USA Today, Why Some Law Schools Are Removing the 'Great' Chief Justice John Marshall From Their Names:
The tumultuous debate over the Founding Fathers' relationship with slavery has caught up with one of the nation's most revered and influential leaders of the Supreme Court in its 233-year history: Chief Justice John Marshall.
Two law schools [Cleveland State and University of Illinois-Chicago] have dropped Marshall from their name under pressure from students and faculty concerned about his opinions upholding slavery as well as his ownership of slaves. A third, Atlanta's John Marshall Law School, is "aware of the divisive issues" surrounding the early justice and has asked its diversity committee to review the name. …
"He's a guy who never met a slave that he didn't think should be a slave," said Paul Finkelman, a visiting professor at Gustavus Adolphus College who published a book in 2018 [Supreme Injustice: Slavery in the Nation’s Highest Court] about how Marshall and other justices upheld slavery. "There's a difference between acknowledging his importance to the growth of American constitutional law and honoring him over and above that." …
Adam Carrington, a professor of politics at Hillsdale College, wrote for National Review in January that it was a mistake for schools to strike Marshall's name. That decision, he wrote, "makes no distinction between America’s great, even if flawed, founders and those who were true purveyors of evil and oppression." Marshall was dealing with the law as he found it, Carrington wrote, and the chief justice's written arguments in the slave ship opinion "proved much greater than his personal actions."
Prior TaxProf Blog coverage:
Cleveland State
- Law Schools In Chicago And Cleveland Consider Removing Chief Justice John Marshall From Their Names (Sept. 26, 2020)
- The Case For Removing John Marshall's Name From Cleveland State Law School (Dec. 17, 2020)
- University Illinois-Chicago Removes John Marshall From The Name Of Its Law School (May 22, 2021)
- Cleveland State Law School Seeks Comments On Removing Chief Justice John Marshall From Its Name (Dec. 27, 2021)
- Pressure Builds To Remove John Marshall From Cleveland State Law School's Name (Jan. 18, 2022)
- Cleveland State Committee Votes Unanimously To Remove John Marshall From The Name Of Its Law School (Sept. 17, 2022)
- Cleveland State Removes John Marshall's Name, Rebrands As CSU College Of Law (Nov. 22, 2022)
University of Illinois-Chicago:
