Kathianne
02-17-2008, 12:11 AM
Personally I think this should be a required college course, but this is better than nothing:
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2008/02/019803.php
February 15, 2008
Oasis
We devote a fair amount of attention to reporting on depressing developments at college campuses, especially those with which we have connections and/or personal familiarity. Examples include the Stanford law faculty trying to discourage students from interviewing with military recruiters; the administration at William & Mary removing a cross from a college chapel; and the various power plays of the Dartmouth administration and trustees designed in part to allow the college to continue unchecked its leftward drift.
It's a real pleasure, then, to report that George Mason Law School, under the leadership of its dean, Dan Polsby, will require first-year law students to take a course titled The Founders’ Constitution. This course “will require students to read a large number of important original legal sources familiar to the founding generation, ranging from Magna Carta and the English Bill of Rights to the Federalist (and Anti-Federalist) Papers, along with constitutional debates at the Philadelphia Convention and in the First Congress.” As Ed Whelan notes, while "those who have not suffered the detriment of a modern legal education" might assume that courses in constitutional law require students to immerse themselves in study of the founding materials, this is not the case. Rather, "so-called constitutional law has come to be thought to be synonymous with the last few decades of Supreme Court decisionmaking."
But Dean Polsby explains: “Judges come and go, along with elected officials, but the Constitution endures. It is essential that future lawyers have a fundamental understanding of this central governing document.” Or, as one George Mason faculty member told me: “We just thought that law students should study the Constitution before they study [Justice] Brennan.”
UPDATE: I should have added that the faculty for The Founders' Constitution includes the brilliant Jeremy Rabkin. Professor Rabkin joined the George Mason law faculty last year after 27 years at Cornell where he established himself as, among other things, a leading authority on international law and a powerful voice for national sovereignty. The study of our written constitution and its origins probably bears some relationship to the case for preserving our sovereignty.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2008/02/019803.php
February 15, 2008
Oasis
We devote a fair amount of attention to reporting on depressing developments at college campuses, especially those with which we have connections and/or personal familiarity. Examples include the Stanford law faculty trying to discourage students from interviewing with military recruiters; the administration at William & Mary removing a cross from a college chapel; and the various power plays of the Dartmouth administration and trustees designed in part to allow the college to continue unchecked its leftward drift.
It's a real pleasure, then, to report that George Mason Law School, under the leadership of its dean, Dan Polsby, will require first-year law students to take a course titled The Founders’ Constitution. This course “will require students to read a large number of important original legal sources familiar to the founding generation, ranging from Magna Carta and the English Bill of Rights to the Federalist (and Anti-Federalist) Papers, along with constitutional debates at the Philadelphia Convention and in the First Congress.” As Ed Whelan notes, while "those who have not suffered the detriment of a modern legal education" might assume that courses in constitutional law require students to immerse themselves in study of the founding materials, this is not the case. Rather, "so-called constitutional law has come to be thought to be synonymous with the last few decades of Supreme Court decisionmaking."
But Dean Polsby explains: “Judges come and go, along with elected officials, but the Constitution endures. It is essential that future lawyers have a fundamental understanding of this central governing document.” Or, as one George Mason faculty member told me: “We just thought that law students should study the Constitution before they study [Justice] Brennan.”
UPDATE: I should have added that the faculty for The Founders' Constitution includes the brilliant Jeremy Rabkin. Professor Rabkin joined the George Mason law faculty last year after 27 years at Cornell where he established himself as, among other things, a leading authority on international law and a powerful voice for national sovereignty. The study of our written constitution and its origins probably bears some relationship to the case for preserving our sovereignty.