Saul Cornell on Law Reviews in McDonald: “The notion of scholarly authority has almost no meaning any more.”

June 29th, 2010

At SCOTUSBlog, Saul Cornell has some choice words for Justice Alito’s scholarship, and in particular his reliance on law review articles.

Rather than command intellectual respect the majority opinion provoked derision.  Sadly, Justice Breyer’s contempt was well earned.  The quality of scholarship cited by Alito,  much of it published in minor law reviews and much of it produced by gun rights activists with the express purpose of influencing  the Court is nothing short of intellectually embarrassing. With over a thousand law reviews in existence, and many law reviews going on-line as well, the entire nature of legal scholarship now appears totally debased.  Law review publication, most of it lacking any meaningful  peer review or comparable quality control, has proliferated to the point where activists simply seed the law reviews with the express purpose of bolstering specious arguments. The notion  that courts ought to wait for a true consensus to appear before turning to law reviews has been replaced by a notion that all publications are created equal.  The notion of scholarly authority has almost no meaning any more.

Ouch.

While I am not sure which citations Cornell is talking about, a quick search of Alito’s opinions shows citations from:

  • Pepperdine Law Review
  • Tulane Law Review
  • Chicago Law Review
  • Ohio State Law Journal
  • Stanford Law Review
  • Whittier Law Review
  • Yale Law Journal,
  • George Mason Law Review (on which I was an Articles Editor)
  • Northwestern Law Review
  • Texas Law Review
  • Notre Dame Law Review
  • Harvard Law Review
  • B.Y.U. Law Review
  • Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy
  • Journal of Law & Religion

Stevens’s opinion cites:

  • Chicago Law Review
  • Northwestern Law Review
  • Emory Law Journal
  • American Journal of Legal History
  • Harvard law Review
  • Miami Law Review
  • George Mason Civil Rights Law Journal
  • U.C. Davis Law Review
  • UCLA Law Review
  • Texas Law Review
  • San Diego Law Review
  • Columbia Law Review
  • Albany Government Law Review
  • Fordham Law Review
  • Michigan Law Review
  • Constitutional Commentary
  • University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law

Breyer’s opinion cites these law review articles:

  • UCLA Law Review
  • Syracuse Law Review
  • Lewis & Clark Law Review
  • Northwestern Law Review
  • Chicago Kent Law Review
  • Harvard Law Review
  • Michigan Law Review
  • Virginia Law Review
  • Yale Law Journal
  • Constitutional Commentary
  • Law & History Review
  • Texas Review of Law & Policy
  • Stanford Law & Policy Review
  • I’m not sure which of these Cornell considers “minor law reviews” and which are “major law reviews.” (I may have missed some journals as I only went through the opinions quickly).
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