Judge Neomi Rao on "Textualism's Political Morality"

A lecture on textualism at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law.

Earlier this month, the Honorable Neomi Rao of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit delivered a lecture on "Textualism's Political Morality" at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law. We were honored to be able to host Judge Rao, and a video of the lecture is below.

This lecture was part of the Sumner Canary Memorial Lecture series, which has included many prominent jurists, including three currently sitting members of the Supreme Court. Prior Canary lectures may be found here.

Comments

[Ed Grinberg]

No, no, no, you got it all wrong! You don't achieve "politically moral" results by sticking to the plain meaning of the (statutory, constitutional, etc.) text. You do it by ignoring the text, by pretending to "interpret" it, in order to come up with (what you know to be) the morally-right substantive result!

(I don't mean this, of course. Plenty of people, including some judges / justices, do. Some are quite open about it.)

[Mark Regan]

Is there a written version of the lecture that you could post -- or, at worst, a transcript?

[DaivdBehar]

The ADAAA requires subtitles for the deaf, and for those of us who want to watch the lecture during meetings. The scumbag lawyer calls it accessibility.

[DaivdBehar]

The majority of people using the website accessibility feature will be people silently fooling around at meetings, as the majority of people using the handicap sidewalk cutouts are skateboard punks terrorizing pedestrians. Each costs over $1000 to make, but then lawyers and make work illegal aliens in construction are getting their rent.

[Frank Drackman]

She'll make a good Surpreme in DJT's next administration.

[Archibald Tuttle]

Sigh. If only lawyers could learn to speak succinctly. If she can't make her point in 10 minutes (instead of 54 minutes) I'm not going to invest that much of my time to listen.

Maybe we should encourage them to do TED talks. They would be forced to make their points, and make them well, in 15 minutes or less.

[DaivdBehar]

The first sentence should be the take home message, in case people go home right then. The second sentence should be a crazy question to get the attention of the sleepy audience. The rest can be entertaining anecdotes, facts, logic, economic analysis to persuade people.

Lawyers get paid by the minute, so they want to prolong the agony as long as possible. It is part of their rent seeking culture.

[DaivdBehar]

Archie. I really like your idea. I may fund a yearly lecture, with a TED format, a 15 minute limit, only video conferencing to avoid disruption by woke diverses, subtitles, posting to social media for those who could not attend. The subject would be The Law in Utter Failure. Thank you.

[Ben_]

Watching this video uses energy and therefore causes global warming, so you probably shouldn’t watch it. I can’t believe Adler posted it.

[great Unknown]

I can't believe that VC let such a vicious insult to one of its writers through their screening.

[Commenter_XY]

Whoa...talk about a fastball high and tight.

[David Nieporent]

That's not an insult, of course.

[DaivdBehar]

Sorry, but the ADA caused an immediate crash in the employment of the handicapped. Now, it is hire a handicapped, hire a lawsuit. You may have wanted to help people who needed help, now you are risking massive, ruinous litigation by hiring one.

[DaivdBehar]

My town put a sidewalk cutout next to my sloped driveway. I asked why can't people in wheelchairs just use my driveway to get on the sidewalk. Sorry, it was required. $1500 wasted.

[DaivdBehar]

My driveway led to the sidewalk, right next to the cutout.. The cutout was a total duplication of the access to the sidewalk from my gently sloped driveway. .

[DaivdBehar]

You make a good point, unintended consequences. These make the lawyer profession the dumbest people in the land, dumber than Life Skills students learning to eat with a spoon, and a million times more toxic.

An amendment must be passed requiring all rules from local policy preferences to ratified international treaties be tested in smaller jurisdictions and proven safe and effective prior to enactment at any higher level.