It is worrisome that “progressive” activism has managed to infiltrate so much of American higher education, but wildly politicized sociology and English departments can do us only marginal damage. Few students are interested in the ravings of those professors, and almost no one is influenced by their writings.
On the other hand, the leftist capture of our law schools is a very serious matter. How we educate future lawyers and judges affects society as a whole. The corruption of our legal system is not a minor illness we can shake off; it’s a life-threatening disease.
Shapiro’s account is not abstract and theoretical. The book abounds in evidence, starting with his own experience.
In his new book Lawless: The Miseducation of America’s Elites, legal scholar Ilya Shapiro explores the disastrous impact of leftist ideology in our law schools. He writes, “You’d think that legal faculty would be in the vanguard of protections for free speech and due process, given their deep understanding of the law. But it’s at law schools in particular that academic freedom is under threat, free speech in retreat, and civil discourse a thing of the past.”
Ideological mobs look for any excuse to pillory a person they perceive as being in the enemy camp.
Shapiro’s account is not abstract and theoretical. The book abounds in evidence, starting with his own experience at the hands of intolerant students, uncivil fellow professors, and cowardly administrators.
After years of working on legal issues for the Cato Institute, Shapiro was hired to head a new constitutional-law program at Georgetown Law School. But just before he was to begin there, he made the mistake of communicating his thoughts about President Biden’s announcement that he would only consider nominating a black woman to fill the Supreme Court seat being vacated by Justice Breyer. Shapiro tweeted that he thought it regrettable that the president would rule out all other possible jurists. For writing that, he was immediately attacked as a racist.
The accusation that Shapiro was saying that black women are not qualified for the Court, as his enemies twisted it, was clearly a “willful miscomprehension” of his tweet. No matter—ideological mobs look for any excuse to pillory a person they perceive as being in the enemy camp. To no avail, Shapiro tried to explain what he meant. Attempting to reason with people who are determined to be outraged is useless.
Soon after the attacks from students at Georgetown began, the law-school administration stepped in to rebuke Shapiro and declare that the school would begin investigating his tweet to see if it violated any school standard. In doing so, Dean William Treanor was not just placating the students who said they’d been “hurt” by Shapiro’s tweet; he was traducing the university’s free-speech policy, which protects statements such as Shapiro’s tweet. Even the best-written policy, however, is no match for the combination of angry students and an administration that is afraid to say “no” to their demands.
After the school’s absurd and protracted “investigation” of his tweet, Dean Treanor notified Shapiro that he could remain on the faculty, but that his work would be scrutinized for any possible violation of the law school’s vague standards. What that meant was clear to Shapiro—he would have to self-censor his views on the law and cases to avoid triggering complaints from Georgetown’s readily outraged students. If he were to say anything controversial, he’d be in trouble again. Shapiro therefore decided to resign rather than work with the sword of Damocles constantly hovering over his neck.
Shapiro’s story is just one of many he recounts to show how far our law schools have fallen. Other professors have been similarly attacked by students who claim to have been harmed by hearing their “racist” views. Unfortunately, school officials nearly always go along with those students, rather than saying the obvious thing to them, namely that lawyers must learn to respond to opposing viewpoints with logic and argumentation, not with feigned anger.
The frightful truth is that many law schools, especially our “elite” ones, are welcoming to radicalized students and encourage their activism. The impact of that on legal education is bad. Professors now say that they feel the need to avoid certain topics and cases, lest they stir up a hornets’ nest of vengeful students. And students feel that they are justified in shouting down speakers whose opinions differ from theirs.
The frightful truth is that many law schools, especially our “elite” ones, are welcoming to radicalized students and encourage their activism.
Inevitably, the intolerant mentality in law schools has spread into the legal profession. Fearing career-wrecking consequences, lawyers now decline to put their names on controversial briefs—i.e., where they know they’re on the “wrong” side of the issue from the leftist viewpoint. Some lawyers, even partners in firms, have been terminated for defending people and causes hated by the Left. The pressure for ideological conformity is eating away at the foundations of our legal system.
The fuzzy ideas of Critical Legal Studies spread through our law schools not by force of intellect, but by intimidation.
How did we get here?
Shapiro points to the rise of Critical Legal Studies (CLS) in the 1970s as the source of the contagion. The “crits” claimed that our legal system was constructed to protect the interests of wealthy white people and oppress minority groups. It was utterly unjust and had to be torn down. The fuzzy ideas of CLS spread through our law schools not by force of intellect, but by intimidation.
Today, a great many faculty, administrators, and students are imbued with the nihilistic belief that the rule of law is itself a racist concept. What should replace it? According to pseudo-intellectuals like Ibram X. Kendi, we must construct an “antiracist” system, using the law and government power to bring about racial “equity.” Their ideas are poorly thought out, but woe betide the professor who dares to criticize them.
Shapiro has several good ideas on what can be done to rescue our legal system from the ruinous “diversity” ideology.
One would be for law schools to require all incoming students to sign a contract committing them to a code of conduct regarding free speech. I agree but would also have the schools explain why this is crucial. Many American students have been “educated” to think that confrontational activism is noble; they need to understand that legal work calls for cool reasoning rather than red-hot animosity.
Shapiro also encourages law-school officials to create a culture of free expression at their schools. Many pay lip service to that (for example, Georgetown) but do nothing to make civil discourse an integral aspect of legal study. Shapiro extols the law school at the University of Chicago, his alma mater, as a model in this regard.
As for governmental policy, Shapiro observes that, however much law-school officials may love their “progressive” beliefs, they love money even more. That fact gives states and especially the federal government leverage over them. The federal government should tell law schools that if they wish to remain eligible to receive student-aid funding, they will have to abolish their DEI bureaucracies, end all “diversity training,” and abandon identity-based preferences in student admissions and hiring.
Another good move would be to have the Education Department pull the authority of the American Bar Association—thoroughly corrupted with leftist ideology—to accredit law schools.
Shapiro concludes with this ringing declaration: “Whatever good faith the diversity-industrial complex brings to bear, it ends up bludgeoning people into mouthing platitudes they don’t believe and excluding them if they resist. It is at the root of the illiberal takeover of legal education, so we must excise it root and branch from our institutions.”
He’s right. Lawyers are, of course, free to pursue their political passions, but law schools have to teach them that a civilized society requires them to work within the rule of law.
George Leef is director of external relations at the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal.
This article was originally published at jamesgmartin.center
