Abstract
It is widely recognized that the American Constitution is failing as the foundational document of a modern democracy. Although many basic principles of constitutionalism have faded into irrelevance, with rising authoritarianism eclipsing such core ideals as judicial independence, separation of powers and restraints on arbitrary use of power, America’s nearly 200 institutions of legal teaching and scholarship have provided little in the way of proposals for urgently needed law reform. It is striking that even with so many high-powered academic institutions, so few meaningful proposals for constitutional change have been presented to the public as a way out of our current legal morass. This Essay argues that law schools have gone very far in the direction of teaching young lawyers real world “skills,” while ignoring the urgent need to generate ideas capable of driving sweeping law reform, and the ultimate creation of what is here called “permanent democracy.”
The premise of the Essay is that the stagnant hand of the American Constitution, antique and easily captured by malign interests, has led inexorably to a situation where American democracy, rule of law and representative government are in perennial, and periodic, danger of being lost. This traumatizing process is indicative of obvious inadequacies in the constitutional order. The Essay calls for a reordering of legal education and legal scholarship, to be placed in the service of fundamental law reform required to preserve and protect democracy on a secure, ongoing basis. In calling for legal academia to turn away from its focus on “what is”, the Essay demands that law schools must create a curriculum geared toward fundamental law reform and the “what should be.” Our young lawyers seem not to know what demands to make, even when it is apparent that the system they are studying has failed in a spectacular way to provide the “permanent protection” that every democracy requires to thrive.
The Essay outlines several reforms–electoral changes, disqualification laws, media reform, among others–that could yet salvage this failing democracy and give hope to a dispirited and uncertain generation of young lawyers.
Recommended Citation
Sara Dillon,
Legal Academia and Permanent Democracy: The Fault in Our Law Schools,
19
DePaul J. for Soc. Just.
(2026)
Available at:
https://via.library.depaul.edu/jsj/vol19/iss1/1
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