Could Yale’s Hiring Of Princeton’s Keith Whittington Signal A Shift In Legal Ed’s Alleged Hostility Toward Conservative Professors?
In light of all this, the announcement on October 16 of Yale Law School’s hiring of Princeton’s Keith Whittington is perhaps a hopeful sign. Keith notes:
I’m not unmindful of the significance of this move at the present moment. YLS has, of course, had its own recent controversies regarding free speech and ideological diversity. Yale has notoriously been lacking in right-of-center public law faculty for decades. Co-blogger Josh Blackman says YLS is a failed academic institution. I hope not! But the lack of political diversity on elite law school faculties is unhealthy, and I’m glad to be able to do my small part to mix things up. Law students and law schools need to be able to understand and engage productively with a conservative federal judiciary. With the very meaning of the conservatism in the United States up for grabs, I look forward to lending what perspective and expertise I can to public debates.
David Lat writes in Move of the Week: Yale Law School Hiring Professor Keith Whittington:
I don t ordinarily feature professor poaching in this column, since it s covered well by some excellent blogs written by legal academics. But this is no ordinary move: Yale Law School is hiring a conservative.
For decades, YLS has had no full-time faculty member with conservative or libertarian views and a focus on public law (e.g., constitutional law, as opposed to contracts or corporations). But that will change next fall with the arrival of Professor Keith Whittington, who will teach and write about American constitutional law, as well as launch a new center devoted to the study of free speech and academic freedom.
It is an encouraging sign. Keith is a brilliant scholar and courageous to boot. A lot will depend on how he is received at Yale. I’m not sure the new openness will trickle down to USD, but who knows. In ten years, things may be very different. I hope so.