Monrad Paulsen and the Idea of a University Law School

logic, but instead are determined more by one's values as to the relative significance of injustice to blacks. Why did the vote of those premier legal and constitutional law academicians seem astonishing to me? For many blacks the Dred Scott decision is our "holocaust." There were two options which the court had and the option adopted by both the majority and the dissenters was predicated more on the values of the justices than any required or explicit rule of law. These premier academicians seem to be saying that we will disregard the fact that Taney wrote a decision which was unprincipled and stood for the proposition that the nation could do something to black people that HeinOnline -67 Va. L. Rev. 456 1981 perhaps best been captured by Calvin Woodard in his essay on the limits of legal realism: The legal education of the future must be governed by a combination of two maxims. First, within the House of the Law there are many mansions-in which practitioners of all kinds, counsellors, judges, public servants, scholars and philosophers work in their several ways to further the course of, and to implement, Justice. ...That is, law schools must assume, as their basic premise, that the man who first understands his obligations to Justice will be better able to fulfill his legal "function," whatever it might be. Justice, in a word, must take precedence over law. 14 If a law school is to be considered successful by this test, not only must its classrooms be filled with forthright discussion and debate over values, but the idea of Justice must somehow become part of the practical affairs of the members of the law school community. To us, the most significant failure in this regard is the virtually uniform lack of success of American law schools in encouraging and inculcating the value of public service. The law schools have not committed themselves to furthering the public interest-to undertaking a genuine service function for society as a whole and for the communities in which they reside. To begin to redress this omission, we would heartily agree with Robert Clark's recommendation that a law school adopt as a formal policy that "a major purpose of the educational program of the School is to support and encourage educational activities that further the public interest, as conceived from time to time by its faculty and students. 1 5 What this means is that "most students and faculty actuit would dare not do to any other group in the country and that nevertheless they would rank him as a truly great justice because of what he may have written on interstate commerce, or in other fields. Yet for blacks, Taney's thoughtful opinion on interstate commerce will not obliterate from our minds his values or position on racial issues; these latter aspects will cause us to give him a lower niche on the totem pole of greatness. Address by Judge A. Leon Higginbothan, Value, Race and Legal Process: The Role of the Advocate, Justice Lester W. Roth Lecture, University of Southern California Law Center (Oct. 30, 1980) (copy on file with the Virginia Law Review Association). ", Woodard, The Limits of Legal Realism: An Historical Perspective, 54 VA. L. REv. 689, 737 (1968). 1 Clark, The Goals of Legal Education at Harvard Law School 19 (Nov. 12, 1979) (memorandum to the Committee on Planning and Educational Development of the Harvard Law School) (copy on file with the Virginia Law Review Association). 19811 Dedication 457 HeinOnline -67 Va. L. Rev. 457 1981