{"id":4653,"date":"2004-01-12T20:28:02","date_gmt":"2004-01-13T00:28:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/formerlyknownas\/2004\/01\/12\/a-revealing-focus-on-minnesot"},"modified":"2011-08-05T15:00:32","modified_gmt":"2011-08-05T19:00:32","slug":"a-revealing-focus-on-minnesotas-anti-bias-mcle-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/2004\/01\/12\/a-revealing-focus-on-minnesotas-anti-bias-mcle-fight\/","title":{"rendered":"A Revealing Focus on Minnesota’s Anti-Bias MCLE Fight"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n


\n

The National Law Journal<\/EM> has an article<\/A> today on the fight in Minnesota over mandtory anti-bias CLE courses, which we’ve been discussing<\/A>.  (NLJ<\/EM>, “<\/EM>A battle over anti-bias CLE courses,” 01-12-04, subscription required)  Opponent Scott Johnson at Powerline<\/FONT><\/STRONG><\/A>, a\/k\/a The Big Trunk, has posted the article on his weblog, here<\/A>.  It’s worth a look.   Big Trunk says:<\/FONT><\/DIV>
\n

\n
“The story is not illuminating, but it is probably useful to have the national press put a spotlight on the case, and I believe there will be additional attention focused on the story in the next week or two when Fox News broadcasts a segment on it.” <\/FONT><\/DIV><\/BLOCKQUOTE>
\n
In reading the article, I was struck by one strange argument presented by Peter Swanson<\/A>, corporate counsel at TCF National Bank in Minneapolis, who submitted an amicus<\/EM> brief in support of Elliot Rothenberg’s petition against the Rule.   Swanson points out that, unlike Minnesota, California allows self-study to fulfill its anti-bias requirement and therefore “does not compel attorneys to reveal their ideology by choosing a particular course<\/U>.” (emphasis added)  What a weird, unfortunate notion:  it assumes that an attorney would only choose a course whose title\/syllabus coincided with his or her existing beliefs on the issue of bias.   It also assumes that we each have an “ideology” about bias (or anti-bias).  <\/FONT><\/DIV>
\n
<\/FONT> <\/DIV>
\n
\"Question  What ideology would I be revealing if I signed up for “Understanding Islam”?  If I went to “Bias, What Bias?”, is there a presumption (rebuttable?) that I believe there is no bias?  Just who is doing the presuming and taking notice and why the heck would I care?  <\/FONT><\/DIV>
\n
<\/FONT> <\/DIV>
\n
Whatever happened to intellectual or social curiosity?  To having the courage of your own convictions or being open to the ideas or experiences of others?  To taking a devil’s advocate posture, eager to ask the presenters tough questions?  I mean, they are<\/EM> lawyers and<\/EM> adults, right?  Yet, they’re worried about being “indoctrinated” and “revealing their ideology”.  As I might have said in my rebel days: Reveal This!    Tonight, my main reaction is: Kids, Stop Whining!<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/DIV><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The National Law Journal has an article today on the fight in Minnesota over mandtory anti-bias CLE courses, which we’ve been discussing.  (NLJ, “A battle over anti-bias CLE courses,” 01-12-04, subscription required)  Opponent Scott Johnson at Powerline, a\/k\/a The Big Trunk, has posted the article on his weblog, here.  It’s worth a look.   Big Trunk says: “The story […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":94,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2926],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pre-06-2006"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kP1R-1d3","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/94"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4653"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4653\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14056,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4653\/revisions\/14056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}