Inside the Law School Meltdown the Supreme Court Has Unleashed,.

[ShazzieB]

The Supreme Court Is Blowing Up Law School, Too
Inside the growing furor among professors who have had enough.

Khiara Bridges remembers the exact moment she lost faith in the Supreme Court. At first, at the start of Donald Trump’s presidency, Bridges—a professor who now teaches at UC–Berkeley School of Law—held out hope that the court might be “this great protector of individual civil liberties right when we desperately needed it to be.” Then came 2018. That June, the justices issued Trump v. Hawaii, which upheld the president’s entry ban for citizens of eight countries, six of them Muslim-majority. Suddenly, Bridges told me, she realized, “The court is not going to save us. It is going to let Trump do whatever he wants to do. And it’s going to help him get away with it.”

Four years later, the justices completely shattered whatever remaining optimism Bridges could muster about the court by overruling Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. When the decision came down on June 24, she got a migraine for the first time in a decade. The image of the court as a majestic guardian of liberty was, she concluded, “a complete lie.” And it wasn’t just about her own personal feelings, either: Now she had to teach her students about the work of an institution that made her sick to contemplate.

Bridges is not alone. At law schools across the country, thousands of professors of constitutional law are currently facing a court that, in their view, has let the mask of neutrality fall off completely. Six conservative justices are steering the court head-on into the most controversial debates of the day and consistently siding with the Republican Party. Increasingly, the conservative majority does not even bother to provide any reasoning for its decisions, exploiting the shadow docket to overhaul the law without a word of explanation. The crisis reached its zenith between September 2021 and June 2022, when the Supreme Court let Texas impose its vigilante abortion ban through the shadow docket, then abolished a 50-year-old right to bodily autonomy by overruling Roe v. Wade. Now law professors are faced with a quandary: How—and why—should you teach law to students while the Supreme Court openly changes the meaning of the Constitution to align with the GOP?

A version of this question has long dogged the profession, which has fought over the distinction between law and politics for about as long as it has existed. For decades, however, the court has handed enough victories to both sides of the political spectrum that it has avoided a full-on academic revolt against its legitimacy. That dynamic changed when Trump appointed Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett to replace far less conservative predecessors and created a Republican-appointed supermajority, a coalition further aided by the appointment of Neil Gorsuch to a seat that should have been filled by Barack Obama. The cascade of far-right rulings in 2022 confirmed that the new court is eager to shred long-held precedents it deems too liberal as quickly as possible. The pace and scale of this revolution is requiring law professors to adapt on several levels—intellectually, pedagogically, and emotionally.

*snip*

More: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/10/supreme-court-scotus-decisions-law-school-professors.html

Somebody needs to sit that smug, disingenuous John Roberts down and force him to read this article. Maybe then he might possibly, conceivably begin to believe that people really ARE losing respect for his renegade SCOTUS.

Or not. But he needs to read it anyway.

[Drum]

1. Bookmark/kick/rec!!

[LetMyPeopleVote]

2. SCOTUS is not stopping at Roe

Link to tweet

[Hekate]

3. KnR

[Hermit-The-Prog]

4. Chaos will ripple through the Judiciary, law schools, and society for decades.

This Extreme Court has ignored logic, precedent, law and consequences while pushing its extremist ideology on the nation. Settled law is unsettled. There will be a tsunami of lawsuits, challenging everything that was once considered black-letter law.

If the power of the Subversive 6 is left unchecked, you may consider this the calm before the storm.

[COL Mustard]

5. Don't say things like that!

Otherwise Sam Alito will have a sad!!!

[Roy Rolling]

6. Justices Appointed by a Foreign Agent

All of Trump’s SCOTUS appointments to the bench should be impeached.

In fact, I think Nancy Pelosi should impeach TFG a third time. Republicans want to clog the courts? Let them play defense.

Force them. As Chaz said, “now youse can’t leave”, in one of the most brutal bar fights on film. But totally appropriate here. We have to be ready, TFG and Carlson have reached the point they’re trying to recruit biker gangs as advanced troops like Putin did in Crimea.

[SouthernDem4ever]

7. I felt this way about SCOTUS since Bush v Gore

When they just decided an election for no good reason other than partisan politics.

[CaptainTruth]

8. +1

[ananda]

9. Same

..

[Solomon]

11. The same for me. I quit practicing law after Bush v Gore. Broke my heart to see the court say don't

count the votes.

[Coventina]

13. Thank you!! n/t

[Samrob]

20. Yep! That's what did it for me. There never was anything they did after that was redemptive. Nada

[Sky Jewels]

30. Same.

In particular, I lost any respect I'd previously maintained for Sandra Day O'Connor. With that case she took her legacy and wiped her butt with it.

[bucolic_frolic]

10. Roberts hasn't the power to change the direction

and he didn't seat the Justices. The origins of this problem are political.

Obama should have seated Garland. Given Mitch a deadline. No hearings, you waive the right of advice and consent. 60 days. September 1, 2016. Might have saved the election. Obama was a great president, but he was not one to confront. He knew his place all too well.

[tritsofme]

14. That is absolute nonsense. A fairy tale.

Dozens of presidential nominees are defeated by the Senate’s inaction at the end of each session, every year, for some 230 years, Garland’s was no different.

It is pathetic that these lies blaming President Obama for not taking blatantly illegal action that he had no power to do, are still being spread here.

[bucolic_frolic]

15. You just called me a liar

The original idea was floated by Glenn Kirschner a couple months back in one of his videos.

Go tell him.

[tritsofme]

16. It is a nonsense lie no matter who is spreading it.

President Obama had no such power.

[Hieronymus Phact]

24. but he did have the power of the presedency.

He had the power of the bully pulpit, he could have used it to daily ridicule and expose the republicans for not doing their job. He could have been on the TV nightly pounding the table at their outrageous behavior. He didn't do any of that, maybe he should have.

[tritsofme]

26. He didn't have the power to magically seat Garland after 60 days

As the person I responded to claimed.

Your post also obscures the clear fact, that Mitch McConnell is solely responsible for the entire debacle, full stop.

Obama agitated for months on Garland, whether you and the media paid attention or not, but there is no amount of “table pounding” that could have shamed McConnell into a being a decent human being, he had the power, not Obama.

The lie that President Obama was culpable for Mitch’s theft is just as reprehensible today as was nearly seven years ago.

[Hieronymus Phact]

28. i never said he had magic powers

i said he didn't use the powers he had effectively.

"whether you and the media paid attention or not"
Correct: most people and the media i aren't paying attention, but what I'm saying is:

He had the power to make people pay attention as only a president does, but didn't use it. It may not have swayed McConnell but it would have gone into the public's memory, where it might have done some good and maybe just maybe McConnell might have felt enough pressure to allow a vote, but we'll never know. After all he is on video insisting that all nominees "deserve an up or down vote". from an earlier session. It's more political negligence that that wasn't thrown in his face at the time.

[tritsofme]

29. McConnell was never ever going to allow a vote. This asshole boasts it was the proudest moment of

his life. It is truly delusional to think otherwise, an affliction our 44th president did not suffer.

Garland’s entire nomination was an Obama demonstration project in Republican unreasonableness, he knew whoever he nominated was not getting a vote, so he picked someone almost all of them had already voted for, and who many had even recommended for previous SCOTUS vacancies.

Obama never would have chosen Garland with a Democratic Senate, the real goal was to win the WH and Senate in 2016, and let Hillary pick someone better. There was simply no other path, but you know…history.

[Hieronymus Phact]

31. Yeah sure all that's true

My point is then Obama Didn't use the Bully Pulpit to its full effect when he could have.
He Just Didn't. Democrats never do.
It made him look like it was not worth fighting for.

[tritsofme]

32. Right, sounds like nothing Democrats do is ever good enough.

Not surprised.

[Hieronymus Phact]

33. You never responded to a single thing i said.

If they never screwed up, and have done everything so perfectly as to be above criticism, why are we hanging on by a thread and losing our rights?

[tritsofme]

36. Because Democrats (maybe you?) didn't show up in 2014 and 2016.

That is the only reason! Obama was dealt a losing hand, and played it the best he could.

It is literally fucking ridiculous to keep blaming President Obama for McConnell’s deeds. That’s all you have been doing, you haven’t said a single thing that has made a lick of sense.

[Hieronymus Phact]

38. Don't accuse me of that.

I've voted in every election i could except that one in '88.

Read it again:
I NEVER blamed Obama for McConnell's misdeeds. I blame him for not raising much of a public fight over it.
-something entirely within his power.
I mentioned the Bully Pulpit several posts ago. You yourself mentioned how the media wasn't paying attention, How do you think would happen? Maybe if POTUS MADE them pay attention? Which I recall he didn't.

Do i need to type that more slowly?
Is there some other way you can miss that point?
Is there any room in your world for constructive criticism of a Democrat?

[tritsofme]

39. Your recollection is not correct.

Obama did make a big push for Garland, the media and voters didn’t care. Yelling louder wouldn’t have changed the outcome. The Trump show had already started.

If anything, the issue motivated Republican voters more, the real problem is that far too many Democratic voters didn’t start caring about the Supreme Court until it was too late.

[Hieronymus Phact]

40. Yeah A 'Big' push

My recollection is fine.
It was 'big' maybe from the perspective of a political junkie on DU.
Biden is making the same mistake: Expecting the media will make people care about his accomplishments, but he and the party have to do that for themselves. By yelling louder if necessary. and repeating themselves a lot. The media won't help them.

[FBaggins]

34. I don't see anyone calling you a liar

But it’s a nonsensical notion that Obama could (let alone would) have done something like that (and Kirshner is nuts if he actually claimed that).

Republicans avoided a vote so that they wouldn’t pay as much of a price by voting down a moderate nominee… but they absolutely would have held a vote if forced to with something as blatantly unconstitutional as this.

[lindysalsagal]

12. I guess the easiest thing is to add some sane judges to counter the rubes.

And maybe we can get someone wo bribe them to leave. If we get the senate can we impeach a few?

[maxsolomon]

17. You know that won't happen.

Given the ages of the Justices, this court is locked down until Alito (72) and Thomas (74) retire/die. That's likely past 2028.

Barrett isn't even 50. She'll be on the SCOTUS for the rest of my life - I'm 59.

Law Schools are going to have to teach how the Federalist Society and their money gamed the system, and will continue to do so. Not that teaching students about it can change anything.

[halfulglas]

23. Are they really?

With other rights gone or going, how long will universities or even law schools be free to teach the truth? Like Florida teachers, are there going to be things that will be thought too controversial to teach in college? The Federalist Society might be held up as a church and have its own rights. When fascists come to power, scary things come to pass.

[maxsolomon]

25. Are Law Schools really teaching about the Federalist Society?

I have no idea.

Critical Race Theory WAS actually taught in Law Schools.

I would assume the Federalist Society recruits in law schools all over the nation. Probably gives scholarships, fellowships, etc. It's not genius, asshole RW billionaires threw tons of money at it. It's worked; they've remade the Federal judiciary (along with Mitch McConnell's machinations).

[halfulglas]

27. Not currently, but they are going to have to teach something

eventually about how the system became so f---ed up. Sheldon Whitehouse has been doing a pretty job of insisting that we tell some of this story out loud and how the Republicans married into this Federalist cabal to corrupt the justice system but if universities will be allowed to tell the truth is questionable because the fascist way is to control what is taught at all levels of education.

[BComplex]

18. THE U.S. SUPREME COURT IS FASCIST. TOTALITARIAN.

Call it what it is.

[dalton99a]

19. "Equal Justice for All" is now "Fuck the Constitution. We Can Do Whatever We Want"

"And There Is NOTHING You Can Do About It"

[Grins]

22. And we - on the Left - all saw it coming decades ago!

And were ignored or laughed at.

“The Left was right about the Right all along.” - Driftglass.

[andym]

37. History should inform how students understand the supreme court: Plessy v Ferguson

over 120 years ago should be the warning that the SC is not some mythical organization sitting above politics, but an organization strongly influenced by political trends. One can even see the move from the post WW2 court which was in tune with expanding civil rights movements of its era to the more mixed courts of the proximal pre-Trump era to the partisan court of today. Trump was right and Roberts was not in this regard, there really are "Trump" judges.