Archive for the ‘Libertarian’ Category

The Case Against the Public Property Rationale for Immigration … – Reason

One standard rationale for immigration restrictions is that governments have a right to exclude people much like the owner of a private house does. I have critiqued this argument here, and in greater detail in Chapter 5 of my book Free to Move: Foot, Voting, Migration, and Political Freedom. Among other things, this theory, if taken seriously, is a rationale for a quasi-totalitarian state that can suppress speech, religion, and other liberties, at will. It also ends up undermining actual private property rights, by blocking property owners from renting to immigrants, hiring them to work on their land, and so on.

But there is a different, less well-known, property rights rationale for immigration restrictions, one that focuses on public property specifically. I have not seen a serious academic defense of it. But it's increasingly common on social media, and elsewhere, and has particular appeal to immigration restrictionists.

The public property theory (at least implicitly) concedes that the government cannot justly prevent immigrants from accessing the property of willing private owners. But, so the argument goes, it can prevent them from using public property. After all, the state does own public property, and therefore can regulate it as sees fit. Or, alternatively, public property is collectively owned by the state's citizens, and they can use democratic political processes to restrict access as they wish.

Under current law, public property includes almost all major roads, most air space, and most significant waterways (including coastal waters). Therefore, if the government is entitled to restrict access to public property as it wishes, it can effectively bar nearly all immigration, or as much of it as it wants. And it can do so without directly restricting anyone's private property rights! One can readily see why this argument has appeal to people who consider themselves libertarians (and therefore advocate strong private property rights), but also support sweeping immigration restrictions.

Unfortunately, the public property rationale for migration restrictions turns out to have illiberaland anti-libertarianimplications almost as dire as those of the house analogy. Libertarian political philosopher Christopher Freiman explains how:

Sometimes "bordertarians" argue that the state may restrict immigration because it may dictate how public propertyspecifically public roadscan be used. On this view, if the state decides that immigrants may not travel on public roads, then immigrants may not travel on public roads.

This is a bad view. I doubt that many of those who endorse it would grant that the state may prohibit citizens from traveling on public roads with books defending libertarianism in their car. States don't have carte blanche to violate people's liberties so long as they're located on public property. This is (one reason) why the "public property" objection to freedom of immigration failsthe state may not violate people's freedom of association or movement simply because they happen to make use of public roads.

If the governmentor a political majoritycan restrict access to public property however they wish, they can use that power to suppress a wide range of civil and economic liberties. For example, they could bar travel by critics of the government (or bar the distribution of their writings through public property). They could similarly bar adherents of religions they disapprove of (no more Jews on the roads; or no more Muslims!), and so on. Even if you think that real-world democratic governments would stop short of going this far, the public property theory suggests they would have no moral obligation to refrain from taking such measures (at least if they were backed by a majority of citizens).

The implications of the public property rationale for migration restrictions are particularly dire for libertarians. After all, we believe that people have a right to engage in a wide range of unpopular activities! On the public property theory, the state would be entirely justified in forbidding the use of public property to distribute any product it wishes to bar, whether it be drugs, alcohol, fatty foods, vaping products, or anything else. And, just as immigrants can be effectively barred from a nation if they cannot use public property, the same goes for virtually any good or service, so long as its distribution relies on the use of roads, aircraft, or public waterways.

Many of the libertarians sympathetic to the public property rationale for immigration restrictions also favor free trade. But the former can easily be used to destroy the latter. If the government can bar foreign people from roads and airways, the same goes for foreign-produced goods.

It isn't just libertarians who have strong reason to reject the public property theory, due to its dire implications. The same goes for liberals of any stripe who believe people have a right to engage in at least some unpopular activities that government might choose to suppress. After all, given the ubiquity of public property in modern society, almost any human interaction can be blocked by preventing people engaged in it from using roads, airways, and so on. For example, a homophobic society could use this power to bar gays and lesbians from the roads (thereby making it difficult or impossible for them to form relationships). If the house analogy is a direct path to a near-totalitarian state, the public property theory gets there by a back dooror perhaps by a back road!

It doesn't necessarily follow that libertarians (or anyone) must endorse the view that there should be no restrictions on access to public property. Freiman, I think, has a good approach for how to think about these issues:

So what's a better view of public property? Here's a first take: the state is justified in enforcing only those restrictions on the use of public property that are needed to ensure its functioning, assuming that the function of that property is, in itself, morally permissible. (Clearly the state is not justified in using public property in ways that directly violate rights, just as citizens are not justified in using private property in ways that directly violate rights.)

For instance, a public library may restrict your freedom to check out books by requiring that you have a library card because that restriction is needed to ensure that the lending system functions properly. But the library would not be justified in prohibiting those wearing [Dallas] Cowboys shirts from entering the library because that's not needed to ensure that the library is able to do its job.

Similarly, the state may restrict your freedom to drive on a public road when, for instance, it's being repaired. That's needed to ensure that the road functions properly. But the state would not be justified in prohibiting you from transporting particular books or people in your car.

No doubt this account will need some refinement, but I think it's at least the start of an answer to a hard question for libertarians.

As Freiman notes, the theory needs much more refinement. But it's at least a good start.

Immigration restrictionists can potentially argue, under Freiman's approach, that barring (at least some) immigrants from the roads is justified in order to ensure that they are not overused, or to prevent migrants from overburdening the welfare state, increasing crime, spreading harmful cultural values, and so on. But then the focus of the debate properly shifts to whether immigrants really do cause these harms, andif sowhether that justifies restricting migration (including by perfectly innocent people), as opposed to imposing "keyhole" solutions. In that event, the public property argument will no longer be doing any meaningful work.

One can argue that the danger of overuse of public property is more closely linked to its functions than some of these other issues, and therefore provides a stronger rationale for limiting immigrant access to roads and the like. But even if overuse is a genuine risk, it should not be addressed by restricting access based on morally arbitrary criteria of ancestry and place of birth (as immigration restrictions do). We can instead impose nondiscriminatory numerical limits, assess tolls, and the like. Moreover, some of the vast additional wealth created by immigration canif necessarybe tapped to build new infrastructure and finance the repair and upgrading of existing systems.

This entire issue might go away if you believe, as some libertarians do, that all or nearly all currently public property should be privatized. But if that's your view, you should also be opposed to the state using its current control over public property as leverage to impose sweeping restrictions on libertyincluding those of immigrants and natives who wish to engage in interactions with them.

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The Case Against the Public Property Rationale for Immigration ... - Reason

COLUMN: Trouble in paradise for Polis | Jon Caldara – The Denver Gazette

In the days of the Colorado legislative session, I saw something I have never seen in the last five years. A couple of spectacular fumbles by our otherwise politically flawless governor.

Im talking ESPN highlights of the week kind of fumbles from a guy that normally plays like Tom Brady.

When I say flawless, I dont mean he is implementing good policy or leading the state in the right direction or running state government as an effective chief operating officer. I cant mean that because he has ushered in the most dangerous and devastating policies and political changes in Colorado history which, if left unchanged, will inevitably bankrupt this once liberty-loving state.

I mean flawless in terms of being a slick politician, remaining high in approval polls, and keeping his sycophantic media with him like a rich lady keeps a Shih Tzu in her carry-a-long purse.

No one should ever underestimate how politically savvy Jared Polis is, how quick on his feet he is, how quickly he can change his speech to masterfully sound like he is a genuine member of whatever group he is talking with, and therefore make that group feel like he is working on their behalf, and how much money he has to spend to get to whatever end he wishes.

So, even for a casual political observer, it was surprising that the last week of the legislative session was the most publicly bungled, disorganized, schizophrenic, rudderless week of his governorship.

The most impressive fumble was the mishandling of his much anticipated, much ballyhooed, here I come to save the day, property tax relief bill.

The governor had TWO YEARS to take the lead on how to handle the massive, massive tax bills that are rolling our way now that his legislature conned voters to repeal the Gallagher Amendment.

But in the very opposite of leadership he waited until eight days before the end of session to drop a shell game of a bill that was too cute by half.

Senate Bill 303 merely stole our TABOR refunds from our right pocket and put them into our left, relabeled as a tiny bit of property tax relief, with the real cost being losing our TABOR refunds forever and ever in just a couple of years.

Property tax issues are complex. Hell, the governor can usually count on most legislators not understanding the issue. How surprised he must have been when the media he thought he had on a leash started realizing it wasnt going to solve their own property tax problems.

As Kyle Clark from 9NEWS opined on the sleight-of-hand of Jareds scam, Governor Polis, hes a smart man. That doesnt mean Coloradans are dumb like earlier this week when the governor proposed reducing property tax increases by using our own TABOR refunds, giving you some of your own money and claiming that hes saving you money. Come on.

The bill was so rushed it referenced the wrong referendum for this falls ballot. As the news site CompleteColorado.com broke, the bill meant to refer to referendum II, but wrongly referred to referendum HH.

This means either the governor must call a special session to fix their own sloppiness, or the Secretary of State is going to have to do regulatory somersaults to fix it for them.

Poor leadership leads to rushed jobs, leads to bad governance.

The next fumble is the guvs signature bill which promised a home for every budget, Senate Bill 213. Built on the faulty premise that increased density means lower home prices, it would have stripped local governments of much of their local zoning authority.

The Democratic governor who sits on top of a legislature with a super majority Democratic House and a, all but one vote, supermajority state Senate watched his signature bill fly into a brick wall and splat to death on the last day of the session.

This is one of those highlight-reel fumbles where the guy keeps dropping the football and kicking it as he tries to pick it back up.

What it really showed is trouble in paradise.

Apparently, the progressive mob that runs our state government is starting to have the seven-year itch. The ultra-progressives and simple leftists are squabbling for control.

Whats the old saying about absolute power?

At least no ones talking about our libertarian governor anymore.

Jon Caldara is president of the Independence Institute in Denver and hosts The Devils Advocate with Jon Caldara on Colorado Public Television Channel 12. His column appears Sundays in Colorado Politics.

Jon Caldara is president of the Independence Institute in Denver and hosts The Devils Advocate with Jon Caldara on Colorado Public Television Channel 12. His column appears Sundays in Colorado Politics.

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COLUMN: Trouble in paradise for Polis | Jon Caldara - The Denver Gazette

The Smashing Pumpkins: ATUM Album Review – Pitchfork

No one can accuse William Patrick Corgan of skimping on lore. Hes produced reams of it as abandmate,interviewee,blogger,Infowars guest,wrestling impresario, andtea-shop proprietor. His musical output with theSmashing Pumpkins is also lore-heavy, albeit haphazard: The bands album discography has both aVol. 1 without aVol. 2 and aII without aI. ThatII, however, was a turning point for the Pumpkins, as Corgan (a notoriously prolific writer whoseB-sides have shipped platinum) began setting formats and concepts loose upon each other. A singles campaignbecame an album; an albumbecame an album within an album; that outermost albumbecame an abandoned project. WithATUM: A Rock Opera in Three Acts, Corgan raises the stakes. Hes pitched it as the third in a retconned trilogy of concept albums that began with 1995sMellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness and continued with 2000sMachina/The Machines of God.

Corgans previous attempts to castMellon andMachina as something more than good-to-magnificent alt-rock albumshe once teasedMellon Collie asThe Wall for Gen Xers, and recruitedprofessional animators andamateur sleuths to flesh out the story ofMachinawere, in wrestling terms, a work. But onATUM(pronounced, maddeningly, like the season) he sells the storyline like never before. The cover art suggests a space-rock album illustrated by Roger Dean; the stuffy subtitle places it in the distinguished lineage of CorgansbelovedSavatage. Over 33 songs and two-plus hours, he presents the saga of Shiny, a has-been rocker (and incarnation of a character known onMachina as Glass, and onMellon Collie as Zero) exiled into space for unspecified thoughtcrimes. As Shiny makes his unexpected return to Earth, a cadre of admirers and hackers desperately tries to remind the public of his significance, while the perfidious ruling class schemes to co-opt him for its own ends.

The full story is sketched out inATUMs lyric handbook, but throughout this albums protracted rollout (Part I was released in November,Part II in January), Corgan has been recapping the narrative on his debut podcast.Thirty-Three combines buzzy guests likeWillow Smith and the voice of Roger Rabbit with Corgans Twitter Blue-grade takes on current events. When discussingATUM with his solicitous co-hostsboth employees of the Corgan-owned National Wrestling AllianceCorgan lavished far more attention on the text than the compositions.

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All that extracurricular effort is necessary, because almost none of the narrative makes it to the actual recording. Even the larger plot pointsor just thecharactersof Corgans techno-libertarian saga are submerged at a level below subtext. Always inclined toward quaint turns of phrase, hes reached a syntactical point of no return. His couplets scan like palindromes extracted from Coheed and Cambria lyrics.In parried odes to thy mountains/The spirit of us was pungent laughter, he declares on Intergalactic. On the squelchy, plaintive Night Waves, he muses, Are we null at keel/Where mistakes appeal? Oh shit, are we?

The result is a rock opera that coasts on vibes. Sometimes that vibe is simplyMuse, as on the bombastic, backing vocalist-heavy Empires or That Which Animates the Spirit. Other times, it is unexpectedly peculiar. Hooray! is squelchy high-plains Hi-NRG, replete with Syndrum hits and an organ tone I last encountered on theCarrie Cleveland reissue. Within the story ofATUM, its performed by an animatronic band in a shuttered amusement park. (Discussing the song on the podcast, one of Corgans co-hosts asked himin all innocenceIs there a part of you that had an experience at anamusement park?) The song is followed by the yearning synth-pop of The Gold Mask, which successfully lashesFuture Islands to the delay effect from I Ran (So Far Away). Doomy power ballad The Culling rides a slide guitar solo into a three-way conversation between Moog, soaring wordless vocals, and some of Jimmy Chamberlins most dramatic drumming.

Chamberlin gets his best opportunities to show out duringATUMs final act, the sets proggiest. The pace slows; the songs creep past the five-minute mark. It feels like Corgan and company are savoring their stroll to the finish, or maybe straining to leave a good impression. But this section stretches more than it soars and relies on invocation as a dramatic effect. Theres something fascinating, I suppose, in Corgan hollering Zero! Zero! Zero! like its a Saturday-morning superhero cartoon theme. But what do we get out of him whining Glory glory, hallelujah? Or Agnus Dei? (For fans of Pumpkins pronunciation, we get a deus ex machina sung likedo sex machine.) Its a relief when they invoke Zero asa song instead of a callback: Theres as much fun to be had in the oompah thrash of Harmageddon or the sighing groove metal of In Lieu of Failure as in the transparently goofy Hooray!

The stylistic flexes are enjoyable, but the bulk ofATUM is aimed squarely at modern rock radio. If youre familiar with 2020sCYR, you know the drill: streamlined synth-rock, only this time Chamberlins not platooning with an 808. Even so, the formula produces pleasures. Chamberlin stomps around Corgans sequencer on Neophyte, turning the singers rueful trudge into a disco strut. Its almost as bold a choice as Corgan pronouncing the phrase Philistine or Elohim so it doesnt rhyme. Penultimate track Spellbinding resolves the meter-shifting dream-pop pulse of its verses with a fist-pumping power pop chorus. Take me away/Im going to find you! Corgan cries, trailed by a nice little .38 Special twin-guitar sting. To the Grays plays like a keening, synth-spangled take on Dancing in the Dark: The snare sound is more wack and there are a couple more references to burning fields of cosmic space. But the nervy pulse is there, and so is the romanticism, which is the true echo of the Pumpkins older work.

ATUM doesnt necessarily suffer by comparison to past albums. Its highs are more modest. The ferocity is long gone. (At the end of the saga, having riled up allies and enemies alike, Shiny yeets himself back into space.) But in its own ponderous way, it is generous. And anyway, comparisons to past albums are kind of a Smashing Pumpkins trademark: Corgan has alreadyannounced that the bands next project will be a straight up rocknroll record in the vein ofSiamese Dream and, um,Mellon Collie. Perhaps the release of a fully realizedif obliquely writtenrock opera has freed him from the gravitational pull of conceptualism. That, more than anything, would guaranteeATUMs place in Smashing Pumpkins lore.

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The Smashing Pumpkins: ATUM Album Review - Pitchfork

EDITORIAL: Amendment process should be preserved – The … – Ironton Tribune

Published 12:00 am Saturday, May 13, 2023

Sometimes, when politicians fail to act, the public does.

This was the case in recent years in Ohio, when the states voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment on the ballot aimed at curbing gerrymandering and legislative and congressional districts favoring one party.

As a result, when the states Republican-dominated redistricting commission produced maps that the Ohio Supreme Court found to disproportionately favor the re-election of Republicans, they were repeatedly struck down.

The issue of these districts had been around for some time, but, as the General Assembly was dominated by Republicans, they werent going to touch a system that worked in their favor, so it was left to activist groups, to put the issue on the ballot and to voters, to decide on the matter.

The 2018 vote is a prime example of how the ballot issue process worked for the public, allowing it to gain movement toward a solution with an amendment where entrenched lawmakers failed to act.

And, since that result was detrimental to the controlling party, it is no wonder that Republicans now want to take that option away from the public and make it more difficult to act.

As it exists now, it requires just a simple majority, above 50 percent, to pass an amendment.

But this week, the Republican-dominated General Assembly passed a resolution which will put the process on an August special election ballot, changing it so that amendments must require 60 percent to pass.

While amendments have passed at the state level by healthy majorities, none have secured that 60 percent to date.

By raising this threshold, it would basically make it next to impossible for the public to act through the amendment process.

Those opposing the change in the process are not limited to Democrats. Every living ex-governor of the state, as well as both Republican and Democratic former attorneys general and the Ohio Libertarian Party have expressed opposition to the proposed change.

So, this summer, voters will have to decide.

It is imperative that the public keep this critical check on stubborn lawmakers. We urge voters to reject the proposed changes this August.

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EDITORIAL: Amendment process should be preserved - The ... - Ironton Tribune

Proposals for Improving Dialogue and Reducing Ideological … – Reason

I rarely agree with prominent liberal legal scholar and blogger Eric Segall (see, e.g., our debate over originalism and my 2022 appearance on his podcast). But in a recent blog post, he makes some valuable suggestions on improving cross-ideological dialogue and reducing the harmful effects of polarization in the legal world:

[R]eflecting society-at-large, America's law schools are becoming increasingly divided along political lines with both sides retreating to their respective corners. This development is troubling because echo chambers produce, well echoes, not meaningful attempts at compromises and solutions palatable to broad constituencies. But if there's no one in the room arguing for different positions, compromise becomes much more difficult and stubbornness runs rampant.

Evidence of this polarization is all around us.

As to legal education specifically, there are a number of factors increasing polarization inside law schools making it more difficult to break through the echo chamber. One of the the largest causes of this problem is the binary choice offered by the Federalist Society and the American Constitution Society. These two organizations, one conservative/libertarian, the other liberal/progressive, reflect the divisions in our larger society as well as our two-party system of politics. Although at the student level, these two organizations often work together to put on panels and debates, at the national level where it counts the most, both organizations put on highly partisan programs that increase polarization where the two sides barely speak to each other.

Some will respond that both groups invite a few folks from the other side to their national conventions. For example, I was invited to Fed Soc this year for a panel on affirmative action. But these folks are usually a distinct minority and rarely make an appearance at the galas and other big celebrations. Moreover, my understanding is that both conventions are attended almost exclusively by folks whose values are consistent with the leadership of both organizations so that neither convention provides a good environment for across-the-aisle talk.

In addition to the polarization caused by Fed Soc and ACS students, professors, and judges generally staying in their own lanes, the unwillingness of law students (of all people) to hear from people with different views than their own is getting worse every year. At the University of California at Berkeley, nine student groups said they would not invite any speaker who supports Zionism (regardless of the topic of the event). At numerous law schools there have been controversies over who can speak, to whom, and under what conditions. Students retreating to their own corners is not good for legal education, the broader legal community, or society as a whole.

So, I have a few proposals. They are not likely to go very far but, as they say, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

1) Both Fed Soc and ACS should invite justices from the other side to speak at their national conventions, and those justices should show up. Symbolically, this intersection would be of great value and substantively it would be good for each group to pay close attention to how they are perceived by the other side and to hear arguments they do not normally hear. It would also be a positive development for the justices to be exposed to the different ideas and values held by folks who disagree with them.

2) The leadership at every school with Fed Soc and ACS chapters should strongly encourage and incentivize these groups to co-sponsor as many events as possible. We do this at Georgia State and the results are usually wonderful. Not only do students hear more varied arguments but they get to know and even like students in the other group. Such connections can have positive long-term effects.

3) Both groups should sponsor local and national events where they invite one or two people representing the other group to speak with opposing responses coming exclusively from the audiences. This would help people wrestle with opposing arguments in a direct way rather than through a third party.

4) Federal judges, especially the justices, should hire at least one law clerk every year with politics different from their own. I'll never forget my clerkship with a conservative, GOP judge who was genuinely interested in my views on the few highly political cases he faced while I was his clerk. He once told me that it was in those cases specifically where he liked me pushing him to make sure he was making the right decisions. Sadly, on both sides, that attitude is fading fast.

5) The leading legal blogs, including this one. should reach out to folks on the other side and invite them to write posts with different perspectives than the blog usually offers. Years ago, I presented this idea in person to Eugene Volokh and Jack Balkin, who both run highly visible and successful blogs. They rejected the idea out-of-hand saying that legal bloggers do this now simply by responding to experts on other blogs. But that response missed the point of my idea. It is the sharing of space, both physical and virtual, among folks with different views that is important because being in the other side's house reduces both extremism and dogmatism.

I agree with pretty much all of these suggestions! Here are a few additional thoughts and ideas.

First, the situation at some of the institutions Eric mentions is less bad than he suggests. The standard practice in organizing panels at the Fed Soc National Lawyers Convention is to try to have at least two left-liberal speakers on each one (out of a total of four or five participants). I know because I am a longtime member of two of the Executive Committees that organize such panels. But it is true, as Eric notes, that these "oppositional" speakers rarely stay much beyond the time they are on stage for their panel, or participate in other convention events. My impression is that the ACS national convention (where I have been a speaker twicesee, e.g., my talk on race, zoning, and property rights at the 2017 convention) usually has only one oppositional speaker per panel.

Before speaking at the 2017 ACS convention, I happened to mention I was planning to participate to longtime Fed Soc President Gene Meyer. He said he was happy I was doing it, but asked me to make him one promise: "Don't just give your presentation and then leave," he said, "stay and talk to the people afterwards." I did exactly that, and Meyer was right to suggest it makes a difference. ACS and Fed Soc might think about how to expand opportunities for these kinds of informal interactions.

When it comes to blogs, the Volokh Conspiracy has in fact often had left-liberal scholars as guest bloggers (notable examples include Akhil Amar and Cass Sunstein) or participants in symposia. Most recently, prominent liberal election law specialist Edward "Ned" Foley took part in the symposium I organized for participants in the National Constitution Center "Guardrails of Democracy" project (see his posts here and here). Jack Balkin's Balkinization blog often has conservative or libertarian guest-bloggers as participants in symposia. I have been one of them myself (e.g. here and here). Jack also interviewed me on his blog about my books Free to Move: Foot Voting, Migration, and Political Freedom and The Grasping Hand: Kelo v. City of New London and the Limits of Eminent Domain (see here and here). Way back in 2013, Jack even took me up on the suggestion to do a series of guest-blogger posts on my then-new book Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government is Smarter. I reached out to Jack then (and on some later occasions) precisely for the purpose of engaging in cross-ideological outreach, so that I would not just be presenting my ideas to people likely to already agree with them.

That said, Fed Soc, ACS, and various legal blogs (this one included!) can certainly do more to foster cross-ideological dialogue. For example, as noted above, oppositional speakers at the ACS and Fed Soc national conventions should be more fully integrated into the event as a whole, including informal interactions. It is also true they should make a point of inviting judges opposed to their preferred judicial philosophy.

Like Eric, I too clerked for a conservative federal judge (in this case, one who also has some libertarian leanings) who sometimes has liberal clerks, including one the year I clerked. There is definitely value to having at least one clerk in the chambers who holds significantly different views from those of the judge. Such a person is more likely to catch certain types of errors than more ideologically aligned staff would be. Judges would do well to engage in more such hiring. Supreme Court justices and prominent circuit court "feeder" judges should try to lead by example on this front.

When it comes to law schools, perhaps the single most important thing they can do to improve cross-ideological dialogue is curb ideological discrimination in faculty hiring. There is extensive evidence of hiring discrimination against conservative and libertarian legal academics. As a result, many top institutions have very few, if any, faculty who aren't on the political left. This is particularly true of public law fields, and others that are ideologically contentious. For obvious reasons, faculty play a major role in setting the terms of intellectual debate in any educational institution. Greater ideological diversity on the faculty would improve the quality of discussion at law schools, and increase the range of ideas that get meaningful consideration.

This is not a call for affirmative action for conservative or libertarian academics, which is a terrible idea. Simple nondiscrimination is all that is needed to simultaneously increase ideological diversity and improve faculty quality. Like racial and ethnic discrimination, ideological discrimination predictably reduces quality, as less-qualified candidates with the preferred views often get hired in preference to better-qualified dissenters.

I also do not claim that, absent discrimination, we would have law school faculties that "look like America" when it comes to the distribution of ideologies. Far from it, most likely. For a variety of reasons, left-liberals would still be overrepresented relative to their percentage of the general population. But the proportion of conservatives and libertarians would likely be significantly higher than is currently the case.

Eric's list and my added suggestions are far from an exhaustive catalogue of all that elite legal institutions can do to improve dialogue and curb the harmful effects of polarization. Hopefully, we can stimulate a broader discussion on this issue, including additional suggestions by others.

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Proposals for Improving Dialogue and Reducing Ideological ... - Reason