Editor's View
They Don’t Teach the Constitution
By John F. McManus, Re-printed from The New American 12/19/11
Wouldn’t any normal American expect law schools to carefully instruct potential barristers in the wonders of “the supreme law of the land”? Obviously, the New York Times doesn’t think so.
Under a headline that begins “What They Don’t Teach Law Students,” the Times presented in a
front page November 21 article an analysis of current law school practices. The rest of the headline provided the Times’ answer in a single word to the question it posed — “Lawyering.”. The survey proceeded to note that graduates of law schools aren’t ready to practice law because they need more instruction. Readers are told that one prestigious law firm requires newly hired law grads to undergo four months of training at reduced salaries while they learn at least one phase of practical legal work. Remedial instruction for law graduates? You got it! Many have paid as much as $150,000 for deficient schooling.
The Times noted that many of the courses in the nation’s law schools dwell on a professor’s
favorite topic, something not even close to the nuts and bolts needed to become a working member of the legal profession. One student at the George Washington University Law School summed up his frustration about the instruction he’d received: “What they taught us at law school is how to graduate from law school.”
What’s far worse and what should be the answer to the question posed by that headline: These
expensive institutions don’t teach the U.S. Constitution. For years, I’ve questioned lawyers about
what ocurred during the meager portion of their training labeled “constitutional law.” Invariably,
the response has been, “We studied what the Supreme Court has said about the Constitution. We
studied case law.” Asked if they ever dug out a copy of the venerable document itself, the answer
was, “No, we never did; we relied on what the professor was telling us. That’s what we needed to
pass the exams.”
Many Americans now wonder how our nation has arrived at the point where the future no longer
looks so rosy. They know something about enormous federal indebtedness; they realize that a huge number of good-paying jobs have gone overseas; and youngsters understand that expecting to do better than, or even as well as, their parents isn’t in the cards. Could it be that members of the legal profession who dominate the halls of Congress don’t know that government is supposed to be limited? That the oath taken at the start of each session of Congress is meant to bind down elected officials with the document’s chains?
If law schools would merely dwell on the Constitution’s very first sentence, the nation wouldn’t be in trouble. It reads: “All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the
United States.” In other words, there’s no lawmkaing power in either the executive or judicial
branch. But law students aren’t taught that executive orders issued by a President can’t be the “law of the land.” They’re taught exactly the opposite. How many know that the Environmental
Protection Agency, the massive government bureau that flexes its increasingly bulging muscles over
the entire nation, came into being, not through any legislation, but as the result of an executive order
issued by President Richard Nixon?
Currently, the nation has a President who has boldly indicated that, if Congress doesn’t bow to his will, he’ll expand government’s powers with executive orders. He’s right in league with former
Clinton administration official Paul Begala, who pointed to executive orders and snickered, “Stroke
of the pen; law of the land; kinda cool.” The reality is that an executive order directed at the entire
nation is totally improper; one directed only at government employees is legitimate.
What about the judicial branch and the Constitution’s first sentence? Repeatedly, we hear lawyers, judges, and most go-along pundits insisting that a Supreme Court decision is “the law of
the land.” It isn’t supposed to be. It’s the law of the case binding only the plaintiff and the defendant. The case adjudicated can be referred to if a similar case arrives. But, as anyone who
pays attention knows, the court has taken on power to make law. Consider Rose v. Wade for a
glaring example.
If the Constitution were understood and honored (not just its first sentence but the whole document), the federal government would shrink perhaps to 20 percent its size and 20 percent its
cost. There would be no foreign aid, no undeclared and seemingly unending wars, no costly and counterproductive federal meddling in education, medicine, energy, housing, and more. A junior high-school student can figure this out by simply reading the document. Send him to law school and let him teach the professors.
The most important answer to the question posed by the New York times is “the Constitution”.
But the newspaper that boasts of providing “All the news that’s fit to print” doesn’t agree.
Obivously, the Constitution doesn’t fit at the Times.
