In his July 1985 speech before the American Bar Association House of Delegates, Attorney General Edwin Meese provoked a storm of controversy by suggesting that the Supreme Court's decisions ought to be guided by a “jurisprudence of original intention.” This position of constitutional interpretation, coined “originalism” by the constitutional scholar Paul Brest, was considered by Meese to be “the only reliable guide for judgment.” Accordingly, the Reagan administration would press the High Court to adopt such a hermeneutical approach by selecting nominees who espoused intentionalist views—most notably in the nomination of William Rehnquist and Robert H. Bork to be Chief Justice and Associate Justice respectively.

In a highly unusual public reaction to the Attorney General's remarks, Justice William Brennan, the High Court's senior justice with 31 years of service, commented that Meese's call for a “jurisprudence of original intention” arose from “a debate about how to read a text ….” However, the very question of hermeneutical approach (which even Robert Bork took seriously) struck Mr. Meese as “liberal dogma;” for the Attorney General, reading constitutional provisions is just not problematic. “The meaning of the constitution can be known,” he insists. Justices must simply resist the temptation to superimpose their own agenda upon the nation's founding documents. Advocating the “common sense” approach of epistemological empiricism, Meese seems to suggest a literalist reading of the constitution which effortlessly brings to light its meaning “deposited” by the Framers.

If law is anything today, it is dispirited. It lacks life, vitality, enchantment, vision. Neither law nor its practitioners sing—or even hum. My students tell me that they know this but want to hope for more. This article tries to suggest something more, which is already present in America's state constitutions if we can dare turn to hear it. It is the voice of the spirit of the laws of the land. It sings of a vision, and this article is an attempt to tell enough of the story of that vision so that you, too, may hear “an echo of the infinite, a glimpse of its unfathomable process, a hint of the universal law.”

To listen for the spirit, we can best attend to (in addition to the language of law texts) language of the spirit, language in which humankind has lived in hopes of relating to Ultimate Reality for millennia. The spirit we hope to tap is not necessarily theistic, but there is some correspondence among ideas of spirit, consciousness and God. As with the best of such language, we must speak not only of belief but also of doubt and mystery beyond necessary reason.

Prominent authorities have called for the creation of a Code of Ethics for those engaged in legal education. The purpose of this essay is to advance the discussion by proposing a specific set of standards for consideration.

A preliminary question to be answered is why have a code of ethics for law educators?

Ethics are adopted in order to foster unique relationships created by specialized human institutions. Professional codes of ethics differ from morality and law in that they impose additional expectations upon the professional. If they did not, ethical codes would be superfluous, and professionals might simply be expected to act morally and to obey the law. As it is, the ethical demands of a profession are often foreign or contrary to generally applicable principles of morality and law.

Assuming that one agrees that professional codes of ethics are generally salutary, one might disagree about the necessity of drafting a new one for legal academicians. The American Association of University Professors Statement on Professional Ethics may be thought to suffice for defining a teacher's academic responsibilities, as may the American Bar Association Model Rules of Professional Conduct for all ethical questions encountered in the practice of law.

Set: Four wooden high-backed chairs arranged two to each side of a simple oak desk upon which sits a water canister, ashtray, copies of The Hidden God (by Lucien Goldman, Thody Translation 1964), Economic Analysis of Law (by Richard Posner, 3d. Ed. 1986), The Plague (by Albert Camus), Les Lettres Provinciales (by Blaise Pascal), and several volumes of the Supreme Court Reporter.

Scene One: Mr. Allen enters first, carrying a sheaf of photocopied papers, and sits behind the desk. Next enter Mr. Posner, Mr. Pascal, Mr. Holmes, and Mr. Kelman all carrying similar papers. Holmes and Posner take seats to Allen's right; Kelman and Pascal seat themselves to Allen's left.

Mr. Allen: Gentlemen, I would like to thank you for coming. I know that Mr. Pascal has had an especially difficult trip. I myself just flew in from the coast, and boy are my arms tired (polite chuckles from Posner and Kelman).

Those who have made an equally sedulous study of 1) American constitutional law and 2) religion—particularly New Testament theology—are immediately struck by the many similarities inherent in both the process and polemics of textual interpretation between them. The observation and description of these similarities have been the subjects of a relatively small yet proliferous corpus of comparisons and investigations, predominantly in law journals and monographs. Most constitutional legal scholars, not formally trained in and therefore unfamiliar with the arcana of theological hermeneutics and exegesis, earnestly join the jurisprudential debate over the “intent of the framers” and the creation by certain justices of the U.S. Supreme Court of new constitutional fundamental rights via substantive due process and/or the penumbra doctrine, without ever realizing the striking parallels in the debate between theologians about the original meaning and applicability of the New Testament canon to modern moral and religious problems.

Since the publication of Perry Miller's The New England Mind in 1939, Puritan covenantal thought has received renewed attention from scholars in a number of different fields. Many of these analyses have tended, however, either to ignore the essential theological grounding of this movement in Calvin and in English evangelicalism or to exaggerate the individualistic character of Puritan ethics through failure to give adequate attention to such communal themes as religious and civil covenants, equity, virtue, and the common good.

Thus, Perry Miller, for example, interpreted covenantal (or federal) theology as an attempt to resolve the antinomy in Calvinist doctrine between determinism and human freedom by making salvation dependent upon good works. While the idea of such a conditional covenant was fundamentally inconsistent with the traditional Calvinist doctrine of decrees, Miller argued, it did nevertheless provide a pragmatic albeit unstable means of reconciling human freedom and moral responsibility with the doctrine of decrees. When one examines such early covenantal writers as Perkins, Preston, Sibbes, and Ames, however, one finds that they turned to the imagery of covenant primarily out of the need to provide a basis for assurance of salvation and moral guidance, not to resolve a conflict between predestination and human freedom. The latter conflict had already been largely resolved within the framework of Calvinist doctrine. Not only did Miller's focus upon the problem of decrees cause him to misconstrue the relationship between Calvin and covenantal thought in important respects; it also caused him to neglect the evangelical sources of covenantal theology and ethics.

This paper arises out of my experiences as a clinical law professor at Mercer University School of Law. From 1978, to 1983, in a course entitled “The Lawyering Process,” I tried to teach law students what it meant to be a good lawyer and how to be one using a wide variety of teaching methods. I designed the first semester of the course as a classroom study of models of various lawyering tasks, including interviewing, investigating, counseling, and negotiation. During the second semester, students tried the models in practice under the joint supervision of a local attorney and me. We met weekly in seminars and individual conferences to discuss the relative merits of the models and their effectiveness in practice.

In the past several decades there has been a growing movement within the Jewish community to improve the self-image and status of women in Halachah (Jewish law). There is no doubt that this movement was largely affected by the women's liberation movement that has been taking place since the beginning of this century. Despite the assertion of many rabbis and scholars that the role of women in traditional Judaism has been noticeably superior to that of other contemporary civilizations, critics frequently point to the many religious activities from which women continue to be excluded. In the past, women were not accepted as witnesses in a trial; did not inherit equally with their male siblings; were not required or expected to perform the daily religious duties assigned to men; and had to sit separately from the males in the congregation. Only recently have Jewish women been ordained as rabbis and relied on as cantors; allowed to serve on congregational boards as presidents of congregations; granted equal access to study, and allowed to perform all mitzvot; counted in a minyan, the quorum needed for a public worship service, and called to the pulpit for aliyot during the Torah service; and able to ignore the formal requirement of providing a get, the bill of divorce, although it can still be requested.

Felix S. Cohen, the distinguished synthesizer of American Indian law, prophetically proclaimed more than a generation ago:

Since these words were written the practice of Indian law and of law among Indians has greatly expanded. Indian litigants have made some notable advances and suffered some setbacks. But, as the most recent revisors of the Cohen Handbook point out, “the abiding principles of Indian law have changed little” since Cohen articulated them in 1942. Included among these principles or doctrines are acknowledgement of the federal government's “trust obligation to Indians” and recognition that “Indian tribes and individuals are entitled to be free of invidious discrimination under federal and state laws.” The implications and even the truth of these principles have been extensively debated and litigated. Their relevance for the practice of Indian religions remains hazy. With the passage of the American Indian Religious Freedom Act (hereinafter AIRFA) a decade ago, there was some reason to believe that that practice might at last fall under the aegis of the trust responsibility, but the Act has been interpreted by the Courts to add nothing substantial to Indian rights and protections under the religion clauses of the First Amendment, rights and protections enjoyed by all Americans. And the Congress has done nothing since the passage of AIRFA to counter that view.

This is a study of women's rights in Islamic societies, a relatively insignificant subject to the people who live in those societies. The Muslim population of the world is in excess of one billion and approximately one-half of this number, or five hundred million, are female. Geographically, Islam is practiced in all of Arabia, most parts of the Middle East, India, Pakistan, Africa, parts of Spain, and Portugal.

Based on the available literature one may conclude that the Muslims are not particularly interested in this topic. The information that is available is relatively one-sided, expressing the male point of view and his perception of what women's rights ought to be. One reason for this lack of interest is that women, the principal characters, generally lack the formal education necessary for the understanding of their own rights and privileges. Throughout history, there have been very few people willing to advocate this cause. As stated by Dr. Fyzee, a Muslim scholar, the unfortunate position of the women is due to the fact that women, being illiterate, are ignorant of their rights; and men, being callous, choose to remain ignorant.

Heightened awareness in the United States about Islam and Muslims presents an opportunity to explore issues in Islamic Law, and particularly to examine the concepts that underlie Islamic law. This study is an effort to present briefly the controlling principles of Islamic Contract Law. In view of the monumental growth of trade between the Western and the Muslim worlds and projected increase in the coming century, the subject should continue to be of particular interest.

The doctrinal basis of Islamic law is the point of departure for this study. A brief historical sketch reveals the doctrinally-based components that have evolved into Islamic law. Islamic belief begins with Prophet Muhammad, the Messenger of God (Allah). The Prophet's mission was to establish an order in this world based on divine revelations made to him by God (Allah). These divine revelations are recorded in the Quran, the sole scripture of the Muslims. The spiritual and secular practices of the Prophet came to be known as Sunna. These two sources constitute the main guidelines for spiritual as well as temporal Muslim conduct in this life as a preparation for the hereafter, and are called Sharia. The word Sharia means the highway to good life. Over a period of time two additional sources of Sharia came into existence. They are: 1) Qiyas, or analogical reasoning, and 2) Ijma, or consensus of the Islamic community on a point of law. According to Sharia, sovereignty vests in God (Allah), requiring the state to act within the limits of divine law, or Sharia. This sovereignty is recognized by incorporation of Sharia into the Islamic legal system and community. In this sense Sharia is the constitutional law of a Muslim society.

This paper shows that the laws of ancient Israel found in the Old Testament significantly restricted economic transactions and limited the possibility of economic growth. The paper begins by examining the production function in light of Hebraic teaching, demonstrating that theological principles can be translated into economic regulations. The paper then describes the various laws regarding land, labor, capital, and technology and analyzes the probable economic effects of such laws during approximately the fourth century B.C.

Scientists are sometimes tempted to use data collected by Nazi researchers in the infamous death camps. Recently, scientists interested in hypothermia have attempted to use data from extensive studies on the effects of cold that took place in 1942 at the Dachau concentration camp. About 300 persons, mostly Jews, were placed in near-freezing water for varied periods of time, and then warmed by different techniques. About one third of the victims died. Should scientists use this data on what happens to people when they get cold, and how they can be warmed? Some German and Canadian scientists already have. By contrast, the United States Environmental Protection Agency recently refused to republish Nazi data on the toxic gas phosgene.

Ethicists have not found common ground for agreement on the question of using morally tainted data. Philosopher Arthur L. Caplan, a bioethicist at the University of Minnesota, argues that the Nazi data can be used so long as the purpose is an important one, and the data is presented with a clear moral denunciation of how it was obtained. The moral repugnance of the data source might be overruled, suggests Caplan, by the possibility of saving lives. On the other hand, Jay Katz of Yale University Law School disagrees with Caplan's position. The data, argues Katz, should be condemned to oblivion and never used by science, although the descriptions of the experiments can be republished as a reminder of the Nazi horror.

Gandhi's Truth Force (satyagraha) was a unique synergism that included foremost ethical principles found in British law and religion and Hindu tradition and culture. This truth force was rooted in Gandhi's childhood experiences as an Indian Hindu and was cultivated in his formal legal training in London. It culminated in the mass application of nonviolent noncooperation which eventually led to the liberation of the untouchable class in India and forced the British to give India her independence.

The focus of this essay is directed toward two specific influences on Gandhi's Truth Force, namely, the Sermon on the Mount and the Principles of Equity—influences acknowledged by Gandhi as formative in his philosophy. These two formative perspectives were two major sources providing for Gandhi the just means and legitimate ends of social and racial equality. In them he discovered a common ethical language, which would become a part of the language he used to synchronize the actions of millions of Indians in concerted non-cooperation and, at the same time, successfully capture the British conscience for his cause of a free India.

The structures of our thinking and ethics are deeply influenced by our social, economic and political environment. One of my concerns as a poor graduate student was how my theology and ethics would be affected by a Ph.D. and a comfortable job as a professor. After teaching graduate students about social ethics for several years I became alarmed at my own insularity from the experience of people at the bottom rungs of our society. In 1986 I began weekly visits to San Quentin Prison.

Entering the maximum security “holes” of the prison, I was amazed and appalled. Strong men, mostly minorities, are locked in small cages with very little privacy, minimal community, loneliness without silence and regimentation without security. They can touch opposite walls and the ceiling of their cells from a standing position; I saw cells with peeling paint where people may stay 23 or more hours per day for years on end. I heard that up to 1,000 of them are likely never again to see the outside world.

The purpose of this survey is to note important caselaw developments in the state and lower federal courts concerning religious liberty. Purposely omitted are the widely reported United States Supreme Court opinions, as well as cases where the Court has granted review during the 1987-88 term. The focus here is to collect significant cases that may otherwise escape broad attention. Only the facts and rationale of each court's decision is recorded. No editorial comment on the merits of these cases is intended.

Bollenbach v. Board of Education of Monroe- Woodbury Central School District, 659 F. Supp. 1450 (S.D.N.Y. May 8, 1987).

A United States district court concluded that the Monroe-Woodbury Central School District violated the establishment clause of the first amendment by altering its bus routes to ensure that only male bus drivers were assigned to routes servicing male students of the United Talmudic Academy (UTA). The court found that requiring students of UTA to accept transportation from female drivers did burden their religious beliefs under the free exercise clause. However, such a burden was justified by the compelling state interest in avoiding a violation of the establishment clause. Further, the court determined that the prohibition on altering bus routes was the least restrictive means of accomplishing the state's objective of avoiding the appearance of a symbolic union between the school district and the religious sect.

The U. S. Forest Service has proposed oil and gas development for wildlands adjacent to the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, Glacier National Park, and the Bob Marshall wilderness. In response, traditional Blackfeet tribesmen have argued that these Badger-Two Medicine wildlands are sacred and essential to their traditional religion. In this essay, I document the Blackfeet Tradition and explore the religious significance of these wildlands. Investigating several myths germane to the Badger-Two Medicine wildlands, I conclude that the area is sacred and essential to traditional Blackfeet religion.

In cautioning the planners of cities, Plato declared that particular locations possess ecological and spiritual qualities which markedly affect human character development. This ancient observation contains an essential wisdom for contemporary land use planners, as they consider an area in northwestern Montana along the eastern slopes of the continental divide, just southeast of Glacier National Park, an area known as the Badger-Two Medicine. In 1855, these wildlands were retained in reservation status via a treaty between the United States and the Blackfeet Indians. An agreement was subsequently reached between the parties ceding the Badger-Two Medicine wild-lands to the United States. In this agreement, the Blackfeet reserved rights “to go upon” these lands, to hunt and fish thereon, and to harvest timber therein for personal and domestic use. The Badger-Two Medicine later became a unit within the Lewis and Clark National Forest.