A recent story in major media reported how over 100 law school deans have recently signed a group letter that encourages law students in America to suddenly respect the law: “The group of educators who are responsible for training the nation’s lawyers, reestablishes their commitment to getting the next generation of legal advocates ready to uphold democracy and the rule of law.” 

Why are law school deans suddenly claiming group solidarity with the Constitution?  

Because the 2024 election must be seen, despite what will certainly be systematic irregularities, as nonetheless subject to constitutional law.  The political left and its law school members are setting the stage of public discourse by claiming a sudden higher legal ground by a false appeal to constitutional authority. 

This letter of solidarity from law school deans should strike any reasonable person as purely symbolic, and as a “day late and a dollar short,” as far as the rule of law is concerned.  More than that, it is an unfortunate sign of how our nation’s law schools view the law itself: as a flexible convenience, subject to circumstances and opportunity, rather than facts and principles.

It was only a few years ago that law professors from our “elite” schools were fully behind, or indifferent to, illegal state voting changes that bypassed public disclosure, deliberation, and legislation: they stood by passively while DNC lawyers privately lobbied state courts, using COVID as a pretext to relax nearly all traditional voting rules.  There wasn't a peep of protest from law schools over the denial of habeas corpus for January 6 detainees — nor over the First Amendment and Establishment Clause concerning medical privacy rights (University of Chicago Law lecturer Judge Frank Easterbrook, of the 7th Appellate Circuit, casually denied students at Indiana University such vital rights by merely referring to an outdated Massachusetts case from 1905, and also refused an injunction subject to further appeal).  The First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause didn’t seem to concern law schools, either, when New York City sought to permanently close churches.

And of course, law school deans and professors made no noise or principled protest when it came to the “Summer of 2020” riots that created billions of dollars in private and public property damage, threatened the lives of police officers, and resulted in few if any arrests or convictions.  (Indeed, most of those arrested were simply released.)  The left-aligned law schools across the country view the Constitution as not only subject to open interpretation or even to revision without a constitutional convention, but as antiquated, and subject to simply being “thrown out.”

So why the change of heart, or change of position?  Part of the reason is simple obedience to the American Bar Association (ABA)’s Task Force for American Democracy.  That task force is disingenuous, as the ABA is as politically infiltrated as its 200 ABA-certified law schools, and so a sudden gesture toward “American democracy” is institutionally convenient. 

But part of the motivation is also somewhat clever if not mendacious: the 2024 election must be seen, despite what will certainly be systematic irregularities, as nonetheless subject to constitutional law, including how electors are managed, or even if the Electoral College itself is set aside.  The DNC’s position is that no questions should be asked about any election procedures, even if irregular or outright illegal, because they are still creating an outcome that should be accepted as “constitutional.”  So by taking a stand now by appealing to a “rule of law” and a symbolic deference to the Constitution, a misleading precedent is established — one where the illegal can still be claimed legal, and even protected, by simply falsely invoking a constitutional source.  In logic, this is called a fallacy of proof by assertion, and too many law professors and their students use it in place of honest thinking and careful reasoning.  When law is believed to be politics, such a fallacy itself becomes the law of the land, and the law of our law schools.

Matthew G. Andersson is the author of the upcoming book Legally Blind concerning law education.  He has testified to the U.S. Senate and the Connecticut General Assembly, and has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, and the Chronicle of Higher Education and received the Silver Anvil Award from the Public Relations Society of America.  He is a graduate of the University of Chicago.

Image via Picryl.