CHAUTAUQUA–Let’s pick up where we left off last week.

Chautauqua Institution began the 2025 season with a hopeful sign that renewed enthusiasm for diversity of thought was in the air.

That continued during the 2025 season.

≤≤≤

Meanwhile, an organization annually invites a speaker to Chautauqua Institution.

Chautauqua doesn’t select the speaker. The organization does. It’s legally separate from Chautauqua, and its principal location isn’t in Chautauqua.

Following the 2023 speaker, this column reviewed the organization’s Chautauqua speakers over the years and observed that if a liberal spoke in 2024, the share of the organization’s Chautauqua speakers who have been liberals would rise to 90 percent.

That happened in 2024.

Having liberals speak is fine. But 90 percent? Balance, though not required, would serve not only Chautauqua but also the larger community well.

≤≤≤

It didn’t take long for the 2025 speaker to reveal–or to put it more precisely, all but reveal–that the pattern continued.

How did that happen?

By way of background, Bush v. Gore is the U.S. Supreme Court opinion that in effect ended the recounting of Florida ballots following the 2000 presidential election.

The 2025 speaker wasn’t far into the presentation when the audience heard this: “I don’t talk about the U.S. Supreme Court, and the reason why I say that is that, I actually stopped teaching U.S. constitutional law after Bush v. Gore. I was involved in that case. I was in Florida. I would have handled the legal aftermath if the court had decided something differently. But it was the first time really that the Supreme Court made a decision that was just impossible to justify on the basis of its pre-existing law. And I must say that I have a kind of low tolerance for decisions that don’t have enough law in them, and so I literally stopped teaching U.S. constitutional law. … So I don’t usually talk about the court.”

≤≤≤

What to make of that?

If that were offered at some kind of event with solely–or almost solely–liberals, Democrats, or both in attendance, one would think the guests would snicker at the obvious hyperbole, laugh it off, and then go back for seconds on the appetizers. Fine.

Yet the non-Chautauqua-sponsored event at Chautauqua had others besides liberals, Democrats, or both in attendance.

Let’s re-read the heart of the statement: “Bush v. Gore … was the first time really that the Supreme Court made a decision that was just impossible to justify on the basis of its pre-existing law.”

And let’s indulge–just for purposes of today’s column–the premise that “Bush v. Gore … was just impossible to justify on the basis of its pre-existing law.”

In other words, let’s assume–just for purposes of today’s column–that’s true.

≤≤≤

Was there no other occasion from 1789 to 2000 when “the Supreme Court made a decision that was just impossible to justify on the basis of its pre-existing law”?

If–if–that were true, then wouldn’t it follow that Dred Scott v. Sandford, the 1857 Supreme Court opinion creating a right to own slaves where no such right had existed–“was ()possible to justify on the basis of its pre-existing law”?

And what about Plessy v. Ferguson, the 1896 Supreme Court opinion upholding racial segregation under the separate-but-equal doctrine?

If–if–the speaker’s premise were true, then wouldn’t it follow that Plessy v. Ferguson “was ()possible to justify on the basis of its pre-existing law”?

You, faithful reader of this column, are–as the saying goes–smarter than the average bear.

What are the answers to those questions?

What do the answers tell you about the speaker’s premise?

≤≤≤

Apart from that, the annual-speaker programs need sufficient diversity of thought.

The hard truth is that they’ve lacked such diversity all along.

≤≤≤

Dr. Randy Elf’s Aug. 20, 2020, Advocates for Balance at Chautauqua presentation, on “How Political Speech Law Benefits Politicians and the Rich,” is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3ebymA7xOo.

COPYRIGHT (c) 2025 BY RANDY ELF