
It's all a racket. I'm an unlicensed, non-PE software engineer. Am I allowed to call myself that?
It's not.
>I'm an unlicensed, non-PE software engineer. Am I allowed to call myself that?
In many areas, yeah, you can refer to yourself as a software engineer, but the title doesn't mean anything because anyone can refer to themselves as a software engineer; there is nothing defining what that means.
This is incorrect. Check out what the PEO has to say about using "software engineer" as a title:
https://www.peo.on.ca/public-protection/complaints-and-illeg...
You can sometimes use the title without being licensed, but you have to be careful, as it can easily be considered misrepresentation.
Which is why I qualified my statement with "many".
>You can sometimes use the title without being licensed, but you have to be careful, as it can easily be considered misrepresentation.
That is what this debate is about.
> Where the software is used in a product that already falls within the practice of engineering (e.g. elevator controls, nuclear reactor controls, medical equipment such as gamma-ray cameras, etc.);
> Where the use of the software poses a risk to life, health, property or the public welfare; and
> Where the design or analysis requires the application of engineering principles within the program (e.g. does engineering calculations), meets a requirement of engineering practice (e.g. a fail-safe system), or requires the application of the principles of engineering in its development.
In other words, the vast majority of software engineering does not fall within the practice of professional engineering.
The engineering council makes it easy to get the license. Demonstrate the knowledge through a raft of exams and you will qualify. Alternatively, demonstrating 20 years of engineering experience in your field will also let you qualify.
Also, I have in fact undergone the training that an engineer in Canada would undergo. I just didn't do the tests or pay the fees, and why should I?
If you already have the education and the experience (you need both), why not complete the ethics exam and earn the license? Is it about the fees? The annual fee in California is $180.00 [1]. The annual fee in Ontario, Canada is $299.45 [2]. Does your company not pay you enough? Are you living on hardship as a software engineer to not be able to afford that?
The real question is this: Why do you feel entitled to a designation without completing the requirements for it?
[1] https://bpelsg.ca.gov/applicants/licensee_fees.shtml
[2] https://www.peo.on.ca/sites/default/files/2020-11/PEO-FeeSch...
Similarly, Doctors are still doctors even when they cross borders. They just can’t practice medicine for money without a license.
I am a Software Developer - I did not graduate from an Engineering college. I am not an Engineer. The stuff I do does not kill people when it fails.
99% of people that claim to be Engineers (at least in Software) are not.
Oh? OK technically maybe not your job specifically, but ever hear about Therac-25? MCAS on the 737-MAX?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YaI6lhn78g
putting critique into this category does seem to be such an act on its own. On the other side aggressively squashing any heresy - even if it is just a minor deviation from the Party line - has been working great for the Church for 2000 years already.
If I point out the design flaw, I may diminish public confidence in the profession. If I do not point out the design flaw, the inevitable collapse of the bridge may also diminish public confidence in the profession, but only if the subsequent investigation reveals the design flaw and/or my knowledge of it.
What a terrible incentive!
>If I point out the design flaw
pointing a design flaw in a project which already got huge money sunk in wouldn't earn much popularity to say the least.
Reading StrongTown's account of things is one side of the story, and they really do make it sound like a bunch of grumpy old assholes are throwing their weight around where they shouldn't be. Assuming this account of facts is accurate and not embellished, I really hope they win and people like the engineers pushing this bullshit get a reality check.
I am a P.Eng... Canadian though, and even though I hold the title I do not use the stamp or really work as a traditional engineer a whole lot. I just feel its important to point out that our ethical standards aren't so easily circumvented as ignoring a safety hazard because it might make us look bad.
I’d be willing to bet that when this case goes to trial a similar example will be used - perhaps the I-35 bridge collapse for which a design flaw was ultimately identified as a major factor in the collapse. The state will have to admit that a professional engineer is obligated to speak up about problems in design, which is exactly what they are seeking to punish him for. This isn’t going to end well for Minnesota.
Pretty much all engineers I've worked with were VERY happy to discuss their designs.
The powerful multi-billionaires and oligarchs are the new fueduel Lords who are wheeling and dealing and playing their own little games not caring about the millions of people effected by their decisions.
We now see the guild is making a come back to ensure only those that toe the party line are allowed to profit from a business.
What can we do to fight it?
I genuinely think about this a whole lot. It's wild to think about this being an actual thing...
> What can we do to fight it?
Organizing and labor unions. The latter isn't the most popular thing around here but it's really the last thing we have. We broke out the guild system and forced fundamental changes in the past and it can be done again, but do we have the will to do so?
Build local power, sustainability and resilience. Essentially some of the things Strong Towns advocates for.
We probably can’t fix the massive systems, but we can strive to protect and decouple our local communities from them.
https://ij.org/press-release/oregon-engineer-wins-traffic-li...
My immediate take is two groups that dislike each other mutually acting like children in hopes of scoring cheap points and feeling superior.
I assume/expect that the professional speech doctrine will come heavily into play here [0]. This doctrine is grounded in either a 1985 or a 1945 supreme court case depending on who you ask. It has come into play in weird ways in engineering before because the term 'engineer' vs. 'professional engineer' vs. 'licensed professional engineer' may or may not be confusing to lay people...or at least confusing enough that people are willing to spend money on lawyers related to bicker about it [1].
Basically, if one is speaking using the auspices of a regulated and licensed profession, than commentary and comments related to that profession are bound by the responsibilities, ethics, laws, etc. governing it. If one was speaking as a member of the public - does not apply - but the boundaries are fuzzier than I think a lot of people would like. That being said, generally the red line has been the use of professional knowledge and expertise with a specified client. In those cases, it has been deemed in the public interest for the state to regulate speech...because the person is speaking in part with the backing of an assertion of qualification from the state. I suspect this is one of those cases where someone on the board took whatever strong towns has been doing (never heard of them before) a little personally...and is willing to cause problems by investigating whether this engineer stepped over the line.
Examples of its application include:
* preventing doctors from advocating for sexual orientation conversion therapy (CA)
* compelling doctors to make certain statements about abortion (e.g., PA)
[0] https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1551/professional-s...
[1] https://www.oregonlive.com/news/2018/12/federal-judge-finds-...
Neither is there anything unusual about the circumstances of the board’s concern. Investigations are almost always complaint driven...boards don’t have the resources to conduct dragnet operations.
Finally, inattention to details is a piss poor defense in the context of professional engineering. The whole idea is that professional engineers are aware of and beholden to compliance with all things legal and regulatory.
This is just StrongTowns making drama. At worst there is a small fine, some administrative costs, and maybe some educational requirements.
Or to put it another way, the response to the issue is unprofessional.
[EDIT:] Also, Marohn is licensed as one can see here: https://www.mn.gov/aelslagid/roster.html
The claim that this is because of Strongtown’s position is not supported by any evidence. It is a very ordinary complaint and board action.
The only thing extraordinary here is lay people reading about it.
All people, whether they are engineers or not, have the right to sue for equal treatment under the law.
The complaint was made first. The subject wasn’t aware of the complaint until later..
In addition the motivation for the complaint, is different from the motivation of the license board. The license board almost certainly treating the case the same way it treats other cases. If it were not, StrongTowns would have sound procedural grounds for challenging the board.
There is nothing unusual here. The First Amendment suit will almost certainly be thrown out. There does not appear to be any supporting case law. And lots of precedent against it.
I've seen no evidence of this.
Yea that's the entire problem.
How so? Do you prefer people without the requisite knowledge, skill, and experience to design and construct the infrastructure you and you family use on a daily basis?
You'll be glad to know that this one didn't. The issue being presented isn't that someone gave a speech -- because that would be ridiculous -- it concerns a very specific thing stated within that speech. But you know that already so I'm not sure I understand your comment.
The legal precedent is 3500 years older than the First Amendment.
https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/Oliver_Wendell_Holmes_Jr.
In a lot of states you need special qualifications or licenses to do all sorts of jobs. You can't cut hair without spending thousands on a hair cutting course and passing an exam and paying a registration fee.
Sure, that makes sense for (say) doctors. Maybe engineers too? But barbers? Why bar-people? Interior decorators?
But we found that an Uber drive isn't meaningfully more dangerous than a licensed taxi drive. And an Airbnb stay isn't meaningfully more dangerous than a licensed hotel stay.
Closer to home, in my province, there have been issues with AirBnB operators not being properly insured. If you were injured because of something unsafe on the property, compensation could be difficult or impossible. There have been instances of airbnb rentals that have hidden cameras in rooms you would assume to be private. I personally would feel safer if bad behaviour can get a person banned from renting rooms.
Anecdata, but what the fork was going on here? And do we think it would happen at a hotel? https://torontosun.com/news/provincial/hunter-toronto-woman-...
The complaint here is literally that the strongtowns founder has criticized other engineers. That's it (edit: the complaint also involves a technicality motivated by this criticism, see below).
The thing about this situation is that, in the US, a large number decisions that are effectively "policy", questions of how we live, wind-up buried inside supposedly technical/professional regulations - zoning, codes and other standards.
This situation means that attacks for "violations of technicalities" easily wind-up the means by which special interests maintain their position.
He has my sympathy in this case and I hope he wins, but the details are more complicated than your summary suggests. It's pretty basic stuff, as I assume a lot of us know, that part of the deal with licensed engineering professions is that you have to have the license to represent yourself as such --- people are always coming up with dopey arguments that the same applies to software engineers.
The final order requires Marohn to agree that he made an “untruthful statement,” a “false statement,” and “engaged in conduct involving misrepresentation.”
The analogy is the difference between a lawyer encountering ordinary bad legal advice on the internet and encountering bad legal advice on the internet by a person claiming to be a lawyer.
- Marohn renewed his license before the licensing board presented a complaint against him.
- License lapses like this are common and there's a standard procedure for "late renewal" which Marohn followed, including paying a late fee, and the board accepted the renewal.
Does the Minnesota law prohibiting misrepresenting oneself as a professional engineer apply only when performing work that requires a license, or in all facets of life? If the later, does the First Amendment allow such restrictions on speech? Does the fact that enforcement of minor administrative lapses in licensing is unevenly biased against activist speech push it over the threshold?
On the other hand this may end up turning on less interesting details, like did the board's order misrepresent the facts, and were they overstepping their authority by requiring him to agree to sign a statement that was not (entirely) true? In face of a lawsuit will they finally come to a settlement with wording that both parties can agree upon?
https://ij.org/press-release/oregon-engineer-wins-traffic-li...
In this case, Marohn was unambiguously representing himself as a PE, for example in this article that was written during the period in which his license has lapsed (see author bio at bottom of page):
https://web.archive.org/web/20191227151521/https://www.stron...
So this case will have to push a bit further than that previous one, although the precedent may help.
Federal courts and precedents don't work that way. The ruling came from the federal district court for Oregon. As such, it's only binding for the district. If a federal court in another district comes to a different conclusion, then an appeal to the circuit court might happen. Michigan and Oregon are in different appellate circuits (6th and 9th, respectively) so if there were different rulings in each circuit, and an appeal to the Supreme Court succeeds and the court rules, only then does the ruling become binding across all states an jurisdictions.
For now, the ruling is only binding in the District of Oregon.
No, trial court rulings aren’t binding precedent even on the same trial court.
> If a federal court in another district comes to a different conclusion, then an appeal to the circuit court might happen
Appeal to circuit courts from district court are a matter of right, a split between districts is immaterial not only as to whether such an appeal is filed but also to whether it is heard.
> Michigan and Oregon are in different appellate circuits (6th and 9th, respectively) so if there were different rulings in each circuit, and an appeal to the Supreme Court succeeds and the court rules, only then does the ruling become binding across all states an jurisdictions.
At this level, a circuit split is traditionally a factor which weighs in favor of the Supreme Court hearing an appeal (as its appellate jurisdiction is generally discretionary), but it is neither in itself either necessary or sufficient. But, yes, it is only when the Supreme Court rules that precedent is universally binding rather than persuasive.
> For now, the ruling is only binding in the District of Oregon
No, for now it is only binding between the parties to the earlier case (and only as regards the specific facts of that case), under the principle of res judicata rather than stare decisis which makes decisions binding on particular (or all) courts.
Thanks for the clarification.
2) He is funded and supported by some heavily suspect people.
Not binding precedent on any court that would hear the Strong Towns case.
2) That's very vague. Can you elaborate?
"William H. "Chip" Mellor and Clint Bolick co-founded the organization in 1990 with seed money from libertarian philanthropist Charles Koch"[2]
Mellor served as president of the free-market think tank Pacific Research Institute.
1. https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1025471447963533520
2. https://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/17/magazine/the-unregulated-...
Regardless, thanks for actually listing names of who's involved. No offense intended to the GP, it just annoys me when people use terms like "heavily suspect people", as that casts aspersions without actually saying who or what. Your links were much more helpful.
Which used to be a thing but were so unpopular they were discontinued.
Whether this lawsuit is silly or not, it's hard to be completely unsympathetic to the idea that someone claiming a specific professional certification who does not in fact have it is in the right.
(While being completely in the camp that one can call themselves an en engineer is they want to.)
While I see your point, I would state it somewhat differently: in the US, there are, roughly speaking, two opposing viewpoints on "policy" about "how we live":
(1) The viewpoint that a central authority should figure out some "best" way to live, and impose it on everyone, or at least everyone in a significantly-sized geographic area, via technical/professional regulations, zoning, codes, etc.
(2) The viewpoint that individual people, or groups of people who have something in common, should figure out how they want to live and set themselves up that way, and decisions about how various people and groups who happen to be in the same geographical area interact should be made by negotiation and consensus among the people and groups who are affected. Input can certainly be sought from technical professionals to inform those decisions, but at the end of the day, the people who make such decisions should be the people who have to live with the consequences. And to the extent that top-down, large-scale policies play a role, it should be to ensure that individuals and groups have the tools they need to make such decisions for themselves.
What strikes me about this dispute, as with pretty much all such disputes that I have seen, is that both sides adhere to viewpoint #1; they just have different views on what the "best" way to live is that should be imposed on everyone. Practically nobody in such discussions even considers viewpoint #2 at all.
This is a significant distinction. While I'm generally opposed to the majority of occupational licensing requirements but I can understand the function of regulating professional offerings.
So in both this case and the referenced Oregon case from another comment, the "charge" by the licensure body is that the individuals are using the term engineer while doing things that aren't "rendering the service of engineering for payment."
I am a reasonably decent electrician and feel confident fiddling with my own outlets. The electrician's body does not have the right to regulate that activity. Nor can it regulate my saying I'm a decent electrician.
It does, however, have the right to regulate my rendering those services to the public for payment (with some legal gray area around rendering it for free).
This is what makes this a first amendment case that seems justified.
EDIT: I do understand by using electrician as an example, I invite comments about how I might be breaking fire code or my home insurance covenants. That's correct but it's a different externalities problem.
The problem is many times worse when it's instituted in the form of an... erm.. institution. It's as prevalent (in many forms) in companies as it is in professional bodies, government bodies, etc. IDK what the solution is, but institutions don't die, so Max's approach won't work on them.
Strong Towns is a non-partisan non-profit that advocates for cities and towns to build financially solvent places. Many cities are perpetually broke because they owe more money in maintenance burden (fixing roads, pipes, etc) than they bring in in tax revenue.
This happens primarily because towns in North America tend to build out large neighborhoods all at once (think: suburbia). At the start, the developers pay for all the infrastructure, and then “give” it to the city to maintain.
At first, everything seems fine. The city gets plenty of new tax revenue! But come 20 or 30 years later, it turns out that the tax revenue is not enough to replace the roads, fix the pipes, and so on.
And so to pay for the repairs, the city then builds yet another neighborhood in the same strategy to collect the initial tax revenue. It’s effectively a Ponzi scheme.
When it crashes, you get Detroit.
The gist is that many low-density spread-out suburban neighborhood with large, expensive infrastructure are a huge cost center for a city. And since most North American cities build this way, we have a lot of cities that are “functionally bankrupt” or will be soon.
If you're a systems thinker who lives in a town that can't seem to fix it's potholes, you may want to check out the book they've published: "Strong Towns" by Charles L. Marohn Jr.
This can turn into a much worse vicious cycle when added to other issues like pension obligations, declining schools, natural disasters, etc.
You see the most of this today in inner suburban areas across the midwest, where they boomed all at one time, then ran out of land (as the wave of new suburban development moved into the next suburb's jurisdiction). Because the suburban pattern is very hard to redevelop, if an established community loses its appeal for any reason (houses have gone out of style, taxes are cheaper further out, whatever), then they tend to get into financial trouble as the maintenance obligations pile up and there's just not enough tax base to support it.
Great channel for those interested in urbanism.
This summary tickled a part of my brain that has had thoughts about how we pay for this stuff. Those thoughts run down a different avenue, but I'll share them here just because.
In the U.S. it seems common that infrastructure is funded in significant ways by the federal government. Witness the current Biden plan. But also, federal money funds local schools, health initiatives, law enforcement, on and on. Some years ago I remember an important bridge falling down in Minnesota or some such place and there was immediately work in the U.S. Congress to pass funding for replacement construction. When the Flint water scandal broke, local and state officials immediately turned their attention (and outstretched hands) to D.C. for help. New York or Florida or well, everybody, immediately lobby D.C. after any natural disaster.
At some level it makes sense that an entire nation can chip in to bail out unfortunate victims easier than the local residents could do so. But I actually think this is false because it isn't everybody helping out on one isolated incident, it is everybody helping out on every single incident. At that point, we might as well have all just paid for our own local incident. The money comes out the same.
Of course, 350 million people can raise $350 million in a day every day of the year for just $1/person/day. So it does improve liquidity. And there are probably other benefits.
But here's the huge downside. All that money flows from little dinky Anywhere, U.S. to Washington. Then it comes back to Anywhere in their time of need. Except that it doesn't all come back. A large chunk is consumed in the federal bureaucracy. And some is eaten by graft. And maybe those two losses would occur at a local or state level, too. But the big gotcha for me is that the money comes back with strings attached.
We'll give federal highway funding to Montana, but they have to comply with speed limits set by somebody from Chicago. Arizona can get funding for a hospital but they have to bow to some immigration policy set by people from Vermont.
The redistribution of the wealth is a source of enormous power and attracts the power-hungry. It is a design for corruption and manipulation. And because it centralizes such enormous money/power, it must be said that it is designed to attract corruption and manipulation on an enormous scale. So while the little hospital in Arizona might have attracted some small fish to take advantage of the opportunity if it were locally funded, federal funding subjects it to the biggest fish in the world.
To bring this back to the subject, imagine if city and state taxes went way up to pay for water distribution, pot hole repair, etc. and federal taxes went way down. Then, property taxes might actually cover regular city maintenance. And at no added cost to taxpayers. The city could reduce its federal lobby budget because they aren't going to get any federal aid so quit paying somebody to keep asking. If they need more money, they can raise local taxes.
I know that this is terribly naive in many ways, and just ignorant in other ways. I'd love to hear any criticism.
> When it crashes, you get Detroit.
> The gist is that many low-density spread-out suburban neighborhood with large, expensive infrastructure are a huge cost center for a city. And since most North American cities build this way, we have a lot of cities that are “functionally bankrupt” or will be soon.
Huh? Wasn't Detroit's problem that it was too dependent a small set of labor-intensive businesses in one industry that have been in a long term secular decline (as foreign competition as increased) while simultaneously becoming more automated?
Also, when city infrastructure needs to be repaired, don't they just assess specials on the affected properties? Metro areas can expand as you describe, but many/most cities can't (because they're boxed in by adjacent cities (i.e. suburbs)). For instance, the only buildable land left in my very suburban city are a couple of defunct golf courses. New construction activity mainly happening two cities away to the south.
Also yes. Also white flight.
> Wasn't Detroit's problem that it was too dependent a small set of labor-intensive businesses in one industry that have been in a long term secular decline (as foreign competition as increased) while simultaneously becoming more automated?
From my understanding, the Strong Towns folks would say that because Detroit spent years going into maintenance debt, and replacing it's financially productive areas with unproductive areas, it was unable to survive a downturn. In contrast, New York, suffered several different financial downturns, but was able to constantly reinvent itself as some other industry town. Though I think Strong Towns would also say that single reliance on any one industry is not considered "strong" either.