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Conservative and libertarian law professors demand more politically balanced faculties

February 28, 2017

Law schools are notoriously one-sided when it comes to the political leanings of their faculty, and conservative and libertarian academics are tiredof seeking change behind the scenes.

More than two dozen law professors, many familiar to College Fix readers, sent an open letter to the executive committee of the Association of American Law Schools.

It lays bare their grievances against AALSs failure to take concrete preliminary steps to promote viewpoint diversity among law faculties, in the words of the professor who shared it, libertarian luminary Randy Barnett of Georgetown.

Drafted by Case Western Reserve Law Prof. George Dent, who has led a yearslong effort in the association to promote diversity beyond skin color and sex, the letter says conservatives and libertarians are grossly underrepresented on law faculties:

For several years now a number of legal scholars have asked the AALS to support the commitment to viewpoint diversity stated in its by-laws.

While the new executive director seems also to take us seriously, and this years AALS annual meeting seemed to have better balanced panels, the association refuses to go further, the letter says.

At last years annual meeting, several professors met with the executive committee to ask for creation of a Political Diversity Task Force; for viewpoint diversity to be made a regular element of the sabbatical reviews for member schools; and for access to the associations Faculty Appointments Register, to help them track viewpoint diversity in hiring.

Its been a year since AALSsaid it would create subcommittees to examinethese requests, and nothing has happened, says the letter:

We fear that the Executive Committee does not take our concerns seriously and intends to take no action to address them. Both scholarship and teaching suffer when law schools are echo chambers in which only one side of current debates is given a voice.

The signatories include Case Western Reserves Jonathan Adler, University of San Diegos Gail Heriot (a potential Trump administration pick), George Masons Ilya Somin and UCLAs Eugene Volokh.

Read the letter.

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Conservative and libertarian law professors demand more politically balanced faculties - The College Fix

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'Moonlight'I had already prepared myself for the disappointment of La La Land beating out Moonlight for the Academy Award for best movie. I saw both movies and thought Moonlight was superior in all the ways that matter to mestrong characters, powerful storytelling, and emotional impact. But Hollywood loves itself above all things, and I was prepared for another Crash versus Brokeback Mountain train wreck.

When La La Land was initially declared the winner, I simply shrugged and started shutting everything down for the night. It was only by circumstance that I powered down my computer first and still had the television on when the mistake was revealed. It was a happy surprise to me that Moonlight won, and I just wanted to take a moment to recommend anybody who identifies as a libertarian to go so the movie if they haven't yet.

If I were to describe a movie as being about a young gay black man coming of age in an extremely poor Miami neighborhood surrounded by drug culture, violence, and bullies, it may be a natural inclination to expect something very preachy and full of "Something must be done about this!" messages.

That's not Moonlight. What makes Moonlight work is that it's almost the exact opposite. It throws the viewer into the life of young protagonist Chiron and has the confidence to let us come to terms with the combination of awfulness and hopefulness of his experiences. It's a deeply personal story informed by the real world experiences of the two men behind it.

What does this have to do with libertarianism? Government institutions are shown as failing Chiron, and there's no effort to present these systems as part of the solution. School does nothing to protect him. And when he finally acts out in frustration when the violent bullying becomes too much, he finds the criminal justice system ready to come crashing down on him.

There is no lecturing about this institutional failure. It's presented as a lived-in experience. The story of Moonlight trusts the viewer to understand its deeper meaning. It's not complicated, but it is subtle. That the time jump between teen Chiron and adult Chiron includes a prison stint is handled almost like an aside.

But the movie is far from hopeless, and it's not a tragedy. This is not Brokeback Mountain recast in an urban setting during the crack epidemic. It's challenging and at times very difficult to watch play out (particularly if you were, for disclosure's sake, a gay man who also grew up dirt poor in Florida and had a mother with drug issues), but Chiron does find a path that suggests a way toward personal happiness even as it embeds him further into a life operating through some shadowy options (I'm trying not to spoil too much).

Consider Moonlight to be the film equivalent of the personal stories Reason shares about those who have been granted mercy from harsh mandatory minimum sentences. When we look at the cruelty of the drug war, the use of police in schools, and the failures of prohibition and their disparate impact on minorities, it's easy to want throw out data and just hope that makes an impression. Moonlight attaches it all to a story and invites the audience to live through the consequences of this harsh dynamic partly created by government officials (at the demand of their constituencies) without judging them and putting them on the defensive. The movie illustrates a fight for self-determination and personal happiness in a harsh environment where authority is stacked against the protagonistsomething every libertarian should be able to identify with.

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Libertarians Should Go See Moonlight - Reason (blog)