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Oh, the Sensitivity of It All...

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I wish this were parody.  It isn't.

Columbia Law School has allowed students to postpone their exams because of the "trauma" of the non-indictments in the Ferguson and Staten Island cases, in which policemen killed two unarmed black men in the process of trying to arrest them. The Wall Street Journal has the story.

If memory serves, this Law School is part of the same Columbia University that has hired police killer Kathy Boudin as a professor.  I wonder if the students in her class are "traumatized" and free from exam taking.
The Law School's message to the students is priceless.  I re-print it in full below. It illustrates more vividly than I ever could how far "elite" law schools have gone off the deep end (emphasis in original):

The grand juries' determinations to return non-indictments in the Michael Brown and Eric Garner cases have shaken the faith of some in the integrity of the grand jury system and in the law more generally. For some law students, particularly, though not only, students of color, this chain of events is all the more profound as it threatens to undermine a sense that the law is a fundamental pillar of society designed to protect fairness, due process and equality.

For these reasons, after consultation with students in the law school and with colleagues on the law faculty and in the administration, I am taking the following steps to assure our responsiveness and involvement in this particular moment:

- In recognition of the traumatic effects these events have had on some of the members of our community, Dean Greenberg-Kobrin and Yadira Ramos-Herbert, Director, Academic Counseling, have arranged to have Dr. Shirley Matthews, a trauma specialist, hold sessions next Monday and Wednesday for anyone interested in participating to discuss the trauma that recent events may have caused.

- Several members of the faculty have agreed to schedule special office hours next week to be available for students who would like support and/or would like to talk about the implications of the Brown and Garner non-indictments. These office hours will include:

Conrad Johnson - Monday, 12:00 - 2:00, Room 833

Olati Johnson - Monday, 12:00 - 4:00, Room 630

Susan Sturm - Wednesday, 2:15 - 3:15, Room 617

Katherine Franke - Monday, 1:00 - 3:00, Thursday, 9:00 - 11:00, Room 637

- I support the idea of an open community dialogue to discuss the concerns of students in the wake of recent events, and to share diverse and collective notions of injustice that these cases raise. I will encourage all members of our community to attend.

- The law school has a policy and set of procedures for students who experience trauma during exam period. In accordance with these procedures and policy, students who feel that their performance on examinations will be sufficiently impaired due to the effects of these recent events may petition Dean Alice Rigas to have an examination rescheduled.

- Several members of the faculty have agreed to work with students to develop a reading group, speaker series, and/or longitudinal teach-in next semester in which the group would explore a series of sessions where we educate ourselves and formulate a response to the implications, including racial meanings, of these non-indictments. In an effort to include the larger community in which we live and study, this work may include a collaboration with Columbia's Center for Justice and with the Schomberg Center.

In closing let me just add my hope that through these and other efforts all members of the Columbia Law School community can can come to have a greater sense of mutual support and trust. 

And here I thought that barring military recruiters while we're in a war with al Qaeda (ISIS did not yet exist) was as far as "elite" law schools would go.

I confess error.

1 Comment

I could have a field day of sarcasm on this one such as the trauma I felt during my corporate tax final. Granted it was probably caused by some combination of me being too stupid to understand what a "reverse triangular merger" was or just poor study habits (who expects law students in San Diego to come to class on Friday????).

I had no choice but to suck it up and an unknown combination of grade inflation and good guessing got me a B. I'm much stronger for having persevered.

Seriously though, any student who requests a waiver for this trauma is clearly too psychologically fragile go practice law. Losing is part of the job.

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