Antonin Scalia, Law Schools, SCOTUS, Supreme Court

Controversy Erupts At A T14 Law School Over How (Or Even Whether) To Mourn Justice Scalia

Who's in the right here, the two law professors or the dean?

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GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY LAW CENTER — PRESS RELEASE REGARDING JUSTICE SCALIA

February 13, 2016 — Georgetown Law mourns the loss of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia (C’57), who died in Texas at the age of 79. “Scalia was a giant in the history of the law, a brilliant jurist whose opinions and scholarship profoundly transformed the law,” said Dean William M. Treanor in a statement.

“Like countless academics, I learned a great deal from his opinions and his scholarship. In the history of the Court, few Justices have had such influence on the way in which the law is understood. On a personal level, I am deeply grateful for his remarkably generous involvement with our community, including his frequent appearances in classes and his memorable lecture to our first year students this past November.”

Justice Scalia most recently visited the Law Center on November 16, when he delivered a 20-minute talk on education to the first-year class. His talk was followed by more than 30 minutes of responses to written student questions. How much influence do Scalia’s law clerks have on his opinions? “More than my colleagues,” the justice replied, to great laughter.

“The justice offered first-year students his insights and guidance, and he stayed with the students long after the lecture was over,” Treanor said. “He cared passionately about the profession, about the law and about the future, and the students who were fortunate enough to hear him will never forget the experience. We will all miss him.”

See some of Justice Scalia’s visits to Georgetown Law over the years here. Read more from Georgetown University here.

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY LAW CENTER — RESPONSES TO DEAN TREANOR’S PRESS RELEASE REGARDING JUSTICE SCALIA

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From: Campus Broadcast
Date: February 16, 2016 at 3:26:54 PM EST
To: Campus Broadcast
Subject: Responses to Dean Treanor’s Press Release Regarding Justice Scalia
Reply-To: Gary Peller

Dear Students:

After Dean Treanor issued a press release announcing that our community mourns the loss of Justice Scalia and praising him, Mike Seidman and I sent responses that are reproduced below. I’ve changed mine to be addressed to our entire community. I’m sending them to you now because I don’t think you should be excluded from this conversation, but faculty are not permitted to communicate directly with the student body without prior authorization.

Gary Peller
_________________________________________

Mike Seidman to Dean Treanor and faculty:

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Our norms of civility preclude criticizing public figures immediately after their death. For now, then, all I’ll say is that I disagree with these sentiments and that expressions attributed to the “Georgetown Community” in the press release issued this evening do not reflect the views of the entire community.

Gary Peller, originally to Dean Treanor and faculty:

Dean Treanor, Staff, Students, and Colleagues:

Like Mike Seidman, I also was put-off by the invocation of the “Georgetown Community” in the press release that Dean Treanor issued Saturday. I imagine many other faculty, students and staff, particularly people of color, women and sexual minorities, cringed at headline and at the unmitigated praise with which the press release described a jurist that many of us believe was a defender of privilege, oppression and bigotry, one whose intellectual positions were not brilliant but simplistic and formalistic.

I am not suggesting that J. Scalia should have been criticized on the day of his death, nor that the “community” should not be thankful for his willingness to meet with our students. But he was not a legal figure to be lionized or emulated by our students. He bullied lawyers, trafficked in personal humiliation of advocates, and openly sided with the party of intolerance in the “culture wars” he often invoked. In my mind, he was not a “giant” in any good sense.

It is tricky knowing what to say when a public figure like Scalia, or the late Robert Byrd, or other voices of intolerance, meet their death. But as an academic institution, I believe that we should be wary of contributing to the mystification of people because of the lofty official positions they achieved. I don’t want to teach our students to hold someone like Scalia in reverence because he’s a “Supreme Court Justice.” Our proximity to official Washington provides an opportunity to see many public officials close-up, and to learn that there is nothing special that titles bestow–even a Supreme Court Justice can be a bigot, and there is no reason to be intimidated by the purported “brilliance” that others describe because, when you have a chance to see and hear such people close-up, the empowering effect is often, as it should be, de-mystification. (I was happy to meet Warren Burger as a law student for this very reason). We should never teach our students to be obsequious to those with power.

The “Georgetown Community” could mean many things. In one sense, it is simply a legally constituted set of formal relations, and in that sense perhaps “the Dean,” duly appointed by “the President,” speaks for that “institution” of formal legal relations.

But there is also a lived community that we inhabit, within the interstices of the formal and contractually defined roles, a community that exists in our relations with each other and with our co-workers and our students, a community that is constituted in our hallways and class rooms and lunch rooms, and in our affection for and commitment to one another, and, for many of us, a vision of how we could all be together in the law school, disagreeing often but always trying to be sensitive and empathic to all members of our community.

That is the “Georgetown Community” that I feel a part of, a lived community of tolerance, affection, and care that so many have built for so long here. That “community” would never have claimed that our entire community mourns the loss of J. Scalia, nor contributed to his mystification without regard for the harm and hurt he inflicted. That community teaches critique, not deference, and empowerment, not obseqiuosness.

Sometimes the two senses of community might merge–the formal, legal institution might be so at one with the lived community that its legitimacy to speak for the “community” flows organically. But that is not our situation.

Sincerely,
Gary

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY LAW CENTER — STATEMENT BY DEAN TREANOR REGARDING JUSTICE SCALIA

From: Dean William M. Treanor
Date: Wed, Feb 17, 2016 at 3:59 PM
Subject: Justice Scalia
To: All Students , All Faculty and Staff

To the Members of the Georgetown Law Community,

I was personally saddened by Justice Scalia’s death Saturday. He was one of the most important legal figures of our time, and he cared deeply about the law and the Court. As a legal scholar, even though I often disagreed with them, I consistently learned a great deal from his intellectually powerful opinions and scholarship. As a member of this community, I was grateful to him for his remarkable generosity to us. Over the years, he was a frequent guest in our classrooms and in our lecture halls. I will never forget how, after he spoke to our first year class in November, while we had expected him to leave immediately, he stayed in the Health and Fitness lobby long after the talk was over to speak with students and engage with them on any topic they wanted to discuss. His presence here on so many occasions reflected a striking commitment to the next generation of lawyers. I know how many members of this community are experiencing a very personal sadness at this time because they knew him, appeared before him as advocates, worked with him. My heart goes out to his family and countless friends at this time of loss.

I issued a statement on Saturday saying that the law school community mourned the Justice’s death. As you may know, some faculty have disagreed with my statement. I am writing now to reaffirm my belief that this a time for us to mourn. Justice Scalia was an individual who provoked strong and divergent views; the debate about his legacy is long-standing, and it will continue for many years. But this moment is a moment of grief. It is a time of loss and a time when many in our community are in pain. It is a time for mourning.

I would like to express again my sadness at the Justice’s passing and to extend my condolences to his family and friends.

Sincerely,

Bill Treanor

Georgetown Professor Complains After School Shows Respect For Antonin Scalia [Daily Caller]
Rabbi Michael Lerner and Gary Peller on the Death of Antonin Scalia [pissed off and passionate]
Georgetown Law Mourns the Loss of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia [Georgetown University Law Center]

Earlier: Old Lady Lawyer: What Justice Scalia’s Death Tells Us About Civility
Supreme Court Justices Remember Antonin Scalia
Justice Scalia And Me: A Love Story
Who Will Obama Nominate To Replace Scalia — A Gambler’s Guide
In Death, Scalia Will Become More Powerful Than Ever
Justice Antonin Scalia Reported Dead Of Natural Causes In West Texas

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