As Dean, Elena Kagan Moved Harvard Away From Requiring Law Students to Study Constitutional Law

CNSNews.com ^ | May 28, 2010 | Pete Winn

[Man50D]

Elena Kagan, President Barack Obama’s choice to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court, is best known for moving Harvard Law School away from the 100-year old “case-law method” of legal study.

But in the process, critics say, she moved the nation’s premier law school away from requiring the study of constitutional law towards the study of the laws of foreign nations and international law.

As dean, Kagan won approval from the faculty in 2006 to make major changes to the Harvard Law's curricula.

“My understanding is that she instituted three new courses to the required curriculum and, in so doing, got rid of a requirement to take constitutional law,” Robert Alt, senior legal fellow and deputy director of the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at the Heritage Foundation, told CNSNews.com.

“Currently, at Harvard, constitutional law is not required for first-year law students, or even for graduation,” Alt added.

Indeed, according to Harvard documents, constitutional law is not listed among the law school’s academic requirements, though the catalogue for 2010-2011 does list more than a dozen elective courses dealing with some form of constitutional law.

[ComputerGuy]

Ah, that pesky constitution.

[pepsionice]

Just an observation, but within a year...the law school out of University of New Mexico will equal Harvard in terms of capable lawyers. I’d also predict that we might be looking at the end of road for picking Harvard grads for Supreme Court judge.

[major-pelham]

You start with procedure, property, torts, contracts, evidence, crim procedure, prof responsibility and conlaw. If you don’t, how can u even do the second year? Never mind pass the bar and let alone, practice - anywhere or anything. It’s the world turned upside down. Egad.

[Talisker]

She replaced it with International Law: “Stroke of the pen, law of the land, cool.”

[nolongerademocrat]

She’s got to go. Don’t care about the lesbian thing one way or another, but if she’s for doing away with the Constitution - she’s got to go. When is Obama going to realize that our tolerance of his bullshit has reached the limit?

[Travis McGee]

Yep, that pesky Constitution is the libtard’s biggest impediment to ramming their vision of socialist utopia down our throats.

[opentalk]

This is one of he main reasons she is the first choice. O doesn’t like the constitution. As he said at West Point ,they seek a new international order.

[hinckley buzzard]

Lawyers hate the constition. It is written for the common man and not for them. They hate it because anyone with a semblance of an education can discern equally as well as they what it says, and what it means.

The US Supreme Court has been severely abused by the legal industry. In a rational world SCOTUS would not be staffed with lawyers, but with historians. The Constitution and Bill of Rights are far too important to be entrusted to shysters.

[Man50D]

Lawyers hate the constition.

The Constitution and Bill of Rights are far too important to be entrusted to shysters.

My father doesn't hate the Constitution. He fought for it by landing on Omaha Beach on D-Day and in the Battle of the Bulge. He's been a lawyer for 57 years and is far from being a shyster.