From the list custodian re: list membership

[Volokh, Eugene]

        Since the topic came up, let me mention a few words about my
criteria for list membership:

        1)  The list is generally open primarily to law professors and to
professors in allied fields.

        2)  However, I have always been happy to let in people who are
sufficiently knowledgeable in constitutional law -- or who have sufficient
contact with constitutional issues -- that they are likely to be able to
participate in a way that benefits all the other list participants, either
because they themselves are con law experts, or because they bring an
interesting perspective or knowledge base to the discussion.

        Thus, for instance, I am thrilled that we count among our members
Marty Lederman, who knows more con law than most of us do, and Brad Clanton,
who is also highly knowledgeable in con law and is in a position that brings
him into contact with some fascinating con law issues.  Likewise, I am happy
to see posts from journalists, who see things from a very different
perspective (but one that we should find very interesting) than most of the
rest of us, and who are often the first to run across interesting con law
stories.  Moreover, I think many (though not all) list members might
appreciate the opportunity to have their ideas be heard by an audience that
includes, as I said, doers and public communicators as well as purely
academic thinkers.

        3)  Given the size of the membership, none of us should assume that
what's said on this list is at all private.  We do now have, I think, a
general understanding that the posts are not to be quoted by journalists
without permission, but "the glare of the noonday sun" is a reality that we
should all accept, given the number of strangers in the e-room and the ease
with which messages can be forwarded.

        4)  Likewise, given the many political projects that all of us
engage in, we should certainly expect that some of what we say might
potentially have "imminent public policy consequences," in the sense that it
can be used by people for their policy projects, whether or not we agree
with them.  I personally wish that more of what I say had imminent public
policy consequences, but no matter what one might prefer on this score,
there's no way of avoiding this.

        5)  Finally, the purpose of the conditions for list membership is to
make sure that the discussion remains at a high level of professional
quality.  Sometimes I will relax the membership conditions precisely because
I know that any posted messages will come to me first, and if it seems that
someone who is not expert enough in con law is raising matters that are too
removed from con law or at too basic a level ("please explain to me the
First Amendment"), I will intercept the message and suggest to the sender
that it's off-topic.

        Needless to say, the messages on the recent abortion thread have
been both legally sophisticated and focused on core con law issues;
moreover, none of the participants on the most recent thread have been let
in under at all relaxed conditions.  As I mentioned, in my view the Counsel
for the Constitution Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee is every
bit as qualified to be on this list as a law professor would be.

        6)  I of course very much appreciate people's input on this score,
because it helps me get a sense of what the list members feel about how the
list standards should evolve.  But I wanted to take this opportunity to
clarify what the standards are, both for membership and for posts, and to
explain why they currently are the way they are.

        Eugene




> -----Original Message-----
> From: Barksdale, Yvette [SMTP:7barksda at JMLS.EDU]
> Sent: Tuesday, September 26, 2000 2:44 PM
> To:   CONLAWPROF at listserv.ucla.edu
> Subject:      Re: What Is Our Listserv About? [H.R. 4292, The Born-Alive
> Infant s Protection Act]
>
> i do think that there is a difference though between opening up the topics
> that the list addresses (should we avoid a topic because it has immediate
> relevance to some item on the legislative agenda - clearly no), and
> opening
> up list membership. Currently, the list is called CONLAWPROF, and has (to
> my
> understanding) been limited to teachers of constitutional law and focused
> on
> issues of relevance to  teachers of constitutional law. It seems to me
> that
> a list which is open to anyone with any interest in constitutional law
> (whether it is legislative aides, judicial clerks,  practicing attorneys,
> public interest organizations, reporters, or whomever) is a different list
> with a different focus. Such a list might be a very good one. But would it
> as strongly serve the pedagogical and intellectual interests of law
> professors? Or, would the glare of the noonday sun , and the spectre of
> imminent public policy consequences, distort  discussion and overwhelm
> intellectual discourse ? (subject of course to Ed's point that lawprofs as
> well have policy agendas. )
>
> Perhaps one solution would be to require posts like Mr. Clanton's to be
> forwarded to the list by a list member, rather than opening membership
> generally to the public at large.
>
> yb
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/private/conlawprof/attachments/20000926/84390634/attachment.htm