Scalia Says U of C Law School Has Lost its Conservative Edge
Updated: The University of Chicago Law School has changed since Justice Antonin Scalia used to teach there, and he is not happy about it.
Responding to a question at a Federalist Society event in Chicago, Scalia said the school is no longer the conservative bastion it once was, the Chicago Sun-Times reports.
“I don’t think the University of Chicago is what it was in my time,” he said. “I would not recommend it to students looking for a law school as I would have years ago. It has changed considerably and intentionally. It has lost the niche it once had as a rigorous and conservative law school.”
Scalia also decried the spread of esoteric law courses. “I took nothing but bread-and-butter classes, not ‘Law and Poverty’ ” or other made-up stuff, Scalia said. He had this advice for law students: “Take serious classes. There’s so much law to learn. Don’t waste your time.”
Two professors who teach a law and poverty seminar at U of C took exception to Scalia’s remarks in a letter to the editor published in the Sun-Times. “We are dismayed that one of the smartest, most powerful and most influential jurists in the country does not consider poverty law a serious or worthwhile subject,” wrote Lawrence Wood and Richard Wheelock.
They defended the “vitally important work” of lawyers who help the more than 12 percent of the population who live in poverty. Even lawyers who do not work full-time in the field can help this population through pro bono work, they said.
Updated on Sept. 19 to include the letter to the editor.
