the AALS and the Senate

[William Funk]

Sandy Levinson wrote:
>
> If the AALS in fact made any decisions that one actually cared about, it would indeed be "stupid" (and perhaps worse) to treat each of the United States' 150 (or so) law schools as equal.  If the UN General Assembly in fact made binding decisions, I would be very surprised if we really would believe that, say, Norway, Fiji, and Paraguay (to some of the smaller countries I can think of) should be able to outweigh, say, the United States, China, and India.  Am I wrong?

Why should natural persons be treated as equals?  Why should a homeless
drunk have an equal vote to Alan Greenspan, Henry Kissinger, and David
Rockefeller?  We all have our answer to that question, and I think that
equal votes for nations, states, or law schools are justified on the
same basis.  That is, if the institution is supposed to represent
people, then people get an equal vote without regard to power,
influence, intelligence, etc.  If the institution is supposed to
represent states (as the Senate certainly was originally), then each
state should get an equal vote without regard to etc.  So on with
respect to nations and law schools.

Bill Funk
Lewis & Clark Law School