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Kudos to the University of Virginia Law School

By Jack M. Balkin

In my posting of May 11, I rather snarkily noted that Virginia was "reputed" to have a fine law school. I am glad publicly to testify that its reputation is well merited: Most of the faculty has signed a superb letter, noting the decision by the University indeed to fight the outrageous witchhunt by Virginia's Attorney General and going on to provide a number of fine arguments supporting that decision. A desire to vindicate academic freedom does indeed seem to be alive and well at Mr. Jefferson's University! Kudos to all involved in writing the letter and then seeking out the impressive array of signatories.

NOTE: I am allowing comments, but I really do hope that no one returns to the substantive arguments about global warming. Not only are they really quite beside the point of this particular controversy--i.e., the power of the Virginia Attorney General--but also, as I have written earlier, there is absolutely no reason to believe that any of the potential discussants on this particular blog site possess sufficient expertise to say anything independently illuminating about that issue. (And, for the record, I agree with "jpk" that there really is no longer a serious debate about the phenomenon of "global warming," though there is certainly a justified debate about the best responses to that really undoubtable reality. Even if you think I'm wrong on this, please don't bother chastising me, because I, too, have no expertise, and I am in fact only reflecting what appears, to my lay mind, the quite overwhelming consensus of competent scientists on the matter.) I do intend to write a far more extensive posting on the general subject of "expertise" and "authority" and the frightening disdain for the "reality-based" community expressed by such denizens of the contemporary polity as former Gov. Palin. Again, please forego your desire to comment about that until the post.

Full post as published by Balkinization on May 20, 2010 (boomark / email).