Great news today!!

From ZDNEt:

"Online shopping received a substantial boost on Monday when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that state governments may not prohibit residents from ordering directly from out-of-state wineries.

In a 5-4 ruling, the court said that Michigan and New York had enacted protectionist laws that unconstitutionally discriminated against wineries from other states.

Justice Anthony Kennedy said that the states' claims of possible lost taxes or shipments to minors could not justify taking such strong measures against direct shipping. "The states have not shown that tax evasion from out-of-state wineries poses such a unique threat that it justifies their discriminatory regimes," Kennedy wrote for the majority.

Monday's ruling effectively means that oenophiles in states with protectionist laws--about 26 do--will enjoy lower prices and more choices because they will be able to bypass distributors and order directly from a winery's Web site. It could also open the doors to direct beer and hard liquor shipments."

Update:Looks like most of the conservative justices came down on the dissent side of things, along with John Paul Stevens.

From CNN:

"In a dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas argued the ruling needlessly overturns long-established regulations aimed partly at protecting minors. State regulators under the 21st Amendment have clear authority to regulate alcohol as the see fit, he wrote.

"The court does this nation no service by ignoring the textual commands of the Constitution and acts of Congress," Thomas wrote. He was joined by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and John Paul Stevens."

Greetings! As new Major Domo of Ex Parte, I'd like to extend a hearty welcome to our readers. I apologize for the recent lack of updates, but many of us have been preoccupied with finals lately. Hopefully things will pick back up again once folks get settled down in their summer jobs.

In the meantime, I've received an update on the People v. Harvard Law post. Ex Parte Reader Rachel Alexander has a review of the book up at IntellectualConservative.com.

I have two basic problems with the book and the review (which basically just agrees with the book).

First, they overplay their hand. There is a lot of hype about how conservatives are marginalized, etc. - typical conservative persecution complex stuff. But in my two years here I've rarely if ever found that to be the case. Certainly, you won't see professors seriously advocating many conservative views, but students seem to do a decent job of taking up the slack. Students who advocate such views are not booed and hissed at - nor are they harassed. I have had one instance where I felt my grade in a class was affected by the ideological position of my paper (Contracts with Prof. Jolls, who was a very good professor but gave my Hayek-inspired paper a B for some superficial reasons that unravelled very quickly.) But I feel that's the exception and not the norm.

Second, they seem to assume that Harvard Law is uniquely leftist, rather than typical. Leftists permeate academia at all levels - Harvard and Harvard Law are not uniquely leftist. We may perhaps have a few more "leading leftists" than other schools, but I doubt the ideological climate here is substantially different from that at other top law schools.

I also have to disagree with the assertion that the battle over free speech (or any other issue) at the law school is between the left and far left. Certainly, there are few conservative or libertarian professors on the HLS faculty. But students themselves can certainly represent these positions, and often do. The HLS Federalist Society has over 300 members and is one of the most active student organizations on campus. FedSoc members are frequent contributors to the Record, and serve in many other leadership positions. We recently hosted the National Student Federalist Society conference here on campus. There is no ideological crisis here at HLS - tconservative and libertarian students are filling the void that the administration has created by failing to hire conservative and libertarian professors.

I'm also dubious about this statement "It should be noted that there is not a single conservative on the law faculty (there is one moderate Republican), yet there are several Crits." Prof. Fried and Prof. Goldsmith are both conservatives. I would guess that Dean Clark might have some inclinations in that area. Prof. Calabresi, though technically not on the faculty, is a "scholar in residence" at the law school. We also have other conservative visiting faculty on a fairly regular basis. There may also be others of which I'm not aware.

I'd like to address a few more quotes from the review:

"At the end of the book one is left wondering whether conservatives, fair-minded people in the legal profession and those considering going to law school should bother with Harvard. Has Harvard Law departed so far from its former intellectually rigorous high standard by caving into sub-standard Crit vagaries that it should be avoided altogether?"

Those considering going to law school should certainly not be deterred from coming to Harvard because of this book or silly misconceptions about Harvard being unfriendly to conservative students. With the largest Federalist Society in the country, HLS is as good a place as any for conservative students.

"There is certainly a growing niche for a conservative law school to compete academically with Harvard Law. Just as Fox News grew out of the descent of the major news networks as they slid too far to the left, perhaps it is time for a truly fair and balanced yet erudite law school to replace Harvard Law’s reign as the heavyweight law school. "

Chicago used to be this place, but I'm told this one-time stronghold of conservative/libertarian jurisprudence has faded dramatically in the past decade or so. The current ascendant to the throne is George Mason University Law School. They have a comparatively conservative/libertarian faculty and student body, with a strong law & econ emphasis. So far they have succeeded in making it into Tier 1 (ranked #41 in the most recent US News rankings) by gaming their numbers better than anyone else has gamed their numbers (not to mention having an outstanding faculty.) GMU is a good school and I imagine students there learn a great deal.

My hesitation in recommending GMU Law, however, would be that students might not be exposed as much to the predominant legal climate and hear more mainstream (leftist) theories on constitutional law and other issues. Given that our jobs as advocates will be to persuade others that our interpretation of the law is correct, I think it's important to have a solid understanding of this jurisprudence and am concerned that the relative ideological isolation of GMU Law may not sufficiently prepare students for this challenge. On the other hand, I may be wrong, and GMU students may be getting plenty of exposure to this sort of thing.