Struggling with text and context: A hermeneutic approach to interpreting and realizing law school missions

St. John's Law Review, Summer 2000 by Ravitch, Frank S

INTRODUCTION

Why do some law schools have missions that exist on paper but not in reality, while others have lived missions that do not match their written missions to one degree or another? It seems that some schools find it difficult to effectuate their missions in varying social and temporal contexts.' This article explores one possible method for understanding and addressing this phenomenon. It is intended to illuminate the interpretive difficulties that may occur when a law school with changing social, economic, and intellectual situations seeks to implement its stated mission over a period of time. This article will also address the often unstated impact those difficulties have on whether a school "lives" its mission, simply acknowledges it, or falls somewhere in between. Lastly, this discussion will focus on ways in which these interpretive difficulties can be overcome so that a law school can live its mission over time, without ignoring the realities facing the school, its faculty, administration, staff, and students. While the focus will be on religiously affiliated law schools, the suggestions contained herein are equally applicable to secular law schools struggling to follow their mission statements.

Given the internal and external pressures facing law schools as we enter the new millennium, it is not surprising that some schools are not effectively carrying out their mission statements.2 This failure can be better understood and addressed through hermeneutic theory; more specifically, through the philosophical hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer, as augmented by the work of Paul Ricoeur.3 I have been working with hermeneutic theory recently in my research on the religion clauses of the First Amendment, and when thinking about this symposium, the potential relevance of that theory to law school mission statements was inescapable.

For those not familiar with hermeneutic theory, this article will first explain the basic concepts of that theory as understood by Gadamer and Ricoeur. Particular attention will be paid to the interplay between the text and the interpreter in the process of interpretation.4 Next, hermeneutic theory will be applied to suggest why some law schools are unable or unwilling to effectuate their written mission statements over time. Finally, this article will suggest that by understanding the role of both the text (the mission statement) and the interpreter (the law school administration, faculty, students, etcetera) in interpreting and effectuating a law school's mission statement, a law school can carry out its mission in a way that both maintains the "core values" of the mission statement and remains functional in the ever-evolving law school environment.

Two things should be underscored at this juncture. First, the hermeneutic theory I am working with in this article is not a methodology for reaching objective meaning.5 Those familiar with the term have seen it in the context of biblical hermeneutics,6 historical hermeneutics,7 or romanticist hermeneutics,8 which imply the possibility of a clear methodology to reach objective interpretations.9 An underpinning of Gadamerian theory is that there is no absolute methodology for interpretation. Instead, interpretation is a result of the interaction between the text and the interpreter seeking to understand the text.10 While Ricoeur's approach differs from Gadamer's in many ways,ll the two approaches compliment one another in the present context and in their relation to legal thought.

Second, this article might prove most relevant to schools that have had trouble realizing their missions, or have failed to do so. It should be particularly useful to those schools that have abandoned any realistic attempt to live their mission statements because those statements seem out of touch with current realities, and have thus become simply lofty goals or inspirational statements with little practical significance. There are, of course, schools that are able to effectuate their missions daily-I happen to teach at one now. It appears that these schools engage in some of the give and take that I will discuss below,12 at least implicitly, in order to realize their missions over time. Even for these schools, the approaches discussed below can be useful to help perpetuate this success. Of course, as will be seen, the nature of the mission statement itself plays an important role in facilitating or complicating this process.13

I. THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN TEXT AND CONTEXT: GADAMER, RICOEUR, AND THE SEARCH FOR MEANING

The purpose of this section is to provide a basic overview of Gadamerian and Ricoeurian hermeneutics.14 Continental philosophy can be difficult to penetrate for those with little formal training-as this author has personally experienced. It is part of a discourse that might, at first, seem alien to many law professors and lawyers. One of the goals of this section is to bridge this potential gap. Bridging the gap is well worth the effort given the major contribution this branch of philosophy has to offer, both in terms of the issues discussed herein and other issues of concern within the legal and academic communities.115