Tribe

I met Larry Tribe in 1997 at a dinner party in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Tointroduce me to her colleagues, Harvard Professor Martha Minow asked me which of the University\u27s scholars I would like to invite to my ideal dinner. As a newly minted professor, it took me a moment to realize this was not an interview question, but her characteristically generous attempt to construct a guest list. I asked for Larry Tribe and Helen Vendler. I had been lucky enough to take a seminar on modem poetry with Vendler as an undergraduate at Harvard. But neither Vendler nor I had met Tribe before.At one point in the evening, someone mentioned Vendler\u27s book on the odes ofJohn Keats.1 Tribe mused aloud about who John Keats might have grown up to be if he had lived past the age of twenty-six. (This off-hand reference to how old Keats was when he died was my first experience of Tribe\u27s intellectual range and photographic memory.) I think he would have grown up to be James Merrill, Vendler replied. I saw Tribe look up at her as she issued this extraordinary pronouncement. James Merrill, after all, was still alive. I thought each recognized a kindred spirit. She was forging the literary canon as he was forging the legal one. I felt I was in the presence of greatness

The Eclectic Model of Censorship

Censorship used to be a very dull subject. Aligned alongpredictable and venerable divisions separating liberals fromconservatives, oriented toward ancient and well-rehearsedchestnuts such as obscenity and national security, the topicpromised little of analytic interest.In recent years, however, the landscape of censorship hasaltered dramatically. Now feminists in Indianapolis join withfundamentalist Christians to seek the regulation of pornography.Critical race theorists join with Jesse Helms to regulate hatespeech. Advocates of abortion rights seek to restrict politicaldemonstrations while conservative pro-life groups defend thefreedom to picket (p. 1)

Assimiliationist Bias in Equal Protection: The Visibility Presumption and the Case of Don\u27t Ask, Don\u27t Tell

Equal protection heightened scrutiny jurisprudence currently privilegesthe talismanic classifications of race and, to a lesser extent, sex. Inconsidering arguments that other classifications be accorded heightenedscrutiny, the courts have required claimants to demonstrate the similaritiesthese classifications share with race and sex. Commonalities between thetwo paradigm classifications thus play a powerful gatekeeping role.Two commonalities emphasized by the courts are that race and sexostensibly mark individuals with immutable and visible traits. Aclassification will therefore be less likely to receive heightened scrutiny ifits defining traits can be altered or concealed. By withholding protectionfrom these classifications, the judiciary is subtly encouraging groupscomprised by such classifications to assimilate by changing or hiding theirdefining characteristic. This is an assimilationist bias in equal protection,which I will critique in this Article

On Empathy in Judgment (Measure for Measure)

This article is based on a Baker-Hostetler presentation given by the author at the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law. The author compares the nomination process of Supreme Court justices and the conflict between empathy and rule of law with William Shakespeare\u27s Measure for Measure