Friday, May 2, 2008

St. Thomas and Planned Parenthood

Thomas Mengler, the dean of St. Thomas Law School, has rightly decided not to extend volunteer credit to a student for working at a Planned Parenthood clinic.
"I view myself as responsible for promoting and protecting our institutional identity, including but not limited to our Catholic identity," Mengler said Thursday. "Our law school clearly has a faith mission."
Two aspects of this story, which the author brushes past, seem worth remarking upon. First, note that St. Thomas requires its students to perform volunteer service. The Star-Tribune attempts to bury this telling fact. Service is as prominent a component of the school's Catholic mission as its defense of innocent human life. However, it is a component for which liberal MSM outlets like the Trib are not prepared to give credit.

Second, Mengler's decision is unlikely to earn him friends in the legal academy. Most legal scholars disparage defense of the unborn, as they disparage defense of traditional institutions such as conjugal marriage, as theocratic, dogmatic, and irrational. Kudos to Mengler, who unlike a certain wimpy element within Christendom (against which I often inveigh), cares much more about unborn humans than he does about receiving an invitation to the cocktail party.

Add St. Thomas to my ealier list of law schools for aspiring conservative lawyers to consider. (And while we're at it, throw in BYU in the Mountain West.)

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