party affiliations of law profs

[RJLipkin at aol.com]

One response and then I  promise I'm out of this discussion.  But how many 
members of the faculty at  your law school would affirm the following:  
 
    (a) redistribution of wealth through taxes and  other means must be 
effective as it is not presently. In short, taxes must be  raised substantially.
 
    (b) workers have a proprietary rights in their  jobs, and thus employers 
cannot hire replacement workers in strikes.
 
    (c) health care must be guaranteed as in  Canada.
 
    (d) proscribing hate speech is constitutionally  permissible and 
political and morally required.
 
    (e) blacks and perhaps other minorities require  compensation for 
slavery, discrimination, and so forth.
 
    (f) members of the community must be represented on  corporate boards.
 
    (g)  if marriage is state-sanctioned, it  must extended to same-sex 
couples. 
 
    (h) marriage oppressors women.
 
    (i)  mass amounts of resources must be used  intelligently to provide 
better schools. A real program of "no child left  behind" requires class sizes of 
no more than ten students, and so forth.
 
    (j) An absolute limit on income say, as I think  some legal scholars have 
suggested, $500,000 per year.
 
    (k) corporations and other institutions must  be democratized, including 
direct public involvement in decisions  that affect the community.
 
        I can go on and on even  without calling any friends who are truly 
left-wing for more  ammunition.  The problem with our discussion of Right and 
Left is that it  takes place in such a radically conservative context that Left 
is typically  defined as simply a little more than a kinder, gentler Right.   
Ted Kennedy, Hilary Clinton, and even the late Paul Wellstone are not 
exemplars  of what the real left is about. Earl's questions reveal a framework that it 
so  conservative that authentic leftists must snicker at the suggestions that 
 faculty members answering Earl's question in a certain manner are  leftists. 
Both Right and Left in our discussion are both fairly  conservative political 
positions ignoring the real Left as that position is  expressed by such 
writers as Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, and even the early  Michael Harrington.  Oh 
yes, I know the response. "Those guys are left-wing  crazies."  Or "we're not 
talking about leveling, socialism, or communism,  we're talking about "liberal 
left-wingism," whatever in Heaven's name that is.  Well, that reply is part of 
the problem with our discussion of whether law  professors are mostly 
lefties. There is a body of leftist positions that many  leftists in other parts of 
the world take for granted that don't even come up  for debate among law 
professors.
 
        And now I promise to not to  participate again if this reargument 
continues.
 
Cheers,
Bobby
 
Robert Justin  Lipkin
Professor of Law
Widener University School of  Law
Delaware
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