A bit more on Catholic legal education

I would like to thank Susan for raising some issues that emerge from John Breen’s valuable essay and the recent meeting between Catholic educational institution officials and Archbishop Miller. I take the opportunity here to also thank Amy Uelmen for her recent contribution, “An Explicit Connection Between Faith and Justice in Catholic Legal Education: Why Rock the Boat?” Further gratitude must be extended to those who participated in the MOJ discussion this past spring about Catholic (and Jesuit) legal education.

It is clear that information is important to assess the degree to which religious belief, and in particular the Catholic faith, are a part of the daily life at an educational institution as John Allen’s reporting of the meeting with Archbishop Miller indicates. Otherwise, the debate is more reflective of sense (feeling) that may be useful but not determinative of an educational project’s connection with Catholicism and Catholic intellectual life.

About fifteen years ago, I did some research and publication on Catholic/Jesuit identity in the legal academy. This was before websites, so there were no web pages to consult. However, there were printed textual sources, and I wrote to the deans of each of the then thirteen law schools at Jesuit universities for the printed sources explaining the school’s mission, self-identification, and its contribution to Catholic higher education. The responses were diversified. Some schools explained these issues in varying degrees of detail. Others said virtually nothing about the Catholic/Jesuit affiliation. They all addressed something like intellectual rigor and social justice, but I rhetorically ask: what law school stands for the alternatives of a lack of discipline and social injustice? That is why a definition and understanding, even self-provided, of what it means to be a Catholic legal institution is essential.

Of course, who will provide the definition or explanation largely focuses on those who teach and administer the institution. Like others, I have conducted research and engaged in publication on these matters. What happens and what does not at a “Catholic” law school depends on who teaches and who administers the school. And who teaches and who administers is a question that gets into the delicate matter of who is hired and who is not. Amy concludes that it is “well worth rocking the boat” so that students can integrate faith commitment to the future practice of law. The issue of “rocking the boat” when hiring the faculty who teach these students should naturally follow.

I do not have data on this topic, and I am inclined to suggest that it would be extremely difficult to obtain since hiring deliberations are cloaked in privileged communication and privacy laws protection. However, I, like most other participants in and readers of MOJ, have experience as candidates and as members of hiring committees. What does this collected experience suggest about who can teach at a “Catholic” law school and who cannot? For those who teach and administer at “Catholic” law schools will have a profound influence on those who come to learn and on the existence of markers that measure Catholic identity. But if those who are hired have little or no interest in matters Catholic, the Catholic intellectual tradition that most assuredly bears on questions of law and justice and their “fruitful” debate will not have a place to call home.   RJA sj