Judge Amul Thapar: Hire More Originalist Law Professors!Michael Ramsey

October 28, 2024

From Nate Raymond at Reuters: Conservative US judge pushes yanking law school funding until 'originalism' taught. From the report:

U.S. Circuit Judge Amul Thapar, an appointee of Republican former President Donald Trump on the Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, lambasted the lack of conservative legal thinking in law schools during a speech late Wednesday in Washington hosted by the Heritage Foundation.

…

Thapar, who had been on Trump's short-list for possible U.S. Supreme Court nominees [Ed.: and I bet he's still on the short list, a pretty high up on it now], and recently authored an admiring book about conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, argued law schools are doing their students a disservice by "failing to teach the prevailing method of constitutional interpretation."

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He said too often schools are teaching students "postmodern philosophy, critical theory and the need to abolish the carceral state," and that professors "focus too little on understanding cases on their own terms and too much on what political considerations are supposedly motivating a court's opinion."

He said the lack of practical teaching law students receive about how to argue cases before judges like himself who embrace originalism are doing a disservice to overworked trial court judges who would hire them as clerks and to future clients who may hire them as lawyers.

He said donors should reconsider their support to law schools "unless institutions show genuine commitment to intellectual diversity," including by hiring more scholars who teach originalist theory.

Thapar said to the extent law schools receive government funding, taxpayers should themselves demand change to ensure law professors are not "pursuing their own political agendas" but "producing something of practical value."

(Via How Appealing.)

Josh Blackman at Volokh Conspiracy adds:

On Wednesday, I was honored to hear Judge Amul Thapar deliver the Story Lecture at the Heritage Foundation. The theme of his lecture is that originalists courts need originalist classrooms. I couldn't agree more. At most law schools, originalism is taught, if at all, as something of a strawman. Professors will introduce it, briefly, and then spend the bulk of time explaining why the doctrine is incoherent. I can count on two hands the number of originalist constitutional law professors in the United States. Law schools are derelict in not hiring more of these scholars. Even if faculties reject originalism, they must recognize that courts are receptive of these arguments, and students need to be trained on originalism.

Agreed, and I would add: I think there's actually a fair amount of teaching about the merits of originalism as a mode of interpretation, either in Constitutional Law courses or in seminars. Of course a lot of this is not sympathetic to originalism because the professors aren't sympathetic to originalism. But students can draw their own conclusions. What's especially lacking, as Judge Thapar recognizes in his emphasis on practical teaching, is teaching about the methodology of originalism — that is, how to make originalist arguments. Once students become lawyers, it doesn't really matter to them whether originalism is the right approach to constitutional interpretation. What matters is how to make arguments to judges like Judge Thapar who do think originalism is the right approach to constitutional interpretation. I doubt much is done to develop this skill in most law schools.

Posted at 6:08 AM