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Senior U.S. District Judge Bruce Jenkins traveled from Salt Lake City to Tucson, Ariz., last December to hear scholars from around the nation expound on economics, anthropology and the law.
“The quality of the presenters was amazing,” Jenkins said this week. “It was a wonderful opportunity to get acquainted with legitimate ideas about the makeup of culture and to associate with colleagues around the country.”
But critics say events like the Tucson seminar – which was held by George Mason University’s Law & Economics Center (LEC) of Virginia – are one-sided presentations funded by major corporations hoping to promote their world view.
“These are not charitable events,” said University of Utah law professor John Flynn. “Ford Motor Company wouldn’t put out hundreds of thousands of dollars to educate judges out of the goodness of their heart. Why are they doing it?”
The question has sparked nationwide debate over whether privately funded seminars undermine public confidence in the impartiality of judges.
A Washington, D.C., watchdog group called Community Rights Counsel (CRC) claims that each year 100 federal judges spend a week or more at lavish resorts where the “limited” educational activity is “carefully crafted to advance the pecuniary and ideological interests of the sponsoring organizations.”
The CRC claims the LEC is bankrolled by companies such as Ford, Abbot Laboratories and Procter & Gamble.
Spurred by a CRC investigation critical of the private seminars, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., proposed the Judicial Education Reform Act of 2000, which would have authorized funding for judges to attend only seminars that “maintain the public’s confidence in an unbiased and fair-minded judiciary.”
The senators intend to reintroduce a similar bill shortly, they said in a statement Friday. Also Friday, the Environmental Working Group sent a letter to U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, asking him to ban what they call “junket-taking.”
Rehnquist spoke out against the proposed legislation in January, objecting that it smacks of government censorship and would “dramatically” restrict the information available to judges through seminars.
The CRC claims the private seminars are unnecessary, given that taxpayers spend $20 million a year on continuing education programs for federal judges, mostly provided through the Federal Judicial Center.
But Rehnquist said the center is unable to provide every federal judge with education on the “wide array of subjects” they may confront in the courtroom.
Said Flynn: “The more informed a judge is the better. The problem is, how do you guarantee it is a balanced, open, uninfluenced presentation?”
Flynn said George Mason University’s law school is “right of center,” with conservative faculty members who believe government should “keep its nose out” of business regulation.
“They have something worthwhile to say,” Flynn said.
“But if that’s the only thing judges hear, if they are only presenting one view, they are certainly not hearing a balanced viewpoint of a controversial issue of the law.
“You don’t want a judge who’s been to some seminar where they’ve heard only one side of the story,” Flynn added.
“If a program is funded by a corporate interest, professing a single view of the world, that’s going beyond the line.”
Chief Judge Glen E. Clark of Utah’s bankruptcy court also attended the George Mason University seminar in December, and said he saw no advocacy of a specific philosophy or viewpoint.
“I had feared it may have been a conservative thing, but I could not call it conservative or liberal,” he said.
“It reminded me more of just getting a liberal education.”
Senior U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Greene attended a George Mason University seminar on economics in 1994. He said he was drawn by the opportunity to learn about statistics, a topic he had not seen offered in Federal Judicial Center seminars.
“It was interesting to me just to be introduced to the subject,” he said. “I don’t remember any particular effort to sway anyone one way or the other.”
Jenkins insists he never has been the guest of a corporation, and he sees no problem with seminars put on by “legitimate educational organizations,” such as LEC. “[Critics] like to suggest that people get brainwashed,” he said. “The seminars I’ve been at, there’s not even a hint of that.”
The CRC claims LEC held six different one-week seminars last year – paying for everything from accommodations to transportation, food and drink – and usually located at resorts more famous for their beaches and golf courses than their conference facilities.
Said Jenkins of the Tucson trip: “We stayed where we stayed. It was a nice place, sure.”
He wondered if critics are upset at judges who, “on their own time and their own dime,” play a round of golf while attending seminars. “I don’t play golf,” Jenkins said. “I’m a fool – I stay in my room and study.”
News Editor Sheila R. McCann contributed to this story.
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