Future Supreme Court Justices Get Falwell Training

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http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/2749416

Aug. 21, 2004, 11:03PM

Falwell's law school takes lean to the right
Grads will be groomed to bring a conservative perspective to the nation's courts
By CHRIS KAHN
Associated Press

ROANOKE, VA. - The Rev. Jerry Falwell will open a law school this month in hopes of training a generation of attorneys who will fight for conservative causes.

"We want to infiltrate the culture with men and women of God who are skilled in the legal profession," Falwell said in a telephone interview Tuesday. "We'll be as far to the right as Harvard is to the left."

Graduates of the law school ?- part of Falwell's Liberty University in Lynchburg, which is affiliated with his Baptist ministry ?- could tackle such issues as abortion rights and gay marriage, Falwell said. Classes begin Monday for the first-year class of 61 law students.

"I'd love to fight Roe v. Wade," said incoming law student Heidi Thompson, 33, a Liberty graduate who has been working as a high school counselor in Orlando, Fla.

Classroom lectures and discussions will fuse the teachings of the Bible with the U.S. Constitution, stressing the connections between faith, law and morality, said law school Dean Bruce Green, who has experience in civil liberties litigation.

"There is a strong need for this," said Green, who believes many of his colleagues take sides on abortion and genetic engineering without first considering what is morally right.

Joe Conn, a spokesman for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said the law school is part of Falwell'scrusade to get the government to carry out his agenda.

"When Falwell talks about using the legal system to advance his personal religious beliefs, I get a whiff of the Taliban," Conn said. "This is a very diverse country with many different religious beliefs, and when you set up a law school to try to get the government and legal system to conform to only one of them, you're leaving everybody else out."

Is it possible to fuse the Bible with the US Constitution? What are the implications?

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If I recall correctly, his law school wasn't/isn't ABA-accredited, although that might have changed. If it's not accredited, then nearly none of its grads can practice law in the US (there may be some areas where ABA-accreditation isn't necessary, as there are parts of the country, like the Dakotas, where there aren't enough lawyers and even the bar exam isn't necessary if you went to school there).

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Ah, here it is: http://www.thehilltoponline.com/news/2002/11/05/Metro/Liberty.University.Plans.To.Open.Law.School-315463.shtml

They can only receive accreditation after a year of operations, and only if they can meet the ABA's standards.

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So, eventually they can be accredited if they do it right. I have no doubt Falwell will follow the guidelines in order to meet the accredidation requirements. Otherwise, who would attend the school and for what purpose? If his purpose is to infiltrate the court system, he'll do what needs to be done to assure that graduates can practice law.

I'm glad you stopped by. Care to address the question of implications?

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Well, the implications are a group of law school graduates with an eye not to secular law as created by judges and legislatures, but to religious law as created by the writers and interpreters of the Bible. But that's pretty obvious.

Actually, it's pretty difficult for a religious-based law school to be accredited by the ABA. After all, the students have to be taught that the law in the US requires attention to precedent, legislative intent and judicial interpretations, none of which is related to the Bible or any other religious document. Unless Falwell restricts his religious spin on the law to something like a philosophical type of elective class, it's doubtful that the school would become fully accredited. In Law School, the basic core curriculum is very carefully monitored and controlled by the ABA and the states so as to assure that lawyers graduate with a certain basic competence and consistency in their training. So all schools' Criminal, Civil Procedure, Contracts, Property, Torts, Legal Writing, Professional Responsibility and Constitutional Law classes are more or less alike, whether you are in Law School in Maine, Minnesota or Mississippi. There just isn't a lot of room for leeway when it comes to the classes that a student must take in order to be allowed to sit for the Bar exam.

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Future Supreme Court Justices Get Falwell Training

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