Civic Education and Interest Group Formation in the American Law School
Throughout history there have been two radically different approaches to civic education. Under one approach, which I will call the "rights-oriented" conception of civic education, citizenship is granted to certain people as a matter of right. In societies that use the rights-oriented approach, civic education may be viewed as a useful mechanism for improving the quality of the society. But it is not a prerequisite to citizenship. By contrast, under the alternative approach, which might best be described as the "gate-keeper" approach to citizenship, only those who meet certain qualifications are permitted to enter the community of citizens. Under this approach, the responsibilities of citizenship are such that only those able to show that they satisfy certain criteria, such as literacy or residency requirements, will be allowed to assume them. Entrance into the community of lawyers, of course, is determined by the gate-keeper approach. As long as this is the case, it is inevitable that law schools will provide their students with a form of civic education. Thus, before considering whether American law schools should attempt to educate their students to be better citizens, it would seem logical to explore the kind of civic education that students already receive. By examining the kind of civic education currently offered at American law schools, one can get a good idea of what sorts of changes are possible. This paper attempts to demonstrate the pervasive nature of civic education in American law schools. During this process of civic education, law students become aware of one overarching reality. This reality, possibly the ultimate lesson they assimilate, is that their future prosperity is inextricably tied to the fate of the legal profession as a whole. As the legal profession prospers, so too will they. Indeed, the contractions in the legal profession during the late 1980s showed that continuing expansion of society's demand for lawyers is essential to the future well-being of law students. The peculiar form of civic education that pervades the American law school can be explained by the law's classification as a "profession." Some