“In the classroom, my Supreme Court scholarship enriches my teaching, and vice versa. Particularly in constitutional law and my Supreme Court seminar, I learn from my classes and bring to them what I’ve been reading and writing about,” says
Professor Laura Ray, who has taught at Widener Law since 1988.
For Professor Ray, teaching and scholarship go hand in hand, and there is no better example of that than how she weaves her studies of the Supreme Court into the way she teaches her classes. “In my constitutional law classes, I try to teach students to read Supreme Court opinions not just as sources of doctrine, but also as distinctive expressions of each Justice’s judicial philosophy,” she notes, adding, “In my Supreme Court seminar, I hope that students will become sophisticated observers of the Court’s performance by keeping a sharp eye on the interactions among the Justices that produce both consensus and dissent.”
As far as scholarship goes, Professor Ray reveals, “I’m most proud when my articles are read by other scholars who find them useful in their own work. It’s always gratifying to discover that something written in solitude has reached a distant reader interested in the same ideas.” Her scholarly work, particularly on the Supreme Court, has been cited in some interesting places. “An article I wrote on suing the president was used by lawyers involved in the impeachment of President Clinton. Another article on portrayals of the Supreme Court Justice in novels, plays, and films has been excerpted in a text for courses in law and popular culture, and a third article on Justice Ginsburg prompted some journalists to contact me for comment when the Justice issued a strong dissent in a recent case.”
“I’m always proud when I see the distance my students have traveled in a semester,” says Professor Ray. “As a teacher of the first year civil procedure course, I try to introduce my students to the unfamiliar concept of procedural rules that control the litigation process in a way that balances fairness with efficiency,” she notes, but adds, “The learning curve for first semester civil procedure students is particularly steep, and their progress – often from bewilderment to understanding – is a teacher’s reward.”