When I first wrote of lawprof Lawrence Connell’s becoming the target of ridiculous hysteria at Widener Law School because of examples used in teaching criminal law, the silliness appeared confined to a few misguided students who were offended by the common employment of the dean as the victim of nefarious crimes. Just some dopey, entitled teacups flexing their muscle.
As things wound out, with Connell being put through some very real paces in vindicating himself and his practice, far beyond rational expectations, one thing became increasingly clear. Whoever was pulling the strings at Widener was nuts.
While lawyers were busily lawyering, a sea change in attitude and mission flowed into the administration of law schools. Some eschewed the dirty notion of teaching students how to practice law. Some eschewed principle despite their flowery mission of “empower[ing] students and alumni as they explore and create careers inspired by passion and rooted in their faith and values….so that they aspire to greatness and flourish with confidence as servant leaders and ethical professionals,” and pay their tuition bills.
But no law school to date has gone as far as Windener Law School. David Bernstein at Volokh Conspiracy explains.
The saga of Dean Ammons vendetta against Professor Lawrence Connell, revolving around trumped up charges of harassment and discrimination, gets more and more absurd. Having been almost entirely vindicated by a faculty committee, with the only remaining “charge” that he dared to rebut false accusations against himself publicly, Dean Ammons has recommended that Connell be suspended for a year without pay and be forced to undergo a psychiatric evaluation. Widener’s administration, apparently oblivious to the long-term damage this is doing to the law school’s and university’s reputation, agreed. I hope Connellsues, and I hope hewins his lawsuit, and wins big. Meanwhile, if any of our readers are considering attending Widener, I recommend looking elsewhere–anywhere else. If Connell can be abused in this way, so can you. H/T Instapundit.
As has already been made clear, the basic concepts of how due process and burden of proof clash with the pedagogical process when they fail to produce the results that conform with children’s notion of the correct outcome. But at Widener, it’s no longer about some teacup students who take umbrage with a lawprof whose examples fail to conform with their vision of political correctness. Oh, if only it was that simple.
Dean Linda Ammons will not be denied. Nor murdered, whether by ax, gun or strangulation. So what if the faculty committee “adjudicating” his grievous wrongs says nothing bad happened here. And yes, he is guilty of publicly proclaiming that he did nothing wrong, which flies in the face of two new-fangled academic rules, that no one publicly embarrass the school by telling the truth and no one undermine the presumption of guilt.
The guardians of high-minded principle, our law schools, seem to be struggling just a bit in teaching them, adhering to them, even recognizing them, when they get in the way of punishing the people who piss them off.
Ammons not only wants Connell suspended for a year, but wants him sent to her re-education camp where he’ll learn to love Ammons’ Little Red Book.
Without naming names, because they fear the wrath of the orthodoxy if it came out that they have any unpleasant thoughts, some of my lawprof friends (yes, I have some lawprof friends) tell me that I have no idea how bad the situation in law schools has become. They parse every word they say for fear that it will upset some delicate teacup’s politically correct sensibility, and they will be publicly burned at the stake for not adhering to the dogma. The Spanish Inquisition pales in comparison.
Students have become little automatons, spewing Kumbaya, demanding respect and crying whenever there’s no one to suckle them. Administrations and professors who embrace the perfect world, where never is heard a discouraging word that doesn’t conform to the idealists catechism. There can be no suggestion that any student is unworthy or, oh my, wrong. That would hurt someone’s feelings, and conflict with the Academy’s mission to make the stupidest feel brilliant.
I see it here, whenever a law student or young lawyer feels empowered to tell experienced lawyers how the world should be and how we’ve done everything wrong. The days of children being seen but not heard are gone. And the days of a law professor doing his job in a way that makes a teacup tinkle demands psychological treatment.
Bernstein, in an update to his post, does the unthinkable:
UPDATE: I had agreed to participate in a Widener-sponsored project after the committee report was released, which I thought would be the end of the matter. I’ve now sent an email to my contact at Widener, withdrawing. I can’t in good conscience have my reputation associated in any way with Widener Law School.
I would hope that all people of integrity decide to take a stand here, not to lend support to this insanity by contributing, associating, or approving of Widener’s, Ammons’ or the tide of catering to the politically correct sensibilities of the teacups and their enablers. While there will be some who agree with, and applaud, this insanity, the rest of us need to put on our big boy pants and stand up to this absurdity.
The Academy is out of control, and those in it who disagree have been hiding in the corner for fear that they will be exposed as heretics who sing Kumbaya out of tune. Now that Lawrence Connell is being burned at the stake, and David Bernstein has shown the ‘nads to stand up, let’s see how many scholars will similarly come forward and reject the Widener way.
You know, better than I, that these schools and your colleagues who drank the kool-aid, are doing damage that is turning higher education into a joke. So, what are you going to do about it?
And if you’re thinking of going to law school, your job is easy. Just scratch Widener off the list, like Marquette and St. Thomas. And to tell you the truth, the rest of them are no prize either.
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I’d love to see a student at one of these schools cite the University’s speech code when called on in class and unable to answer.
For instance, if a professor at U. Florida reprimands you for failing to be prepared for class, inform him that “Organizations or individuals that adversely upset the delicate balance of communal living will be subject to disciplinary action by the University.” Then insist that you will not join in his disruptive behavior and refuse to answer any more questions.
Beats just admitting you’re too lazy to do the reading.
The new golden rule:
No one, but no one, can ever be made to feel badly, whether about himself, someone else, or anything. Ever.
Lazy is such an archaic concept. People are no longer lazy, but differently focused, pondering the great questions that perplex humankind, such as how to eat Cheetos without gaining weight, or how to get your Youtube video to go viral so they make a reality show about you and you can marry Hugh Hefner.
Oh it gets worse… Try telling these students they must show up on time and take a look at your teaching evals. At my school we have a 4 person administrative/dean suite filled with tenured professors who cant teach, cant write, and havent practiced law in decades. They see their job as entertaining student complaints (“we care for them”), of course no one has stopped to ask whether this is a good idea (creating a culture of student complaints and a generation of think they know it alls”) Im convinced we are breeding attorneys who will run to the judge with every minor complaint, disrespect colleagues with years/decades more experience, etc. But hey, as long as we keep those grievamce policies in place everyone will feel like they have a voice, and isnt that our job?
Thanks for contributing. It would be enormously helpful if other lawprofs or just plain profs contribute to what’s happening on the inside of the onion.
I often wonder how the kind of students who would get their feelings hurt about this kind of crap will survive in a job outside the sheltered harbour of academia. When the concern is not the crim law prof substituting the dean of law’s name where there’d usually be a topical reference in a fact pattern, but that you owe duties of loyalty and faith to a client who is a real person and may actually be racist, or sexist, or on trial for something even more awful (if you can imagine).
These are the guys that withdraw from defense because they can’t get along with their client I guess?
Me too.
It isn’t just law schools.
See Wikipedia “Water buffalo incident”, U. Penn., 1993, Eden Jacobowitz.
BTW, at what point does law stop being a profession? When the profs all dress for Hogwarts?
They get government jobs where conformity is rewarded, marry Stepford wives, and live under the mistaken impression that they’re free and independent actors.
Those aren’t profs who dress for Hogwarts. Those are judges.
At my school the administration demands that the profs integrate all “learning styles” into their courses. We are guaranteed to have one obligatory group project in every class to accommodate “group learners” or whatever. I guess it never crosses anybody’s mind that there might be certain “learning types” that would be better off looking for a different profession. There is no westlaw for ADD lawyers that I am aware of.
I loved your post and, although not a lawyer, I agree with everything you say. I also like your choice of using sarcasm to poke the nutty bubbles that those you talk against must live in instead of the real earth where the rest of us reside.
There is so much truth that you talk about I can only comment on 1 or 2 things. One is that the powers that be have “eschewed the dirty notion of teaching students how to practice law” and that their, “mission is to get alumni and students to explore and create careers inspired by passion and rooted in their faith and values.”
That mission statement seems more appropriate to me to be the mission statement of a seminary than that of a law school. It fits in with a huge amount of peoples ideas that if the law and the principles of due process do not produce the desired politically correct outcomes and if we can’t convince the legislature to change the law, we’ll just change our interpretation of the law; and if necessary, begin a propaganda campaign to convince the people that the word duck really means cow; as any fool can see.
It reminds me of Bill Clinton’s famous reply to a judge, “That depends what your definition of the word is, is”.
I know that your post was about a particular person and a particular school but the principles you elucidate in your post are a breath of fresh air to one who feels like he is drowning in the sea of Political Correctness we live in.
As someone who worked as a Registered Nurse in psychiatry for 20 years, I affirm your comment that other people do not cause our emotions. Our interpretations of events and memories that contain our emotions are what cause our emotions, not what other people say or do.
I also disagree with the concept of lazy but not for the reason you state. A person is motivated to expend effort if their is a reasonable hope of a significant reward and the knowledge of how to achieve long term goals by the setting of achievable short term and intermediate goals that lead to the achievable long term goals that the person desires.
A google search on “Kumbaya Law School” has Duke and Boston College as hits. Evidently some students think that is a good thing.
You make a critically important point, as there are no “group learners” in foxholes. What’s such a lawyer to tell his client in the midst of trial when he fails to make a critical timely objection, that he’s sorry but he was waiting for team consensus? Not everyone is cut out to be a lawyer, and accommodating those who would do better in a different job (to be nice) is a very bad idea.
I never would have thought of Duke as a Kumbaya school. BC, sure, but never Duke. I learn something new every day.
FWIW, the faculty committee did not say “nothing bad happened here.” It found no sexual or racial harassment, but found improper “retaliation” based on Connell’s public announcement of the charges against him (which struck me as a terrible ruling) and his having threatened to sue the individual students for defamation (a somewhat harder issue for me; I am putting together a blog post of my own on these issues).
Albert Nygren wrote: “That mission statement seems more appropriate to me to be the mission statement of a seminary than that of a law school. It fits in with a huge amount of peoples ideas that if the law and the principles of due process do not produce the desired politically correct outcomes and if we can’t convince the legislature to change the law, we’ll just change our interpretation of the law”.
This is one of the most interesting comments I have read in a long time. My only criticism is that it doesn’t go far enough. ISTM that it isn’t just the law schools that are run on “religious principles” but the courts as well. Instead of verdicts based on facts and logic, they are too often based on feelings and beliefs. After all, if everyone says she’s a witch, it must be true, right?
And so we see alarmingly ludicrous convictions like that of Phil Spector where the evidence of his innocence was absolute — and was ignored — and he was, instead, judged on feelings and guesses.
Worse, this foolishness has been found to be acceptable according to a California appellate court. Spector’s team argued that jurors in that trial should not have heard testimony from five women who said they were involved in gun-related incidents with Spector. In the 81-page ruling, the presiding justice wrote that the evidence was “admissible to prove that the cause of Clarkson’s death had neither been an accident nor a suicide.”
IOW, “we needed it to get the result we wanted to be true”. What sort of rubbish is this? Not just lawyers, not just judges but appellate judges – and they are unable to read and comprehend a trial transcript and evaluate the evidence and sort out valid from invalid. This explains much.
Thanks for your comment – it has started me on a whole new train of thought.