Toward a Modality of Jurisprudence

The beginning of this month marked the 45th anniversary of Thurgood Marshall’s term as Associate Justice in the United States Supreme Court. Known for his championing of individual rights while on the bench and for, previously, successfully arguing against school segregation for the NAACP in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), Marshall was a trailblazer who spoke up for those who did not have a voice. His status as the first African American Supreme Court Justice represents the forging of a path for which there was no antecedent. Pushing off to smite the sounding furrows, into the tumult of a civilization brimming with intolerance is not unlike casting headlong into a polluted river.

In my posts this month I have tried to showcase guideposts in approaching jurisprudence. I submit that the perpetuation of injustice represents a failure of the imagination, the inability to conceive of a better option, a different path, a truer argument or equitable solution. The history of the law is the story of our strivings to envision and enact a more fair and just world. Pruning our minds toward this task takes practice and attention. We benefit from the example of individuals like Justice Thurgood Marshall.

Continue ReadingToward a Modality of Jurisprudence

My Father’s Recommendations

When I was an undergrad in the UW Milwaukee film program my father recommended I see four movies. He hoped they would encourage me to pursue a career in law, which I was generally opposed to, not really knowing any lawyers well and aware that just about everyone hates lawyers. I think he wanted me to see that attorneys can, at times, play a role in society more useful than that of the punch line to a joke.

Similar to Hemingway’s list of books that he “would rather read again for the first time . . . than have an assured income of a million dollars a year,” these titles, for me, have served as guiding lights, models of what practicing the law can be:

1. Inherit the Wind (1960) – A Hollywood dramatization of the Scopes trial that occurred in Tennessee in 1925 over the teaching of evolution in schools, you have to stomach some quaint plot exposition to get to the engaging courtroom scenes. A favorite is the defense’s questioning of a young boy who had been exposed to the science teacher’s course. He asks the young man: “What Mr. Cares told you, did it hurt your baseball game any? Affect your pitching arm any?” This simple line of questioning goes a long way in conveying the frivolousness of the charge. The ending is satisfactorily honest, deviating from the Hollywood formula and staying true to the real case, in that the defense loses.

Continue ReadingMy Father’s Recommendations

Inherently Subversive Pedagogy

In 2010 the Arizona legislature created a law designed to deter the teaching of a Mexican American Studies course in Tucson schools by cutting State funding to districts with courses that, among other things, “promote resentment toward a race or class of people.”  After a finding by the state court in 2011 and under the threat of a $15 million fine, the Tucson district was forced to stop utilizing a course that was available to all students, was effectively closing the achievement gap, and was successful in helping Latino students attend college.  One aspect of enforcement that the district decided on was banning the use of many books that were a part of the Mexican American Studies program from schools.

I was introduced to the Tucson curriculum issue in Professor Mazzie’s first semester Legal Analysis, Research, and Writing 1 class last fall.  Our assignment was to write a brief memo on whether the Tucson course was in violation of A.R.S. § 15-112.  The constitutionality of the Arizona law itself has since been called into question under the purview of a federally appointed special master who is overseeing the Tucson School District’s mandated desegregation.  It was satisfying to see, earlier this month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit agree with my position in Professor Mazzie’s class that the curriculum was not necessarily a per se violation of A.R.S. § 15-112 anyway.

Continue ReadingInherently Subversive Pedagogy