Wrestling with Diversity

Levinson Sanford Levinson

Description

"Diversity" has become a mantra within discussions of university admissions policies and many other arenas of American society. In the essays collected here, Sanford Levinson, a leading scholar of constitutional law and American government, wrestles with various notions of diversity. He begins by explaining why he finds the concept to be almost useless as a genuine guide to public policy. Discussing affirmative action in university admissions, including the now famous University of Michigan Law School case, he argues both that there may be good reasons to use preferences-including race and ethnicity-and that these reasons have relatively little to do with any cogently developed theory of diversity. Distinguished by Levinson's characteristic open-mindedness and willingness to tease out the full implications of various claims, each of these nine essays, written over the past decade, develops a case study focusing on a particular aspect of public life in a richly diverse, and sometimes bitterly divided, society.Although most discussions of diversity have focused on race and ethnicity, Levinson is particularly interested in religious diversity and its implications. Why, he asks, do arguments for racial and ethnic diversity not also counsel a concern to achieve religious diversity within a student body? He considers the propriety of judges drawing on their religious views in making legal decisions and the kinds of questions Senators should feel free to ask nominees to the federal judiciary who have proclaimed the importance of their religion in structuring their own lives. In exploring the sense in which Sandy Koufax can be said to be a "Jewish baseball player," he engages in broad reflections on professional identity. He asks whether it is desirable, or even possible, to subordinate merely "personal" aspects of one's identity-religion, political viewpoints, gender-to the impersonal demands of the professional role. Wrestling with Diversity is a powerful interrogation of the assumptions and contradictions underlying public life in a multicultural world.

Sujets

• Droit et juridique

Informations

• Publié par: Duke University Press
• Date de parution: 27 octobre 2003
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780822385141
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

S A N F O R D L E V I N S O N

WrestlingwithDiversity

Wrestling with Diversity

S A N F O R D L E V I N S O N

Wrestling with Diversity

Duke University Press

D U R H A M & L O N D O N 2 0 0 3

∫2003 Duke University Press

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States

of America on acid-free paper$

Designed by Rebecca M. Giménez

Typeset in Sabon with Clarendon

display by Keystone Typesetting, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-

Publication Data appear on the

last printed page of this book.

To Cynthia,a splendid

wife, mother, grandmother, and

all-around human being

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Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Diversity

11

1

ix

Promoting Diversity in the Public Schools (Or, To What Extent Does the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment Hinder the Establishment of More Genuinely Multicultural Schools?) 62

‘‘Getting Religion’’: Religion, Diversity, and Community in Public and Private Schools,with Meira Levinson90

Identifying the Jewish Lawyer: Reflections on the Construction of Professional Identity 124

National Loyalty, Communalism, and the Professional Identity of Lawyers 159

The Confrontation of Religious Faith and Civil Religion: Catholics Becoming Justices 192

Abstinence and Exclusion: What Does Liberalism Demand of the Religiously Oriented (Would-Be) Judge? 233

Is Liberal Nationalism an Oxymoron? An Essay for Judith Shklar 256

‘‘Culture,’’ ‘‘Religion,’’ and the Law, with Rachel Levinson278

Bibliography

Index

331

319

Acknowledgments

One of the most satisfying things about finishing a book is the opportunity it allows to acknowledge those whose help contributed to it. Whether or not it takes a village to raise a child, it certainly took a community of friends, at least in my case, to produce the work herein. I will make no effort to thank everyone who in fact might deserve such thanks, for the names would sim- ply go on too long. I do, however, want to select out some particular individ- uals without whom it is truly the case that some of these essays would not have been written. A number of these essays began as invited lectures or presentations, and I am grateful for the opportunity to give them and the goad to write they provided. ‘‘Diversity’’ was first given as the Fiscus Lecture at Skidmore College and then considerably revised for presentation as the Owen J. Roberts Memorial Lecture at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. ‘‘Promoting Diversity in the Public Schools (Or, To What Extent Does the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment Hinder the Establishment of More Genuinely Multicultural Schools?)’’ began as part of my duties as a participant in the Allen Seminar at the University of Richmond Law School, an invitation I owe to Gary Leedes; it was rewritten for a conference orga- nized by Robbie George and Sotirios Barber to honor my former colleague at Princeton, Walter Murphy. ‘‘ ‘Getting Religion’: Religion, Diversity, and Community in Public and Private Schools’’ was written for a conference on vouchers at Boston College organized by Alan Wolfe. I appreciate not only the invitation but the alacrity with which Alan accepted my suggestion that I collaborate with Meira Levinson, who is not only an accomplished political theorist, but also, and just as relevantly, a teacher in the public school sys- tems of Atlanta and Boston. But my gratitude to Alan goes well beyond his service as the agent of our coauthorship. He is, I believe, one of our most distinguished and truly thoughtful ‘‘public intellectuals,’’ and I hope he will recognize in these essays some of his own spirit of intellectual engagement.