“I share your opinion that students should be allowed to engage freely over the list-serv about their political and other opinions. I personally did not sign on to any statement made to the Dean.
I happen to think that the more pernicious dynamic here is, as I said, LSJP's refusal to condemn acts of terror against civilians and the immediate rush by other organizations to sign on to that. I thought there was a powerful statement to be made about the actual substance of their statement and what ‘progressivism’ has mutated into in the law school environment -- and the rhetorical choices made to shame anyone who disagrees with their narrative (even where the statement contains bald-faced lies). Those who spoke out against LSJP via email were not the same group of students who went ‘running to the administration to complain.’ It does a disservice to those who did choose to fight speech with more speech to characterize their responses as ‘complaining’ to the list-serve about anti-Semitism; those students can hardly be said to be throwing a tantrum over free speech. Your piece suggests the opposition to LSJP's statement was monolithic and whiny. Respectfully, it wasn't.”
A fair point. To be totally clear, I fully support students criticizing the LSJP statement on the list-serv, which is exactly the kind of counter-speech I endorse. My saying that these students “complained” on the list-serv should not be viewed as criticism (since, after all, many complaints are justified).
Regardless of the merits, I think this demonstrates why having an ungated, all-school listhost is a bad idea. My law school did not have one, and I think it's not a coincidence that it rarely, if ever, had school-wide, apocalyptic controversies. When disagreements happened, they tended to be limited to their immediate participants.
The pro-Palestinian students were praising the murder of civilians and lying about their position by retreating to a cloud of generalities.
The pro-Israel students were calling for suppression of speech advocating murder of civilians.
Both are wrong. Free speech includes speech advocating relaxed rules against murder-- in this case, advocacy of the moral right of the Palestinians to use terrorism against Jews in Israel.
I might also suggest punishing the LSJP students for "anti-Semitic" statements might run afoul of free speech concerns, especially given the subsequent clarifications. Schools shouldn't disfavor one type of speech over another.
More and more I'm starting to believe that general list-servs are bad ideas; see e.g. YLS, Judge Silberman, now this. Similar to sending an email to your entire corporation, unless it's a vanilla topic, just leads to so much headache.
I'm all for discussion and debate, but I don't know that list-servs are the best place for it.
How does the law school’s admissions procedures and awarding scholarships based on a commitment to civil rights factor into their obligation to screen for certain harmful viewpoints?
From an NYU law student:
“I share your opinion that students should be allowed to engage freely over the list-serv about their political and other opinions. I personally did not sign on to any statement made to the Dean.
I happen to think that the more pernicious dynamic here is, as I said, LSJP's refusal to condemn acts of terror against civilians and the immediate rush by other organizations to sign on to that. I thought there was a powerful statement to be made about the actual substance of their statement and what ‘progressivism’ has mutated into in the law school environment -- and the rhetorical choices made to shame anyone who disagrees with their narrative (even where the statement contains bald-faced lies). Those who spoke out against LSJP via email were not the same group of students who went ‘running to the administration to complain.’ It does a disservice to those who did choose to fight speech with more speech to characterize their responses as ‘complaining’ to the list-serve about anti-Semitism; those students can hardly be said to be throwing a tantrum over free speech. Your piece suggests the opposition to LSJP's statement was monolithic and whiny. Respectfully, it wasn't.”
A fair point. To be totally clear, I fully support students criticizing the LSJP statement on the list-serv, which is exactly the kind of counter-speech I endorse. My saying that these students “complained” on the list-serv should not be viewed as criticism (since, after all, many complaints are justified).
Regardless of the merits, I think this demonstrates why having an ungated, all-school listhost is a bad idea. My law school did not have one, and I think it's not a coincidence that it rarely, if ever, had school-wide, apocalyptic controversies. When disagreements happened, they tended to be limited to their immediate participants.
The pro-Palestinian students were praising the murder of civilians and lying about their position by retreating to a cloud of generalities.
The pro-Israel students were calling for suppression of speech advocating murder of civilians.
Both are wrong. Free speech includes speech advocating relaxed rules against murder-- in this case, advocacy of the moral right of the Palestinians to use terrorism against Jews in Israel.
I might also suggest punishing the LSJP students for "anti-Semitic" statements might run afoul of free speech concerns, especially given the subsequent clarifications. Schools shouldn't disfavor one type of speech over another.
More and more I'm starting to believe that general list-servs are bad ideas; see e.g. YLS, Judge Silberman, now this. Similar to sending an email to your entire corporation, unless it's a vanilla topic, just leads to so much headache.
I'm all for discussion and debate, but I don't know that list-servs are the best place for it.
How does the law school’s admissions procedures and awarding scholarships based on a commitment to civil rights factor into their obligation to screen for certain harmful viewpoints?