Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 4 of 4
Full-Text Articles in Law
Legal Education En Español: A Pedagogical Model, Jayesh Rathod
Legal Education En Español: A Pedagogical Model, Jayesh Rathod
Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals
Law schools in the United States are pursuing various strategies to prepare their graduates to compete in a global marketplace for jobs. One such strategy is the development of courses and programs designed to equip law graduates with the knowledge and skills needed to serve as effective bilingual advocates. As part of this effort, in recent years, teachers and scholars have engaged in curricular experimentation and ongoing theorizing about the optimal methods and approaches for bilingual legal education. This essay builds upon existing theoretical work and outlines a unique, bilingual instructional model that involves adding an optional credit hour – …
Democracy's Handmaid, Robert L. Tsai
Democracy's Handmaid, Robert L. Tsai
Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals
Democratic theory presupposes open channels of dialogue, but focuses almost exclusively on matters of institutional design writ large. The philosophy of language explicates linguistic infrastructure, but often avoids exploring the political significance of its findings. In this Article, Tsai draws from the two disciplines to reach new insights about the democracy enhancing qualities of popular constitutional language. Employing examples from the founding era, the struggle for black civil rights, the religious awakening of the last two decades, and the search for gay equality, he presents a model of constitutional dialogue that emphasizes common modalities and mobilized vernacular. According to this …
Speech And Strife, Robert L. Tsai
Speech And Strife, Robert L. Tsai
Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals
The essay strives for a better understanding of the myths, symbols, categories of power, and images deployed by the Supreme Court to signal how we ought to think about its authority. Taking examples from free speech jurisprudence, the essay proceeds in three steps. First, Tsai argues that the First Amendment constitutes a deep source of cultural authority for the Court. As a result, linguistic and doctrinal innovation in the free speech area have been at least as bold and imaginative as that in areas like the Commerce Clause. Second, in turning to cognitive theory, he distinguishes between formal legal argumentation …
Fire, Metaphor, And Constitutional Myth-Making, Robert Tsai
Fire, Metaphor, And Constitutional Myth-Making, Robert Tsai
Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals
From the standpoint of traditional legal thought, metaphor is at best a dash of poetry adorning lawyerly analysis, and at worst an unjustifiable distraction from what is actually at stake in a legal contest. By contrast, in the eyes of those who view law as a close relative of ordinary language, metaphor is a basic building block of human understanding. This article accepts that metaphor helps us to comprehend a court's decision. At the same time, it argues that metaphor plays a special role in the realm of constitutional discourse. Metaphor in constitutional law not only reinforces doctrinal categories, but …