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Why Elite Law Schools Always Cave to Whatever Federalist Society Judges Want
B&SThe Federalist Society will keep punking elite law schools until those law schools stop falling back in fear and cowardice.
That’s not legal analysis or political analysis. That is street analysis. That’s schoolyard analysis. Anybody who has dealt with a bully before should understand how the Federalist Society operates. They will continue to stuff law school deans in their own lockers until one of them learns karate from a World War II veteran and (metaphorically) crane kicks one of these jerks in the face.
But the latest FedSoc stunt shows we are far away from the world where law schools are willing to do so. As you may have heard, federal appeals court judge Kyle Duncan went to Stanford Law School last week, and was greeted by a hostile crowd. Duncan is a homophobe who has been on crusade against transgender children since before he was elevated to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals by President Donald Trump in 2018. As a lawyer, he’s argued against same-sex marriage at the Supreme Court and defended the North Carolina anti-trans bathroom bill. As a judge, he cruelly refused to let a transgender woman change her name and pronouns for official purposes. He should be greeted by a tough crowd anywhere he goes outside of a Hobby Lobby or Chick-fil-A store.
That’s not legal analysis or political analysis. That is street analysis. That’s schoolyard analysis. Anybody who has dealt with a bully before should understand how the Federalist Society operates. They will continue to stuff law school deans in their own lockers until one of them learns karate from a World War II veteran and (metaphorically) crane kicks one of these jerks in the face.
But the latest FedSoc stunt shows we are far away from the world where law schools are willing to do so. As you may have heard, federal appeals court judge Kyle Duncan went to Stanford Law School last week, and was greeted by a hostile crowd. Duncan is a homophobe who has been on crusade against transgender children since before he was elevated to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals by President Donald Trump in 2018. As a lawyer, he’s argued against same-sex marriage at the Supreme Court and defended the North Carolina anti-trans bathroom bill. As a judge, he cruelly refused to let a transgender woman change her name and pronouns for official purposes. He should be greeted by a tough crowd anywhere he goes outside of a Hobby Lobby or Chick-fil-A store.
The people running our most cherished institutions—a law school, a newspaper, a Department of Justice—will never be the ones willing to fight the conservative forces now threatening to topple democratic self-government and roll back the human rights progress of the last century. They have too much to lose. It’s people like the students at Stanford, and people in other law school and non-law school settings who are unwilling to tolerate ascending cryptofacism, who are going to have to take on this work. And the people willing to fight will have to do it over the objection of institutionalists, telling them to be calm, quiet, and respectful of those who would take everything from them.
It’s better, perhaps, that law students learn this lesson now. Because the generation of lawyers we need to fight these people are not those who will remain silent and do what the authority figures tell them to do. We need people who will use their knowledge not to uphold corrupt systems, but to destroy them and build better, fairer, safer, more equitable ones in their place. We don’t need more lawyers. We need more saboteurs.
It’s better, perhaps, that law students learn this lesson now. Because the generation of lawyers we need to fight these people are not those who will remain silent and do what the authority figures tell them to do. We need people who will use their knowledge not to uphold corrupt systems, but to destroy them and build better, fairer, safer, more equitable ones in their place. We don’t need more lawyers. We need more saboteurs.
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