Legal Commentary

As a footnote to the AALS boycott debate, note this comment from Professor Anita Bernstein on the Legal Ethics Forum:

For those who teach in law school, slightly O/T: When you are choosing casebooks for your courses, do you take into account the ideology of the editors, bearing in mind that you're sending revenue their way? When I mentioned this penchant of mine, a sales rep for one of the Big Three told me that as far as she can tell, only women share it.

I find this comment fascinating.  I assume that Prof. Bernstein is not simply suggesting that, when considering casebooks, she keeps in mind whether or not she disagrees with the regnant ideology of the casebook itself; I assume she means that she also considers whether or not she wants to subsidize individuals whose ideologies she disagrees with, somewhat (although I assume far from completely) separately from any consideration of whether she likes the casebook itself.  (She's welcome to correct me if she wishes.  I make this assumption because I take it as a given that one can refuse to select a casebook one dislikes on substantive or pedagogical grounds, and her comment seems to suggest more than that to me.)

Do others share this approach?  Do you think her slim anecdotal suggestion that such activity is more prevalent among women is accurate, and if so why?  And while I assume that an academic has the raw power to make such a decision, is it a sound academic decision?  I assume that such a decision entails no necessary drop-off in quality if one selects an alternate casebook, so that students do not suffer for it; but is it, as it were, an action that is ultra vires our role as academics?

As my writing on the boycott itself suggests, I respectfully disagree with the idea that one should refuse to select a casebook on the basis that one doesn't want to enrich someone with what one considers a disagreeable ideology, although I suppose every such principle has its "can't-help" limits.  I also worry that it is a short logical step down the slippery slope from such a decision to the view that one should approach faculty hiring or promotion decisions in the same spirit; that kind of thing has occurred in the past and likely still does.  But I am less interested in airing my own views than in sounding out what others do and think, and whether you think Prof. Bernstein's brief observation that women academics are more likely to do so is accurate and why.  Comment away.