Yesterday, more than 90 members of Harvard Law School’s faculty issued Statement on the Rule of Law:
We can teach and learn the law with you. We write to you today about our individual capabilities – because we believe that American law lessons and institutions designed to support them are being rigorously tested. Each of us brings a different, sometimes irreconcilable perspective on what the law is and should be. The diverse perspectives are the achievements of our school. But we share and take our commitment to the rule of law. It’s about people being equal before it and their management is fair. That commitment is based on the entire legal profession and the special role that lawyers play in our society. As the Model Rules for Professional Conduct provide, “A lawyer is… an officer of the legal system and a public citizen who is specially responsible for the quality of justice.”
The rule of law is at risk in the case of government leaders.
• A single lawyer and law firm for retaliation to undermine the Sixth Amendment based on the legal and ethical expressions of clients hated by the government.
• Threate law firms and legal clinics for lawyers’ pro bono work or previous government services.
• Tolerant of these arbitrary voluntary threats based on public conduct and expenditure of fund submission to favorable causes. and
•Punish people for legally speaking about public concerns.
While reasonable people can oppose the characterization of a particular case, we are all keenly concerned about the serious challenges to the rule of law, and we strongly condemn the efforts to undermine the basic norms we have described.
On our own campuses and many other universities, international students report fears of imprisonment or deportation for legal speech and political activities. Whatever can we consider each of a particular act under certain facts, we share the belief that the Constitution, including the First Amendment, was designed to challenge and allow discussion without fear of government punishment. Neither law school nor society can function properly in such fears.
We reaffirm our commitment to our role in teaching and supporting the rule of law and the lessons of a fair and impartial legal system.
Certainly, this statement was not issued in the name of Harvard University or Law School. However, this statement was signed by the majority of the faculty. Just look away, there are a few names missing, including co-bloggers Steve Sachs, Jack Goldsmith and Adrian Vermeer. Very appropriately, Vermeule wrote a response.
Vermeule identifies the problem: what about students? agree Do you have President Trump’s policy of approaching professors who accused him of being relative to the rule of law?
As a student at Harvard Law School, there are surprisingly large, intellectually powerful conditions that are conservative in a way, many of which support the legal policies of the current president and his administration. It is intended to speak “individual competence” and to jointly condemn those policies, but is it supposed to be a massive vast majority of teachers to think accurately? You may be allowed to wonder if you’ll do a fair shake during law school. Perhaps the concern turns out to be objectively guaranteed. But its own concerns are completely justified, and collective letters speak to the “fears” of other students without asking whether those fears are objectively justified, so it seems fair to do the same in other directions.
The professor certainly worries about how students who agree with them will respond. But what about students who oppose them? Their concerns simply aren’t that important.
Vermeule further writes that these signatories have remained silent during the violations of the past four years.
Where were the letter signers when federal prosecutors took the unprecedented steps to bring dozens of criminal charges against the former president? Where were the signatories when Jeff Clark, Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman and other lawyers were negative or threatened and actually charged for representing President Trump’s representative? Was this not a threat to the rule of law? Where were the signatories when radical activists threatened the Supreme Court justice in their homes, or when mobs slammed the doors of the Supreme Court itself? Senate minority leaders told an angry crowd outside the courtroom, “I want to tell Gorsuch, I want to tell Kavanaugh, I’m going to release a whirlwind and pay the price. Were these not literal threats to the rule of law either?
As I recall, one of the signatories, a tribal professor, urged President Biden to renew his eviction moratorium, even after the Supreme Court clearly stated it was illegal. Was this a violation of the rule of law?
Another signatories for the Harvard Letter is Richard Fallon. I think Fallon’s participation in this letter is particularly impressive in light of his importance. work Regarding the issue of Scholar Amicus briefs. Over a decade ago, Fallon wrote, “Many professors compromise their integrity by taking part in such briefs too clutteredly.” He urged “the standard that the professor should argue before signing Amicus briefs that he has not written.” That was Fallon.
in December 2016I discussed the relationship between scholar Amicus Brief and scholar letters.
Fallon’s criticism of the scholar’s briefs equals that of the scholar’s letters. Here, the 1,100 professors who signed the letter had no role in drafting it. Take it or leave it as is. As long as they all agree with every sentence in the letter, the statement must be very rejected, and it hasn’t added a bit of what the New York Times editorial page already says. Imagine an actual law school workshop attended by over 1,000 professors. Law professors will not add their name to unwritten legal review articles. Why are scholars’ letters different?
The more things change, the more they remain the same.
