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It's no secret that law professors tend toward the left side of the political and legal spectrum. At elite law schools in particular, where diversity is feverishly sought on the basis of race and gender, there is usually little diversity in viewpoint. Which groups would add the most to intellectual diversity? For most law faculties, "Republicans, conservatives, and evangelical Christians," James Lindgren, a lawyer and sociologist at Northwestern University, wrote in the winter 2005 issue of Yale Law and Policy Review. Which group is the most underrepresented? White female Republicans, Lindgren said.
Peter Schuck, a law professor at Yale, sounds the same note in the December 2005 issue of the American Lawyer: "Elite law schools cherish robust debate, iconoclasm, and arguing issue from all sides, right? Wrong. The dirty little (not-so) secret about these faculties–that they care much more about diversifying their skin colors, genders, and surnames than about diversifying their points of view–has finally come to the attention of the general public. Now that the truth is out, law school faculties are likely to come under increased pressure to surrender some of their hiring autonomy.
"A teaching institution that constructs an ideologically one-sided faculty, whether liberal or conservative, seriously abdicates its pedagogical responsibilities," he writes. Schuck rejects the idea of an affirmative action plan and doesn't much like outside pressure. He wants the law schools to shape up and solve the problem of intellectual diversity themselves.
At the blog Volokh Conspiracy, lawyers offered various reactions to Schuck's article. One of the strongest came from the anonymous "Yale guy,"who wrote, "Of approximately 80 professors (at Yale Law), there is exactly 1 who could be characterized as a conservative/libertarian, and in the Midwest even that professor would be considered left-of-center . . . . The political viewpoints of professors spill over into nearly every class."
In the Hartford Courant, two third-year Yale Law students joined the debate, arguing that the school's "almost universal disapproval of the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court has made clear, yet again, the stark lack of intellectual diversity here in New Haven."
The students added: "Yale Law School is clustered in one corner of the debate about public law. Having even a small number of conservative scholars on campus could fix this–and save us Federalist Society members the indignity of having to import the conservative side of every debate we host."
On the other hand, Harvard Law School, despite its historic leftward tilt, is beginning to get a good press for pursuing fairness.
Posted at 04:00 PM by John Leo
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