I don’t have to exert myself much for this one…
Paul Caron reveals on his excellent Tax Prof Blog that a new report released today by Fix the Court documents how two dozen federal judges who teach at law schools went ahead and ruled in cases involving their law schools’ parent universities. Conflict? What conflict?
Multiple circuits (p. 12 in the report) and Judicial Conference policy (p. 11) have held that just because a judge teaches in one part of a university doesn’t mean that he or she will be biased in adjudicating a case in which that university is a party. Funny—most people, including most lawyers, would call this a slam dunk “appearance of impropriety” situation…because it is.
“This has conflict written all over it,” Fix the Court’s Gabe Roth said. “If you teach at a law school, and especially if the law school is paying you, you shouldn’t be sitting on cases involving the university that the law school is a part of. Even if a judge-adjunct professes, as several have, that the law school at which they teach is but ‘one small and virtually autonomous part’ of the university, a neutral observer who sees ‘OSU Law’ on a judge’s disclosure would be correct in imputing bias any time that judge presides over a case involving Ohio State University.”
That seems pretty obvious to me, but then I’m just an ethicist and spend way to much time pondering such matters.
The recent attacks on the U.S. Supreme Court for not having an enforceable code of conduct and ethics neatly distracts from the widespread corruption in the rest of the judiciary, as highlighted by the recent wave of partisan judges working with the Axis of Unethical Conduct to hamstring Trump Administration policies. Judges are more poorly trained in judicial ethics than lawyers are in legal ethics. Elected judges are partisan by design; too many judges are well-past their shelf life, and DEI mania since 2020 has loaded the judiciary with too many robed ones whose primary qualifications for the bench are immutable biological features.
The judiciary is yet another rotting institution that needs serious reform and fast—as if we didn’t have enough to worry about already.
Ethics Alarms 
My God. I’d think a federal judge just even having graduated from a particular law school would conflict them out of presiding over a case involving the law school or its parent university! Never mind working there!
Speaking of judges, listen to this one. Ignore what she’s done for the moment, just listen:
https://youtu.be/mWN4q8H-COM?si=y7kGNiAIZF3fyLYL&t=180
Confronting my biases here, while the video talks about some serious issues with her work, I wonder if I would be more forgiving for how young she is AND sounds if I thought her judgements were totally on the money.
An earlier timestamp:
https://youtu.be/mWN4q8H-COM?si=HL8W6LAv984PrLsh&t=102
The pattern I’ve been shown is that only conservatives and/or Republicans have to abide by things like “appearance of impropriety” because their motives are always considered morally impure; liberals, progressives, and Democrats are morally above such things because their motives are always considered morally pure, in a very absolute way. Additionally; it would be considered ethically, morally, and legally unjust to hold those that are considered to be morally pure to the same “appearance of impropriety” standards as those who are considered to be morally impure.
”Democrats are always right, Republicans are always wrong; here ends critical thinking for Democrats.”
That’s the pattern of attitudes that I’ve personally observed from the political left.
Jack wrote, “The judiciary is yet another rotting institution that needs serious reform and fast—as if we didn’t have enough to worry about already.”
The political left has been in the process of undermining everything in our society and brainwashing the minds of the masses into believing that “Majority Rule” or “Mob Rule” or “Cancel Culture” should replace the judiciary. Many of you may be participating in mob rule and you may not be aware of it. We as a society are being steered into joining the mob.
Lest we forget, this is how the mob rule gains absolute control over a society…
This might be a decent time to openly discuss the ethics and morality of “mob/majority rule” and demonstrate just how easily it can be intentionally abused to by unethical biased people to literally suppress free speech and thus manipulate society. Believe it or not; there are actually people out there (totalitarian minded lefties) that think mob/majority rule should be used for absolutely everything in our society.
Remember…
If You’re Not Part Of The Mob, It’s Eventually Coming After You Too