The Updated Blog

Blogger finally switched us over to their updated version, with all the new fancy bells and whistles that's supposed to make purty-ing up the site, spell-checking, finding your favorite post, and managing the blog in general simpler. I've adjusted and updated the blog to take advantage of the new features. If you have difficulty posting, accessing, or seeing any links or other things, let me know, but hopefully it'll be ship shape and better than ever without anyone missing a thing!

Happy First Bloggoversary!

This blog has been active for a year now, and it's been a huge success! In that year, there's been 182 original posts and 594 comments. Since I started keeping track on May 31, 2006, we've had 4,584 unique visitors. It's been a ton of fun, and great writing practice.

Remember, if you're a member of our chapter, you're free to post. Send me an E-mail if you need to get registered, or if you've not posted in awhile and need to reset your account.

We'd especially like to thank all the readers who have made it a success, and would like to take the opportunity to ask you what you'd like to see on this site in the future. We're always looking for more readers and more debate. What are your suggestions? Thanks in advance for your input - feel free to either leave a comment below or contact me directly.

Thanks again for a great year!

First General Meeting Tuesday

Our first general membership meeting will be this Tuesday, October 3, at 12:30 in room 117. Lunch will be served, and 1L Executive Board members will be sought.

Come meet new members, learn more about the Federalist Society, and hear about our upcoming events. Look for an E-mail coming your way soon. As always, feel free to subscribe to our mailing list for news and updates, or contact us directly. We'll see you there!

Welcome 1Ls!

Welcome to the University of Washington School of Law, and to another year of challenging the liberal orthodoxy on our campus! We hope you enjoy our blog. Our members are free to post their own articles on this blog - make your voice heard!

If you think you're the only one who grits your teeth when a professor ridicules a conservative, our group is for you. If you secretly cheer on a Scalia opinion while your class wallows in outrage, join us! If you didn't wear black for the whole month of November 2004, and if you thought Alito and Roberts were just what this country needs, you are not alone.

Our first general membership meeting is tenatively scheduled for Tuesday, October 3 at 12:30. Check back here for updates.

To subscribe to our mailing list for information and updates on events, jobs, intern-/externship opportunities, and social gatherings, click on the first link on the right side of this page, or go to https://mailman1.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/federalists

Visit our main webpage for news and a look at our events calendar at http://students.washington.edu/federal.

The address for this blog is www.uwfedsoc.blogspot.com.

There are a lot more conservative law students than you think, and the more intellectually diverse voices that can be heard, the better your legal education will be. Believe it or not, most of our professors even agree with that. Not only that, but it can be a lot of fun to challenge a professor in class, to stand up for your beliefs, and to engage in the debate.

We look forward to meeting you. To learn more about us, or about the national Federalist Society, click on the provided links, or feel free to contact us directly. Good luck in your first year!

Unveiling the new UW FedSoc Webpage

I just posted the new UW Federalist Society webpage. It will be kept up to date at least until I graduate. The content is nothing new, but I think it will provide more appeal to incoming students. I also hope to add more content in the future. If anyone has suggestions of what to add, please comment here.

http://students.washington.edu/federal/

Updated Links

I've updated the links to the right of the blog. I've separated out general links of interest and conservative and libertarian blogs. I've also added a humor section - there's some freakin' hilarious stuff on there. And finally, there's a list of other FedSoc chapters. Some of the sites are blogs like ours, and some of them are just informational sites. A lot of them are pretty out of date, so if any of you folks reading this are from those schools, please let us know.

If you have any good conservative/libertarian blogs or links you think should be on our list, please let me know.

New Look, New Writers

We've expanded the blogging contributors to the general membership of our chapter (as opposed to just the executive board). I'm very excited to hear from the new voices out there, and to get more readership and conversation.

I've also put a subscribe button on the right sidebar to our Yahoo Newsgroup - if you're not already on the list, please sign up. It's the best way to communicate with the membership about upcoming events, social activities, etc.

Also, I've put a hit counter at the bottom of the side bar. Don't forget to advertise the blog when you can, and to encourage people who disagree (or agree) to join the discussion. Good ideas are made great through the forge of debate.

If you're a member and haven't received an invitation to the blog, please contact Ranjit or me.

Congratulations to Next Year's Executive Board!

Congratulations to next year's executive board:

President: Ranjit Narayanan
Vice President: Alex Chan
Secretary: Arleta Young
Treasurer: Martin Bingisser

It's going to be a great year for the University of Washington Federalist Society! If you want to participate, contact Ranjit - the more people we have involved, the more things we can do.

Also, as the outgoing President, I'd like to say thanks to everyone who's made this such a successful year, and who have put so much effort into our events. This year's E-board has been fantastic, and it's been a real pleasure to work with all of you.

Elections Tomorrow

Please don't forget the end of the year meeting tomorrow at 12:30 in room 118. Lunch will be served. Ranjit has thrown his hat into the ring for president, but while I've gotten general interst for other E-board positions, people have not been specific. Please let me know what you would like to do (positions can be adjusted later) if you would like to participate. You, of course, need not have been on the E-board this year to run for a position for next year.

This will be a short meeting, but it's a very necessary one. See you there!

General Meeting Thursday, 12:30

Don't forget about this quarter's general membership meeting this Thursday in room 115A at 12:30. Pizza will be served. We'll be announcing upcoming events for the year. Bring those quiet conservative friends who aren't wearing black post-confirmation, and we'll see you there!

Making Orrin-Criticizing Easier

We've changed the settings of the blog to make it easier to post comments - you don't have to set up your own blog any more!

Please keep in mind that this subjects us not only to wild anonymous postings of all kinds, but also leaves us open to spam comments as well. If the moderation duties get to difficult, we may revert back to the old way.

We welcome all comments, especially thoughtful ones which disagree with us. Part of our goal is to refine our own ideas, after all, through rigorous debate. However, personal attacks, obscene language, and other posts we as the Executive Board deem to be inappropriate will be deleted. Thoughtful debate makes us all smarter. Angry, obscene rants make us all more partisan and consign us to our own comfortable echo chambers.

Above all, remember - this is a grown-up forum.

What is the Federalist Society?

There have been some bizarre and amusing descriptions of the Federalist Society in the national press (PDF), especially lately with the recent Supreme Court nominations. The stories describe us as anywhere between the legal Samuris of the Bush Administration to a Skull & Bones-esque secret society that colludes with the Freemasons, Knights Templar, Stonecutters, Evil Corporations, and probably Elvis in his secret hideout with the aliens at Area 51. The Society and its members have been called dangerous, out-of-the-mainstream, and have been accused of trying to "bring down America from the inside." (For more links to various articles in the press, see the main Federalist Society webpage.) The truth (PDF) is far simpler.

This is the official mission statement of the Federalist Society:

"The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies is a group of conservatives and libertarians interested in the current state of the legal order. It is founded on the principles that the state exists to preserve freedom, that the separation of governmental powers is central to our Constitution, and that it is emphatically the province and duty of the judiciary to say what the law is, not what it should be. The Society seeks both to promote an awareness of these principles and to further their application through its activities."

Here at UW, those "activities" involve sponsoring formal debates, encouraging student discussion, and working with other chapters and the Puget Sound Lawyers' Chapter to make it clear that the principles we stand behind are taken seriously, and that the consequences of non-principled jurispurudence are laid bare. (Just ask Connecticut homeowners.) This blog is the latest effort in our work to foster healthy debate within our local legal community.

Welcome to the UW Chapter Federalist Society Blog!

I am Orrin Johnson, President of the University of Washington Federalist Society Chapter. I'd like to personally welcome you to our chapter's official blog!

The Federalist Society was formed in 1982 because conservative and libertarian law students were increasingly disappointed that only one point of view was ever coming across in their law school classes, and that this view was a universally liberal one. Recognizing that scholarship unquestioned becomes dogma instead of knowledge, and striving to create a dialogue instead of the monologue they were experiencing, they created the Society to provide law students access to different points of view.

It is in that spirit that this blog has been created. We look forward to thoughtful comments, criticisms, and above all, real dialogue. We aren't hear to try to shout anyone down. We believe that our ideas - given a fair hearing - will speak for themselves. We look forward to educating the UW Law School community about what the Federalist Society is (and isn't). And we look forward to exercising our minds by challenging all assumptions (not the least of which are our own), and making us all better lawyers in the process.

Please note that all opinions expressed on this blog are purely those of the individual authors. The Federalist Society itself does not take policy positions, endorse political candidates, or involve itself in litigation to pursue policy agendas. The goal is to simply provide a free and fair forum for us as individuals to make our own determinations.