"I realize that it might be a waste of time to speak up in favor of free speech, in legal academia, in 2021." This statement. Unbelievable that it speaks truth.
My memory may have dimmed over the decades but I recall that my first year professors at YLS included, among others, Ellen Peters, Alexander Bickel, Ralph Winter, Louis Pollak, Marvin Chirelstein and Eugene Rostow. This was an immersion in intellectual diversity, and students felt free to advance views that tested the tenor of any conversation. We would have rebelled had anyone attempted to cancel us, and we would have been inspired to do so by our faculty. I fear that the current faculty is asleep at the intellectual switch. What a shame. Dean’s letters don’t make a great law school. Robust and fearless debate guided by an intellectually diverse faculty does.
Stories like this make my head explode. I have to ask at what point do we realize that going through life means that at times, people will say/do things with which we disagree (I'm Jewish and have had some pretty nasty things said to/about me, including a deponent who once said to me "You're just another f-cking Jew lawyer from a f-cking Jew firm.)? Living life means that sometimes, you WILL get "offended". This is not to say that this individual did anything remotely wrong, as I don't believe that he did.
"I realize that it might be a waste of time to speak up in favor of free speech, in legal academia, in 2021." This statement. Unbelievable that it speaks truth.
My memory may have dimmed over the decades but I recall that my first year professors at YLS included, among others, Ellen Peters, Alexander Bickel, Ralph Winter, Louis Pollak, Marvin Chirelstein and Eugene Rostow. This was an immersion in intellectual diversity, and students felt free to advance views that tested the tenor of any conversation. We would have rebelled had anyone attempted to cancel us, and we would have been inspired to do so by our faculty. I fear that the current faculty is asleep at the intellectual switch. What a shame. Dean’s letters don’t make a great law school. Robust and fearless debate guided by an intellectually diverse faculty does.
Stories like this make my head explode. I have to ask at what point do we realize that going through life means that at times, people will say/do things with which we disagree (I'm Jewish and have had some pretty nasty things said to/about me, including a deponent who once said to me "You're just another f-cking Jew lawyer from a f-cking Jew firm.)? Living life means that sometimes, you WILL get "offended". This is not to say that this individual did anything remotely wrong, as I don't believe that he did.