Kennedy says that Carrington's criticisms of CLS are based on a basic misunderstanding of CLS writings. "If Carrington thinks that Roberto [Unger] is a nihilist, then he doesn't have the slightest idea what Roberto is talking about," Kennedy says. Unger, one of the philosophic lenders of CLS, is considered by many to be a brilliant but dazzlingly complex writer.

But it is not enough to be brilliant, many CLS critics maintain; a professor must be fit to teach. Carrington claims that they are not. And he has a good deal of support across the nation--including some at Harvard.

"CLS is subversive of the educational enterprise which we are nominally supposed to be engaged in at the Law School," says second-year student Bennett E. Cooper, vice president of the Harvard Society of Law and Public Policy. Cooper contends that a large number of students, regardless of political or legal viewpoint, believe that "there is a real problem with the quality of teaching" of CLS professors, who he says tend to be overly political or polemic.

CLS Advocates Reject Bias Charge

The charge of bias is "Ridiculous," counters Susan E. Keller, a second-year student with self-professed CLS leanings. "I haven't been in a law school class without a political slant. You can't teach law neutrally," she says. Keller believes that conservative professors may claim to be neutral, but they nonetheless slant their classes to present a view that "the status quo is legitimate." Ail classes are political, she says--and this is of course one of the CLS tenets.

Administrators at the Law School, however, call the controversial professors excellent teachers. Assistant Dean for Academic Administration Stephen M. Bernardi says student evaluations of CLS professors are consistently excellent. Bernardi adds that students almost never criticize CLS professors for politically slanting their presentations.

Cooper of the Society of Law and Public Policy maintains that Bernardi is "Whitewashing," and that a large number of students, regardless of what they put on evaluation forms are dissatisfied with CLS teachers.

Cooper also charges that students believe Kennedy and his cohorts to be "hypocritical who don't practice what they preach. "I think Duncan Kennedy is self-serving," Cooper says. "If someone really believes something he should be willing to pay the price for his principles."

Cooper's statements are indicative of one of the most common anti-CLS arguments that CLS adherents, because they believe law to be so flowed should stop teaching it. In addition, CLS critics claim who believe that hierarchy inherently bad have no business in the fiercely hierarchical law school structure. These critics suggest that a more ethical route would be to practice poverty law or follow other altruistic pursuits in order to help those oppressed by the social order.

But Kennedy points out that "there are many places where you can struggle effectively against social injustice. That includes influential, elite institutions like Harvard Law School." Kennedy and his colleagues make no claim to "moral purity," and they believe that they don't have to give up their careers in order to be radical. By offering a creative, radical perspective at the Law School, Kennedy says, he can expand the range of choices leftward, thereby pulling moderates slightly to the left. "It's surprising how effective that is," he says.

Some CLS critics say radical legal scholars are self-serving intellectuals who retreat into academics, thereby disassociating themselves from grass-roots social movements Kennedy again disagrees, saying CLS professors are, for example, integrally involved in the divestment movement at Harvard, and have in general had close ties to student protest movements. He also points to CLS-leaning professors and students who provide legal services to the poor through the Law School's clinical program.

But even just being radical within the Ivory Tower can be very gratifying, as several CLS scholars observe. "It's really liberating to be off the wall," Kennedy says.

Despite such self-deprecation, CLS professors like Kennedy are very serious about their views and methods. "I believe that the legal system is the repository of some of the best values of our culture," Kennedy says. "But I believe that they have been manipulated and betrayed."