The Politically Correct Law School

• • Tuesday, March 20, 2012
  • 12:00pm until 1:00pm

• K2A FREE JIMMY JOHNS & BEER!

• Sponsored by the Federalist Society at Temple University Beasley School of Law & The Temple Law Republicans Is political correctness one of the primary enemies of freedom of speech? Has the dearth of conservative, libertarian, and neoliberal thinkers limited students’ exposure to different ideas, inhibiting the ability of the university to produce thoughtful citizens? Has diversity – of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation, but not of ideas -- become the dominant ideology in higher education? One would think that a law school, a place where ideas can flourish freely in an open spirit of academic inquiry and in an enlightened pursuit of truth, would be precisely the place where one would be free of any orthodoxies or chilling effects on speech. But despite tenure to protect unpopular views and encouraging fresh new ideas to be explored and challenged on their merits without prejudice, we instead often find the opposite result. Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Professor of Law and Psychology at Chapman University’s School of Law, comprehensively examines everything from voter registration of faculty to the psychological underpinnings of political leanings in various disciplines, particularly social sciences, as well as the proclivity of the like-minded to only attract the like-minded. But does a prevalence of like-minded people necessarily lead to group-think and the stifling of fee speech? Come find out! DR. RICHARD REDDING currently serves as the Associate Dean at Chapman University Law & as Professor of Psychology at Chapman University. Dr. Redding specializes in forensic issues in criminal law, juvenile justice, the use of social science research in law & public policy, & the ways in which social & political attitudes influence how science is used in policy making. He has been published in Law & Human Behavior, Behavioral Sciences & the Law, University of Chicago Roundtable, Virginia Journal of Social Policy & the Law, Washington University Journal of Law & Policy, American Psychologist, & the Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy, as well as publications of the American Bar Association, the MacArthur Foundation, the University of Chicago Press, Oxford University Press, & the U.S. Justice Department.