Scalia Is a Hit at Hastings

[Kate Moser]

From the start of a Q&A with Justice Antonin Scalia tonight at Hastings College of the Law, he kept his rapt law school crowd in stitches.

Introduced as having long awaited his title of senior associate justice of the Supreme Court, Scalia quipped: "And that plus 75 cents gets you into the New York subway."

Prompted by Hastings constitutional law professor Calvin Massey, Scalia weighed in on a range of issues, including affirmative action, Bush v. Gore, televising Supreme Court arguments, and the role of his religious faith in his life and work. Hundreds of students, like 3L Trey Marshall (above right), packed the Louis B. Mayer auditorium for the talk.

One of the livelier themes was Scalia's defense of the textualist approach to the Constitution. The approach isn't perfect, he acknowledged. But he added it offers easy answers on issues as big as the death penalty and abortion. "I don't even have to read the briefs, for Pete's sake," he said. "If you are an evolutionist, you don't have any answers. Every day's a new day for the evolutionists ... Originalism isn't perfect, but it's so much more perfect than evolutionism."

"You do not need the Constitution to reflect the current society," he said later. If the current society wants to change something "... all you need is a legislature and a ballot box."

In a revealing moment, Massey asked Scalia about his saying once that certain times in human history are eras of genius. Eighteenth century America was an era of genius in government, he said, for example. What is our era's genius, Massey asked.

"Not every era is an era of genius," Scalia said. "The thing I worry most about is that we will never be a distinguished age if we don't believe in excellence."

Scalia seemed to enjoy himself throughout the talk. And he didn't appear to worry about his detractors. When Massey asked him why he seems to inspire great love or hate, he said: "I think my views are often misrepresented, and people have a misrepresentation of what I would do. As a result of which I often make a terrific impression because people expect me to have horns and a tail."

After Scalia left the stage flanked by uniformed officers and U.S. marshals, emcee and Hastings law professor Evan Lee  told the audience he was very proud of them. (Perhaps he had in mind other less copacetic law school receptions of the justice.) 

Comments

[BobN]

The genius of the Founders was to write a document that wasn't burdened by transient prejudices and hidebound tradition.

[Nick]

Sitting Judges should not be allowed to expound on their views and then sit and rule on the very same types of cases they opine on outside of the court!

Scalia should recuse himself from all gay-related cases as he is biased against gay people!

If not, then I don't want to hear that Judge Walker should have recused himself form the Prop 8 case!

[Leslie Brodie]

I will have to agree with Nick.

An article about Scalia's speech at Hastings was also published here:

http://lesliebrodie.blog.co.uk/2010/09/20/antonin-gregory-scalia-visit-hastings-9422325/

[Nancy D.]

With all due respect to Justice Scalia,the genius of our Founding Fathers was that they realized the self-evident Truth that our Right to Life, Liberty, and The Pursuit of Happiness depends on the recognition that these Rights have been endowed to us from God and are thus unalienable. These Rights remain unalienable despite what some "evolutionist" may erroneously try to argue.

[ghd hair straightener]

It's either a joke, but more likely a test of the PACER system by the court IT folks that should have been deleted, but wasn't. Don't laugh though - IT tests have sometimes been much worse, like using people's REAL information and credit card numbers in testing commerce systems...