Letter to te Editor
Douglas Kmiec
Professor of Constitutional Law
Visiting campus last week for the law school's superb Natural Law Jurisprudence lectures, I noted law student Joseph Tomain's letter (April 14) regarding law school hiring. Mr. Tomain expresses some anxiety because Notre Dame Law School slipped a few places in recent U.S. News Rankings.
You needn't worry, Joe.
Notre Dame remains the premier Catholic law school, and that ranking will never be lost so long as all of us who are or have been privileged to be part of the school's history remember that each day, in the words of the Holy Father, "we are called to make the Church present and fruitful in the ordinary circumstances of life."
U.S. News Rankings serve their purpose, but they are not Notre Dame's measure. They tote up books in the library, keep track of how many graduates pass the bar on their first try and very subjectively measure what others "think" of the institution.
Notre Dame's law library is one of the finest in the country because of law librarian Roger Jacobs and the staff that assists him; no one seriously thinks bar passage is a problem for Notre Dame graduates even as there are inevitable and anomalous dips from time to time in a given jurisdiction. And as for what "others think of us," well, it is nice to be loved, but a sincerely counter-cultural Catholic must be content with being one of those who are "blessed" for being "persecuted for justice and righteousness sake ..."
And Joe, there is nothing "immature" in the hiring process. Notre Dame's faculty is strong at every level, and recent new hires reveal what Notre Dame hiring has always reflected: academic excellence of preparation is assumed; superior teaching is expected; a commitment of persistent and intelligent research inquiry encouraged and, above all, a willingness to see that human problems — including especially the burdens of others that counselors in the law are called to take up — are not activities that are foreign to the Gospel. Dean O'Hara and those leading your law school, Joe, understand that all of creation, including your present legal education, is to be ordered to God.
Don't let yourself, or your alma mater, be ranked by the things of this world. You, and your father before you, Joe, chose Notre Dame because the secret of the success of every Notre Dame lawyer is that it profits a man nothing to lose his soul for the whole world, let alone Wales or a few places higher in a news magazine.
All Viewpoint Stories for Wednesday, April 19, 2000
