Fall 1996 Human Rights Magazine
By Leslie A. Harris, 1996-97 Chair
In 1963, when a small group of legal luminaries led by Dean Jefferson Fordham sought creation of a new ABA Section devoted to individual rights, they knew they were facing a formidable task. Surely they anticipated some delay and opposition.
They couldn't have anticipated that three years later, with the ABA poised to give final approval, quibbling would break out over the Section's proposed name. As ABA President-Elect Jerome Shestack recalled, the Board Committee created to consider the matter posed the question, "Why Individual Rights...aren't there any correlative responsibilities?"
So the word, "responsibility" was added.
Everyone understood that the amendment was hardly a friendly one, although its precise meaning has been lost to history. Did they intend to send a message to the fledgling group not to take the "rights" thing too far?
Over the decades, the tale of the Section's name has become apocryphal as Section leaders retell and embellish the story. As the story has grown, increased hostility to this uninvited guest has followed. Periodically, someone even suggests removing the word "responsibility."
Thirty years later, the word "responsibility" is still the skunk in the garden party, a constant reminder that our mission is not entirely welcome within our Association.
Now, as the country is facing renewed hostility to individual rights, the word,"responsibility" is again in vogue. The Congress has passed the "Personal Responsibility Act of 1996", and everyone from the President of the United States to the President of the American Bar Association is calling for more individual responsibility.
How should the Section of Individual Rights & Responsibilities respond? This time, we have a choice. We can once again allow others to define the term (and by inference us) or we can claim it as rightfully ours.
After all these years, surely we are confident enough to do the latter. It's time to take back the word, "responsibility" and give it a construction that celebrates our accomplishments and offers us challenges for the future.
It seems to me that the entire mission of the Section is about responsibility our responsibility as lawyers to be engaged in the great issues of our times. Another Section founder, the Hon. Abner Mikva, has offered a construction of responsibility that fits us well.
In an article almost 30 years ago, he wrote, "It is our very responsibility to transform the law into a process which actively and explicitly seeks the public good through increased and more adequate representation of otherwise unheard voices."
When the IR&R advocates for positions that some in our Association mistakenly call "social issues", we must respond that, to the contrary, these issues go to the core of the fair administration of justice and a just rule of law, and it is our responsibility to raise them.
To be sure, the exercise of our "social responsibility" does not mean that we always get it right. The House of Delegates and ultimately the ABA membership have a responsibility to consider our positions and accept or reject them. But always, it is our responsibility to raise the issues and ensure that they are thoughtfully debated within our Association.
The Section's role doesn't stop there. It is equally part of our responsibility as lawyers indeed, as citizens to contribute to the reinvigoration of democracy and civic life. Those of us with an abiding commitment to individual rights often have been portrayed as at best indifferent and at worst hostile to the large concerns of community. Without question, there is an inherent tension between the two that some may find difficult to resolve. But there is also a synergy that we ought to acknowledge and embrace.
Michael Sandel puts it well in his provocative book, Democracy's Discontent, where he argues that liberty by itself, ". . . unencumbered by moral or civic ties. . . cannot inspire the sense of community and civic engagement that liberty require. . . ." He urges a reconciliation of these two strands of philosophical and legal thought and argues that for too long, those of us engaged in the so called "rights revolution" have ceded the debate over how to rebuild community to those who argue for conformity and rigid majoritarianism.
Surely, it is our responsibility to reconcile the tensions between liberty and community consistent with our values and our vision of a diverse and tolerant society. And it is our responsibility then to contribute to the rebuilding of the core civic institutions that undergird democracy.
It goes without saying that we cannot hope to fulfill the promise of equal opportunity and political inclusion, or to maintain a robust marketplace of ideas, while the civic institutions that once prepared us for active citizenship most strikingly the public schools and libraries are under siege by budget crises, crumbling infrastructures, culture wars, and disengaged constituencies.
This year, the Section of Individual Rights & Responsibilities will take some small steps to that end. We have created a new Committee on the Public Schools to examine how lawyers can best contribute to the renewal and reinvention of public education. There are some exciting initiatives among lawyers going on around the country, and we hope to give them the recognition they derserve and to encourage futher efforts by others.
The Section also has been asked by the American Library Association to cosponsor a "Lawyers for Libraries'" conference next May that will train lawyers around the country to provide ongoing pro bono legal assistance to public libraries to protect the community's freedom to read.
Such initiatives are one way of pursuing this "civic strand of freedom" with the same vigor and sense of purpose that we pursue the promise of individual rights. As I see it, when we pursue both strand of freedom, we not only assure liberty, but also the democracy and sense of community necessary to sustain it. We also give fresh meaning to the word responsibility a meaning that the IR&R Section can embrace and indeed celebrate.
