American culture is steeped in the mythology of the open road. In our collective imagination, the road represents freedom, escape, friendship, romance, and above all, the possibility for a better life. But our shared dream of the open road comes to a halt in the mundane reality of the traffic stop—a judicially authorized policing procedure in which an officer may pull over a vehicle if she has cause to believe the driver has committed even the most minor traffic violation. I examine the cultural texts—books, movies, songs—celebrating the open road and juxtapose them against those documenting the traffic stop. The traffic stop, I conclude, interrupts the open road narrative closely associated with the American dream. Those stopped most frequently—in particular, racial minorities—are consequently denied full participation in an abiding national fantasy.

http://www.floridalawreview.com/wp-content/uploads/Leong_BOOK.pdf

Here is the prof DEFENDING THE VALUE OF HER WORK:

It seems obvious to me that scholarship contributes in important ways to the quality of teaching. Scholarship requires us to stay current on cutting edge legal issues. It requires us to remain curious, excited about the material that we teach, and intellectually nimble -- and if we ourselves lack these qualities, we stand very little change of inculcating them in our students. Engagement with scholarship also helps communicate the social importance of law to our students. Without that broader frame, our students become narrow-minded legal technicians who never pause to think about the normative implications of what they're doing.

Howard mentions that he has seen a correlation between good teaching and good scholarship. I tend to agree. Of course this sort of thing is very difficult to measure empirically, but I am familiar with data from two different institutions (not necessarily my own) that found a strong correlation between scholarly output and student evaluation scores -- that is, more productive scholars tend to get better evaluations. Of course there are all kinds of limitations to these data, but I mention them as one item in a suite of measurements that schools might consider examining internally as we think through the important issues that Marcia has raised.

And scholarship also adds considerable value to the legal profession and to the public. Thinking just about the junior faculty at my own institution: our scholarly work has been cited by multiple district and circuit courts; it has prompted practicing lawyers to contact us for input and assistance; it has caused journalists to consult with us in writing pieces for general audiences; it has informed amicus briefs; it has provoked novel legal arguments in state and federal court; it has been cited in treatises and excerpted in casebooks; it has been included in materials for CLE classes; it has shaped the practices of admission committees at multiple law schools; and it has influenced the policies of student-edited law reviews. Scholarship matters in tangible ways -- that is, we can point to concrete things that scholarship accomplishes.

Two other brief points:

1. I see very little value in questioning Marcia's assessment of her own colleagues.

2. I see very little value in reasoning by anecdote. The assertion that one person who is (arguably) a good scholar is (arguably) a bad lawyer proves next to nothing about the overall relationship between scholarship and teaching.

Posted by: Nancy Leong | Aug 11, 2012 8:14:41 PM

http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/laborprof_blog/2012/08/job-security-the-changing-face-of-legal-education-and-the-bigger-picture.html

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2279725&forum_id=2#23378873)

"Yet no previous scholarly work has focused on the imaginative consequences of the disparity in how those of different races fare on the road. I will here examine how this disparity affects racial minorities’ ability to desire, pursue, and attain the American dream embodied in the open road narrative."

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2279725&forum_id=2#23378908)

This is absurd.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2279725&forum_id=2#23378931)

Abstract:

Racial capitalism — the process of deriving social and economic value from racial identity — is a longstanding, common, and deeply problematic practice. This Article is the first to identify racial capitalism as a systemic phenomenon and to undertake a close examination of its causes and consequences.

The Article focuses on instances of racial capitalism in which white individuals and predominantly white institutions use nonwhite people to acquire social and economic value. Affirmative action doctrine and policies provide much of the impetus for this form of racial capitalism. These doctrines and policies have fueled an intense legal and social preoccupation with the notion of diversity, which encourages white individuals and predominantly white institutions to engage in racial capitalism by deriving value from nonwhite racial identity. An examination of the consequences of racial capitalism is particularly timely given the Supreme Court’s pending decision in Fisher v. University of Texas, a challenge to the affirmative action policy at the University of Texas.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2009877

How the fuck is this in the harvard law review? Law is the dumbest fucking field ever.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2279725&forum_id=2#23800671)

JFC. I have taught college sophomores who think a lot more creatively than this

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2279725&forum_id=2#23800677)

obviously her article could swat art iii judges to revamp their thoughts on the 4th am.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2279725&forum_id=2#24742970)