Samuel Alito Law School to debut at Regent University
Respected school is renamed to better reflect its faith-law integration
As of the coming Fall term, Virginia-based Regent University School of Law is being renamed Samuel Alito Law School, it was announced. In its mission statement, the University says that it trains graduates “to engage the world through Christian legal thought and practice.”
Faculty at the law school have included former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft and U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito.
Curriculum
In keeping with the updated program’s faith-based orientation, the administration has provided the public with a sneak preview of some of the expanded curriculum designed to reflect the governing philosophy of the school’s new namesake.
Originalism - Where do we start?
Students will be challenged to choose the era in history that best represents this defining concept for the US Constitution.
The use of the Rack was employed as an intervention to prevent recidivism—but was it in Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, or in 1420 when it was introduced in the Tower of London?
Were leeches first considered state-of-the-art medicine in 1500 BC Egypt, in ancient Greece as part of the humoral theory of the body, or in colonial America for bloodletting?
Judiciary Uber Alles - Whence and by Whom?
At what point in American history was the Judiciary first recognized as rightfully the most powerful branch of government?
Marbury v. Madison, the first case of the Supreme Court declaring a Congressional law unconstitutional.
Dred Scott, in which the Supreme Court overrode the Declaration of Independence and the will of the nation’s majority by declaring slavery constitutional.
Bush v. Gore, in which the Supreme Court decided its first (but hopefully not its last) Presidential election without regard to the popular vote.
Dobbs in 2022, in which the Court reversed 50 years of precedent, threw stare decisis under the bus, and for the first time took away an established civil liberty from Americans.
Judicial Perjury - A Paradoxical Concept
Students will decide whether a Supreme Court Justice can be guilty of perjury if, during their confirmation hearing, they had knowingly lied to Congress under oath. Note that this issue is strictly theoretical, as there is no mechanism for enforcing any punishment for a “guilty” Supreme Court Justice.
Recusal - An Idea Whose Time Has Passed?
Members of the bench in lower courts are expected to recuse if there is the appearance of a conflict of interest. Since Justices of the highest court define the meaning of the Constitution, which makes them literally Deputy Founding Fathers, conflict of interest is by definition an oxymoron. E.G., if Jefferson could own slaves while drafting the Declaration and the Constitution, clearly conflict of interest for any Founding Father has no predicate in this context.
Legislating From the Bench - Examples of Unwarranted Activism
Numerous times in American history, judges and Justices have over-stepped their authority by, in effect, legislating according to their own personal views. For example, in the Scopes Trial (1925), while the Supreme Court of Tennessee did find the Butler Act constitutional, it overturned Scopes’s conviction on a technicality, thereby de facto setting an example that teachers could get away with grooming children by propagandizing them with anti-religious concepts such as evolution.
More recently, Brown v. Board of Education (1954) and Roe v. Wade (1973) both created “rights” for Americans that were never mentioned in the original Constitution of 1787.
Cutting Edge Issues Seminar
Other elements in the curriculum will touch on the right of Justices to be properly compensated by third parties so that they do not have to scrimp to survive. And the newest concept of extra-lifetime appointments — that is, extending a Justice’s term indefinitely after they die by creating an AI model that can rule on cases exactly as the Justice would have if they had not passed away.
That last paragraph is prescient. Who would know? Robotic sims are really good lately - China would help.