Live from Their Self-Made Gehenna: Poor baby: Georgetown Law Professor Randy Barnett does not understand that a university is first and above all a safe space for ideas, and he has no right to be protected from the idea that Nino Scalia was a lousy judge.
: "I first met Justice Scalia when I left the Cook County States Attorney’s Office...
...to become a research fellow at the University of Chicago Law School. There I was privileged to join the faculty ‘round table’ for lunches, where then-Professor Scalia was one of the most engaging of discussants. Because my research was on contract law theory and I aspired to be a contracts professor, he graciously allowed me to sit in on his class the day he taught the Peevyhouse case.
Although I argued the medical marijuana case of Gonzales v. Raich before the court in 2004 – and was deeply disappointed when he voted with the more progressive justices against my clients – it was not until joining the Georgetown faculty in 2006 that I got to know him much better in a variety of venues. These include his visiting my seminar of 22 students to discuss his new book, along with three public appearances at the Law Center where I introduced him. Although I respected and admired him greatly, I perhaps did not appreciate the depth of my affection for him until I heard of his death.
Like Nick, I was in shock and mourning, but thanks to the insensitive acts of a member of our faculty, neither we nor our students have been allowed to grieve in any type of peace.
