People often ask me why I traded the contemplative professorial life for the administrative chores of a law school dean. Many privileges and responsibilities make institutional leadership rewarding, but none more so than the chance publicly to champion the values of higher education while representing no client other than the truth. I am grateful to UConn Today for providing me this electronic opportunity to share ideas with the UConn community and beyond.
My hope for this blog, which we have titled Sidebar, is to stimulate conversation about legal and political issues that people are and should be talking about in local watering holes and across kitchen tables. This means going beyond topics and comments sometimes deemed fit for public consumption.
Fans of fictional courtroom drama know that when the lawyers wish to communicate directly with the judge about matters fundamental to the trial they call for a “sidebar.” This is basically a discussion outside the presence of the jury. I envision this blog as a candid discussion with readers outside the influence of partisan political forces that weigh so heavily on our elected and appointed officials. Of course, a second meaning of “sidebar” will permit me occasionally simply to tackle an offbeat topic worthy of supplementing that day’s legal or political main course. I look forward to hearing often from readers who feel inclined to sustain my remarks and from those who would prefer to see my ideas overruled.
In this inaugural post I will offer a first pass at where I am headed. As is true for everyone watching cable television, I am concerned that recent political discussions sometimes dissolve into hollow shouting matches between those blind to self-serving excesses within the private sector and those who downplay the unintended consequences and cumulative drag created by even the most careful approach to regulation. Transcending such debates and punishing politicians who embrace extremes to gain votes are overriding challenges facing our generation of leaders. It won’t surprise you to learn that, as a law school dean, I believe education and communication are our best weapons in this struggle.
But if we are to get anywhere, we must begin by acknowledging that we cannot overcome today’s political polarization simply through embracing the metaphor of the middle ground. Of course, there are times when problems are amenable to Goldilocks solutions. If one spouse wants four children and the other two, having three might work out just fine. But if one spouse wants to live in the heart of the city and the other craves a home in the country, a three bedroom colonial in the suburbs might simply make them both miserable.
We need carefully to consider whether apparent compromise solutions to political debates risk producing such no win outcomes. Recent deadlock over fiscal policy may be just one of those situations. Everyone agrees the U.S. economy is struggling, particularly when it comes to creating jobs. One proposed direction is an increase in government spending aimed directly at job creation. Other voices have called for a substantial decrease in government spending to reduce the deficit and help restore investor confidence. Clearly the middle ground of holding government spending steady cannot be the solution that we need.
How then are we to encourage our political leaders to work through their differences? Our times demand relentless insistence on solutions that are grounded in evidence. Voters should ask every member of Congress whether he or she has reviewed the evidence from past economic downturns. We should expect that every congressional vote is justified in terms of past evidence. Above all, we should demand of every political leader that he or she would be willing to change his or her approach if the evidence pointed clearly in the other direction. Needless to say, it will be very challenging to create a political climate in which voters are sufficiently engaged to put leaders to such tests. But that’s what it means to live in a democracy and fostering a culture of engagement is one noble purpose of a university.
