Law, Business, and Society 9th Edition by Tony McAdams

Exercise 12

Jonathan Rauch argues that America is making a mistake in allowing what he calls Hidden Law to be replaced by what he calls Bureaucratic Legalism. Hidden Law refers to unwritten social codes, whereas Bureaucratic Legalism refers to state-provided due process for every problem. Thus universities formerly expected insults and epithets among students to be resolved via informal modes such as apologies, while today many universities have written codes forbidding offensive or discriminatory verbal conduct. Similarly, four kindergarten students in New Jersey were suspended from school for three days because they were observed "shooting" each other with their fingers serving as guns.
a. Would we be better off leaving campus insults and school-yard finger "shootings" to the Hidden Law Explain.
b. Can you think of other examples where we have gradually replaced Hidden Law with Bureaucratic Legalism
c. Rauch argues that the breakdown of one Hidden Law, the rule that a man must marry a woman whom he has impregnated, may be "the most far-reaching social change of our era." Do you agree Explain. See George Will, "Penalizing These Kids Is Zero Tolerance at a Ridiculous Extreme," Des Moines Register, December 27, 2000,