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The Daily Signal
Georgetown law
professors argue over how, and whether, to mourn Scalia
By Susan Svrluga
February 19
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was polarizing in life, with
his conservative views both lionized and reviled. And the response to a
memorial announcement following his death this weekend was striking: It
touched off a sweeping debate within Georgetown University Law School
that has been both scathing and eloquent, intimate and dismissive — one
that questioned not only Scalia’s legacy but whether academia had
tilted so far to the left politically that norms of civil discourse had
been upended.
One professor argued against the very idea of the campus community
mourning the death of Scalia, one of the university’s most prominent
alumni.
“I imagine many other faculty, students and staff, particularly people
of color, women and sexual minorities, cringed at headline and at the
unmitigated praise with which the press release described a jurist that
many of us believe was a defender of privilege, oppression and bigotry,
one whose intellectual positions were not brilliant but simplistic and
formalistic,” Professor Gary Peller, a graduate of Harvard Law School,
wrote to the campus community.
That prompted a response from two professors who admired Scalia; they
reacted with shock to the email, which they characterized as saying,
“in effect, your hero was a stupid bigot and we are not sad that he is
dead.”
Professors Randy Barnett, also a graduate of Harvard Law School, and
Nick Rosenkranz responded with personal grief. They also wrote:
…The problem is that the center of gravity of legal academia is so far
to the left edge of the political spectrum that some have lost the
ability to tell the difference. Only on a faculty with just two
identifiably right-of-center professors out of 125, could a professor
harbor such vitriol for a conservative Justice that even Justice
Ginsburg adored. Only on a faculty this unbalanced could a
professor willfully or knowingly choose to “hurt … those with affection
for J. Scalia,” including countless students, just days after the
Justice’s death. If more of us were here, the impropriety of this
act would have been far more obvious, but also less threatening to our
students.
To suggest the appropriate response, each of us independently offered
the following analogy: What would be the reaction if either of us
had sent a similarly-worded email to the entire student body, in
violation of Georgetown email policy, upon the death of Justice
Thurgood Marshall — saying that he was a bigot, and his “intellectual
positions were not brilliant but simplistic”? Is there any doubt
that the Georgetown reaction would justly be swift, dramatic, and
severe?
A spokesperson for the law school said it had no further comment to add
beyond the emails.
The exchange began with a public statement about Scalia, who earned a
bachelor’s degree in history from Georgetown in 1957, graduating summa
cum laude:
February 13, 2016 — Georgetown Law mourns the loss of U.S. Supreme
Court Justice Antonin Scalia (C’57), who died in Texas at the age of
79. “Scalia was a giant in the history of the law, a brilliant jurist
whose opinions and scholarship profoundly transformed the law,” said
Dean William M. Treanor in a statement.
“Like countless academics, I learned a great deal from his opinions and
his scholarship. In the history of the Court, few Justices have had
such influence on the way in which the law is understood. On a personal
level, I am deeply grateful for his remarkably generous involvement
with our community, including his frequent appearances in classes and
his memorable lecture to our first year students this past November.”
Justice Scalia most recently visited the Law Center on November 16,
when he delivered a 20-minute talk on education to the first-year
class. His talk was followed by more than 30 minutes of responses to
written student questions. How much influence do Scalia’s law clerks
have on his opinions? “More than my colleagues,” the justice replied,
to great laughter.
“The justice offered first-year students his insights and guidance, and
he stayed with the students long after the lecture was over,” Treanor
said. “He cared passionately about the profession, about the law and
about the future, and the students who were fortunate enough to hear
him will never forget the experience. We will all miss him.”
Louis Michael Seidman, a professor of constitutional law and a graduate
of Harvard Law, wrote to the dean and faculty: “Our norms of civility
preclude criticizing public figures immediately after their
death. For now, then, all I’ll say is that I disagree with these
sentiments and that expressions attributed to the ‘Georgetown
Community’ in the press release issued this evening do not reflect the
views of the entire community…”
On Friday morning, Seidman said that he feels it is too soon to be
critical of Scalia. “Death is just this amazing, terrifying thing, that
someone is here and then they’re gone. I understand the need to
contemplate the awesomeness of that and to mourn. I did not and I’m not
going to talk about my views of his career,” at this time, he said.
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