Suellyn Scarnecchia - Encouraging Inquiry and Debate: "Difficult Dialogues"

Encouraging Inquiry and Debate: "Difficult Dialogues"

One of Scarnecchia’s stated goals for her deanship is promoting respectful but rigorous and vigorous debate among students, faculty and members of the law school community on divisive issues in the law.

To that end she created and taught a course called “Difficult Dialogues” or “Legal Dialogues.” The dialogues were organized by law student organizations to “create a discussion about significant legal, social and political issues.” Among other things, each “dialogue” was intended to provoke students into thinking about how political and legal debates “can best be conducted in a public/professional setting.” The overall goal of the course was to “further public dialogue and problem solving skills, as well as to take advantage of the diverse backgrounds and views in our community to enrich the life of the law school.”

The challenges faced and progress made by Scarnecchia in achieving this objective of promoting rigorous but respectful political debate at the UNM School of Law were highlighted by Christina Hoff Sommers in an October 2006 editorial in the Albuquerque Journal. Sommers, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute criticized Scarnecchia and the UNM School of Law for “liberal bias” after being invited to speak at UNM and hosted by Scarnecchia. The editorial reported that the students at the University of New Mexico law school were politically diverse, but cited a previous survey by the UNM College Republicans that alleged that there were no registered Republicans at the time on the law faculty. Furthermore, the editorial alleged, students who did not share the law faculty's political complexion frequently found themselves isolated and marginalized. Sommers cited one example of a student group that explicitly discouraged students from joining the Federalist Society, a prominent national organization that brings conservative and libertarian students, scholars and lawyers together to discuss and debate legal issues. The editorial also criticized a decision to discontinue the “DA Law Clinic”, which allowed students to work with the District Attorney's Office. According to the editorial, “professors were uncomfortable with a program that prosecuted— – rather than defended—accused criminals”. The criticisms and allegations in the Sommers editorial closely resembled previous editorials she authored criticizing other higher educational institutions. Scarnecchia wrote a later editorial responding to Sommers and challenging some of the assertions in Sommers’ letter.