So (a Yale so!), @tesswilkry & I are talking offline about how the idea of genius works in the legal academy. Genius / smart / playful / glib are all inputs into the same schema, which we both agree is gendered, and which I think is also centered around public law workshops.

This obviously isn't a pathology unique to legal academics, but the debate team culture, and lack of methodological guardrails, makes it worse.

(Resolved: high school debate upstream from everything that ails us.)

This is connected to @dorfonlaw's recent essay on Richard Epstein's failure to reflect on (and atone for) his Covid-19 work, but maybe is broader.

Like: what can we do to change who we venerate?