Comments on: Rightward drift at Harvard Law?

By: Stuart Buck

Stuart Buck — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 22:25:43 +0000

I don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised if Allen Ferrell happened to be at least moderately conservative. He clerked for Silberman and Kennedy. Silberman had the occasional liberal clerk, but I think most of his clerks leaned conservative.

By: malicious outter

malicious outter — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 16:17:34 +0000

I believe that Robert Daines at Stanford is a conservative.

By: Adam

Adam — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 01:56:17 +0000

Cole isn’t just a dean candidate “somewhere;” he’s up for the job at USC.

By: WAL

WAL — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 01:32:37 +0000

“off the top of my had.”

typo, that should be “head”

By: WAL

WAL — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 01:30:53 +0000

“NYU (which I believe has zero conservatives or libertarians)”

I won’t deny it’s leftist school–and, as far as overall atmosphere, one of, if not **the**, most liberal of the top ones.

But we actually do have some right-leaning profs. John Slain, William Allen [kind of closeted, but from what I've seen/read of the guy it would surprise me if he's a liberal], Geoffrey Miller, and maybe Estreicher off the top of my had.

By: humblelawstudent

humblelawstudent — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 00:22:24 +0000

Oops, I realized my use of “CLS” was confusing. I meant Critical Legal Studies, not Columbia law school.

By: humblelawstudent

humblelawstudent — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 00:20:18 +0000

HLS isn’t losing its “whipping boy” status because conservative/Republican percentage goes from ~1% to 10%.

Lol, and seriously, it’s hardly a point in your favor that the complaint is “dated” because now there is more than one publicly-declared or identifiable Republican. God forbid that HLS and SLS ever have faculty more diverse than CLS and Marxist schools of thought (sarcasm).

By: Anon Fed Soc Prof

Anon Fed Soc Prof — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 03:37:54 +0000

Clearly the Harvard faculty is less unbalanced than it was a few years ago. It is also less unbalanced than Stanford (1 libertarian, zero conservatives), or NYU (which I believe has zero conservatives or libertarians).

By: Steve

Steve — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 03:09:24 +0000

Relax Kaimi, I wasn’t attacking your claim. Just making an observation in general. I agree that the shift maybe notable — but there’s a long way to go before it reaches any form of balance (you didn’t use that word either — I’m just saying…)

By: Kaimi

Kaimi — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 02:38:01 +0000

Steve writes:

“In all fairness, there are what, 88 full-time faculty at HLS — and maybe 8 republicans? That’s hardly representative or diverse. Funny how diversity means different things to different people.”

Funny how I didn’t use either of those words (representative or diverse) in my post, did I? You’re the first one here to use either term, and you’re attacking a claim that I haven’t made.

I make no claim that the overall HLS faculty is or is not politically diverse; I do think that the apparent shift (from one identifiable Republican up to five, over a six year period) may be notable.

By: Steve

Steve — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 02:15:28 +0000

In all fairness, there are what, 88 full-time faculty at HLS — and maybe 8 republicans? That’s hardly representative or diverse. Funny how diversity means different things to different people.

By: David Bernstein

David Bernstein — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 02:00:31 +0000

Horowitz could substitute Stanford, which on the entire faculty has Marcus Cole, and I think that’s it (and I saw he was a finalist for a deanship somewhere), or Yale, which has hired only one known Federalist (Jonathan Macey) in the past 15 years. BTW, I don’t know if he’s a “Republican” but Elhauge is pretty clearly not liberal. Kudos to Harvard for being open-minded in its hiring.