Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of conservative United States legal figures


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. Eddie891 Talk Work 23:08, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

List of conservative United States legal figures

 * – ( View AfD View log )

The problem with this list is the same problem identified in this 2006 AfD: There's "no true way to determine accuracy of [the] article", and it's "inherently impossible to be NPOV with such a topic." A list like this requires editors to make value judgments about who is "conservative enough" to be included. It's easy enough to include Scalia and Thomas, but what about borderline cases like Kennedy and O'Connor? Powell? Black? Harlan? The first Justice Roberts? Or, for that matter, the second Justice Roberts? I could go on and on - and that's just the Supreme Court Justices. This list includes appellate judges, district judges, attorneys- and solicitors-general, and even professors. If all that's required is the use of the word "conservative" in a newspaper clipping, I could list hundreds of notable figures who could be placed on this list. There are no useful criteria that could winnow down the list, which is why it includes everyone from dyed-in-the-wool right-wingers (Alito, Thomas) to libertarians (Pilon) to near-leftists (Posner) to many, many people in between. But my point isn't that the list is wrong or even overinclusive - it's that it's impossible to assess objectively without interposing my own views of what it means to be a "real conservative". The list thus necessarily violates WP:NPOV and WP:OR, and so it ought to be deleted. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 21:42, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 21:42, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Conservatism-related deletion discussions. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 21:42, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Law-related deletion discussions. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 21:42, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 21:42, 22 February 2021 (UTC)


 * I think the nomination confuses the issue of whether reliable sources consistently describe someone as "conservative", with whether someone is "really" a conservative. So long as there is a consensus among relevant sources, it doesn't matter whether that label is "objective", and ultimately it's a self-identification or a characterization by others rather than a concrete fact anyway. So I'm less concerned with who "is" conservative and more with how broad "legal figure" is. I'd expect most judges nominated by recent Republican presidents would be considered conservative, and then add to that applicable state court judges, lawyers, legal scholars, etc... postdlf (talk) 22:29, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I think we're both getting at the same root problem, which is that it's impossible to list every legal figure whom the reliable sources consider conservative. (Just the list of notable figures would run into the hundreds or even thousands.) We are thus left to exercise our own discretion on whom to include, which inevitably raises NPOV and OR issues. And it doesn't help that there are so many shades of grey: e.g. Scalia himself was "liberal" on many criminal justice issues, while a justice like Kennedy was conservative on free speech and federalism while being liberal on abortion and gay rights. The reliable sources don't just stuff people in red or blue boxes, and neither should we. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 22:50, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete. Both "conservative" and "legal figures" are such broad terms that they could encompass anyone from Scalia to a district attorney that ran as a Republican. Because such a broad definition is so all-encompassing, it doesn't really make sense for this to be a list. If anything, a category would probably be better, with an equivalent for liberal figures.  Kncny11  (shoot) 22:39, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete Reasonable enough to assume that most justices, judges, attorneys general, solicitor generals, etc. appointed by Republican presidents are conservative legal figures. While that's not always the case and some are better known than others, I'm not sure how this can be structured with adequate inclusion criteria to limit its size to be encyclopedic and not a bullet-pointed, context-free list. Reywas92Talk 23:57, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete I agree with the nomination and above comments, almost any legal figure who is conservative could be included in this list and is very objective. We don't even have a list of liberal United States legal figures why does it make sense to have a list for only conservatives. JayJayWhat did I do? 05:24, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete This a topic area that is way to broad and is subject to, like many lists, of dumping in people for whom there is not consensus that they actually belong in this category. -Indy beetle (talk) 07:35, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete: too broad of a subject for a list article. Ⓩⓟⓟⓘⓧ Talk 01:54, 24 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete Topic is very broad and subjective. Redoryxx (talk) 10:22, 24 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete: I don't know what criteria applied here to create this list because the subject is very broad but there should be a list available for both conservatives and liberal United States legal figures. TheDreamBoat (talk) 05:47, 25 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete, I agree with above, the topic is broad and has no consensus. Alex-h (talk) 15:34, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete conservative means different things to different people at different times. There is no agreed on definition.John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:11, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete It's too broad for a list. This kind of thing is better handled by categories and subcategories. The list would just be too long to be helpful. Spudlace (talk) 03:40, 27 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom  Devoke  water  11:21, 28 February 2021 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.