How George Mason University bought its way into the hearts of far-right Supreme Court justices: report
The New York Times is reporting that George Mason University managed to buy its way into the inner circle of Supreme Court justices.
At a time when the Supreme Court has record-low approval and at least two justices have been exposed for having overwhelming corruption, the report is showing other ways in which justices score extra cash on the side.
"For the leaders of the law school, bringing [Neil Gorsuch] to teach at Scalia Law was a way to advance their own parallel ambition," the report began.
“Establishing and building a strong relationship with Justice Gorsuch during his first full term on the bench could be a game-changing opportunity for Scalia Law, as it looks to accelerate its already meteoric rise to the top rank of law schools in the United States,” a secret memo from George Mason's law school says. The Times acquired thousands of internal emails revealing the unorthodox move by the school.
Then, Justices Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh also joined the faculty.
"The law school had long stood out for its rightward leanings and ties to conservative benefactors," the report explained. "Its renaming after Justice Scalia in 2016 was the result of a $30 million gift brokered by Leonard Leo, prime architect of a grand project then gathering force to transform the federal judiciary and further the legal imperatives of the right. An ascendant law school at George Mason would be part of that plan."
After rebranding, the law school has "an unusually expansive relationship" with those far-right judges serving on the court. They're given "generous pay and unusual perks," which only adds to the questions about the ethics of justices when they're being paid through big donors to the school.
Over the past several weeks, Justice Thomas has dealt with story after story revealing his private plane rides and yacht vacations in Indonesia. The donor, Harlan Crow, had cases that were then reviewed by the court. George Mason University law school is an easy pass-through in which a donor or corporation could give to the university before their case appears before the Supreme Court. It could all be above board, but it creates an ethical question.
"The documents show how Scalia Law has offered the justices a safe space in a polarized Washington — an academic cocoon filled with friends and former clerks, where their legal views are celebrated, they are given top pay and treated to teaching trips abroad, and their personal needs are anticipated, from lunch orders to, in Justice [Neil] Gorsuch’s case, house hunting," the report explained.
Each chief justice crafts his own ethics rules for the court and enforces them. In a statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Chief Justice John Roberts complained questions about ethics are "mundane." Roberts claimed that the justices had to follow the same code of conduct as lower-court justices, but it doesn't seem that Roberts is enforcing that either, as it requires judges to disclose any outside income, outside employment, gifts, etc. Roberts claimed he tightened the reporting requirements this year. Still, Thomas had trouble filling out the form, he claimed.
Judges can earn outside income from books through royalties or advances, investments and teaching. Those are the only options.
"But Scalia Law quickly moved to the front of the line, in part by offering generous benefits. For teaching summer courses that generally ran for up to two weeks, Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh each made salaries that approached the legal cap on certain outside income, roughly $30,000 in recent years," the report explained.
The school also has "programs" in other locations so that Justice Gorsuch, for example, could "teach" in Iceland and Italy. Justice Kavanaugh "teaches" in Britain. It's unclear how many George Mason students were there for those events. Thomas is the only one who actually teaches on campus, with two former clerks as co-professors. On a number of occasions, The Times said that those "co-professors" filed amicus briefs, "friend of the court" letters designed to persuade a justice one way or another.
“When a justice is with us, we do everything we can to engage the justice with our students,” the law school’s dean, Ken Randall, told the Times in a statement. “Law schools serve students, and their education is undoubtedly enhanced by the justices teaching or visiting or speaking with students.”
The justices also use federal funds on staff that help coordinate their outside activities.
