Alleged NRA backing of pro-2nd-Am scholarship

[Paul Finkelman]

I am only suggesting this:  If we challenge the motives of the scholar
(because she or he is pro-this or pro-that, or belongs to this or that
organization), then we
need to do it across the board.  I think memberships is irrelevant, but
*if* the allegations of bias are made, as Randy Barnett and others
implied, with one
person's scholarship because he was allegedly antigun, then the same
standard  must be applied for all people who write on controversial
subjects.  I don't
think we should go down that road.

I do, however, think that if someone takes money, as a grant, salary,
legal fees, etc., and then writes "scholarship" in support of that
position, then one should
disclose these facts,   So, if someone who represents the NRA in
litigation then writes historical scholarship on the manning of the
second amendment, I think it
is relevant to that information.  In other words, I think we need to be
aware of the potential conflict of interest between objective
scholarship and writing a brief
in the form of history, that abandons objectivity.  I think this is
especially important in areas like history, where vast amount of
archival material is rarely
available to every reader, and thus the reader must "trust" the
judgments of the scholar.  It is also important in scholarship that is
not refereed by specialists in
the field and published in student edited journals..



-
Paul Finkelman
Chapman Distinguished Professor
University of Tulsa College of Law
3120 East 4th Place
Tulsa, Oklahoma  74104-2499

918-631-3706 (office)
918-631-2194 (fax)

paul-finkelman at utulsa.edu

"Volokh, Eugene" wrote:

>
>
>                 I'm now a bit unclear on what exactly Paul is
> suggesting.  At first, it sounded like he was speaking about NRA
> funding of scholars; I agree that if one is taking NRA funds -- or if
> one is an employee of a pro-gun-control group, such as Dennis Henigan,
> who cowrote a leading pro-collective-rights article -- one should
> disclose one's affiliation.  Henigan certainly did, and to my
> knowledge Bob Dowlut, the NRA's general counsel always does.  (I don't
> know Halbrook's, Kates', or Kopel's relationship to the group, or what
> they say about it in their author's notes.)
>
>                 But the more recent message goes on to point out that
> some authors are NRA members, that some others have at some times in
> the past been lawyers for the groups, and that some conferences (at
> which presumably the papers were presented) were backed by the NRA.
> Is it really the professional norm that one is supposed to disclose,
> say, one's membership in the NAACP when writing an article about equal
> protection?  That if one has litigated a case on behalf of an ACLU
> chapter, or had once been an ACLU employee, one must always in the
> future reveal in one's constitutional scholarship that one has taken
> money from or done work on behalf of the ACLU?  That if a conference
> funded by NARAL results in an (uncompensated) article on abortion
> rights, one has to reveal that the article flowed from the NARAL
> conference?  If that's the proposed rule, to be applied evenly to all
> groups, hey, that might be fine.  But I don't think that is the rule.
>
>                 If Paul's claim is simply that pointing out people's
> supposed biases tells us little about the merits of their arguments,
> then I largely agree with it.  But if the claim goes beyond there to
> allege "a great deal" of "funded scholarship" which has generated
> "much of the literature" "through salary, grants, or attorneys fees"
> without any revelations in the author's note, then I'd like to know a
> bit more about the factual basis for this -- and I take it that
> references to people's NRA membership (which involves money paid to
> the NRA, not by it!) or the NRA's organizing conferences would not be
> part of this factual basis.
>
> Paul Finkelman wrote in an earlier message:
>
> I should add to Mark's point that have seen no one in the discussions
> of 2nd Amendment Scholarship raise the issue of funded scholarship --
> yet the NRA funds a great deal of scholarship and much of the
> literature out there in law reviews is written by people who are paid
> through salary, grants, or attorneys fees, by the NRA.  Nor, do we
> raise this issue in other ways; do we ask what someone's views are on
> abortion if they write on Roe v. Wade?  Or their views on slavery if
> they do research on slavery?
>
> Sandy Levinson then questioned whether there was indeed much such
> funding, and Paul Finkelman wrote in a more recent message:
>
>       I believe Halbrook and Don Kates, and Koppell  have had formal
>      affiliations
>      with the NRA and have been paid by them at varous points as
>      attorneys and maybe
>      as scholars; Bob Cottrol (a close friend of mine) is a long time
>      NRA member.  I
>      know the NRA has backed conferences and those conferences have
>      been heavily
>      tilted in one direction.  Do the honorariums make a difference in
>      how the
>      scholarship comes out?  I don't know?  My point is not that
>      getting funds makes
>      their work legitimate or illegitimate, but rather, that the
>      argument implied by
>      some of the postings here is that if you are against gun
>      ownership, or favor
>      restrictions, then your scholarship is tainted, and I suggest if
>      this is so, it
>      cuts in both directions.  Moreover, I suggest that when authors
>      do take money
>      from organizations they ought to let that be known in a footnote.
>
> --
> Paul Finkelman
> Chapman Distinguished Professor
> University of Tulsa College of Law
> 3120 East Fourth Place
> Tulsa, OK  74104
>
> 918-631-3706
> Fax 918-631-2194
>
> E-mail:  paul-finkelman at utulsa.edu
>

--
Paul Finkelman
Chapman Distinguished Professor
University of Tulsa College of Law
3120 East 4th Place
Tulsa, Oklahoma  74104-2499

918-631-3706 (office)
918-631-2194 (fax)

paul-finkelman at utulsa.edu

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