In February, my Civil Procedure Professor sent our class a short exchange between him and another lawyer regarding the death of Antonin Scalia. They were both refreshing critical of the arch-reactionary Supreme Court Justice. I weighed in with my thoughts as well. They are reproduced here.
I'm not one to mince words when it comes to our reactionary ruling class, and tweeted this on Saturday after a friend texted me the good news.
I've read some of Antonin Scalia's racist opinions in our casebooks. That reactionary bigot is going straight to hell. #goodriddance
— Robert D. Skeels (@rdsathene) February 13, 2016
But discussions of individual members of the court, and their possible replacements, only consign us to what Professor Noam Chomsky refers to as "narrow confines of discourse." A more Freireian approach would be to ask why the Supreme Court exists and why do we allow this small group of individuals make decisions that effect each and every one of us so profoundly? Dr. Rob Hunter does precisely this in an amazing Jacobin essay The Supreme Court After Scalia, where he posits that collective struggle is far more important.
I strongly recommend the essay, and want to leave you with the following excerpt, that which I believe sums the entire issue.
“The Supreme Court is a bulwark of reaction. Its brief is to maintain the institutional boundaries drawn by the Constitution, a document conceived out of fear of majoritarian democracy and written by members of a ruling class acting in brazen self-interest.”
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