Unethical and Possibly Illegal Lunacy at Liberty Law School

One has to continually wonder how on earth Liberty Law School at the late Jerry Falwell's wingnut Liberty University ever received accreditation from the American Bar Association since the institution teaches students to have disdain - if not open contempt - for the nation's laws that don't conform to "God's law" as interpreted by the theocrats and Christofascists on Liberty's faculty. You know, folks like Matt Staver (pictured at left) and Rena Lindevaldsen who represented international child kidnapping fugitive Lisa Miller. In my view, Liberty is a blight on the Commonwealth of Virginia and an insult to the rule of law upon which the USA is supposedly grounded. Religion Dispatches has an article that looks at the efforts of Liberty's faculty to train students to disregard laws that do not conform to "God's law as interpreted by the Christian Taliban. It's disturbing and suggests, at least to me, that Liberty University's accreditation ought to be reconsidered. Here are some highlights:
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Students at Liberty Law School tell RD that in the required Foundations of Law class in the fall of 2008, taught by Miller’s attorneys Mat Staver and Rena Lindevaldsen, they were repeatedly instructed that when faced with a conflict between “God’s law” and “man’s law,” they should resolve that conflict through “civil disobedience.” One student said, “the idea was when you are confronted with a particular situation, for instance, if you have a court order against you that is in violation of what you see as God’s law, essentially... civil disobedience was the answer.”
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This student and two others, who all requested anonymity for fear of reprisal by Staver (who is also the law school’s dean), recounted the classroom discussion of civil disobedience, as well as efforts to draw comparisons between choosing “God’s law” over “man’s law” to the American revolution and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail. According to one student, in the Foundations course both Staver and Lindevaldsen “espoused the opinion that in situations where God’s law is in direct contradiction to man’s law, we have an obligation to disobey it.”
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That semester’s mid-term exam, obtained by RD [see excerpts of the actual exam here], included a question based on Miller’s case asking students to describe what advice they would give her “as a friend who is a Christian lawyer.” After laying out a slanted history of the protracted legal battle, the exam asked, “Lisa needs your counsel on how to think through her legal situation and how to respond as a Christian to this difficult problem. Relying only on what we have learned thus far in class, how would you counsel Lisa?”
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Students who wrote that Miller should comply with court orders received bad grades while those who wrote she should engage in civil disobedience received an A, the three students said. “People were appalled,” said one of the students, adding, “especially as lawyers to be, who are trained and licensed to practice the law—to disobey that law, that seemed completely counterintuitive to all of us.”
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Given what was expected of them on the exam, and the tenor of the class, there is “not a lot of shock among the students about the current developments,” said one of the students, referring to the revelation that Miller is in hiding in Nicaragua. “Everybody semi-suspected that Liberty Counsel had something to do with her disappearance.”
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Liberty Counsel’s publicity for its relentless litigation on Miller’s behalf has exploited several religious right tropes: that gay and lesbian people can be made straight through Christ; that “activist judges” are subverting biblical principles; and that the very health of the republic is at risk because gay and lesbian people can be parents.
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Did Liberty Counsel Know Miller Had Fled To Nicaragua? Neither Staver nor Lindevaldsen responded to RD’s requests for comment, but Staver told the New York Times last month that they had not had contact with Miller since 2009 and had always advised her to obey the law. Staver and Lindevaldsen did, however, teach their students that “civil disobedience” was a proper response, and persisted in their efforts to reverse court orders with relentless appeals claiming that court orders were in contravention of Miller’s Christian beliefs.
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The Foundations class is unlike anything offered at secular law schools, its purpose being to guide students toward a “Christian worldview” of the law. In the 2008-09 academic year, the required texts included David Barton’s Original Intent, which Barton’s website describes as “essential resource for anyone interested in our nation's religious heritage and the Founders' intended role for the American judicial system,” and Francis Schaeffer’s Christian Manifesto.
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But the students who spoke to RD worry that these Christian credentials will not serve them well after graduation. “If you walked into court and argued what Liberty wants you to,” said one, “you’d be laughed out of the room.”
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Staver’s views, they said, are “militant” and “fundamentalist.” He brooks no criticism from students or faculty. “He rules the law school like Moammar Gaddafi runs Libya,” said one of the students.