Eric Segall (Georgia State), Political Polarization, Authorized Schooling, and a Few Modest however Critical Proposals:

Twenty years in the past, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote the next in Grutter v. Bollinger:

Regulation faculties, symbolize the coaching floor for a lot of our Nation’s leaders. People with legislation levels occupy roughly half the state governorships, greater than half the seats in the US Senate, and greater than a 3rd of the seats in the US Home of Representatives. The sample is much more putting relating to extremely selective legislation faculties. A handful of those faculties accounts for 25 of the 100 United States Senators, 74 United States Courts of Appeals judges, and almost 200 of the greater than 600 United States District Courtroom judges.

Justice O’Connor informed us what we already knew: legislation faculties and particularly elite legislation faculties, are the “coaching floor” for a lot of of our nation’s political leaders and judges. Justice O’Connor made this remark within the context of her opinion upholding the usage of race in admissions by the College of Michigan Regulation College. Her level, after all, was that the advantages of attending extremely ranked legislation faculties have been substantial and needs to be open to individuals of numerous races, backgrounds, and experiences.

The issue is that, reflecting society-at-large, America’s legislation faculties have gotten more and more divided alongside political strains with each side retreating to their respective corners. This improvement is troubling as a result of echo chambers produce, effectively echoes, not significant makes an attempt at compromises and options palatable to broad constituencies. But when there isn’t any one within the room arguing for various positions, compromise turns into way more tough and stubbornness runs rampant. …

Authorized schooling is presently affected by the intense polarization haunting our nation as an entire. We must be proactive in preventing the temptation to lie in our personal bunkers taking rhetorical pot photographs at those that disagree with our core values. Solely civil dialog, the sharing of area and meals, and a willingness to be humble about our personal views can lead us to a greater place the place laborious points aren’t made to to look easy, the place token presentation of reverse views is changed by a real trade of concepts, and most significantly, the place our most influential and necessary judges cease being cheerleaders for both Fed Soc or ACS and position mannequin how even our greatest and our brightest can study and profit from listening to how the opposite facet views the sophisticated and controversial problems with our day.

Ilya Somin (George Mason), Proposals for Enhancing Dialogue and Decreasing Ideological Polarization within the Authorized World:

I hardly ever agree with distinguished liberal authorized scholar and blogger Eric Segall. … However in a latest weblog put up, he makes some worthwhile ideas on enhancing cross-ideological dialogue and decreasing the dangerous results of polarization within the authorized world. …

I agree with just about all of [his]! Listed below are just a few further ideas and concepts. …

In the case of legislation faculties, maybe the one most necessary factor they’ll do to enhance cross-ideological dialogue is curb ideological discrimination in school hiring. There’s intensive proof of hiring discrimination towards conservative and libertarian authorized teachers. In consequence, many high establishments have only a few, if any, school who aren’t on the political left. That is significantly true of public legislation fields, and others which are ideologically contentious. For apparent causes, school play a significant position in setting the phrases of mental debate in any academic establishment. Better ideological variety on the school would enhance the standard of debate at legislation faculties, and improve the vary of concepts that get significant consideration.

That is not a name for affirmative motion for conservative or libertarian teachers, which is a horrible concept. Easy nondiscrimination is all that’s wanted to concurrently improve ideological variety and enhance school high quality. Like racial and ethnic discrimination, ideological discrimination predictably reduces high quality, as less-qualified candidates with the popular views usually get employed in place of better-qualified dissenters.

I additionally don’t declare that, absent discrimination, we might have legislation faculty colleges that “seem like America” relating to the distribution of ideologies. Removed from it, almost certainly. For a wide range of causes, left-liberals would nonetheless be overrepresented relative to their share of the overall inhabitants.  However the proportion of conservatives and libertarians would probably be considerably increased than is presently the case.

https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2023/05/political-polarization-legal-education-and-ideological-discrimination-in-faculty-hiring.html