Mirror of Justice

Persons and people

Pope Francis:  "On abortion, I can tell you these things, which I’ve said before. In any book of embryology it is said that shortly before one month after conception the organs and the DNA are already delineated in the tiny fetus, before the mother even becomes aware. Therefore, there is a living human being. I do not say a person, because this is debated, but a living human being."  America Magazine, Nov. 28, 2022

Judge John T. Noonan, Jr.: "If a lawyer could not distinguish between real persons and fictional persons, he would not be capable of communication."  Persons and Masks of the Law 27 (1976)

Pope Francis:  "I am joyful when I am with people—always." America Magazine, Nov. 28, 2022

"China Wants to Sinicize its Catholics"

I am glad to see The Economist reporting on the continuing efforts by the Chinese Communist Party to oppress -- indeed, to coopt -- the Catholic Church in China.  In recent years, some Catholics identifying as "post liberal" have expressed a strange admiration for the . . . efficiency and goal-orientedness of Xi's PRC; these expressions are misguided.  Also misguided, I think, have been the various reported statements of admiration for the PRC by some of the Holy See's bureaucrats.  The introduction of the piece:

When the Vatican signed a deal with China in 2018 on the appointment of bishops, the pact was denounced by a former leader of the Catholic church in Hong Kong, Cardinal Joseph Zen. He said it would legitimise the Communist Party’s control over Chinese Catholics, and be like “giving the flock into the mouths of the wolves”. The flock has not yet been devoured, but the grip of the government’s jaw has been tightening. The authorities have accelerated a campaign to “sinicise” the church by making its buildings, art and rituals look more Chinese and, crucially, its followers more loyal to the party. Catholics in Hong Kong are in their sights, too.

Among other things, the piece discusses the plight of Hong Kong's heroic, and Catholic, pro-democracy advocate, Jimmy Lai.  (If you have not seen the movie about Lai, "The Hong Konger", you should.)

Opening Statement at Princeton Conference on Institutional Neutrality in Non-sectarian Universities

I'm posting here the text of my remarks opening our conference today at Princeton on institutional neutrality in nonsectarian universities..

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Good morning. I’m Robert George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions here at Princeton. It’s my honor to welcome you to today’s conference, which is being sponsored by the Madison Program’s Initiative on Freedom of Thought, Inquiry, and Expression, co-directed by my distinguished colleagues, Professors Keith Whittington and Bernard Haykel.

The question we have gathered to consider is whether, and if so when, non-sectarian state and private universities—or departments or units of such universities—may take public positions and put out public statements on controversial moral, political, and constitutional or other legal issues that are not directly related to the mission of the university.

For example, this past summer when the Supreme Court of the United States handed down its decision in the Dobbs case, reversing Roe v. Wade, should I—or would it have been appropriate for me, as Director of the Madison Program—to put out the following statement?

The James Madison Program of Princeton University applauds the Supreme Court of the United States for rectifying a longstanding constitutional and moral atrocity. The so-called constitutional right to abortion, which had been imposed on the nation by the Supreme Court nearly fifty years ago in Roe v. Wade, lacked any basis in the text, logic, structure, or original understanding of the Constitution of the United States. It was “an act of raw judicial power,” to quote Justice Byron White’s dissent in Roe, which deprived the American people of their right to work through constitutionally prescribed democratic procedures to protect innocent children in the womb from the lethal violence of abortion. The Supreme Court has, finally, relegated a tragic error to the ash heap of history alongside such similarly unjust and ignominious decisions as Dred Scott v. Sanford, Plessy v. Ferguson, Buck v. Bell, and Korematsu v. U.S.

Now, had I put out such a statement it would have accurately reflected my views along with those of many students, faculty, and staff associated with the Madison Program. But I did not put out any such statement. Nor did I for even a moment consider putting out any such statement. My understanding was that, while I may certainly speak for myself, and identify myself as a Princeton faculty member while doing so, it would be grossly improper for me to identify the University or one of its units—in this case the Madison Program—with a view of the rightness or wrongness of Roe v. Wade or the Dobbs decision, or the justice or injustice of abortion.

These are matters on which reasonable people of goodwill in our community of teachers and learners disagree. One is welcome at Princeton, and in the Madison Program or any other unit of the University, whether one is pro-life, as I am, or pro-choice as a great many others in our community are; whether one thinks of Roe v. Wade as a gross violation of human rights or as a vindication of human rights. It was my understanding that no one should be made to feel like an “insider” or “outsider,” in the University or any of its units, depending on one’s views about abortion and the moral status of unborn human life. No one should be counted as “orthodox” or “heretical,” in the Madison Program or in any other department or program of the University, for his or her views—whatever they happen to be.

We are a university—an academic institution—not a political party, or a church, or the secular ideological equivalent of a church. Although I have no objections, quite the contrary, to religiously affiliated universities, Princeton is not such a university, and has not been one for a long time. We are a nonsectarian institution. Our mission does not include the propagation of certain beliefs. At Princeton, or so I thought, our role is to provide, in the words of our President, Christopher Eisgruber, “an impartial forum for vigorous, high-quality discussion, debate, scholarship, and teaching.” To me, an “impartial forum” means that we as faculty members and students engage each other on controversial questions in a robust, civil, truth-seeking manner, without the University or a department or program’s thumb on the scales.

But perhaps I was wrong. Recently, we have seen leaders of some units of the University putting out statements formally committing the units they lead to particular positions on issues of precisely the sort on which reasonable people in our community disagree. In the wake of the Dobbs decision, for example, certain units put out statements like the one I could have put out but did not put out or even consider putting out—the only difference being that they condemned rather than praised the decision and praised rather than condemned the decision it overturned. Were they right to do so? Am I wrong to believe that neither they nor I should have committed our units of the University to a particular view? Am I misguided in thinking, along with President Eisgruber, that our duty is to provide “an impartial forum for vigorous, high-quality debates”? As I said to our Provost, I am happy to play by the rules, but I need to know what the rules are—and there must be one set of rules for everybody, not different rules for different people depending on the substantive political, moral, or other beliefs they happen to hold or which happen to be dominant in their units.

Let me be clear that our purpose in gathering today is not to debate abortion or Roe v. Wade or any other moral, political, or constitutional issue, but to ask whether the right policy for non-sectarian universities like ours is for them and their units to take official positions on such issues, or—in line with the University of Chicago’s Kalven Report—to refrain from doing so. Which policy, if either, supports or comports with—and which, if either, undermines or imperils—the university’s mission? To help us think our way through the issue, we will begin with a panel of distinguished scholars representing a spectrum of disciplines in the arts and sciences.

Gov. Pritzker and Cardinal Cupich

An . . . interesting piece, in the Chicago Sun-Times, about the text-relationship between Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker and Cardinal Blase Cupich of the Archdiocese of Chicago.  There is, in my view, nothing inappropriate about these two leaders talking about shared interests and goals, and also about tactics for promoting and accomplishing them.  (One suspects that this text-relationship would prompt a five-part series in the New York Times about "theocracy" if it involved a Republican governor and a Catholic bishop, but put that aside.)  The unfortunate thing here is that the means they supported in pursuit of their goals were, in many instances, unwarranted and harmful.  Still, we should pray that Cardinal Cupich will (a) learn a lesson about reflexive deference and (b) be similarly communicative about, say, the Governor's support for rules permitting children to get abortions, at any point in pregnancy, without their parents' consent.  

"Liberalism, Christianity, and Constitutionalism" at Notre Dame Law School

The Notre Dame Law Review has put together a(nother) great symposium, on "Liberalism, Christianity, and Constitutionalism", which will be held tomorrow morning.  All South Bend-area folks, come by!

Symposium participants will include Professors Nathan S. Chapman of the University of Georgia School of Law, Kathleen A. Brady of Emory University School of Law, Richard W. Garnett of Notre Dame Law School, Andrew M. Koppelman of Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, Melissa Moschella of the Catholic University of America, Brandon Paradise of Rutgers Law School, Rev. Dr. Sergey Trostyanskiy, Amy Sepinwall of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, Steven Smith of the University of San Diego School of Law, and Paul Billingham of the University of Oxford.

The authors will discuss their written scholarship, which will appear in Volume 98, Issue 4 of the Notre Dame Law Review. Dr. Jonathan Chaplin of the University of Cambridge and Michael Moreland of Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law will be writing a response to the symposium.

• Panel One: 9 a.m. to 10:10 a.m.

• Panel Two: 10:20 a.m. to 11:20 a.m.

• Panel Three: 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.