Friday, February 08, 2008
Outlaws and Stonewall Bar
Last night, I personally hosted a reception for Outlaws and the Stonewall Bar Association, our LGBT student group and the local predominantly LGBT voluntary bar association. I did so not only because I believe in engaging with students and cultivating the bench and the bar, but also due to my belief that among the remaining civil rights issues our nation faces is legalized discrimination against individuals based on their sexual orientation. While we have much more than we may realize to do, and I embrace the challenge, with respect to race, gender, disability, and religion, among other sources of potential division, we at least have forged a consensus, fragile though it may be, that legal discrimination on the basis of these classifications is wrong – more than wrong as a technical matter, violative of a shared sense of moral norms. Other forms of legal discrimination have become so inconsequential that they barely attract notice: for example, there was a time and there are still cultures that embrace explicit birth order discrimination. Yet with respect to only a few remaining traits – sexual orientation and immigrant status perhaps most prominent among them – do we as a nation continue to allow de jure distinctions to be drawn, almost all of them rooted in invidious intentions even those motivations have been forgotten or may be unconvincingly disavowed. As Dean of our Law School, I have sought to address these issues as they affect access to higher education and the justice system, though of course the consequences extend far beyond those areas with which it is eminently appropriate we be concerned.
It has been my practice to host events with various student groups, including, among others, BLSA, JLSA, and the Christian Law Students Association. The opportunity to interact informally with faculty, along with practitioners, is invaluable. I’d like to thank especially Professor Peter Hammer for attending the Outlaws-Stonewall function, along with philosophy Professor John Corvino.
