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Great Minds Speak Alike: Inter-Court Communication of Metaphor in Education Finance Litigation

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Great Minds Speak Alike: Inter-Court Communication of Metaphor in Education Finance Litigation Great Minds Speak Alike: Inter-Court Communication of Metaphor in Education Finance Litigation Matt Saleh Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy under the Executive Committee of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2015 © 2015 Matt Saleh All rights reserved ABSTRACT Great Minds Speak Alike: Inter-Court Communication of Metaphor in Education Finance Litigation Matt Saleh This project uses a mixed methods approach to analyze the communication of metaphors about educational equity and adequacy, between co-equal state supreme courts in education finance litigation (1971-present). Evidence demonstrates that a number of pervasive metaphors about students and educational opportunities (“sound basic education,” “marketplace of ideas,” students as “competitors in the global economy”) have been shared and conventionalized within judicial networks, with significant implications for how courts interpret educational rights under state constitutions. The project first conducts a qualitative discourse analysis of education finance litigation in New York State (four cases) using Pragglejaz Group’s (2007) Metaphor Identification Procedure, to identify micro-level examples of metaphor usage in actual judicial discourse. Then, it performs quantitative and qualitative social network analysis of the entire education finance judicial network for state supreme courts (65 cases), to analyze two different “relations” between this set of actors: shared citation (formal relation) and shared metaphor (informal relation). Data analysis shows that there exist both formal and informal channels of judicial communication—communication we can “see,” and communication we can’t—and commonalities in discursive strategies (informal ties) are, in some ways, potentially more cohesive than direct, formal ties. The project also finds that courts looking to break with existing state precedent are more likely to turn to inter-court metaphors to validate their holdings. This project seeks to describe how metaphors become diffuse within judicial networks, and more generally seeks to enhance understanding of the ways in which political viewpoints on public benefits and rights are communicated through elite channels. TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES………………………………………………………………………………... iii LIST OF FIGURES………………………………………………………………………………. iii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION................................................................................................. 1 1.1 Inter-Court Communication of Metaphors…………………………………………….... 1 1.2 Situating Discourse in the Social Network of State Courts……………………………... 7 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY……………………………………………………………… 15 2.1 Literature Review………………………………………………………………………... 15 2.1.1 Social Network Analysis………………………………………………………..... 15 2.1.2 Metaphor in Law………………………………………………………………..... 19 2.1.3 Findings from Discourse Analysis of New York Education Finance Litigation… 27 2.2 Data Collection for Social Network Analysis…………………………………………… 31 2.2.1 Legal Citation in Social Network Research……………………………………… 31 2.2.2 Sample Parameters……………………………………………………………….. 33 2.2.3 Relational Data for Network Adjacency Matrix………………………………..... 35 CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS……………………………………………………………… 38 3.1 “Sound Basic Education” Metaphor Diffusion………………………………………….. 56 3.2 “Marketplace of Ideas” Metaphor Diffusion…………………………………………….. 62 3.3 Students as “Global Economic Competitors” Metaphor Diffusion……………………... 68 3.4 “Gross Disparities,” “Cures,” and “Symptoms:” Health-Based Metaphors of Education Finance……………………………………………………………………………………………. 75 3.5 “Function Productively in Society” Metaphor Diffusion………………………………. 87 3.6 The “Leaky Roof:” Metonymy, Metaphor, and the Problem of “Growth” in Squalor….. 93 CHAPTER 4: THEORIES OF METAPHOR DIFFUSION………………………………….. 100 i 4.1 The “Invisible Colleague” in Judicial Networks………………………………………… 100 4.2 Courts that Do Participate in the Metaphor Network………………………………….... 103 4.3 What Does the Invisible College Look Like…………………………………………….. 112 4.4 External Influences on Judicial Discourse……………………………………………..... 121 CHAPTER 5: METAPHORS AND OUTCOMES…………………………………………..... 144 CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………….. 162 BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………………………………….. 169 APPENDICES…………………………………………………………………………………… 190 Appendix A……………………………………………………………………………………….. 190 Appendix B……………………………………………………………………………………….. 191 Appendix C……………………………………………………………………………………….. 192 Appendix D……………………………………………………………………………………….. 192 Appendix E……………………………………………………………………………………….. 195 Appendix F………………………………………………………………………………………... 196 Appendix G……………………………………………………………………………………….. 202 Appendix H……………………………………………………………………………………….. 204 ii LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Attributes of CFE Ego-Centric and Overall Education Finance Networks……………… 43 Table 2: Least Influential Cases in the “Sliced” Education Finance Network……………………. 47 Table 3: Adjacency Matrix for Relations between Four Most “Influential” Actors in the Sliced Network……………………………………………………………………………………………..49 Table 4: “Strong” Citational In-Degree and Out-Degree (Sent and Received), Cases Outside the Metaphor Network…………………………………………………………………………........... 52 Table 5: Attributes of Metaphor and Overall Education Finance Networks……………………… 54 Table 6: Metaphor and Citation Relations for 44 Actors Common to Both Networks…………… 54 Table 7: Frameworks Used in Cases Favorable to Defendants……………………………………156 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Inter-Textual Metaphors Used in CFE v. State and Originating Courts………………... 29 Figure 2: Gower Metric Scaling Layout of CFE v. State of New York Ego-Centric Citation Network…………………………………………………………………………………………… 39 Figure 3: Gower Metric Scaling Layout of CFE v. State of New York Ego-Centric Metaphor Network…………………………………………………………………………………………… 41 Figure 4: Multi-Dimensional Scaling Layout of Entire Education Finance Citation Network…… 42 Figure 5: Sliced Multi-Dimensional Layout of Entire Education Finance Citation Network…..... 45 Figure 6: Sub-Graph of Four Most Influential Education Finance Cases………………………… 49 Figure 7: Multi-Dimensional Scaling Layout of Education Finance Six-Metaphor Network…..... 53 Figure 8: Multi-Dimensional Scaling Layout of Education Finance Citation Network, Actors Who Share Metaphor……………………………………………………………………………… 53 Figure 9: Graphical Path of “Sound Basic” Education Requirements…………………………..... 60 Figure 10: Education Finance Network Sub-Graph, All Courts Using “Sound Basic Education”........................................................................................................................................ 60 Figure 11: Graphical Path of “Marketplace of Ideas” Education Metaphor……………………… 67 Figure 12: Education Finance Network Sub-Graph, Courts Using “Marketplace of Ideas” iii Metaphor…………………………………………………………………………………………... 68 Figure 13: Graphical Path of “Economic Competitors” Education Metaphor……………………. 71 Figure 14: Education Finance Network Sub-Graph, Courts Using “Global Competitors” Metaphor…………………………………………………………………………………………... 74 Figure 15: Graphical Path of “Gross Disparities” Education Metaphor………………………….. 78 Figure 16: Education Finance Network Sub-Graph, Courts Using “Gross Disparities”………...... 78 Figure 17: Graphical Path of “Function in Society” Education Metaphor………………………... 91 Figure 18: Education Finance Network Sub-Graph, Courts Using “Function in Society” Metaphor…………………………………………………………………………………………... 92 Figure 19: Graphical Path of “Leaky Roof” Education Metaphor………………………………... 98 Figure 20: Education Finance Network Sub-Group, Courts Using “Leaky Roof” Metaphor…..... 98 Figure 21: State-Level Saturation of Inter-Court Metaphors……………………………………... 104 Figure 22: Two Mode Representation of Metaphor Use in Cases Favoring Defendants…………. 146 Figure 23: Two Mode Representation of Metaphor Use in Cases Favoring Plaintiffs…………… 147 Figure 24: State-Level View of Metaphor Adoption by State Courts…………………………...... 150 Figure 25: Two-Mode Representation of Framework Use by Cases Favoring Defendants……… 157 iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author would like to thank Professors Jeffrey Henig, Michael Rebell, Gita Steiner-Khamsi, Oren Pizmony-Levy, and Kimberley Johnson for their guidance and feedback on this paper. Each was instrumental in helping me to develop the theoretical foundations for this project. I would also like to thank Arun Karpur at Cornell University for inspiring me to study social network analysis methods, and Professor Leslie Bender at Syracuse University for being a great all-around mentor. Lastly, I would like to dedicate this paper to my parents, because they always made me feel smart. v Great Minds Speak Alike: Inter-Court Communication of Metaphor in Education Finance Litigation 1. CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS 1.1 Inter-Court Communication of Metaphors Do metaphoric conceptions of educational equity and adequacy have influence cross- court? In this paper, I use a multi-disciplinary methodology to identify competing metaphors about educational opportunity in New York State education finance litigation (Levittown Union Free School District v. Nyquist, N.Y. 1982; Campaign for Fiscal Equity, Inc. v. State [“CFE”], N.Y. 1995; 2003; 2006), and then situate these conveyances within the broader national network of state-level education finance litigation, through qualitative and quantitative applications of social network analysis. Network analysis is a method for analyzing the patterns of interpersonal communication in a social system, by determining who
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