This past semester I taught, for the first time, a course in Feminist Legal Theory. I supplemented one of the standard feminist legal theory casebooks with a number of essays by women taking various faith perspectives – Catholic, Lutheran, Muslim, and Jewish -- on feminist issues, including a couple of chapters from Erika Bachichio's edited collection, Women, Sex, and the Church: A Case for Catholic Teaching. I also used the draft of a Teaching Guide that the Murphy Institute commissioned from Erika, which keys the relevant chapters of that book to some of the standard feminist jurisprudence casebooks.
I wasn't sure how my class (13 women, 4 men, probably about 1/3 Catholic) would react to the faith perspectives, or how well they would fit a legal theory class. Based both on reactions from my students, and my own observations about the class, the experiment was a great success. As a teacher, the most interested thing I learned was how important it was to have on the table for discussion in class some alternative visions of: (1) what a family is or should be; and (2) what relations between men and women should ideally look like. The perspectives of religious feminists provided some alternatives that could be presented as comparison to the visions presented in the standard texts. Most often, in our classroom discussions focused on what my students personally wanted as an ideal of the family or the type of relationship, what they wanted was something very close to the Catholic vision, no matter where their theoretical commitments might be leading them.
As a scholar interested in feminist legal theory, the most interesting thing I thing I learned from this semester was how often the religious feminists made arguments that sounded an awful lot like the arguments of the Dominance Feminists. I expected to see a lot of convergence with Relational and Care Feminists, and I did see those, but the convergence with Dominance Feminists like Catherine MacKinnon really surprised me.
Erika's Teaching Guide is available for free at the Murphy Institute website, here. It provides some truly meaty background for anyone wishing to provide a Catholic perspective on a multitude of issues addressed not just in feminist legal theory courses, but many course in the law school curriculum: abortion, contraception, marriage, work-life balance, even priesthood. And if you look at the ad on p. 14 of the June/July issue of First Things, you'll see that we're even able to offer a limited number of review copies of the book itself for professors teaching related courses. Contact [email protected] for more information about the free book!
(By the way, the Murphy Institute is planning on commissioning more of these sorts of guides for professors interested in supplementing law school courses with a Catholic perspective, and offering them for free on our web site. If you are interested in writing one on any legal topic, please contact me.)
The NYT this weekend published another of its periodic pieces about 'the Mommy Wars',this one really solid summary of the current state of the argument in feminist legal theory, by Dartmouth philosopher Amy Allen. She ends with this conclusion, the same one I've reached in a lot of my work. So many of the feminist legal theories & mainstream media debates focus on the psychological or theoretical implications of the 'choice' a relatively few privileged women in this country have between raising a family and taking a paying job, when the more significant issue is a structural conflict:
. . . the conflict between economic policies and social institutions that set up systematic obstacles to women working outside of the home — in the United States, the lack of affordable, high quality day care, paid parental leave, flex time and so on — and the ideologies that support those policies and institutions, on the one hand, and equality for women, on the other hand.
This is the conflict that we should be talking about. Unfortunately this is also a conversation that is difficult for us to have in the United States where discussions of feminism always seem to boil down to questions of choice. The problem with framing the mommy wars in terms of choice is not just that only highly educated, affluent, mostly white women have a genuine choice about whether to become über moms (though the ways in which educational, economic and racial privilege structure women’s choices is a serious problem that must not be overlooked). The problem is also that under current social, economic, and cultural conditions, no matter what one chooses, there will be costs: for stay at home mothers, increased economic vulnerability and dependence on their spouses, which can decrease their exit options and thus their power in their marriages; for working mothers, the high costs of quality child care and difficulty keeping up at work with those who either have no children or have spouses at home taking care of them, which exacerbates the wage gap and keeps the glass ceiling in place. (Families with working mothers and fathers who are primary care givers avoid some of these problems, but have to pay the costs associated with transgressing traditional gender norms and expectations.)
If the “the conflict” continues to be framed as one between women — between liberal and cultural feminists, or between stay at home mothers and working women, or between affluent professionals and working class women, or between mothers and childless women — it will continue to distract us from what we should really be doing: working together — women and men together— to change the cultural, social and economic conditions within these crucial choices are made.
This morning's panels at the 2012 Conference of Religiously Affiliated Law Schools at Touro Law School continued the spirited and engaged discussions that I reported on yesterday. Again, bravo and thanks to Touro, Dean Raful (whose engagement in and support for this enterprise was evident by his participation in every facet of the program), and Sam Levine for the energy and careful thought he put into organizing the program.
MOJ'er Fr. Arujo gave his typically thoughtful remarks on bringing religion into the classroom, and I'm sure he can summarize his remarks, and the exchange on his panel, better than I could. I'd like to talk a bit about the first panel. Susan Fortney of Hofstra, playing the role of clean-up summarizer, noted the importance of the personal narratives all of the speakers offered in engaging students in considering the place of faith in teaching ethics in the classroom. Indeed, the consensus that seemed to emerge from the individual panelists' presentations was that a personal connection to whatever the topic being taught is can often give the teacher a way to present faith as a legitimate consideration in a inviting way that does not foster a sense of exclusion on the part of students who might not share that same faith conviction. Each of these panelists, in their own ways, illustrated, I think, the power of what Marc DeGirolami characterized (and defended) as the third possible meaning of 'being compromised' by one's faith tradition, in his post earlier this morning "On being compromised." (Sorry, I still can't figure out how to do hyperlinks when posting from an I-pad.)
John Nagle shared some of the poignant story that he told in the article "Biodiversity and Mom",30 Ecology L.Q. 1000 (2003) about his mother's diagnosis of ovarian cancer, which introduced him to the potentially therapeutic properties of a substance extracted from the Pacific Yew tree. This tree had been the subject of an effort to get it listed as an endangered species. Though the drug developed with that extract did not work for John's mom, this personal experience put the religious motivations for the fight for biodiversity into a frame that John could apply in the classroom. He quoted the Ogden Nash riddle: "God in his wisdom made the fly/ And then forgot to tell us why." It seems to me that this little riddle could be a useful motto not just for thinking about interspecies biodiversity, but also for just about every legal issue that has anything to do with that amorphous and elusive concept of 'human dignity.'
George Will wrote a lovely column today in celebration of the 40th birthday of his son, Jon, who has Down's Syndrome: http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentaries/149923645.html .
He includes this reflection: "Judging by Jon, the world would be improved by more people with Down syndrome, who are quite nice, as humans go. It is said we are all born brave, trusting and greedy, and remain greedy.
People with Down syndrome must remain brave in order to navigate society's complexities. They have no choice but to be trusting because, with limited understanding, and limited abilities to communicate misunderstanding, they, like Blanche DuBois in "A Streetcar Named Desire," always depend on the kindness of strangers."
I've often observed those two traits -- astonishing bravery, and complete and utter trust -- in my son (who also has Down Syndrome). My husband and I often marvel at the heroic bravery Pete displays every single day, navigating with joy a world in which so much that we take for granted -- like why his mom disappears for three days to go to a conference -- must seem so arbitrary and senseless. But I have a theory about that trusting nature that George Will sees as something that is thrust upon people with Down Syndrome as a result of their limited cognitive abilities. I think that Pete has the gift of living with utter confidence that the people he encounters in the world love him. Though that is, of course, sadly not always the case, I still call this a gift, because I think it stems from Pete's absolute, unshakable conviction that he is loved by God. And that's something those of us without diagnosed cognitive limitations seem to have so much trouble understanding, no matter how many times, and in how many ways, God keeps telling us that it is so.
I've just spent a thoroughly enjoyable and stimulating day enjoying the abundant hospitality of Touro Law Center, which is hosting the 2012 Conference of Religously Affiliated law Schools. The organizer, Sam Levine, has done spectacular job in assembling a diverse set of perspectives on the topic: "The Place of Religion in the Law School, The University, and the Practice of Law." You can see the entire schedule here: http://www.tourolaw.edu/pdf/RALS_Program_Layout%201.pdf . (Sorry, but I can't figure out how to do hyperlinks from my i-pad, and I already managed to lose the text of this post twice while trying to get it posted.)
Yesterday evening, we heard from a panel of presidents (past and present) of religiously-affiliated colleges. Today, we began with two panels on the role of Law and Religion Institutes in the law school and the university. In my remarks about the Murphy Institute, I focused the role such institutes can play in fostering interdisciplinary engagement on legal questions, to help the university achieve something closer to John Henry Newman's ideal of the university as "a place of teaching universal knowledge." Michael Broyde from the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory sparked some friendly fireworks with his provocative claim that law and religion institutes at religiously-affiliated schools are necessarily compromised in their ability to engage in an intellectually honest pursuit of truth, a claim that (as you would expect in this RALS crowd) engendered lively debate.
We were then privileged by a luncheon talk by Nate Lewin, who shared some extraordinary behind-the-scenes war stories about some of the significant religious liberty cases he has litigated over the years. After sharing a beautiful Mincha -- the Jewish afternoon prayer service -- a panel of public servants -- judges, the District Attorney of Brooklyn, the director of St. John's Vincentian Center for Church and Society, and the Director of Pepperdine's Special Education Clinic -- provided a fascinating array of perspectives on the role of faith in the lives of service they have chose. And if those weren't enough different perspectives, dinner included a historical perspective -- Chief Judge Loretta Preska (USDJ, SDNY) spoke about the 1657 Flushing Remonstrance, the petition by a group of Englishmen to Peter Stuyvesant, arguing against a decree forbidding Quaker worship; it'sconsidered to be our first articulation of the right to religious freedom.
Tomorrow brings another full morning of panels focusing on the place of religion in the teaching and practice of law.
Kudos to Sam Levine for pulling together such an excellent conference, and thanks to Touro's Dean Raful for Touro Law School's generous support of such an important conversation!
Track down some of those discount air fares to Europe in June....... (yeah, right), for this conference in Rome on June 22nd, on State-Sponsored Religious Displays in the U.S. and Europe, cosponsored by St. John School of Law's Center for Law and Religion and the Department of Law at the Libera Università Maria Ss. Assunta. MOJ'er speaking include Marc DeGirolami and Tom Berg, along with a host of international experts in these matters.
Marc DeGirolami already alluded to his recent presentation at UST, the latest offering in the Murphy Institute's "Hot Topics: Cool Talk" program, but I wanted to call your attention to the fact that the video of his wonderful exploration of the question: "Why Punish?" is now online. As Marc pointed out, the program was a dialogue with Judge Richard Sullivan, U.S.D.J., S.D. N.Y. The exchange between these two speakers was a rather ironic display of some of the bridges that actually exist over that oft-described "gap between theory and practice." Judge Sullivan began his remarks with a witty comment about how he never thought of either Aquinas or any of the litany of punishment theorists Marc had referenced in his talk when he sentenced anyone. However, a few minutes into the talk, Judge Sullivan casually referenced ideas from a book Marc had pointed out in his talk -- Peter Karl Koritansky's Thomas Aquinas and the Philosophy of Punishment.
The Murphy Institute's program was part of an excellent day-long UST Law Journal symposium organized by Mark Osler, on "Sentence Commutations and the Executive Pardon Power." The whole day was fascinating (see this post from participant P.S. Ruckman in his Pardon Power blog), but I personally think the most gripping panel was the final one, consisting of an exchange among Serena Nunn (a recent graduate of Michigan Law School who served about 7 years in federal prison before having her sentence commuted); Judge David Doty, U.S.D.J., D. MN (the judge who had sentenced Ms. Nunn, voicing at the time of sentencing his frustration over the sentencing guidelines, and later drafting a letter in support of the commutation); and Judge Denis D. Reilly, MN Dist. Ct. (who, as former Assistant U.S. Attorney had prosecuted Ms. Nunn).
The Murphy Institute was graced last week by a visit from Notre Dame Law School's Paolo Carozza (recently appointed Director of Notre Dame's Center for Civil and Human Rights), as part of our Human Dignity lecture series. Paolo presented a talk entitled, "Human Dignity and the Method of Human Experience" in a public lecture Thursday evening, and continued the conversation the following morning in an inter-disciplinary, multi-school seminar at UST Law School.
Paolo argued that it is time for the international community to move beyond the compromise that famously permitted the consensus leading to the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. (In Jacques Maritain's famous words: "...we agree on the rights, but on the condition that no one asks us why.") Drawing on his hands-on experiences 'on the ground' in international human rights work (among other things, Paolo is just coming off four years as a member of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the last year as its President), Paolo proposed a methodology for moving forward, toward a thicker conception of human dignity, by focusing on our common experiences of human dignity. Paolo drew on the work of Luigi Giussani, the founder of the Communion and Liberation movement, describing a shared "elementary experience" of human dignity -- a 'complex of needs and evidences' that are more fundamental to our humanity than any time-bound, specific cultural artifacts, like law or social structures. Paolo provided illustrations from his own experiences in the human rights field that illustrated this sort of profound, elemental encounter with the essence of humanity, bridging cultural, religious, and political divides of the community in which he was working.
You can watch the video of his excellent talk here.
In our seminarthe next day, we explored what Paolo's proposed methodology shared with, and how it differed from, some other approaches, such as natural law theory, phenomenology, Hauerwasian insights about suffering the presence of others, and the work of Karol Wojtyla. It's clear that Paolo is developing a creative new approach to this ongoing exploration of 'human dignity' -- and that his comparative law perspective and personal experiences in human rights work contribute much to the richness of his approach.
As Rob pointed out, Cardinal Turkson, President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, recently presented a reflection on the "Vocation of the Business Leader", the product of a 2011 seminar at the Pontifical Council on "Caritas in Veritate: The Logic of Gift an the Meaning of Business", a collaboration of the Council, the University of St. Thomas' John A. Ryan Institute for Catholic Social Thought, and the Ecophilos Foundation. A number of my colleagues at UST were involved in drafting the document, including Michael Naughton, director of the Ryan Institute, Ken Goodpaster,Endowed Chair in Business Ethics, and Bob Kennedy, Co-Director Emeritus of the Murphy Institute. The document is a creative step in applying some of the abstract ideas of Caritas in Veritate to the business world.
John Allen's current column describes it as "Catholic social teaching, Socrates-style. The 32-page document is designed as a vade-mecum, or practical handbook, for business leaders trying to integrate their faith with their work." He points particularly to the appendix:
Perhaps the most striking element of the text, however, comes in its appendix. There one finds a “Discernment Checklist for the Business Leader,” composed of thirty questions which amount to an examination of conscience informed by Catholic social teaching.
Some are fairly broad (yet still packing a punch), such as, “Have I been living a divided life, separating Gospel principles from my work?” and “Am I receiving the sacraments regularly and with attention to how they support and inform my business practices?”
Others are more concrete, and with real bite. For instance:
Am I creating wealth, or am I engaging in rent-seeking behavior? (That’s jargon for trying to get rich by manipulating the political and economic environment, for example by lobbying for tax breaks, rather than by actually creating something.)
Is my company making every reasonable effort to take responsibility for unintended consequences [such as] environmental damage or other negative effects on suppliers, local communities and even competitors?
Do I provide working conditions which allow my employees appropriate autonomy at each level?
Am I making sure that the company provides safe working conditions, living wages, training, and the opportunity for employees to organize themselves?
Do I follow the same standard of morality in all geographic locations?
Am I seeking ways to deliver fair returns to providers of capital, fair wages to employees, fair prices to customers and suppliers, and fair taxes to local communities?
Does my company honor its fiduciary obligations ... with regular and truthful financial reporting?
When economic conditions demand layoffs, is my company giving adequate notifications, employee transition assistance, and severance pay?
Interesting exercise! You can find the document here.
In a "special edition" of the Murphy Institute's Hot Topics: Cool Talk series, we assembled a Gold Star panel of not just one (Tom Berg), not just two (Susan Stabile), not just three (Rob Vischer), but four (me, if you count my brief words of welcome) MOJ'ers to offer reflections on the question: "Does Government-Mandated Contraception Coverage Violate Religious Freedom?" As an added bonus, we included one of our adjunct professors, law faculty fellow and Murphy Institute chaplain, Fr. Dan Griffith. You can watch the entire program here.
