Expert in legal history, constitutional law discusses plausibility of a life tenure overhaul

Imagine if a seat on the Supreme Court opened up every other year — meaning each president serving a four-year term would have the opportunity to appoint two justices in their career and each Supreme Court justice would serve an 18-year term instead of being granted life tenure.

Might instituting staggered 18-year terms insulate the justices from politics, encourage the selection of older, more experienced candidates and lessen the stakes associated with selecting a new justice? UC Davis Law Professor Carlton F.W. Larson thinks so, saying this hypothetical scenario could become a reality within our lifetime.

“I do think the current situation is not sustainable,” Larson said. “Tinkering with the Supreme Court is always tricky — … if it looks like a partisan thing, I don’t think there’s any way that it happens. But if you could get bipartisan buy-in, and one way you might do it is say, ‘This plan will take effect starting 20 years from now,’ and that way nobody really knows what particular justices it will affect or who the president will be, you would be able to deliberate about it more in a less partisan manner.”

Larson, who has been a constitutional law and legal history professor at the UC Davis School of Law for the past 15 years, is one of 63 professors from universities across the country who signed a petition released this past July that calls for an end to life tenure on the Supreme Court. Other signatories include professors from other UC law schools, but Larson is the only law professor from UC Davis to sign on.

The petition doesn’t propose an alternative solution to life-tenure — that scenario is Larson’s own hypothetical proposal — but it does take a strong stance against life tenure, stating that “continuing to concentrate power in the hands of a few individuals, who sit for many decades with almost no oversight and little incentive to compromise, is no longer good public policy, if it ever was. A court seen by most Americans as a political actor, whose very legitimacy is routinely questioned, and whose appointment process has devolved into farce, is in need of fixing.”

In more concrete and relevant terms, Larson related this discussion to the recent confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. 

“Given how few seats there are … and the fact that people can be expected to live a lot longer now, it allows the composition of the court to turn either on pure serendipity when someone happens to die or it allows the justices to, in essence, pick their own successors by strategically timing their retirement,” Larson said. “Justice Kennedy chose to retire when there’s a Republican president and Republican Senate and that essentially guaranteed that he’d be replaced by someone like Kavanaugh. Now, if he had been settled for an 18-year term, then he would have had no ability to time the end of that.”

The debate over life tenure isn’t a new discussion, Larson said, but it has cropped up again given recent developments. 

“It was certainly exacerbated by the Scalia vacancy, … Democrats were very frustrated with the failure to give a hearing to Merrick Garland and then the appointment of Gorsuch and Kavanaugh,” Larson said. “That’s coupled with a sense among many people that Trump is not legitimately the president and therefore his appointments don’t have legitimacy either. But I think even setting that aside, there’s been a general sense — probably starting way back with the Robert Bork hearing in ‘87 and to some extent with Clarence Thomas — that judicial confirmation nominations have become intensely polarized and it’s hard to imagine now a justice who would be a president of one party and confirmed by a senate of another party.”

There’s a dispute among law experts over whether an overhaul of life tenure would require a Constitutional Amendment, which would severely complicate the plausibility of instituting a new precedent. Ultimately, this topic is a discussion Larson said is worthwhile — it’s a discussion he has with his law school students and it is an issue toward which he feels strongly.

“The general idea that life tenure has become something where the benefits are significantly outweighed by the costs is something I’ve felt for a long time,” he said.

Written by: Hannah Holzer — features@theaggie.org 

Bridging the gap

The ever-changing and unpredictable nature of college culture — especially in the past several decades — brings each generation of college students an entirely new set of challenges and expectations. As a result, today’s college student faces a unique set of demands, far different from those faced by their professors. This disconnect may lead to a lack of understanding between the groups. 

Christopher Wallis, a professor in the English department at UC Davis, graduated from Saint Michael’s College in 2004. In his opinion as an educator, today’s undergraduate education is framed more as an avenue toward monetary success and advancement in the workforce. Wallis said that although this aspect of education is important, it’s only a fraction of what the undergraduate experience has to offer in terms of personal growth. 

“Of course, job-specific training is a key function of a college education, but it’s not the only one,” Wallis said. “Sometimes this utilitarian thinking can overshadow other, equally important functions, such as social/diversity awareness or developing critical thinking skills for a more nuanced understanding of our worlds.”

Wallis noted that this focus can be detrimental to students’ mental health. He said anxieties associated with today’s measurements of success could potentially impact the well-being of students, but added these are also challenges that many professors may not be able to empathize with. 

“The pressure to achieve consistently high marks certainly impacts students’ mental health,” Wallis said. “Professors who overload their students are just a part of the problem. Without systemic changes and ideological shifts, I worry that these pressures will only increase.”

English professor Frances Dolan graduated from Loyola University, Chicago in 1982 and said that the most significant difference between her experience and the experience of students today are the distractions associated with social media and modern technology. 

“I think my students have more distractions than I did — I used a manual typewriter in college and did not have a cell phone, computer or email,” Dolan said. 

Dolan said, however, that these added distractions can also serve as a considerable advantage for today’s undergraduates.

“Students now have an astonishing wealth of information at their fingertips,” Dolan said. “The challenge is to make the most of the technologies available, while still developing the muscles and skills you need to focus and concentrate and to maintain mastery of those resources.”

Today’s students are not the only ones who have confronted a unique set of battles. Wallis said his college experience was largely impacted by 9/11, a tragedy that many of today’s undergraduates struggle to wrap their heads around.

“Sept. 11 occurred at the beginning of my sophomore year, and so much of my college experience was shaped by this event and its aftermath,” Wallis said. “At first, it was hard to concentrate on classwork since we were all grieving the loss. Over time, though, we learned about coping strategies and techniques for self-care.”

Wallis said his professors were vital in helping him and his peers cope with this event. 

“Professors regularly integrated the topic into our classes, which helped us to see more readily the relevance and urgency of our studies,” Wallis said.  

There is an undeniable generational and cultural divide between students and professors. If each group made more of a conscious effort to understand and empathize with the other, this gap could shrink — and, according to Dolan, this intention must come from students as much as from professors. She said that, while some professors have unrealistic expectations of students, a majority of perceived academic stress is self-inflicted. 

“Communicate with your teachers,” Dolan said. “If you are struggling, let them know and ask for help. Make time to stop by office hours. If you have a problem with a deadline, speak up. The student who speaks up helps everyone in the group and helps me do my job better.”

The disconnect between students and professors is apparent, but it may not be as large as some students perceive it to be. Students may not admit this, but their professors — even their least favorite ones — struggled through their undergraduate career just as they are doing now. Therefore, professors have accumulated tools and resources that may benefit students. 

“I recommend a planner that can provide a daily, weekly and monthly view of what needs to be accomplished,” Wallis said. “Also, have a plan for when things go wrong because they will, inevitably.”

Dolan believes it is important for students to recognize that they are not all that different from their professors, adding that understanding this is the first step in bridging that gap between educators and undergraduates. 

“Remember you are not alone,” Dolan said. “We are all nervous worriers — including your teachers. The more we all admit it to one another, the better.”

Written by: Miki Wayne — features@theaggie.org

Free bike helmets for pledge signers are currently out of stock, will be back Oct. 14

The Helmet Hair, Don’t Care (HHDC) campaign took its roots at UC Davis in the fall of 2016, when Student Health and Counseling Services (SHCS) partnered with the University Honors Program to address the phenomenon of students not wearing bike helmets. The HHDC pledge is sponsored by SHCS, Transportation and Parking Services (TAPS) and the Bike Barn and provides participants with a free helmet. 

The pledge asks students to always wear their helmets, stating: “As a UC Davis student, I pledge to always wear a bike helmet on every ride, even on short trips, because my brain is more important than helmet hair.”

SHCS Health Promotion Specialist Shantille Connolly compared national helmet use statistics to those at UC Davis. 

“When the program started, 7.9% of students were wearing bike helmets ‘mostly or always,’” Connolly said via email. “The national average usually ranges from 33-35% […] The main barriers identified were peer use, appearance and access.”

Since the pledge began, there has been a 48% increase in helmet usage on the UC Davis campus. As of winter 2019, 11.7% of students wear helmets — partly in thanks to Connolly, who not only plans the HHDC campaign, but also manages the pledge program. 

“[My job] involves developing campaign designs, marketing and promoting bike helmets, coordinating logistics for the pledge program and planning events that positively recognize students for wearing bike helmets,” Connolly said. 

Jack Rogers, the Bike Barn’s business manager, remembers the HHDC program from when he was a first-year student at UC Davis. His role involves “a little bit of everything” — demanding focus on administrative duties, working on repairs and helping customers.  

“The Bike Barn is the easiest place to get helmets through the HHDC pledge,” Rogers said via email. “We have signage posted both in and outside about the pledge that helps spread the message to both customers and passersby. We often hand out helmets to customers who purchase bikes from us and over this past move-in weekend we handed out over 200 helmets from Friday through Monday.”

Connolly believes that the low helmet usage rate on campus — lower than the national average of 38.3% and the UC system-wide average of 43% — is largely because people feel that biking on campus and in the city is “safe.” Davis was recognized as the most bicycle-friendly city in the country by the League of American Bicyclists, and was also the first city to be presented a platinum ranking as a Bicycle Friendly Community in 2006.

“UC Davis is very bike friendly with designated bike paths and a closed campus,” Connolly said. “In short, campus is built for bikes. However, there are thousands of bikes on campus everyday (TAPS estimates at least 20,000 per day), and collisions are bound to happen.” 

Second-year computer science and engineering major Nathan Wong agrees, saying that it makes no sense to not wear a helmet. 

“There’s no downside,” Wong said. “If I don’t wear [a helmet] and if I get into a crash, I might be more hurt than if I’m not wearing one.”

Wong thinks one reason students forgo helmets is due to the inconvenience of carrying around a helmet. He said, however, this can be easily remedied by locking the helmet and bike up together. 

“When [students] are on campus, it just feels like you don’t need a helmet as much,” Wong said. “We’re all college students. We’re teenagers and in our early twenties. We’re all stupid [and] a little bit more reckless.”

Rogers, on the other hand, thinks the ubiquity of biking in Davis is the reason students opt to go helmet-less. 

“Since people ride multiple times a day and go months or years without having an accident, they come to believe that it will never happen to them,” Rogers said. “This reasoning tends to ripple out, and when incoming students see other students not wearing helmets, they follow along and think that they don’t need to either. However, accidents still happen every day on campus and brain injuries can cause serious damage.” 

Coyla Munson, a first-year PhD candidate in the department of chemistry, said she wears a helmet to prevent “getting stuck in the hospital” after a collision. She said she enjoys the feeling of the breeze in her hair that comes with riding without a helmet, but at the end of the day, safety is her priority. 

“After getting an undergrad [degree], you want to protect your big asset,” Munson said. “Also, don’t be fooled: as soon as you get out of this city, you will be hit by a vehicle.”

Munson said students can mix things up with colors and designs, making helmets a fashionable safety accessory — and in a worst case scenario, an identifying feature.

“I like brightly colored helmets,” Munson said. “So if my head does pop off, it can be located at a destination near my body.” 

The SHCS agrees that helmets are necessary to prevent head injuries and that safety should be of the utmost priority to students. 

“Students invest a lot of money in their education at UC Davis and a bike accident involving a head injury could be detrimental to their academic career,” Connolly said. “Wearing a bike helmet can prevent an injury from occurring so a bike crash won’t impact a student’s academics.” 

Students interested in signing the HHDC pledge can visit the SHCS website. Free bike helmets are currently out of stock but will be available again beginning Oct. 14 at the Bike Barn. 

Written by: Anjini Venugopal — features@theaggie.org