Legal education is indoctrination at Columbia and elsewhere, and has borne much fruit
On the Columbia Law School curriculum:
Parents are paying $331,350 — or students are going into enormous debt — for what amounts to a three-year reeducation camp at Columbia to produce leftist social warriors who will, as Christian says, “upend centuries of legal traditions and institutions,” including trashing the U.S. Constitution, to usher in the Marxist, socialist utopia they think we should be. And just like the other schools we are examining, everything is centered not on training budding lawyers to analyze a legal issue and provide sound advice to a client or to serve as an effective prosecutor who can protect the public from dangerous criminals, but rather on convincing students that we live in a systematically racist, sexist society engaging in mass incarceration for political reasons.
Ah, but I already knew that, because I get a monthly magazine from my own alma mater, which is not Columbia but is of that ilk. It’s been that way for years and years and years – simply unreadable leftist tripe.
More about Columbia, where Critical Legal Theory and Critical Race Theory courses are required as part of the first-year curriculum that forms the entire foundation of the law students’ experience. I hadn’t known they were required, but it surprises me not in the least:
Among the required courses for first-year students is “Critical Legal Thought L6173.” It teaches “critical approaches to the assertion of the law’s objectivity and rationality,” including readings that “cover Feminist and Critical Race critiques of law’s aspiration to objectivity and neutrality.” It is through that biased lens that what used to be standard legal courses like torts, contracts, criminal law, property, and civil procedure will be “examined.” Gosh, I never realized that the standard rules of civil procedure that govern how civil cases proceed in the courts and that are applied neutrally to all parties in a lawsuit were racially discriminatory.
Naturally, this will be followed by another required course, “Legal Methods II: Critical Race Methods: Practices, Prisms, and Problems L6130.” According its description, the U.S. “suffers from many forms of discrimination” and this course will examine the “interface between legal interpretation, lawmaking practices, and racial hierarchy,” focusing on intersectionality, historicism, anti-formalism, social construction, storytelling, and denaturalizing baselines.” No doubt knowing about “intersectionality” will help the school’s graduates file well-reasoned, well-written appellate briefs – NOT.
In that way the school encourages several things. The first is that applicants already probably self-select for leftism, at least to a great extent, and that serves a gatekeeping function in the legal profession, especially at its elite levels. The second is to strongly establish the idea that everything the law student will learn at Columbia about the principles and rules of the entire legal system is not about objective and fair application of the law, but about using the law to gain power for your side. If there is no such thing as objectivity in the law – and not even a striving after it as a goal – then the law is just a tool for the gaining of power for your side (hmmm; same theme as today’s earlier post below this one).
Critical Legal Studies arose in the mid-to-late 1970s and represented a war on the idea that objective principles exist in law or are possible or even desirable in law. Of course, perfect objectivity never existed in the law, but the rules were designed to attain that goal as best as possible, knowing that some flaws would always exist. Critical Legal Studies used those flaws to torch the whole thing and replace it with the idea that everything was about power. Once Critical Legal Studies had infected law schools and then the rest of academia in its spinoff Critical Racial Studies, it formed the mindset of generations of students who later became influential in the real world in an enormous number of fields.
If there are no legal truths or goals except power for your side, the defenses against tyranny crumble. If you want to learn more about how Critical Legal Studies took over, I highly recommend Beyond All Reason, which was written in 1997 by two liberal law professors who were alarmed by it. If you read it, I think you might be astounded at how much damage had already occurred by then.
In the comments today, “Brian E” has a relevant question;
Are we seeing more of this– the judge sanctioning not only conservative plaintiffs, but the lawyers representing them?
Does this work both ways?
Federal Judge in Missouri CRT Suit Now Going After the Plaintiff’s Lawyer
In that case, the Obama-appointed judge apparently wants to sanction the lawyers (for plaintiffs who oppose CRT training in a public school district in Missouri, by the way) because under Missouri law attorneys are not supposed to talk to the press if it might influence the case. The author of the piece concludes:
It isn’t as if this is the first time a lawyer in a high-profile case has talked to the press. But from the Left’s point of view, this was the “wrong” lawyer talking to the “wrong” press with a “wrong” point of view. And I would bet my next three paychecks that if the lawyers for the school district had opined in public, the response from the bench would have been crickets.
But that’s small potatoes compared to this (the article is from a year ago):
The left has developed a powerfully coordinated legal election effort under the leadership of left-wing lawyer Marc Elias. In recent years, he has successfully brought together a coalition of left-wing nonprofit groups to work in conjunction with each other on elections. It’s a brilliant plan considering the left now dominates much of the legal system to give him victories; in urban areas they have more judgeships, they dominate state bars which are responsible for attorney discipline, and they run the biggest, most powerful law firms.
The reason they have taken over state bars is because while conservative attorneys are more likely to have families and be involved in church, taking up much of their free time, liberal lawyers are not, so they have more time to volunteer and serve on state bars’ boards of governors and committees. The left also controls large law firms for similar reasons. Without family and church obligations, they can devote long hours to achieving required billable hours.
Now they’re coming after elected attorneys too. Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, who has been out on the forefront investigating election fraud, had 12 bar complaints filed against him and his staff by radical activist Democratic Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs over election issues. He beat them, but she will just figure out reasons to file more; continue to throw mud until something sticks. The Arizona State Bar is one of the most vicious bars in the country. I work as a reporter, and can rarely get comments for my articles from conservative attorneys in the state due to their fear of retaliation.
The State Bar of Texas is going after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, suing him for investigating election fraud in the 2020 election. Paxton asked the U.S. Supreme Court to enjoin Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin for breaking election laws by implementing voting changes during the COVID-19 pandemic without the approval of state legislators. SCOTUS rejected his request 7-2 for lack of standing, a sign that it wasn’t completely without merit. So now the bar is alleging he violated a catch-all, vague rule of professional misconduct prohibiting “dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation.”
Much much more at the link.
We are sinking fast into Cultural Marxism, the 1st Amendment is going under the wayside as cases are mounting and TV media is totally under them.
The leftist control of law schools is not simply disturbing, but exceptionally dangerous to the future of the republic, with “lawfare” and corrupt lawyers/judges coming to hold ever more power. On a related note, U Penn is continuing its jihad against the heretical Amy Wax, while the Clinton-appointed Judge Kaplan who is presiding over the trial in Manhattan of Trump over allegations of rape by the not-at-all-credible E Jean Carroll (being funded by a leftist billionaire) is proving himself to be highly partisan indeed.
@neo: On another thread you said:
One of the handicaps of the right in the power struggle is that it still believes in the rule of law and not just in whatever results in a win for the right. You’re saying essentially that the right should bring a gun to a gunfight, and not care about principles but only about power. That’s the old question the right continually faces: how much principle to compromise in order to win?
I’m not wise enough to say at one point it’s best to switch one to the other, but the point where you can’t get legal representation because the lawyer who takes your side will be punished, is definitely a place at which you need to start contemplating the switch.
We’ve seen a lot of that over the last five – ten years. I don’t see that there’s much rule of law left to believe in.
When people are persecuted by the legal system itself, that is when the blood starts to flow. Judges like this are setting themselves up for assassination by behaving in such a biased manner, and I don’t think they realize the danger they are creating.
“…and has borne much fruit.”
Well done. You packed a lot of truth into just five words.
The Texas legislature can strip the State Bar of Texas of its disciplinary role since they’ve abused it.
Didn’t lawyers play a big role in The Terror.
And in the last century “show me the man, and I’ll give you the crime.”
But just last month we learned that President Trump can now prove his innocence in court.
Progress! The arc of history!
I know I’ve worn this out, but I can’t help myself, I like the quote that much, William F Buckley once said,
“I’d rather be governed by the first 500 people listed in the Boston phone book than by the faculty of Harvard.”
A great rhetorical point that I’m not sure he really believed himself back in the day. But now? I would agree.
You can’t teach that swill to people who don’t already believe it or have the emotional twistedness to believe it when it’s presented.
A grad is twisted, attested to by the diploma, and was twisted when he went in.
What he’s learned is practical methods to do this stuff.
But we know he’s twisted before he lands his first job.
This stuff makes me feel so defeated already. I’ve got young children. Will they ever get to live in a free country? It’s hardly a free country now, and getting worse every day. They’re white, probably straight, and currently Christian. The odds are already stacked against them (and against me at being able to keep them from falling for this BS in the world)
Yancy Ward,
when they are done burning rule of law to ground this will be the patriot anthem:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqUenEMwsdQ
Maybe it will be played at their execution.
This kind of stuff reinforces my opinion that compromise with the American Left is no longer possible. A national divorce or disunion is the only way to effect a clean break. Reboot the country — wipe the hard drive and reinstall the original operating system: the Constitution and Declaration. Then re-examine the patches we made over time, discarding the ones that are obviously poisonous to the original intent.
Disunion?!? What about the nukes?
Chases Eagles says, “Maybe it will be played at their execution.”
Another possibility: the “Ça ira,” an iconic song of the French Revolution. Sample 1791 lyrics:
Ah! ça ira, ça ira, ça ira.
Les aristocrates à la lanterne!
Ah! ça ira, ça ira, ça ira
Les aristocrates, on les pendra!
For you and huxley, here is Edith Piaf singing the “Ça ira” in a 1953 French film about the women’s march on Versailles (subtitles in both French and English):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9VoRmjxvPs&ab_channel=VNRose3
The YouTube notes include the following: “There are many versions of this song. In one, not only do they hang the aristocrats, they stick a shovel up their asses.”
@Chases Eagles:Disunion?!? What about the nukes?
What about them? I’m not sure what kind of point you’re trying to make so I’m not sure how to respond.
If you’re worried that FedGov will use them against states that don’t want go along any more, well…
If you’re worried that the states will divide them up and nuke each other, I think there’s multiple reasons why that’s not an outcome worth worrying about, but as I said I don’t know what point you are trying to make so don’t want to write some huge post that fails to address it.
But in the former Soviet republics, physical possession of the nukes did no good, as they were centrally controlled from Moscow, and trying to subvert that control would have been an unambiguously hostile act. This is why it was easy for Ukraine to “give them up” as they had no way to make use of them. All the nukes outside Russia were eventually returned to Russia.
Les aristocrates à la lanterne! — The aristocrats to the lamp-posts!
PA+Cat:
Sarah Hoyt likes to the throw in that pithy phrase. I didn’t know where it came from.
Thanks.
No nation in their right mind would give up nukes at this point. Not one. A bunch of the former SSRs rushed to get under our nuke umbrella. Sweden and Finland now and soon maybe Ukraine. Who’s would you be under? Japan?
The fragmentation of the industrial base needed to maintain the triad would probably end our nuclear capability (and most of our military industrial complex too) and all rump components of the former USA would likely be at the mercy of China.
huxley–
You’re more than welcome.
@Chases Eagles:No nation in their right mind would give up nukes at this point.
I think I’d agree with this, but they’d first have to HAVE nukes to give up. No Soviet republic had nukes under its control, they only had Russian-controlled nukes on their soil. When the US had nukes in Germany, Germany did not “have nukes” because Germany did not control them. The US has nukes in American states but no American state “has nukes”, because no American state can use them on their own initiative.
Who’s would you be under? Japan?
FedGov would certainly keep the nukes, so probably under theirs. Unless you assume FedGov wants to nuke Americans, in which case we’re already not safe under our own umbrella. There’s a lot of forms “national divorce” could take, they don’t all involve shooting or even secession.
You know how blue states stopped allowing marijuana enforcement, declared themselves sanctuaries for this and that, and don’t participate in the Real ID requirement? Red states could start doing the same kind of thing. If they were serious.
The fragmentation of the industrial base needed to maintain the triad would probably end our nuclear capability
France maintained a nuclear triad despite only having the GDP of California. Splitting the US GDP in half would give you two countries with almost the GDP of China, and no other power with a nuclear triad is anywhere near that size.
I’m sorry but I have lost the point here. Disunion means going your own way. The left will not let you alone. They are already trying to cram abortion down the throats of states that are opposed to it. I can’t imagine why you would think they would let you go without a fight. They will be your greatest enemy.
Also don’t think for a moment that the Feds couldn’t crush MJ growers and sellers in those states that allow it if they wanted to. They don’t want to. Yet.
the father of critical legal studies was derek bell, once upon a time, the sane members of harvard prevailed to deny him tenure, but one of his top students was barak obama, the evidence was in the university of chicago syllabi, that jodi kantor glossed upon back in 2008, but was expanded upon in the daily caller, two years later,
Two of CRT’s main players, Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, “rebutted” that book you referenced by Daniel Farber and Suzanna Sherry in what amounts to a level of gaslighting unprecedented even by modern standards. In their standard work on the topic they write of Farber and Sherry: “Citing the example of Jews and Asians—two minority groups that have achieved high levels of success by conventional standards—they argued against the idea that the game is rigged against minorities. … [T]he crits replied that if Asians and Jews succeeded despite an unfair system, this is all to their credit. But why should pointing out unfairness in universal merit standards, like the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), bespeak a negative attitude toward members of those groups? As the crits saw it, Farber and Sherry confused criticism of a standard with criticism of individuals who performed well under that standard.”
In other words, pointing out the fact that Jews and Asians on average perform so well academically and economically is being turned into an accusation that “crits” are critical of Jews and Asians. Which is clearly not the point that Farber and Sherry were trying to make.
Delgado and Stefancic’s bullshit book, which I forced myself to read cover to cover, is riddled with this level of scholarship. An absolute abomination.
I find the infatuation with the French Revolution on the part of the commenters on this website very odd.
I think you misunderstand who the revolutionaries ARE in contemporary America and who is going the get the shovel.
Reading about the Dominion lawsuits — and now the Smartmatic lawsuits — made me think that we have become a country with more lawsuits than people.
I’d say the commenters here who are infatuated with the French Revolution (which includes me) are often referring to the fact that while Robespierre, Danton, Saint-Just, etc. (revolutionaries all) might not have gotten the shovel, they did get the blade. Of course a lot of people had to die first.