Religion & Law

Robby George invites us to ask where the danger actually lies when candidates for jobs in the legal academy reveal (or not) what they hold as true.  I'll answer (and I know it's only a partial answer) with a true story.  I've taught at several law schools, and one of them once interviewed someone who was then recently first in his class at one of the top three or so law schools in the US.  He was also then a recent clerk to one of the "conservative" Justices of the Supreme Court.  He also brought to the table heaps of other sterling credentials and an engaging way that portended excellent teaching and great citizenship.   I attended his job talk, and was impressed.  Many other colleagues were impressed.  Other colleagues were opposed, though, and one visited me in my office.  She tried to explain that the job talk was deficient.  I offered my reasons for thinking it was very good, certainly far, far above our "standard."  She countered that the candidate "appeared nervous."  I asked why this mattered; I also said I didn't see any nervousness (though, of course, entry-level candidates *should* be nervous, as this story illustrates).  Emboldened, she went on to aver that the candidate was nervous because of his own insecurity about the "conservative" quality of the thesis of his talk.  I'm not myself sure the views he defended were recognizably (or in any way truly) "conservative" (or liberal or any other category like the one invoked), but they certainly weren't popular locally.  For whatever reason, no offer of employment ever issued to said candidate.  He now teaches at a far better law school than the one at which I then taught.

When the person I have in mind interviewed at my then law school, he was married (to a woman).  Later, he divorced and came out of the closet as a gay man.  When I once mentioned that development to an earlier opponent of the candidate whose trajectory I've just described, the response was that if that had change had occurred earlier, an offer of employment would have been much easier to make.  

QED