Lopez, Gerald P.

English

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Why Should We Honor Steve Shiffrin

Loyola Marymount University

Loyola Marymount University and Loyola Law SchoolDigital Commons at Loyola MarymountUniversity and Loyola Law SchoolLoyola of Los Angeles Law Review Law Reviews9-1-2007Why Should We Honor Steve ShiffrinGerald P. LopezThis Symposium is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Reviews at Digital Commons @ Loyola Marymount University and Loyola LawSchool. It has been accepted for inclusion in Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons@LoyolaMarymount University and Loyola Law School. For more information, please contact digitalcommons@lmu.edu.Recommended CitationGerald P. Lopez, Why Should We Honor Steve Shiffrin, 41 Loy. L.A. L. Rev. 41 (2007).Available at: https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/llr/vol41/iss1/2WHY SHOULD WE HONOR STEVE SHIFFRIN?Gerald P. L6pez*Ron Collins called and asked if I would take a few minutes toanswer the question: Why Should We Honor Steve Shiffrin? I hadtaken for granted that everyone knew the answer to that question.Apparently, though, several had asked if Steve had lots of money,lots of connections, or a judicial appointment on the near horizon. Inour shared stocks of archetypes, we who work at academicinstitutions honor the living apparently only when we believe we cantap their bank accounts, their social capital, their raw power.As far as I know, Steve isn't wealthy, connected to theinfluential, or about to become a judge. He has, however, throughhis enormous scholarly contributions, made us all better than wemight otherwise have been. This weekend's events honor his workin commercial speech. We might just as well have paid tribute to hiscontributions to the messy things we call the First Amendment, orthe Constitution, or democracy itself. His ideas have changed theway we think about everything from advertising to dissent to ournational community. Today and tomorrow, Loyola gives us, at once,an opportunity and proof: an opportunity to come together to thankSteve, and proof we honor one another for many reasons indeed.That should do it, I realize. If you have accomplished whatSteve has through the written word, you justly deserve many tributes(here in Los Angeles, in New York, and everywhere from Paris toGuadalajara to Prague to Columbus, Indiana, and Jerome, Arizona).But I keep thinking Steve merits the tribute we bestow for deeperreasons still. It is fair if you are saying to yourself, "What can bedeeper than changing through written work how we think about theinstitutions and practices central to the way we live with oneanother?" Yet if I'm weird for thinking there is something deeper,* Professor of law, New York University School of Law. Visiting professor of law,University of California, Los Angeles School of Law.LOYOLA OF LOSANGELESLAWREVIEW [Vol. 41:41the fact that Steve exists at least means I am not delusional forbelieving what I do.For several years, approximately two decades ago, I served withSteve on the same faculty. I knew almost nothing about how towrite, how to teach, how to make a law school and a university workwell; Steve already knew lots, and others around us knew remarkableamounts.As fate would have it, I had many opportunities to be aroundSteve. In both informal and formal settings. In front of largeaudiences and by ourselves. Exploring ideas and events. Agreeingand disagreeing about much. Fighting at each other's sides andoccasionally opposing one another. I saw Steve comfortably cruisingalong and getting deliberately blindsided; saw when others regardedhim as capable of doing no wrong; saw when others misunderstoodand even betrayed him; saw him cycle through the ups and downsand ins and outs of work and life. Perhaps most importantly, I sawhim in many moments when he behaved as if no one were watching,as if no one were there recording what he did.But, I was watching and recording. And what I saw duringthose years seems to me to be true of how Steve has conductedhimself throughout his life. When I am around Steve, I really canbelieve that those fortunate enough to teach for a living actually trytheir very best to live life in the very same way they write about it.If you urge a robust democracy, you must appreciate the viewsof others-not just the views of your own kind, but rather, the viewsof anyone and everyone. If you encourage dissent, you must openyourself to learning from those who may be disputing your ownauthority every bit as much as you revel in challenging theconvictions of others. If you value privacy, you must stop yourselffrom joining gossip-slinging cabals, appreciating that what others donot know about your life is reason enough for you to treat as sacredwhat you cannot know about the lives of others. If you insist uponequality, you treat all those working with you as having names, asnot being there just to service you (much less to tolerate degradingand derisive outbursts), as offering labor that matters to what you dotogether. If you sing the praises of community, you open yourself tothe often dizzying mix of conflict and cooperation through which weinescapably define our time together.HONORING STEVE SHIFFRINI cannot claim to know the origins of Steve's behavior-thesources of his drive to be the sort of person who could livecomfortably in the vision of democratic life he helps the rest of usimagine through his work as achievable. Is it traceable to the utterlylost-in-his-own-thoughts teenager who routinely baffled everyonewith his academic underachievement and his joy for surfing theSouthern California beaches? Is it related to the gifted high schoolpitcher who loved team play even more than he liked being singledout for the natural movement on his fastball? Is it an expression ofhis own brand of radical Catholicism? Is it a reflection of what heexperienced as the white teacher and debate coach who was asked byhis black students to teach the first-ever black studies courses at CalState Northridge? Is it reinforced through his years as an electedschool board member in the racially, culturally and economicallycomplex Ithaca school district?If I cannot in any way help you understand why Steve tries tolive his convictions, I can tell you why I watched and why Irecorded. Having been raised right here in East Los Angeles, havingutterly respected and loved a dad and mom who astoundinglydreamed the biggest sort of radical democratic dreams even whilebeing regarded by so many as genetically and culturally inferior, Ifound myself from a very early age looking for others who thoughtlike them and behaved like them. No, I was not searching for saints.Trust me, I wanted flawed flesh-and-blood, folks who made mistakesand needed forgiveness, and yet who not only talked about how weshould be together, but, more astoundingly still, tried each and everyday to live out what they imagined for us all.Yes, I love Steve's scholarship. I read it, re-read it, time andagain finding something new, an insight, a trajectory. His writtenwork can alone easily explain the decision to honor him. For me,though, the deepest reason Steve deserves our tribute is becausethrough his everyday living, as much as through his scholarship, hehelps return certain robustly democratic aspirations from the worldof the miraculous to the world of the real. Through his behavior asmuch as through his thoughts, he openly challenges all those whosnicker at these aspirations and regard them as undoable, against ournature, and impractically romantic.I cannot imagine that trying to live this way has been any easierfor Steve than it was for my mom or my dad. But I want him toFall 2007]44 LOYOLA OF LOSANGELESLAWREVIEW [Vol. 41:41know that others pay attention, draw inspiration, and try in blemishedand humble forms to emulate. For proving the wondrous can berealized plenty often enough if we try. Thank you, Steve, thank youfrom all of us here, and thank you from all those, like my mom anddad and like your parents, who are with us in spirit.

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Why Should We Honor Steve Shiffrin

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