Heritage Foundation's Ethically Dubious Law Clerk 'Training Academy' Suspended

[turbinetree]

Source: Talking Points Memo

By Kate Riga
October 19, 2018 10:22 am
The Heritage Foundation’s “training academy,” set up to groom law clerks for prominent judicial posts, has been suspended after the New York Times published the questionable requirements of the program, including secrecy about the teaching participants received there in exchange for the financial backing of “generous donors” who allowed them to complete the program.


Some legal experts told the Times that it is inherently problematic for a very conservative group to secretly train future judges to have loyalty to its ideals and practices.

Some of the questions on the application materials — since removed from the Heritage Foundation’s website — reportedly inquired about potential participants’ stance on originalism and ideological alignment with current or former Supreme Court justices. As the Times points out, it is unclear if a participant who took liberal stances on those two essay questions would have been admitted.

“Law clerks are not supposed to be part of a cohort of secretly financed and trained partisans of an organization that describes itself on its own web page as ‘the bastion of the American conservative movement,’” Stanford Law professor Pamela Karlan told the Times. “The idea that clerks will be trained to elevate the Heritage Foundation’s views, or the views of judges handpicked by the foundation, perverts the very idea of a clerkship.”

-snip-

Supreme Court justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch were picked from a list of contenders curated by the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society, another conservative organization focused on the judiciary.

Read more: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/heritage-foundation-training-academy-suspended

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Must be like Trump University........................and that fucking scam, but these "guy's are more dangerous, look at what the court is getting............a serial drunk, that assaulted woman, and another one, who's wife sits on the board of right wing hit jobs, and another one that thinks if you freeze to death and get fired oh well................and others along with the other total of five, that think unions should be broken up (fuck majority employee votes), and the voting rights act is a piece of toilet paper right along with the Constitution......................and they were "training" law clerks"...........................


November 2018 cannot get here fast enough.....................vote

https://www.timeanddate.com/countdown/election?p0=263&iso=20181106T12&msg=2018%20Midterm%20Elections

[redstatebluegirl]

1. I don't believe they have stopped it, not for one minute.

They went deeper underground. We can't watch all of the underhanded things they are doing to our country it takes so much energy and it is everywhere.

[JHB]

3. That's certainly the way to bet...

This "academy" is a pipeline for grooming and placing ideological operatives into the judicial system. Covert political officers who will decide cases within Conservatively Correct parameters.

There's no way they'll give that up just because some of its corrupt practices spilled out into public view.

[Baitball Blogger]

4. Prudent deduction.

Never trust them.

[Thomas Hurt]

2. Christofascist theocrat proselytizers and apparatchiks...

[erronis]

5. How is this different than promoting a good "liberal arts" background for all professionals?

<sarcasm>
Don't the liberals want to train lawyers and others to have an open mind which is antithetical to the right-wing approach?
</sarcasm>

[donco]

6. I wonder if the

Show Me States Golden Boy, Josh Hawley, who is running against Claire McCaskill for Senator. I know he clerked for someone in his legal career.

[BumRushDaShow]

7. How many have already gone through this progam and are "out in the wild"

before it was outed?

[LiberalLovinLug]

8. But I thought the GOP was against "activist judges"?