Tuesday, February 17, 2015

More Brilliant Thoughts from Dean Chemerinsky

The pioneer has two main thoughts on the Supreme Court in his latest book.  First:
The Supreme Court has been, on balance, a more negative than positive influence on our country throughout its history
Thank goodness lower-quality law schools have not been, on balance, a more negative than positive influence on our country.  And second:
The idea that justices bring neutral, objective legal principles to the task of “divining” the true meaning and purpose of the language in the statutes and the Constitution is bunk.
Thank goodness lower-quality law schools have promoted the idea that they bring non-profit, public service principles to the task of "educating" America's lawyers.  Because that's totally not bunk.  Or something.  If you can come up with a better parallel analogy thingamajig, fill it in for me.

Such observations aside, it's obvious that Chemerinsky has earned his place as a top scholar of constitutional law.  Take this observation about the heinous group of Supreme Court cases that seem vile in retrospect, such as Plessy or Korematsu:
 For years, Chemerinsky said, he had taught these cases, which are all understood in retrospect to have been miscarriages of justice, as if they were anomalies. But by explaining them that way, he said, “I realized I had been making excuses for the Supreme Court.”
Because this totally isn't the type of conclusion one could come to after a mere semester of Con law.  It takes years of studious inquiry during ten-hour work weeks poring over the 4500 words of the Constitution, treating each one the way PhDs treat War and Peace subplots.

Well, I'm off to hit the open road with two strippers and a crack pipe.  Remember, I'll make a great DA some day.

8 comments:

  1. I happened to attend a Con Law conference recently. While some of the presenters were pleasant and others were smart, there really wasn't anything difficult about what they were doing. I now intend to become a Con Law scholar myself.

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  2. :) In reading this post I became afraid that you had purchased his book! Please tell me you got it from a library for free. Scholarshit is mostly free. The fair market value of "great thoughts" = $0.00.

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  3. From the article:

    "Chemerinsky spoke last night [on or about 2/16/2015] at Hamline Law School in an annual endowed lecture named for David Cobin, a former professor at the Hamline school who died in 2011."

    I thought it was now the Hammy Willmitch School of Law...

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    1. Proving once again that Hammitch is at the cutting edge of legal education. Where else could these crucial issues of constitutional interpretation possibly be discussed? Surely not at the United States Supreme Court.

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  4. Dean Chemerinsky also is advocating for a single 18 year term for Supreme Court justices.

    How about a single 15 year term for Supreme Court Justices and for tenure for law faculty?

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  5. "The idea that justices bring neutral, objective legal principles to the task of “divining” the true meaning and purpose of the language in the statutes and the Constitution is bunk." -Chem

    This stuff had them gasping in 1915.

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    Replies
    1. So did Birth of a Nation. I'd love to see a legal scholar advocate the ideas in that one!

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  6. I wonder why Dean Chem is escalating the court-bashing rhetoric now. Probably because he knows that UC Irvine will never be ranked in the Top 20 and is likely to debut in the Forties next month. He's trying to feather another nest at Harvard or Yale.

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