Doubting Thomas wrote:

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Since Ms. Green has zero degrees in law, I fail to see how her opinion carries more weight than Hanbury's. I'm not a fan of Happy Jack, but since when does a Ph.D. in Poly Sci make one an expert on law? How many cases has Ms. Green successfully argued in her illustrious legal career? Mr. Hanbury may be wrong, but Ms. Green's response makes faculty look like bitter know-it-all-know-nothings once again.

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Kate,

Excellent letter. Great points were made! You rock.

Graham Wellington wrote:

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I neither known nor care who's more qualified to write the letter, but I believe it's inappropriate to add the writer's academic title and name of the university unless the writer is officially representing USM. Only the name of the writer and the town is customary.

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Ordinarily I would agree with you on this, Graham, but in this case the response to the Op-Ed piece was a technical rebuttal from a person who had credentials in the subject.  To establish her opinion as a professional who teaches the subject rather than a layperson in the community, it was necessary to provide the academic title and the institution.  I do the same when making a public statement as an expert in my field, but not when commenting as a private citizen.

This is just my opinion and certainly reasonable people can disagree with it.  

Doubting Thomas wrote:

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Green's Point #1: Hanbury was wrong to bring up Black's Klan affiliation. My Response: It's hypocritical to say that the Ku Klux Klan is bad in one breath and then support an activist agenda in the next. In Black's day, the KKK was not a "conservative" or "liberal" organization. It was a WHITE organization that transcended politics in the South. As the great-grandson of a professed (and reformed) Klansman who was friends with Hugo Black, the argument that Black's apologist activities while on the Supreme Court can be separated from (and possibly were a reaction to) his Klan membership is specious. Green's Point #2: Since we don't know the framers of the Constitution, we can't say what their intent was and, consequently, we cannot judge correctly whose interpretations of the framers' intent is correct. My response: Reading a large number of biographies, historical documents, and other scholarly examinations of the framers will give any reasonable person a clear view of the framers' intent. To assert any other view is truly ignorant. The idea of judicial activism would have curled the framers' hair. Green's Point #3: Both conservatives and liberals are and have been activists, and conservatives are currently the activists. My response: I agree that both conservatives and liberals have been activists in the past. However, the conservatives on the court have not acted to overturn any "liberal" cornerstones, such as Roe v. Wade, even though the law upon which that decision was made is ridiculously shaky. Green then makes the invitation for Hanbury to attend her classes. While I can abide the article up to this point, it is this smug and unnecessary comment that makes us as USM faculty look bitter. Without this comment, the letter says "I disagree with you, and I have my reasons." With the comment, the letter says "I disagree with you, and I have my reasons. Since I'm so much smarter than you, I'll make it a point to show you how wrong you are." That last comment is just tacky.

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Invictus wrote:

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Are you suggesting that Hanbury has read a large number of publications that don't have centerfolds?

BTW (and historians may flame away), I do not believe that any amount of study will ever tell anyone what was actually in the hearts & minds of the "framers." The only things that history preserves are the things that people want to be remembered.

If I read a biography written in 1993 by a guy who read a biography written in 1963 by a guy who read a biography written in 1933 (etc. etc), all the way back to the guy who read the "framers'" letters home, all I'm getting is one guy's 1993 interpretation of another guy's 1963 interpretation of another guy's 1933 interpretation (etc. etc.) of what the original guy wanted his kids to think he was doing while he was really out drinking beer with a bunch of other revolutionaries.

(There is a wonderful little book -- I must dig it out of my attic -- that attributes almost everything the "framers" did to beer. And makes a darned good case for it!)

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Nothing in life is black and white - Kate Green introduces the "grays", thank goodness. I will never accept that her so-called "credentials" give her less of a viewpoint than the 79% per cent who take and pass the LSAT and call themselves attorneys.

I read for this test, and it is a joke.

That's a Laugh wrote:

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 KG has done lots. How funny! The students of mine that take her courses invariably talk about how she pushes her liberal viewpoints as gospel in class and that she preaches against conservatism in class. Without getting into an "academic free speech" discussion, I think it's wrong to present one side of an argument substantially more heavily than the other when the "sides" are separated by opinion rather than fact, as they almost always are in cases like this.

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I disagree compeletly. Not in the university. Assuming that the professor in question is supporting his/her arguments with reasoning, then it is my job as a student to respond in kind -- to engage in debate. I don't have to agree with the professor to do this -- I simply need to be able to respond. I may not "win," -- after all the teacher is probably a lot better trained then I, and obviously will have more experience. But I will learn to engage and debate and I will also learn that points of view are important.

Interestingly enough, when I started university as a theology student from a very evangelical background, my first class was taught by a creaky but brilliant Professor named Dr. Crane who had been trained heavily in the German theologians (Buber, etc.) he did not in fact teach both points of view -- he taught Old Testament from a historical framework. I learned that if I was going to engage in debate I was going to have to bring something into the discussion other than bible verses. He did not tell me I was wrong -- only that I needed eto engage in argument and I had to use the tools of intellectual discourse. But it was obvious that, in my terms., he was a theological "liberal". My grade for my first class with him was an "B"

I took six classes from him and learned as I watchedhim operate with students from many faiths that the operable system in his class was observation, the amassing of evidence and rational argument. I got an "A" in the last six classes -- not because I learned to agree with him (and several of my papers quite clearly did not) but because I learned to argue well. It did not matter what his point fo view was -- and it did not matter that my point of view did not agree with his. In fact, the presence of opposing points of view in the classroom provided stimulus. What did matter was that I could not hide behind belief -- not in a university.

LVN wrote:

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Well, Stephen, he seems to have trained you well. He would probably be very proud of some the essays you have posted over the past months. (Spelling and all.)

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Cossack wrote:

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I read the Hanbury piece and Professor Green's rebuttal. Neither one will ever get out of the minor leagues. However, I would pay a healthy sum to watch them mud wrestle.

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