1) Do we teach that we are living in unique times with a unique President raising unique separation of powers, federalism, and rights issues? If so, how do we deal with pro-MAGA students?
2) Do we raise the question whether we are in or facing a constitutional crisis? How do we do that without sounding partisan?
The answer is no. That is, no to the first part of the question, and then we don't need to reach the second part of your question... except to to turn it around and ask you to ask yourself what it says about you. You don't want to sound partisan? You need to deal with students who are not on your side?
I think I know how you'll answer. You'll claim that you are not partisan. You're just right. Those MAGA students over there are wrong but they believe that they are right. You'd like to portray them as political in a way that you think you are not, and how can you do that if the cases you're reading back them up?
When I was a law student — 1978 to 1981 — I found conlaw tedious because the professors were always looking back on the Warren Court, the Court that got things right, and Court is getting things wrong now. It was particularly tedious because that was before the Federalist Society emboldened conservative students. One reason I wanted to teach law is because law school deprived me of the vigorous debate I thought I was going to have. Finally, here it is: Constitutional Law! This is going to be great! — I thought, as I sat down on the first day.
By the way, Professor Segall's 20th question is about the Federalist Society:
How much time, if any, should we spend on the Federalist Society's role in generating the reversal of so many precedents across constitutional law and for sponsoring all six current GOP justices?
Spend as much time as you spend on the role of liberal institutions that engage in litigation and work on judicial nominations.
संदेश
95 टिप्पणियां:
"I was sure that Hillary Clinton was about win the election and that after she appoints the successor to Justice Scalia, with 5 strong liberals on the Supreme Court, constitutional law was going to become very boring."
Oh, right. Like the Russian Revolution was boring.
The purpose of the Constitution was to create a unique social contract that allowed individual freedom to be maximized while maintaining social harmony.
The purpose of Eric Segall's questions is to gain power for his political tribe.
Until you get your priorities correct and your actions match your words your effort is going to fail.
Maybe they could teach why just 5 federal courts think it is perfectly fine to issue nationwide injunctions before actually hearing the full case?
I think I know how you'll answer. You'll claim that you are not partisan. You're just right. Those MAGA students over there are wrong but they believe that they are right. You'd like to portray them as political in a way that you think you are not, and how can you do that if the cases you're reading back them up?
The success of failure of a social contract is the number of people in society that accept the results of the contract.
There will always be people who disagree with the outcomes.
But do they continue to work within the system or do they try to tear it down?
Constitutional law professors as a group are just bad.
They should have the Constitution memorized. There are not very many words in it. They should know the federalist papers well.
Instead you have people like Ann teaching Constitutional law. Ann believed that the Constitution and the Bill of Rights included a federal right to an abortion.
The whole edifice is just absurd.
Using the labels outs you as not a thinker. You should never been promoted to where you are in the first place…
…at the least articulating your opposition’s positions accurately will help you answer your own questions or help you find them irrelevant…
I don’t know why but I’ve been reading this blog since the beginning (2004?) and I think professor Althouse’s view on core constitutional issues has changed dramatically from then till now. I assume she has no problem with the executive orders sanctioning law firms for representing people or employing people trump doesn’t like.
I would phrase my comment as a question but one thing I’ve learned is that the professor hardly ever responds to questions. Her blog her choice
---- The answer is no.
A+
---- That is, no to the first part of the question, and then we don't need to reach the second part of your question... except to to turn it around and ask you to ask yourself what it says about you. You don't want to sound partisan? You need to deal with students who are not on your side?
I think I know how you'll answer. You'll claim that you are not partisan. You're just right.
Another A+ and an F for the author.
…and I have a question- what are you going to do if this point of view you believe is ephemeral outlives Trump? Maybe you really should retire…
Jimmy numbers, maybe if Trump had actually done what you'd said that she'd have a reason to respond. Your "question' is so biased as to be largely rhetorical.
Early in the 20th Century there was a political cartoonist who had an Irish bartender Mr. Dooley as a character. There was a cartoon where "Mr. Dooley" opined, "Of course the Supreme Court reads the election returns". Things evolve over time. The same folks who rejoice over the reversal/overturning of Dredd Scott and Plessy v. Ferguson are aghast at the utter horror of overturning Roe v. Wade. If you want to have a "living constitution" then you better be ready for some teenage tantrums of one kind or another.
My experience was that Con Law was was taught as a kind of Greatest Hits album of liberal triumphalism. No uncomfortable questions were socially appropriate.
Now Federal Jurisdiction, otoh, using the Hart and Wechsler casebook, was a meaty exploration of the meanings of federalism, separation of powers, legitimacy and legality.
Law professors taught me how to see the categorical split between high cognitive function and good mental health.
I went to Boalt Hall for law school. Being Boalt Hall I assumed I was the only conservative in the whole student body. I was pleasantly surprised that Senator Ted Stevens’ daughter was in my mod. So there were at least two conservatives.
Con law was my favorite subject. My professor didn’t make it political and focused on commerce clause cases to give us a deep dive into a single subject instead of a little taste of everything. Interestingly, at Boalt Con Law was an elective course and not required at all to get a degree.
“ Do we teach that we are living in unique times with a unique President raising unique separation of powers, federalism, and rights issues? If so, how do we deal with pro-MAGA students?”
Most MAGA students would agree that Trump is unique. They just think he’s good-unique, not evil-unique. And they believe he shouldn’t be unique, because there should have been bunches of aggressive R presidents before him.
RR
JSM
An interesting collection of leading questions.
Profs of all ideological colors should be rejoicing that the country has become an exam question!
RR
JSM
How did he teach conlaw in times with a non compos mentis president and an unelected executive who refused to enforce the nation's immigration laws?
the people are to be TOLD.. Not asked..
Democracy REQUIRES complete obedience
People are to be LED. FORCE compliance!
When I was a law student — 1978 to 1981 — I found conlaw tedious because the professors were always looking back on the Warren Court, the Court that got things right, and Court is getting things wrong now.
Althouse, I was a few years ahead of you, but clearly remember my ConLaw professor (Professor Fletcher). Very liberal, but even he had a difficult time teaching Justice Douglas's argument that rocks and rivers had some sort of "rights" under the Constitution. He was a big fan of JFK and clearly hated Nixon. His wife (Betty Fletcher) was a partner in a big Seattle law firm (in that day, female partners were rare) and she eventually went on to be appointed to the WA State Supreme Court. Name was often thrown around as a potential USSC Justice (first woman!!!) but fortunately, Carter never had a chance to appoint anyone.
Didn't Obama teach Con law at U of Chicago? I believe he was on staff, paid fully to maintain an office on campus, then taught a single course (each semester?) after several years had gone by
I did my undergrad at UC San Diego and two of the eight residential colleges are named after former Supreme Court justices -- Earl Warren and Thurgood Marshall. I was a Marshall student, but it was called Third College when I attended long ago.
I'm not sure why the heavy emphasis on justices at UCSD since UCSD is a very techie, science-focused place. The other colleges are named after Roger Revelle (oceanographer), John Muir (the naturalist), and Eleanor Roosevelt (activist, former first lady). Colleges Six, Seven and Eight are unnamed. Would they dare name one after Clarence Thomas? Personally, I'd like to see more scientists honored. It's such a political football though, unfortunately, and the administration leaves the colleges unnamed for years and years.
I took a ConLaw course at UNCC sometime around '78. It was taught by a Professor Brenner who clerked for Felix Frankfurter. Teaching it was a lot simpler than Eric Segall's 20 questions.
We used Robert Cushman's "Cases in Constitutional Law." We read 43 cases from Marbury to Roe. We were told to break down the decision into five parts: the basic facts, how it progressed through the court system, the issue(s) involved, the decision and the reasoning.
It was the hardest course I ever took. I'm not a lawyer, but had to learn to reason like one. I'm not proud of my academic record, but I worked hard in that class.
Biggest takeaway was realizing that Roe v. Wade was a bogus decision, spending page upon page trying to find a right to medical privacy in the Constitution that simply wasn't there.
they got very little right, even when they came to the right conclusion, using sociological data instead of statutes for instance, or conjuring griswold out of whole cloth, because they wanted to warp the constitutional fabric,
reveille was the scientist that gore extrapolated the findings for
'earth in the lurch' as Rush used to call it, 'there shall be no law' well progs have a way of working around that,
you can't try a president in office, or outside, only impeachment and removal, yet the dems found a work a round, they were sloppy, the next time,
in the documents case, there was only judge who actually bothered to read the law, the other proscriptions fell by the waysides in Atlanta, but they came very close to succeeding in dc
"The purpose of the Constitution was to create a unique social contract that allowed individual freedom to be maximized while maintaining social harmony."
Oh, come off it. The purpose of the Constitution was to take a couple more turns on the bolts holding together the ramshackle coalition that had somehow managed to defeat the most powerful nation on Earth, in the sober estimation that the battle might be over but the war was just beginning. Unless maybe your view is that the institution of slavery allows individual freedom while maintaining social harmony.
Epstein, and Yoo and Epstein, no longer have law podcasts at Hoover because nothing relates to principles anymore so there's nothing to say. You can say what should happen but it never does.
constitutions of 'positive liberty' like the Soviets, the South Africa, et al, have become durable tyrannies, or mere hellscapes, one fmr justice, raved over the last over the American, this is part because they mistake the source of law, it is not man, but god given,
To me, it's astonishing this is so "difficult". I took Con Law while I was at Harvard Law School 1976-79. I also made some money on the side doing research for his future (successful) Con Law textbook for Larry Tribe. I had Steve Breyer as a Professor (terrific, btw -- a great Socratic style teacher). I do claim to know this part of the academic world as it existed half a century ago.
What I recall is it was, even by those with a view like Larry, they still taught Con Law as
a historical study -- here are the great controversies, there the important dissents and opinions, and here the great arguments for and against how it worked out.
The professors' views were....identifiable, but not overtly
pressed. In 1976-79, I never felt I had to "agree" with a professor's view, so long as I knew the case law and I had a well-thought-out view. And this was soon after the Harvard riots of 1969 -- not like it was in the distant past.
I do not know what goes on at HLS today. But if Con Law is
being taught there or elsewhere as a right/wrong thing, then ....
I mean, what can we expect? Not good.
As we know, any party that has the White House and Congress can (constitutionally) neuter the Court. That sounds "awful" to some, but the UK
has always lived with it (Parliamentary supremacy).
Epstein on Rule of Law remains the best podcast on anything ever youtube.
He used to argue everything starting like that. You can see it will no longer work.
if power is your objective, in itself, then principle serves little,
eg: if freedom of speech can only serve 'fundamental transformation' then it is a dead letter, as it became largely under the tech companies from 2021-2025, with some exceptions, because the major publishers didn't care about
the truth,
Which brings me to another point.
I suspect most Americans think the US is more democratic
that the UK. The reverse is true (once you understand the monarch has no power).
The UK has an omni-competent Parliament. Judges (especially nowadays
under some Euro treaties) can try to end-run Parliament,
but essentially the judicial part of UK government has about 2% of the power of the US judicial branch.
Let us recall the Constitution establishes the judicial branch,
but does not allocate its powers versus the legislative and executive branches.
John Marshall claimed the judicial was a co-equal branch
branch. Nobody succeeded in opposing his diktat, although famously Jackson uttered his famous words.
but only FDR did through the court packing strategem, one might say some 70 years later obama prevailed upon the weak willed 'its a tax' and the less said about obergefell the latter,
well there is nothing like the bill of rights in the uk, so citizens really are at a disadvantage, then you have how spectacle at hungerford and dunblane made any self defense a moot pointa similar thing happened with the port arthur even in another Commonweath country of Australia, hence what occurred in 2020
so there was a time when Tribe was not evil, good to know, by the 80s, he had dispensed with that precept, once there was a balance of constitutionalists like Scalia, but the more they were selected the more academia tilted left, of course the likes of say Lino Gragiia were marginalizes,
Con Law was also my favorite subject in school. This was because I knew nothing about it as Florida had just dropped the requirement of 12th grade Capitalism vs. Communism. (That was stupid but Reubin Askew was gov at the time). The prof was intelligent, well-versed and certainly IIRC didn't try to teach us right vs wrong in his opinion. The writer of the article above -- he doesn't see what he is saying? The Left, as always, is simply insane. Anything is permissible because Orange Man Bad.
one might say it depends if the Parliament, has a republican (small r) or a democratic (popular liberty) even under the Tories, they seem to have ignored the people's rights, now under Labout the state apparat seems totally empowered,
in the US as with Spain for instance, federalism made for different results in states and provinces, ie the Madrid province was more flexible under the ridiculous lockdown rules, akin to Florida,
he knows exactly what he is saying 'tails you lose, heads he wins' the result is what matters,
it seems like he subscribes to the green eggs and ham strategy,
that judge boasberg xinis and company follow, the President can do nothing, except if tis section 1512, the President can do anything to anyone,
I would spend one day on Roe and Casey, and one day on Carhart and Dobbs.
Carhart (and Carhart II) are the obvious infanticide cases, the "hard" cases that liberals want to ignore. I doubt those cases make it into the ConLaw casebooks. But you can't understand why the happy narrative of Casey fell apart if you ignore the brutal reality of Carhart.
So those are the four cases law students ought to read: Roe, Casey, Carhart, Dobbs. There are other fucked up abortion cases, but Carhart is the most brutal and obvious explanation for why the pro-life movement won this fight.
the kelo decision was as perfect a subversion of eminent domain as possible, does he have any quarrel about that,
that was what that moderate souter wrought,
o'connor wanted to keep abortion, so she changed the underlying principle is there a more cynical exercise,
well perhaps the contemporary case about affirmative action, which finally was reversed a quarter century later,
ball park,
Many issues of law come down to how broadly or narrowly courts interpret vague terms like “unreasonable” or “due process.” No con law teacher spends time discussing why the President has to be at least 35 years old.
An interesting subject in Con Law is how broadly or narrowly the Supreme Court interprets its precedents. It fucking varies from case to case, year to year, and lineup to lineup.
Well, my big point is, what GOOD is the S Ct? Has it ever
done anything to actually protect important rights?
Read Plessy v Ferguson. Let alone Dred Scott.
On the other side, the SCt's obsession with the rights of criminal defendants from the 60's to the present has contributed to the loss of rights (and life) of ordinary citizens.
On the whole, the performance of the S Ct 1800 to the present is, IMHO, D+.
as I recall, strict scrutiny, prevents the reversal of prog priorities, at least it has for some two generations,
"Liberal" Con Law would be a boring subject to teach and learn, because the essence of that judicial philosophy is simply that the judiciary is the premiere branch of government, and it's the duty of courts to strike down any legislation or presidential acts that are contrary to left-wing policy aims. This is clearly what Justice Jackson believes.
The "conservative" judicial philosophy of originalism isn't definitionally outcome-driven. There's an actual process to it that may or may not yield the policy outcome that conservative people may favor.
Narciso, I wish what you say is true.
But "strict scrutiny" -- even if it works -- only exists when a major of 5 justices support strict scrutiny. So it has not long term
viability. I'm not sure how you count "generations", but the current S Ct majority, though I much prefer it to prior iterations,
has not existed for 2 generations (50 years) and the S Ct has done very little to reverse the "prog" rulings of the previous courts. Alas!
“If so, how do we deal with pro-MAGA students?” Deal with? Says it all in the first question.
liberal disdain the precedents because they want an outcome, then those precedents and only those become concrete, conservatives are loath to reverse them, rinse and repeat,
possibly!
but also, the so-called "conservative" majority of 5 or 6 is not
a great without divisions
o'connor wanted to keep abortion, so she changed the underlying principle is there a more cynical exercise
Actually, one of the evils of Roe was that states could not protect the health of women having abortions. States could protect dogs and cats in a vet's office. But states could not protect women in an abortion clinic.
O'Connor, the first woman on the Court, thought that was insane. She had no regard whatsoever for unborn children. But she wanted to protect women having abortions. She ripped the Roe majority in a series of dissents for having no regard for the health of women.
Roe v. Wade said there could be no regulations at all in the first trimester. "An abortion free of interference by the state." Back in the early 1970's, courts trying to follow Roe released non-doctors for aborting pregnancies. Lots of women died because of that fucked up opinion.
O'Connor's position, that Roe needed to be amended, is something the Supreme Court does all the time to their judicial doctrines. They are always tweaking their shit. But this position came under fire because the entire judicial monstrosity was under attack. So they cobbled together an anonymous, 3-author plurality, where they overturn part of Roe, and uphold another part of Roe. And then beg the nation to unite under their wise ruling.
Kennedy was actually the real kicker. He voted in conference to overturn Roe, and then flipped. And then he flipped out when the Court said there was a constitutional right to kill babies in the middle of birth.
You'd really need a seminar to cover 49 years of abortion jurisprudence. In a ConLaw class, I think four cases would cover the important issues.
we have seen in the last five years, how thin the thread that sustains liberty, is in this country, we had gulags on the Capitol Grounds for boisterous assembly, we had proscriptions for opposition candidates attempted, to the cheers of certain folk here, they will remain nameless, most of these were accomplished through corrupt means,
because the source of this appetite for blood letting is something we would have recognized in a time, where religion had not been driven out of the public square, the demands of the old gods as jonathan cahn has surmised,
conversely blackmun who was the architect of the former, was all about the abolition of the death penalty,
Questioning is never polite conversation.
its hard not to be cynical, about how certain things are deemed an un alloyed good, and other are not, because 'feelings'
I am not a lawyer and the only time I had a course on the constitution it was Civics class in high school.
From what I now know, I think prerequisites should be 4 semesters of American history with emphasis on the revolution, the civil war, and the history of the presidency.
As well as a few semesters on the philosophy of government and enough Latin to ensure an understanding of English grammar.
Study of the French Revolution optional.
yes but what framework will they use to analyze those four events, the Beard-Zinn-Lepore paradigm has a whole different perspective on said events than others, in fact it's hard to see a popular contemporary historical text that takes the opposite view, Paul Johnson's history is not as popular for instance,
So much of American jurisprudence over the last 50 years has been a fight over Roe v. Wade. I think, for instance, the attacks on nominees Bork, Thomas, and Kavanaugh, were all an attempt to protect Roe. The assassination attempt on Kavanaugh and the other conservative Justices was an attempt to protect Roe. Putting all those Catholics on the Court was an attempt to overturn Roe. The Walk of Life was an attempt to overturn Roe. The murders of abortion doctors was an attempt to overturn Roe. The judiciary hijacked a major issue and said the voters had no say on this. It was a judicial coup.
The shocking thing, when I look back to my law school days (1993-96), is that we spent 1 hour out of my entire legal education discussing Roe in class. One day in ConLaw, that was it.
In the popular mind, Roe v. Wade is a hugely important case. Everybody has heard of this case. Ii'll bet more people have heard of Roe than Brown v. Board. If you asked a bunch of non-lawyers to name Supreme Court cases, Roe v. Wade would be top of the list. So I really think law schools ought to figure out a better way to teach it. Why is it so famous/infamous? Why does that one case overshadow everything else the Supreme Court has done over the last 50 years?
so the 1619 paradigm argues everything is subordinate to slavery, in fact the Republic is cursed because of this, the Revolution is illegitimate, of course thats a whole lot of heavy lifing, but so it goes,
Checks and balances have given way to cheques and bank balances.
Taking a larger view and recognizing that Trump is a "flash in the pan" I am curious to see what future POTUS's will make of Trump's expansion of executive powers. For better or worse, Trump's legacy will mostly be large fiscal deficits. Everything else can and likely will be undone by this next Democrat given it's all EOs and little to no legislation, and he has set some very bad precedents that will likely be used to the Democrats' advantage.
Hopefully the midterms will start the process of curtailing this madness as that’s an opportunity for people to express how they really think without fear of retribution. That’s why Trump hates the democratic process and has tried so hard to undermine it; he can control pretty much everything in contexts where people have to oppose him openly but, fingers crossed, the two things he can’t control are the ballot box and mortality.
Akhil Amar (liberal Yale law professor), on his great teacher, Robert Bork.
I'm a huge fan of Amar, a modern day Hugo Black. He would be an outstanding addition to the Supreme Court, in my opinion.
At my school, we had to take one year of law classes. The first semester was Constitutional and Contract law, and the second was criminal and military law. I found the Constitutional law interesting enough to consider law school. This was 1977-78, and I do not recall discussing Roe V. Wade at all.
abortion was the gateway drug to the child mutilation horror, it shared a venn diagram with the illegal invasion, so 50 million abortions and a nearly commensurate level of new comers, many whose socio economic status is substandard, it pairs wth the deindustrialization and off shoring of much of our infrastructure reducing economic advancemnt,
“ 12) Is there time to do justice to the dormant commerce clause?
13) Is there time to do justice to standing?
14) Is there time to do justice to the political question doctrine?”
The con law profs should definitely teach these three issues as all three came up in my Knox County case. I thought I did a real good job on the dormant commerce clause issue. Decision is pending. The other side needs to file a brief.
some of these are areas apart from constitutional law questions but it is a curious coincidence, the note in Plyer v Doe provided an incentive to the illegal invasion,
yes standing seems to be a magic eight ball, it works except when it doesn't also what is distinctly a political question,
"how do we deal with pro-MAGA students?" Easy. Teach the actual Constitution, as actually written, and actual recent precedent on all the major issues, and you'll see that they will appreciate your correct teachings, and help you steelman the arguments for those correct teachings. Now, the progressive students will be harder to deal with. Confronting the actual Constitution, dead as it is, and actual recent jurisprudence, reining in progressive excesses as it does (for the most part), will be traumatic. Do them a favor: tell them to move to Canada, for their own mental health.
“If so, how do we deal with pro-MAGA students?”
You don’t admit them to your law school.
Saint Croix:
The Carhart cases came out of Nebraska. I’ve driven by the clinic many times. It was built like a bunker and with no windows. The doctor parked in a specially built garage. The clinic was essentially across the street from St. Mary’s Catholic Church where my uncle was a Catholic priest in the 70s and 80s.
The author of one (or maybe both) of the Carhart cases was the late Richard G. Kopf. On his blog, he recommended the CS Lewis book on the death of a spouse. And he also had a standing Order not to assign him any abortion cases as he recused himself from that area. Guess he was mad about the results.
By the way, Althouse will know better than I, but isn't Segall the law prof who declared SCOTUS an entirely political outfit, unbound by any rules, doing whatever it wants? If so, aren't all the specific questions moot, in the sense that con law course just becomes description of the court did this, the court did that, reasoning and text immaterial?
https://althouse.blogspot.com/2015/12/richard-posner-with-eric-segall.html so it seems
Step 1 in teaching Constitutional Law: Have the entire class, taking turns sentence by sentence, read the document, out loud. In it's entirety.
Step 2: go through each clause, in order, and have class discuss- in plain English reading, what it means. Right through to the latest amendment. No court cases, no decisions, just the words in the document.
Step 3: After that, dissect major court cases and have the class give their own thoughts on whether the court decisions were actually based on the Constitution.
The Miranda decision certainly wasn't. A citizen should understand both his rights and obligations as a citizen. A guest in the country should simply avoid breaking the law.
Very interesting, Dave, thanks!
Found an interview with the trial court judge.
furman was a reach, that was corrected after an interval, in the 90s, they created the baldus study, another sociological exercise, to do an end run, because feelings, if a determination was proven to be in error, thats one thing,
they say well the death penalty is arbitrarily applied, however they oppose more application of the death penalty, its a coincidence they also oppose most life sentences except for say J6ers who weren't even in the venue in question,
Segal asks, "Do we teach that we are living in unique times with a unique President raising unique separation of powers, federalism, and rights issues? If so, how do we deal with pro-MAGA students?" And "Do we raise the question whether we are in or facing a constitutional crisis? How do we do that without sounding partisan?"
In other words, How do we teach ConLaw as partisans without getting caught?
Answer: You can't. Your students may be naive, but they aren't stupid. And it isn't your job to advance your partisan interests while you are being paid to educate future lawyers.
To me, when I was in law school, what was interesting about ConLaw was to discover that successful arguments could be made for all sorts of positions, including many that were wrong, and some of which were outright wacky. As a practicing lawyer, that encouraged me to look for ways to support arguments in support of my clients' interests, however unfashionable they might be.
those notions don't occur to him, much like with boasberg priviledging illegal criminals over lawful citizens,
I think a good starting point for teaching conlaw is to look at Laurence Tribe, and not do what he does.
"Spend as much time as you spend on the role of liberal institutions that engage in litigation and work on judicial nominations."
The question doesn't ask about conservative institutions. So it's nonsense for Althouse to ask for equal balance of time re looking at liberal institutions. If she wants to balance a discussion of the influence of the Fed Soc, she needs to tell us want particular institution is opposite of the Fed Soc.
Maybe Althouse wants to have a bigger conversation of conservative institutions v liberal institutions, but that was not the question here.
pepe le dou-dou
"Do we teach that we are living in unique times with a unique President raising unique separation of powers, federalism, and rights issues? If so, how do we deal with pro-MAGA students?"
How do "we" deal with MAGA students? Here's novel approach. Let them speak. Yes, I know, they can only drool but let them speak so everyone can see that reality. It's inconceivable that they have real arguments which they can present, logically and eloquently so that "we" would have to think hard how to defend our assumptions. But suppose they did present arguments "we" have never heard before? which we could not answer at once? Should we shut them up or try to listen? and answer after due thought? Does the thinking of 50% of the country matter? No, of course not. We should give them an F, an appropriate grade for Fascists. And ourselves an A for Accept the Narrative.
she needs to tell us want particular institution is opposite of the Fed Soc.
Just spitballing here, but how about the ABA?
Or maybe... almost every law faculty at every university?
Actually, rereading: Althouse said, "Spend as much time as you spend on the role of liberal institutions that engage in litigation and work on judicial nominations."
That suggestion was in response to Segall's asking, "How much time, if any, should we spend on the Federalist Society's role in generating the reversal of so many precedents across constitutional law and for sponsoring all six current GOP justices?"
So the answer to Segall's question is "none."
There goes Jamie again, reading carefully. Sheesh, what's the fun in that?
le Douanier said...
"Spend as much time as you spend on the role of liberal institutions that engage in litigation and work on judicial nominations."
The question doesn't ask about conservative institutions. So it's nonsense for Althouse to ask for equal balance of time re looking at liberal institutions. If she wants to balance a discussion of the influence of the Fed Soc, she needs to tell us want particular institution is opposite of the Fed Soc.
Maybe Althouse wants to have a bigger conversation of conservative institutions v liberal institutions, but that was not the question here.
Your problem is that you cannot see the forest because there are trees in the way.
If you meet a lawyer, law prof, anyone at the ABA and in general anyone at any level of the law profession they are generally well to the left of the average person. Every association including the professional accreditors like the ABA have members over that have 90% or more of political donations going to Democrats.
You don't discuss the "liberal institutions" because they are all liberal institutions.
The only reason the Fed Soc is mentioned is because it is a support group of free thinkers and heretics.
Con law was my favorite U. of Oregon law school class. In '67 it was taught by Herb Titus, who was as far left at that time, as he later went far right (Dean of Regent law school, Constitution Party VP candidate, '96).
Although he made no attempt to hide his progressive politics, he taught the class straight up. Perhaps because this was pre-Rowe, and the Summer of Love had just happened, I recall no overt politicizing...just really good Socratic method.
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