Law School Professors Reject Property Rights

People without college degrees, or even high school diplomas, appear to understand property rights. Why can’t law school professors?

Evidence of the former can be found trend can be found in the number of signs one sees that read, “This house protected by shotgun three nights a week. You guess which three.” Fences and walls are other good indicators of this cognizance.

Evidence of the latter phenomenon seems almost as overwhelming. “Property is just a bundle of sticks, according to law professors,” Adam Macleod, a professor at Faulkner University’s Jones School of Law said at the annual meeting of the Philadelphia Society in Dallas last weekend. “They consider it a creation of the state.” The Philadelphia Society is a group of conservative intellectuals formed in the wake of the Goldwater defeat in 1964.

Moreover, “The American Law and Property Society thinks property rights are an entitlement,” MacLeod avers.

When the Supreme Court does issue a ruling that reaffirms property rights, law school professors are generally aghast. They “baffle my colleagues who think the Koch brothers are sitting on the Supreme Court.”

MacLeod did note drily that law school students can be a tough sell too: “‘I can’t wait for property class!’ are words that have passed through the mouths of no law student ever.”

Related Topics