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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.