Last week, some law professors on Twitter dug their straw people out of storage and started swinging baseball bats furiously. Their complaint was a public records request sent by Slates Mark Joseph Stern asking some prominent public university Federalist Society advisors if theyd heard anything from Leonard Leo recently.
Its a newsworthy request, since Leo claims that he walked away from the day-to-day management of FedSoc in a bid to deploy more dark money in his effort to get more non-qualified judges on the federal bench.
Bainbridges problem with the request, he says, wasnt the propriety of a public law school professor having to respond, but that he felt left out of the right-wing conspiracy.
True. Darth Vader threw his evil boss down a shaft instead of tweeting a heads-up.
Aw, dude, its not personal that youre not part of the right-wing conspiracy, its that youre at UCLA. If theres any FedSoc chapter that must be crawling with FSINO never-Trumpers its got to be the Bruins. I guess they did make all those T-shirts about being on Team Sander showing support for Richard Sander, the co-author of Mismatch, the anti-diversity screed that Scalia tried to use to get Becky With The Bad Grades into Texas. But generally speaking, public law school education folks in Los Angeles dont scream right-wing activist.
Seriously though, what kind of smear job does this request suggest? If Leo isnt handling day-to-day work, its a story that doesnt get written. If he is, then its not a smear job but a pretty important story about dark money and non-profit statuses.
Sure but thats not this request. This isnt a request for every FedSoc document a professor has ever touched from newsletters to student budget requests its a very focused request about whether or not a professor has corresponded with Leonard Leo since the latter publicly claimed he left FedSocs day-to-day management?
Every document request should be so narrowly tailored!
Its pretty clearly not a story about what any professor is doing, its about whether or not this guy is doing what he said he would to tacitly comply with the law. Obviously there are records requests that could function as cheap intimidation tactics. Weve seen those before. They focus on the professor and try to dig up the substance of anything the professor may have written or said so they can concoct some sort of pressure campaign.
I know were talking about law professors here so this may be a futile request, but not everything is about you. This request is about a non-professor and not even about substance since all that really matters is if the contacts took place at all. If you cant feel comfortable with a request this straightforward then youre basically against the whole concept of public records transparency and thats problematic too.
No one wants to Potter Stewart this thing, but I know an abusive records request when I see it. This isnt it.
Joe Patriceis a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free toemail any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him onTwitterif youre interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.
Originally posted here:
Law School Profs Throw Fit On Twitter Over Having To Answer Basic Reporter Questions - Above the Law
