Jeff Goldstein, Constitutional Scholar

Claims Goldstein: “legal conservatism has the drawback of showing undue deferrence to stare decisis.” So, apparently, Clarence “Because I believe that the demise of the Privileges or Immunities Clause has contributed in no small part to the current disarray of our Fourteenth Amendment jurisprudence, I would be open to reevaluating its meaning in an appropriate case” Thomas and Antonin “I do not myself believe in rigid adherence to stare decisis in constitutional cases” Scalia are not conservatives. Fascinating. (Thomas’ Seanz dissent is actually worth a separate post sometime; I happen to agree with him that the Slaughterhouse Cases should be strongly reconsidered and substantive due process jurisprudence moved to its proper place in the privileges and immunities clause, although evidently I don’t think the invocations of original intent are particularly helpful.)

Meanwhile, more fun can be had trying to reconcile Goldstein’s asserted opposition to “identity politics” with his argument that there’s something problematic about hiring Juan Cole, despite the fact that he knows absolutely nothing about Cole’s relevant credentials but does know that he disagrees with Cole’s political views. To be fair, however, Goldstein did leave it to Roger Simon to pull the “Ward Churchill” card…