NPR Tries to Scare Us

By doing a bunch of stories on Christian, conservative law schools that are <breathless reporter voice> "turning out over 600 lawyers a year!"</breathless reporter voice>

I heard part of it on Day to Day. The folks at Mirror of Justice, many of whom are associated with the University of St. Thomas Law School, objected:

Greg S. has just posted our Dean's statement criticizing NPR's simplistic identification of St. Thomas as a "conservative" law school.  In response to  objections from our faculty -- including politically conservative faculty -- NPR has admitted that they mischaracterized us, has removed St. Thomas from the list on the web page that Michael P. referenced, and will read the Dean's short statement on the air in the next couple of days. 

This episode has impressed upon me, and others here, the point that Greg and Chuck Reid make about how difficult it is to avoid being pigeonholed into familiar and simple categories.  When NPR was researching this story, I exchanged e-mails with their researcher, emphasizing in my e-mail that "St. Thomas is not a 'conservative Christian' school as such.  It is a law school with a serious Catholic Christian identity" -- and I then explained how that led to some stereotypically "liberal" positions being strong here, like opposition to the death penalty and an emphasis on fighting poverty, as well as some stereotypically "conservative" positions like opposition to abortion and euthanasia.  I also emphasized diversity of viewpoint on our faculty on these and other issues.  NPR totally ignored all the nuances that I described for them when it ran the story.  The idea that any seriously religious law school must be turning out nothing but Republican lawyers was too good, and too easy, for NPR to pass up.  Discussion in the media of questions about religion and law remains at a depressingly low level.