How Scalia Law School Became a Key Friend of the Court

[dalton99a]

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/30/us/supreme-court-scalia-law-school.html
https://archive.ph/vJilM

How Scalia Law School Became a Key Friend of the Court
The school cultivated ties to justices, with generous pay and unusual perks. In turn, it gained prestige, donations and influence.
By Steve Eder and Jo Becker
April 30, 2023, 3:00 a.m. ET

...

“Establishing and building a strong relationship with Justice Gorsuch during his first full term on the bench could be a game-changing opportunity for Scalia Law, as it looks to accelerate its already meteoric rise to the top rank of law schools in the United States,” read the memo, contained in one of thousands of internal university emails obtained by The New York Times.

By the winter of 2019, the law school faculty would include not just Justice Gorsuch but also two other members of the court, Justices Clarence Thomas and Brett M. Kavanaugh — all deployed as strategic assets in a campaign to make Scalia Law, a public school in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, a Yale or Harvard of conservative legal scholarship and influence.

The law school had long stood out for its rightward leanings and ties to conservative benefactors. Its renaming after Justice Scalia in 2016 was the result of a $30 million gift brokered by Leonard Leo, prime architect of a grand project then gathering force to transform the federal judiciary and further the legal imperatives of the right. An ascendant law school at George Mason would be part of that plan.

Since the rebranding, the law school has developed an unusually expansive relationship with the justices of the high court — welcoming them as teachers but also as lecturers and special guests at school events. Scalia Law, in turn, has marketed that closeness with the justices as a unique draw to prospective students and donors.

The Supreme Court assiduously seeks to keep its inner workings, and the justices’ lives, shielded from view, even as recent revelations and ethical questions have brought calls for greater transparency. Yet what emerges from the trove of documents is a glimpse behind the Supreme Court curtain, revealing one particular version of the favored treatment the justices often receive from those seeking to get closer to them.

...


A statue of Justice Antonin Scalia at George Mason University’s law school. Credit...Hailey Sadler for The New York Times


The conservative legal activist Leonard Leo helped the dean of the law school broker a $30 million deal with donors to rename the institution after Justice Scalia. Credit...Erin Schaff for The New York Times

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While the Koch Foundation has donated just more than $109 million to universities and institutions from 2005–2014, Mason has received a record high of $77.7 million from 2005–2014 alone, according to the Polluter Watch website, a project of Greenpeace.

http://gmufourthestate.com/2016/10/17/scalia-law-school-protest/

[badhair77]

1. Whatever they can buy.

That’s how they work. $$$ for power for more $$$.

[jimfields33]

7. All colleges have these huge endowments but still charge insane tuition.

Seems ridiculous.

[badhair77]

8. My complaint lies with conservatives

buying and designing a place of influence, especially with an example like this law school - designing an essentially conservative law school to promote and indoctrinate students with conservative ideals and a conservative approach to the law. So much for justice being non-partisan. I know, liberals can do it also. I’m wondering if liberals also do it on this level. Maybe they do.

[jimfields33]

9. I hope they do.

[BeckyDem]

2. Important read.

Super depressing but important we be aware of their schemes.

[2naSalit]

3. Sounds like a...

Grooming establishment.

[Faux pas]

4. ...

[Ocelot II]

5. They were going to call it the Antonin Scalia School of Law

but for the unfortunate but appropriate acronym: ASSOL.

The thing about law schools is that they are sort of like designer brand names. All schools use exactly the same textbooks and study the same subjects because their students eventually have to pass a bar exam, which is the same for everybody whether you went to South Bumfuck University or Harvard. If a school has high admission requirements, is ABA and AALS accredited and has a decent bar exam pass rate, it's preparing its students for a career in law just as well as the Ivy League schools. But just like a Gucci handbag with that big ol' logo will impress people more than a no-name one from Target (although both will lose your pens at the bottom equally well), and just like flashing your Rolex at a party provides you with far more panache than the more accurate time-keeping of your cell phone, a degree from Harvard or Yale or, apparently, ASSOL, will open doors into the rarified upper echelons of the legal profession closed to the South Bumfuck grad, who is stuck laboring in the trenches, representing ordinary clients competently but unsung.

[dalton99a]

6. Yep.