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13 Law Tchr. 1 (2005-2006)

handle is hein.journals/lawteaer13 and id is 1 raw text is: TlE LAW EACHE GONZAGA UNIVERSITY Institute for Law School Teaching - Promoting the science and art of teaching - Fall 2005 Is God on Your Seating Chart? Discussing Religious Beliefs in Class by Robert L. Palmer Visit any law school class and one thing will quickly become apparent. Logic rules. Arguments are raised and dissected, weaknesses laid bare under the cool, white light of legal analysis. What is a penumbra, and what does it have to do with the U.S. Constitution? How do we find these penumbras? Are they visible only during a full moon? This sort of tongue-in-cheek question- ing always brings a knowing chuckle from the students. Reasoning this way - the banter of linguistic logic - is comfortable, fun. On top of logic (or perhaps underneath it), there is experience. We owe this to the legal realists who taught us to pay attention to the goings-on of the real world, where the rubber meets the road, so to speak. Today in class we'll discuss the death penalty. Let's start with a few studies from the social sciences, check out what sociologists say about the racial imbalance on death row, or how social psychologists score the deterrent effect of the death pen- alty. Hopefully experience and logic will align, and the students will leave class with a beginner's level of under- standing of the area of law covered. But what about belief? What about God? Belief is generally not subject to logical scrutiny. At its simplest, belief merely exists in the mind of the person holding that belief. Anyone who has taught in a law school for a year or two will have come across a student who, when pressed to back up an argument with logic, will reply with a frustrated, I'm sorry, that's just the way I feel! That is belief. (Of course, I am drawing a false bright line here between logic and belief, but that line will serve for pur- poses of this discussion.) When confronted with a statement of belief, most of us law teachers will give a figurative shrug by saying little or nothing. We turn the page, starting a new volley with another student. Belief comes from many sources-bias, ignorance, personal experience, parental teachings. Belief also comes from religion. This is a special category of belief, deserving special attention. Legally and culturally, religious expres- sion has been highly protected in America, given its own safe haven. Most law students come to school fully aware of that safe haven (but not knowing how it might fit in with their education). Furthermore, most religions are based on complex philosophical systems. A religious belief usually isn't a knee-jerk, that's just the way I feel belief, but is more sophisticated, part of a whole-world view of how to decide right and wrong and, more broadly, how to live life. And finally, numbers count. The student who says, that's just the way I feel, probably stands alone in a classroom in his or her belief. A student who speaks from religious principle may well speak for others in the class. A colleague of mine who teaches professional responsi- bility asks students each year to analyze a moral problem based on (1) the Golden Rule, (2) Rule Utilitarianism, or (3) some other value system with which the given student feels comfortable. The responses are written out and handed in. In each class, at least ten percent of the students base their answers on religious beliefs. I expect the actual percentage of students with deeply held religious values is greater than that, but some students feel constrained to use Rule Utilitarianism or the Golden Rule because they seem more lawyerly. The point is, like it or not, our students bring God to class. Despite the fact that many of our students are religious, their beliefs often stay far below the surface, in part because religious concepts are not readily applicable to much of the law school curriculum. Contracts, property, tax courses, business organizations, and civil procedure fall into this category. The substance of these courses seems so far removed from religious doctrine that religion is rarely an issue. At the other end of the spectrum, religion is at the heart of some courses - first amendment, international human rights, and legal history, to name a few. In these courses, religion is usually treated as an abstraction, a right. This takes much of the edge off the conversation. Continued on page 2

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