Short Take: Law Journals and Coloring Books

At Volokh Conspiracy, Josh Blackman picked up on a curious diktat at the Georgetown Law Journal.

I recently came across the Georgetown Law Journal’s author diversity amendment. It was ratified in the spring of 2020. (I am not certain the date). The policy creates an express quota for reviewed articles:

During each articles-assignment period (usually each week), at least 25 percent of the total articles the Senior Articles Editor assigns shall be written by diverse authors as defined by (i).

The policy offers this definition of diversity:

Disability, race, ethnicity, underrepresented religions, sexual orientation, gender identity (i.e. non-cisgender/non-binary), and socioeconomic status.

Josh runs through some of the ramifications of this policy, from who is on the “outs” to what to do if the well runs dry. He also does the inside-baseball math, which is good because math is hard (as are paragraph breaks, Josh).

Let me try to break down the author policy with simple numbers. Assume in a given week, a journal receives 1,000 submissions. And the journal receives 500 submissions from diverse authors. In that scenario, the Senior Articles Editor can forward 50% of the diverse submissions for review. And the Editor can forward 75% of the remaining submissions from non-diverse authors. What if the journal only receives 250 submissions from diverse authors. With these numbers, the Senior Articles Editor will likely forward 100% of the submissions. If the Editor fails to forward on a submission from a diverse author, he or she may be subject to remedial action. What if the journal only receives 100 submissions from diverse authors. Under the policy, the Editor would likely forward 100% of those submissions. But he would also have to decrease the number of submissions from non-diverse authors. Here, the Editor would only be able to forward submissions from 300 non-diverse authors for a total of 400 submissions. That allocation would generate a 25/75 split. Again, if we start with 1,000 submissions, 100% of the diverse submissions would be forwarded. And 30% of the non-diverse submissions would be forwarded. Journals can always increase the denominator, as a way to increase the numerator. That is, recruit more submissions from diverse authors. But in the absence of more submissions from diverse authors, then the selection rate for non-diverse authors will have to decrease.

Taking a somewhat less numerical approach to the problem, this would mean that the “scholarship” appearing in the law journal would not be based on its quality or relevance, but on the identity characteristics of its writers. And if there weren’t enough of the right type of writers, pretty much any submission would have to do.

And then there’s the Student Notes, a prestigious resume filler for law students hoping to be a prominent voice in the law.

Specifically, there is a requirement to publish at least one note focusing on “social justice.”

Every volume of the Journal shall select for publication at least one student Note submission addressing an issue of social justice.

What is social justice?

Themes on social justice reform include but are not limited to gender identity, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, physical and mental ability, immigration status, national origin/indigeneity, prison and criminal justice reform, and socioeconomic status.

Even if one doesn’t have the right physical characteristics, there’s still hope to be published if one writes about the correct topic.

There was a time when conventional wisdom suggested that the elimination of bias in selection could be achieved by blindness: put the musician behind the curtain and let their music speak for itself. The new Georgetown law journal quotas present the opposite view, that the quality of scholarship doesn’t matter as long as the characteristics of the writer, or the topic of the submission, meets the exacting requirements of social justice.

It may be that there are so many submissions from writers with the correct characteristics that the student-run journal has a wealth of brilliant articles from which to choose, or that the four millionth student note on why the living Constitution is the only way to fulfill the promise of the Fourteenth Amendment, and textualists are poo-poo heads.

Or it may be that these moribund journals will fulfill their highest and best use on the bottom of bird cages. But if the quality of scholarship is no longer the lodestar of publication, then they might as well be coloring books, which are more fun anyway.

20 thoughts on “Short Take: Law Journals and Coloring Books

  1. CLS

    To be completely honest, if you have small children that are determined, law journals are basically indistinguishable from coloring books.

    Kids will color anything. Even terrible scholarship.

    1. MGould

      Wow. Choosing that mess over Chicago’s song is a bold move. That’s why you get the big money!

  2. Miles

    The obvious implication is that black academics’ scholarship isn’t good enough to publish on its own merit. Seems pretty racist of Georgetown Law to think that.

  3. Anon

    This is person and I understand if you trash it, but as a 3L on law review, I get this, but what can I do about it? To challenge it is to become an outcast, if not voted off the island. I don’t want to be shunned and hated, but that’s what will happen if I don’t gush in favor of any idea that’s pushed as anti-racist.

    I mean, I know it’s crap, but there is no tolerance for disagreement or even discussion. I would become a hated racism just for raising a question. And it’s not like it’s just me, as I know my close friends agree, but they’re afraid to say anything either. So we pretend to be all gung ho for this type of crap. We have no other choice if we want to be accepted.

    1. SHG Post author

      I’ve anonymized your name, as you never know who will read your comment. You already know the obvious answer, so no need to go there. Unfortunately, if the people who aren’t blinded by ideology refuse to speak out, nothing will change. I suspect (and perhaps you do as well) that most people realize to some extent that social justice has issues, but like you, fear saying anything not because there aren’t plenty of others who share their feelings, but they fear the ramifications and fear that others, even when they agree with you, will do exactly as you do, go along to get along.

      I fully understand why you don’t want to be the outcast. Who does? You have to either decide where to draw the line or suck it up to be accepted. Or get your friends to come out and call bullshit with you, but we both know that’s not going to happen in this climate.

    2. B. McLeod

      You could declare yourself a Satanist (if that still counts as underrepresented). Turn the fad to your advantage by enthusiastically gaming the crap out of it.

      1. Brian Cowles

        It might be more fitting for Anon to declare himself a Pastafarian, given its origins.

        I also wonder if an article putting a positive spin on the sovereign citizen movement (similar to the Sokal Squared hoax) could fit under that “social justice reform” theme? That might fit under “prison and criminal justice reform” or “socioeconomic status”.

    1. B. McLeod

      That’s interesting. They clearly don’t intend for it to be part of “gender identity,” which they have limited with the parenthetical explanation. So it seems that mere cis-gender females are not considered sufficiently marginalized to count as “diverse.”

  4. Dan

    “there’s still hope to be published if one writes about the correct topic.”

    Something tells me you’re only allowed to write on one side of that correct topic, though…

  5. KeyserSoze

    “It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well.” ~ Rene Descartes

    Looks like GU Law is using something. But not a brain.

  6. William Henson

    I am not as sure about law articles as I am about articles published in scientific journals, but in the cases where there are multiple authors, how is that going to work with regards to identifying whether the article is counted as sufficiently “diverse”? Assign each article with a diversity “fraction”?

    Math is hard but math with fractions is even harder

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