Shout out to Professor Meyer

My criminal law professor from last fall, Linda Meyer had an interesting piece on Justice O'Connor in last Sunday's Washington Post. She's right on when she says that O'Connor will be missed most greatly for her mode of judicial decision making, and not her role as a so-called "moderating influence" on the court. Most of the mainstream media have missed this point in their effort to portray the court as a battleground for political ideology. But really, O'Connor's penchant for very fact specific jurisprudence, and limited as opposed to sweeping decisions, is what will be most sorely missed by the court.

Another thought popped into my head as well while reading Professor Meyer's piece. For all the claims of liberal bias in academia, such bias has been noticeably absent in all of my courses so far at Quinnipiac. Not only is such bias absent, but the staff at Quinnipiac goes out of there way to present multiple sides of issues, and to make sure students understand different modes of judicial decision making. Professor Meyer is no different. The lonely libertarian remembers a moment early last fall while reading Lawrence v. Texas in class, when the liberal leaning Professor Meyer told the class that regardless of what we though of his views personally, we really should learn to appreciate the writing of Justice Scalia.