ABAwatch

<p style=" margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">When Michael S. Joyce died in February 24, his death received scant attention in the mainstream press. Although very few people in academic circles are familiar with his name, he was, nonetheless, one of the foundational pillars of the current ideological attacks on the academy. <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=21456" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); outline: none;">A tribute to him</a> [8] by Peter Collier was published in FrontPage, Horowitz’s Web site. Joyce and his intellectual muse -- the late University of Chicago political philosopher <a href="http://www.alternet.org/story/15935/" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); outline: none;">Leo Strauss</a> [9] -- would have been pleased by the level of anonymity that he maintained during his lifetime. Joyce's ability to maintain such anonymity despite the enormous influence that he wielded in shaping and developing the infrastructure of the neoconservative movement in this country is quite remarkable.

Although The Atlantic Monthly, as early as 1986, was describing Joyce as "one of the three individuals most responsible for the triumph of the conservative political movement," he nevertheless adhered rigorously to the secretive and profoundly antidemocratic principles advocated by the enigmatic Strauss. As characterized by Jeet Heer in <a href="http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2003/05/11/the_philosopher/" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); outline: none;">The Boston Globe,</a> [10] Strauss held that "the best regime is one in which the leaders govern moderately and prudently, curbing the passions of the mob while allowing a small philosophical elite to pursue the contemplative life of the mind. Such a philosophical elite may discover truths that are not fit for public consumption.... For Strauss the art of concealment and secrecy was among the greatest legacies of antiquity."

In 1979, Michael Joyce entered the world of large-scale philanthropy with assistance from his mentor Irving Kristol, when he assumed the reins of the John M. Olin Foundation from the retiring president, William Simon. At Olin, one of Joyce’s first projects was to organize support for the <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/miller/miller200602270759.asp" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); outline: none;">launching of the Federalist Society.</a> [11] Joyce’s work in creating and fostering the development of the Federalist Society is instructive and foreshadows the role that he has played in current efforts by neoconservatives to restructure American higher education. The Federalist Society, with Joyce’s ongoing support, not only fostered the development of ultra-conservative legal scholars and politicians such as Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Robert Bork, Samuel Alito, John Ashcroft, Alberto Gonzales and Kenneth Starr (all of whom are members) but organized them into a powerful force for reshaping American jurisprudence in support of a larger neoconservative agenda.

Also significant in this regard is <a href="http://www.institutefordemocracy.org/pub3.html" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); outline: none;">a report by Jerome Shestack,</a> [12] former president of the American Bar Association, that the Federalist Society is being increasingly being used as a platform from which to launch ideological attacks on the mainstream legal community. Through the device of the Federalist Society publication, ABA Watch, the society has launched a vicious attack on the ABA. In a special edition of the Watch, U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), co-chair of the society, announced that he would no longer invite the ABA to participate on a pro forma basis in the Senate judicial confirmation process. Employing rhetoric eerily parallel to that being used in the current attacks on the academy, Justice Clarence Thomas openly denounced the ABA, declaring “I am doubtful that the ABA can ever reform itself.”