Unraveled will be published on September 27 (although Amazon will ship on September 23). I will be participating a series of book events that week in Washington, D.C., New Jersey, and New York. If you can’t make it, you can request a free autographed book plate.
First, on 9/27 at 6:00 p.m. the Georgetown University Federalist Society Chapter will host a panel discussion on “Supreme Court Advocacy in the Obamacare Cases.” Rather than focusing on the merits of the King v. Burwell and Hobby Lobby/Zubik, we will bring together the lawyers who litigated the cases to provide an inside perspective on the advocacy. Mike Carvin (Jones Day) will relate his experiences from King/Halbig, and Erin Murphy (Bancroft/Kirkland) will discuss the contraceptive mandate cases. Marty Lederman will articulate the Solicitor General’s perspective on theses cases. Adam Liptak of the New York Times will moderate. The event is open to the public, and you can RSVP on their Facebook page.
Second, on 9/28 at 12:00 p.m., the Cato Institute will host a book forum for Unraveled. I will be joined by my partner-in-crime, Ilya Shapiro, Robert Barnes (Washington Post), and Phillip A. Klein of the Washington Examiner. The event is free, but please register in advance.
Third, at 9/28 at 7:00 p.m. (after a quick ride on the Northeast Corridor), I will be speaking to the New Jersey Federalist Society Chapter in Morristown. You can register here.
Fourth, on 9/29 at 12:00 p.m., I will be speaking to the Columbia Federalist Society Chapter. The event is open to the public in Room 102A.
Fifth, on 9/29 at 4:00 p.m., I will be speaking to the NYU Federalist Society Chapter. The event is open to the public in Furman Hall, Room 214.
On September 7, the Texas A&M Federalist Society Chapter hosted me for a discussion on 3D-Printed Guns. My thanks to Professor Glynn S. Lunney for providing some thought-provoking comments.
On Tuesday, September 6, the SMU Federalist Society hosted an enriching debate on “Intellectual Diversity in Legal Academia.” Or, to borrow from the marketing flyers, “Searching for Unicorns.” Joining me where David DePianto and John Browning, who both teach at SMU. I encourage you to watch the video, which runs over an hour. During the last 20 minutes, a number of faculty members, as well as students posed questions. The audio didn’t pick up the questions, which is a shame, because they raised some important issues. I will try (to the best of my recollection) to discuss their questions, and summarize my answers.
First, one professor raised the point that when reviewing resumes, he was never able to even discern an applicant’s personal views. For most resumes, this is emphatically true. Ideology (and I use that term in the loosest sense) will generally only come through when writing about public law, such as constitutional law, international law, administrative law, etc. It is no surprise then that conservative academics deliberately choose areas of the law–tax, secured transactions, corporate law, etc.–where politics really don’t matter. When I was first considering going on the market, a number of people (whose names you would recognize) implored me to focus on intellectual property because of my technical background. They told me focusing on constitutional law would be career infanticide. They were right, but I did it anyway.
Second, another professor asked what the “critical mass” of conservative law professors would be. I had to chuckle, and note that was the same question Chief Justice Roberts posed to the lawyers for U.T. Austin in Fisher. The attorney was unable to provide an answer to the Chief. My response to the Professor was that we are far from even discussing a critical mass–the professoriate denies there is even a problem! The numbers show that (at best) 80% of a faculty is left-of-center, as measured by any conceivable metric, including party registration or political donations. If any campus was 80% white, there would not for a moment be a discussion of whether we need a critical mass, or otherwise, to take action to redress the problem. Now to be clear, I am not calling for some sort of conservative affirmative action. I would find it demeaning and insulting if I was hired as a token conservative. But under any valid disparate impact analysis, the demographics suggest something is awry.
Third–and this gets to the heart of the matter–another professor suggested that the reason why there are fewer conservative professors hired is that there are fewer conservatives in the “pipeline.” That is, there are not that many Reaganites inhabiting the political science departments at ivy league universities. As a result, there are simply fewer conservatives applying, so fewer get hired. Empirically, that is certainly true. Conservatives will (on average) lack the credentials (a doctorate from Berkeley in critical racial economics) that could help with hiring.
Fourth, another professor took the pipeline notion further, but in a direction that is revealing. He relayed a story from a conference he attended where a famous scholar said (paraphrasing) “the reason why conservatives don’t get hired is because their ideas are just stupid.” I’ve now debated this topic a number of times, and invariably the topic of global is raised: Why would a climate science department hire someone who denies the existence of climate change, the argument goes. The professors would be demanding “some artificial notion of equal time” where someone thinks the earth is round must be matched with someone who thinks the earth is flat. Climate science–an area I have no expertise in–can be reduced to formulas. Law–premised on subjective value judgments–cannot. Whenever I debate this topic, someone invariably brings up climate science, and it doesn’t fit. I offer a few alternatives: writing about originalism, an individual notion of the Second Amendment, or that Congress lacks the power to compel commercial transactions (before 2012), etc. Are these propositions so beyond the pale that they are “stupid.” I suspect many scholars would answer that yes, they are.
Fifth, another professor suggested (paraphrasing, because the audio is garbled) “If you attach yourself to a party that doesn’t believe in our best version of facts (referring again to global warming) that is not discrimination, that is something.” It is unfortunate to tar a scholar based on guilty by association: because he gave money to John McCain or Mitt Romney over Barack Obama, he represents the worst of Republican politics. Or, to paraphrase Hillary Clinton, he is in the “basket of deplorables.” Politics is complicated. People vote for a series of complex reasons, and often pick the least-worst option. (This election perhaps more than any other proves this point). It is downright prejudicial to reject a person’s scholarship because of who he votes for. Fortunately, the ballot box is still secret, but job service is not.
Sixth, a student asked why would schools hire professors out of the mainstream, in a way that could injure their “brand.” I was absolutely gobsmacked by her ignorance about the importance of the university to foster dissent and ideas outside the mainstream. But I really shouldn’t blame the student. I doubt this tenet of academic freedom was ever articulated to her. Rather, she was probably taught at every juncture to avoid saying or doing anything that would upset others–that includes writing and thinking about unorthodox ideas. The framing of her question, which danced around the issue, was even more ignorant. She suggested that hiring conservative professors would hurt the school’s “brand.” To the contrary, many donors are withholding their checks because of the hostile environment brewing on college campuses. But that doesn’t resolve the issue–universities should promote the pursuit of ideas, in spite of their unpopularity. After reflecting on the question, a few hours later (always too late) I came up with this response: Would you have hired a scholar in 1972 who wrote that the 14th Amendment protected a right of same-sex marriage. The year before, the Supreme Court dismissed Baker v. Nelson for “want of a substantial federal question.” At a time when homosexuality was considered a mental illness, it certainly could have hurt a school’s “brand” to hire such a scholar, writing material entirely out of the “mainstream.” Four decades later, that position is now the law of the land. I’ll be sure to use this example the next time I debate this topic.
On the whole, it was a very enriching experience for the students in attendance, and for me.
On Thursday night, talk radio host Mike Siegel hosted me for the full hour to talk about Unraveled: Obamacare, and Religious Liberty. He also asked me about executive overreach by the Obama administration.
It was refreshing to have so much time to develop these themes, as most media soundbites give you (at best) 15 seconds to spit out an answer. Enjoy.
Every generation has a defining moment. For my generation, it was 9/11/2001.
Here are my memories of 9/11/2001. It was a Tuesday.
I was a Senior at Staten Island Technical High School, which is about 20 miles from ground zero. We were about 1 week into the school year. I was sitting in Ms. Endriss’s 2nd Period A.P. Political Science class. We were going over some NYC Public School discipline policy, and discussing what kinds of weapons were forbidden in schools (brass knuckles were a no-no). A student walked into the classroom late. He had heard a rumor that a Cessna airplane had hit the World Trade Center. A girl in my class exclaimed that her father worked in the World Trade Center. I could see the look of fear in her eyes, even though none of us had any clue what was going on. She wanted to call her dad. I was the only student in the class with a cell phone, which I promptly gave her. The call did not go through–he worked on one of the upper floors of the tower, and passed away.
We finished second period, apprehensively. I logged onto a computer, and attempted to check the news. I recall one friend told me to check MTV.com for news. At that point, the reports were unclear, and no one knew what was going on. We proceeded to 3rd period A.P. Calculus with Mr. Curry. At that point, someone told us that it was not a Cessna, but in fact a passenger jet. We were all getting nervous, and didn’t quite know what was going on. Later in class, a student came into the class and said a second plane had crashed into the other tower. We also heard that there was an explosion at the Pentagon. At that point, we knew it was not an accident.
I remember leaving the class (something I never did) and walked up to the library where I knew there was a T.V. Just as I arrived in the library, I saw the first tower collapse. I watched it live. I was stunned and could not believe what was happening before my eyes. I grabbed my cellphone to call home, and almost immediately after the tower collapsed, I lost all service. I was not able to call my mom in Staten Island, though I could call my dad who was working in Long Island. Long distance calls seemed to work, but local calls were not working. I remember my dad told me that this was a life-changing event, and he had no idea what would happen. I heard some rumors on TV that there were 15 planes that were hijacked, and unaccounted for in the skies.
By lunch time, the school guidance counselor set up a conference room where students could go to talk. I remember seeing student after student who had a family member or friend who worked in the World Trade Center or in Manhattan. A large number of firefighters and police officers reside in Staten Island. Tragically, many of the emergency responders who perished were from Staten Island. What could we even tell those students?
After that, the day become a blur. I remember hearing that the second tower had collapsed, though I did not see it. I remember watching the entire United States Congress sing God Bless America on the steps of the Capitol. I had never been so afraid in my life. Later that night, I took a bus home. The New York City public buses were still running, and I remember the driver was not collecting fares. On the bus, people were talking about the imminent war (against whom, no one knew) and the imminent draft. Some were saying that students were exempt from the draft.
The next morning, September 12, 2001, I woke up and smelled this horrible smell. The air had this pungent odor, that reminded me of burned flesh at a BBQ. I went to school that morning, and attendance was low. In all of my classes, we were talking about war. I asked whether the US would need to use nuclear weapons. My teacher explained that carpet bombing–a phrase I had never heard of–could wreak plenty of damage in Afghanistan. Later that week students began making sandwiches for the relief workers, and collecting goods to donate to the relief effort.
From Staten Island, I could see the smoldering Ground Zero. It was surreal. The skyline looked so very empty. To this day, whenever I look at the Skyline, a sight I had seen thousands of times, I have the most bizarre feeling. Additionally, whenever we saw an airplane fly overhead, we all freaked out. This lasted for months.
For days, weeks, and months after 9/11, people in Staten Island were waiting for their loved ones to come home. Many patients were alive, but were so badly burned that they could not be identified. People prayed that these unnamed patients would soon come home. One woman whose husband was a firefighter waited outside her home every single night for months. She eventually put a candle in her window every night. Later, she put a memorial lamp in her window. He never came home. Others were simply waiting for remains of their loved ones to be returned. Many were never identified.
I ordered a gas mask from eBay, which I kept in my car, fearing a biological weapon attack on New York City. I remember I tried it on once and I almost suffocated. It is actually still in my trunk, 4 cars later [Update: In July of 2012, I finally traded in the Galt Mobile. I now have a 2012 Ford Escape. And I got rid of the gas mask]. I wanted to order some Cipro for an anthrax attack, but I could not locate any.
It is hard to encapsulate what a New Yorker went through on 9/11. Thinking back on that day, when I was just 17 years old, I realized that I had to grow up awfully quick. It was a new world we were living in.
