I'm a second year law student and I just attended a presentation at school on "What judicial appointments can you except from an Obama administration"
I expected/hoped that it would be a somewhat unbiased account of the kinds of judges we would see Obama appoint. What it ended up being was an hour of hate-mongering like I have never seen before. Essentially, any liberal judge was bad and any conservative judge was good. Some key choice moments:
1) Discussing how the Burger court "invented the right to an abortion"
2) How certain judges on a short list of possible appointees to the Supreme Court would get confirmed because of their race/gender
3) how "politicized" the nomination and confirmation hearings of Clarence Thomas were
4) that with the kinds of justices Obama wanted to appoint (empathetic), he may as well appoint Oprah
5) how it was improper for Justice Ginsburg to cite the Declaration on the Rights of the Child when deciding whether or not TO EXECUTE CHILDREN
6) how granting gay couples the right to marry would likely lead to polygamy and bestiality
This is all from a supposed legal scholar, not a conservative pundit.
It makes me sad that after everything positive and uplifting that came out of last week, people like this can still get to me.
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Hi Renda,
Taken as a whole, that list is pretty horrifying, and I imagine it's even worse to hear in person when surrounded by your future colleagues.
#5 I can understand, though, from a legal perspective. Executing children is horrific and just about the worst injustice I can imagine, but using the Declaration on the Rights of the Child as the legal reason why not to probably is somewhat inappropriate simply because we haven't ratified the Declaration. (Albright signed it, Clinton didn't ratify it). Obama has said he'd ratify it, so hopefully this will provide the proper legal framework to allow the question to be answered definitively.
I think this speaks to the complaint that some on the right have that our current court uses international law to make its decisions, whereas its role is to interpret US law. It's slippery, but I do think they're bound by this.
All that said, I have to say that election night itself - the election of Obama but the failure of Prop 8 in California - reminded me that in this country it's always two steps forward, one step back.
We have a lot to do, and it's great that people like you will soon be on the front lines to help get it done.
Rhenda:
Where do you go to law school? I'm at University at Buffalo, and this would have never gotten off the ground here...
and it's perfectly okay for Ginsburg to cite to the Declaration of Rights for a Child. It's not binding authority, but it is persuasive - hell, nothing is binding authority on the Supreme Court anyways, because they're the highest court and they can reverse themselves anytime they choose. But the SC can, and routinely does, take guidance from persuasive authority sources such as legal history, laws that several states have agreed on, laws from like-minded nations and from international law sources, etc. It's way better than when Scalia starts quoting Bob Dylan in his opinions - at least Ginsburg's source was informed by something other than marijuana.
Oh, yuck. That came from a (presumably "nonpartisan") legal scholar/professor/teacher/whatever? =/
Was the presentation intended as a lecture or part of some module, or just a briefing? In any case, if it was organised with the university's approval you could probably make a case to the school authorities that what the speaker did was way out of line (in any case, I'm sure an academic institution would be concerned about what sort of information is being presented to students as part of what they can expect professionally.
I commend you on your patience and fortitude in actually enduring an hour of that! I'm sure I would've confronted the speaker and descended into a shouting match. And it's a sad world when ignorant people like these are welcomed into universities.
This guy is a legal scholar?
I suggest you complain. This is no kind of lesson. If he was a speaker rather than a teacher, was attendance mandatory?
1. Not true. Roe did not "make abortion legal." It said it was illegal to ban it; it was already legal in twenty states for reasons ranging from on-request to rape/health.
4. ...no comment.
6. Logical fallacy. Also wrong. Animals cannot consent, period. Polygamy would require a total overhaul of inheritance law, and the only people we've seen complaining that it's illegal are fundamentalists who view their (often-child)-wives as property.
I repeat: I can't believe this guy is a legal scholar. I can't believe your school took him on in whatever capacity they did so.