Anonymous FedSoc Snitches Needed For Super-Awesome Gossip-Based Lawsuit Against Law Review!

Fresh off sliding into Michigan Law’s student listserv to threaten 1Ls to not even think about submitting personal statements to law review that might suggest they’re anything but whitest of white bros, the Faculty, Alumni, and Students Opposed to Racial Preferences (FASORP) has now set its sights on the University of Chicago Law Review. True to form, the organization doesn’t have much evidence backing up its crusade — yet! — but they’ve got a plan.

It’s clumsy and amateurish, but it’s a plan nonetheless.

Jonathan Mitchell, who you might remember from masterminding the Texas abortion vigilante law that even this Supreme Court dismissed as rank clownery, quarterbacks FASORP’s latest effort against his alma mater Chicago. Mitchell and FASORP previously collaborated with Stephen Miller’s “wokeness ambulance chaser” outfit America First Legal to go after crosstown law school Northwestern over faculty diversity arguing that the school’s 83 percent white faculty wasn’t white enough. Unsurprisingly, the “There are Black people on this faculty, Your Honor” argument managed to succeed only in the school seeking attorneys fees.

Building on this track record of non-success, Mitchell’s interested in Chicago’s Law Review selection process. It’s the same dreck from the threatened Michigan case: claiming that the use of personal statements in the process amounts to a backdoor diversity initiative “which it then uses to to [sic] award race and preferences to students from so-called underrepresented demographics.”

Also “so-called underrepresented demographics”? That’s just a math thing, dude. The proper dog whistle is to say that underrepresentation doesn’t justify anything that might disadvantage a white guy, but you can’t just wish away that these demographics are — statistically — underrepresented relative to the population.

Starting to see why this guy had calculator trouble with the 83 percent white faculty at Northwestern.

Anyway, he’s farming for people to help him go after the Law Review:

You are receiving this e-mail because you served on the University of Chicago Law Review at some point in the last 15 years and have also had some previous involvement with the Federalist Society, which I am using as a proxy (though an admittedly imperfect one) for identifying Law Review alums who are likely to oppose the current regime’s use of race and sex preferences in the selection of Law Review members.

But I thought the Federalist Society was just a non-partisan debating society?!? Is he suggesting there might be some sort of virulent anti-diversity bias dominating the ranks of an organization that insists on only eating Chick-fil-A because of a publicity stunt from over a decade ago? Perish that thought!

I want the complaint to contain as many anecdotes as possible of the Law Review’s use of race and sex preferences, not only in the selection of student members but also articles. I am writing to invite you to submit evidence or anecdotes of race or sex preferences from your time on the Law Review. I am also interested in hearing from anyone who was privy to discussions about whether the Law Review should adopt a personal statement or a policy of awarding race and sex preferences, as my understanding is that these ideas were often proposed (and rejected) before they were finally implemented for the first time in 2017.

In the immortal words of Lionel Hutz: “We’ve got plenty of hearsay and conjecture, those are kinds of evidence.” Nothing like building a case based on someone’s 8-year-old office bitching. Most litigation sets the bar higher than a complaint made of anonymous anecdotes, but most litigation isn’t breathtakingly stupid. Apparently these anecdotes are a higher priority than, say, an actual plaintiff because this is going out to people who actually made the law review. Not that FASORP puts much effort into finding real plaintiffs — an issue that’s plagued their efforts for a while now. When they went after NYU Law Review, they could only find someone who might get grades bad enough to miss law review. And the Northwestern case comically alleged that FASORP only found people “ready and able” to apply to the faculty as opposed to anyone who actually did and would put their name on that tripe.

Ironically, for a case supposedly about meritocracy, building a case on the merits doesn’t seem to be much of a priority.

You are also welcome to send material over e-mail or Signal. 

Whoa. Hold up, is law review gossip important enough for Signal? It’s not like we’re planning a bombing campaign from the Applebee’s bar here.

In ordinary times, we could just laugh at this nonsense and rely upon law schools to vigorously defend these dumb complaints — and preferably seek fees and sanctions on the back end — but in a world where the Trump administration is threatening universities for anything that remotely looks like diversity, will schools still try to fight? Some of the biggest law firms in the world have developed a cowardly streak and there’s no reason to believe schools, who generally have fewer resources at their disposal, won’t follow suit.

In a world like that, a complaint filled with unsubstantiated, anonymous gossip might be just enough to extract concessions from a law school. There are no bad strategies… just strategies that hadn’t met their moment yet.

Earlier: Totally Serious And Not Made-Up Group Hijacks Michigan Law Listserv To ‘Preserve Evidence’ And Expose ‘Unworthy’ Students
Lawyer Who Helped Get Abortions Banned Will Contribute To HIV’s Spread In Jesus’ Name
Northwestern Law School Sued For Having ONLY 83 Percent White Faculty
Inspired By Kavanaugh, Harvard Law Review Sued For Discriminating Against White Men
Lawyer Asks Supreme Court To Go Ahead And Use Abortion Case To Not Leave Gay Rights ‘Hanging By A Thread’ While They’re At It

Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

The post Anonymous FedSoc Snitches Needed For Super-Awesome Gossip-Based Lawsuit Against Law Review! appeared first on Above the Law.