Remembering Professor Bork

Published reports of the death of Robert Bork on December 19 not surprisingly dwelled on the most controversial events in his long life in the law.  As Solicitor General under President Nixon, Bork in 1975 carried out orders to fire the Watergate special prosecutor.  In 1987, Bork was nominated for the Supreme Court by President Reagan but then rejected by the Senate.  During the 1990s and 2000s, Bork, while employed by conservative think tanks, vigorously argued that elitist liberals were trying to take over the judiciary.

For my own part, I recall Robert Bork from my first year of law school and from the time before he became a prominent national figure.  It seems hard to believe, but I actually had Professor Bork for Constitutional Law.  I also had Professor Bork for Legal Research and Writing because the Yale Law School in those distant days folded each student’s instruction in legal research and writing into an arbitrarily selected substantive first-year course.

I have no evidence that Professor Bork ever read the assorted memoranda and briefs I wrote “under his tutelage,” but I certainly recall his approach to Constitutional Law. 

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“Lincoln” and the Law

Reviewers of Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln” have rightfully praised the film for its faithfulness to history and for the fine acting of Daniel Day Lewis, Sally Field, and Tommy Lee Jones, among others. As a “lifer” in legal academics, I was intrigued by the film’s engagement with law, lawmaking, and law-related ideology.

The most important “law” in the film is the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution, and the film accurately suggests that the Amendment’s ratification in 1865 was more important in formally ending slavery than was the more famous Emancipation Proclamation. The latter, issued by President Lincoln in 1863, served only to free slaves in the ten Confederate states warring against the Union. Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation chiefly as a war measure and hoped it would prompt slaves to take up arms against slave owners.  

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R.I.P. Eugene D. Genovese

The death of distinguished historian Eugene D. Genovese on September 26 led me to reflect on both his scholarly accomplishments and his intellectual and political thought.  No book inspired me more as a graduate student than Genovese’s Roll, Jordan, Roll (1975), but Genovese’s sharp turn to the right in his later years was troubling indeed.

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