Elite Law School Says Pregnant Student Must Take Exam Days After Giving Birth, Accommodation Would Be ‘Inequitable’
'Violates her lawful rights'
Nonprofit Sues Northwestern University Over Discriminatory Affirmative-Action Hiring Practices
'Faculty hiring at American universities is a cesspool of corruption and lawlessness,' Jonathan Mitchell asserts in the lawsuit.American Bar Association Requiring All Law Schools To Push DEI, Displacing Constitutional Law
After Indiana University implemented DEI standards in its law curriculum, John Lawrence Hill took his concerns to the state legislature.'There are no exceptional white people': University of Wisconsin law students put through mandatory race re-education
First-year law students at the University of Wisconsin were reportedly forced to take a mandatory seminar that told them there are "no exceptional white people" and that "whites collude" to commit "genocidal attacks."
The students were lectured in the seminar by Joey Oteng, who is officially the Dean's Fellow of Inclusive Excellence at the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. Oteng also refers to himself as a "social justice educator/PhD student, lawyer, blogger" and "Educational Consultant" on his Instagram.
Students were given literature to prepare them for the lecture, which included the document "28 Common Racist Attitudes and Behaviors."
Each type of racist attitude listed was followed by a "reality check" and an alleged consequence of that attitude. For example, being "color-blind," according to the material, actually means a person is "afraid to discuss racism."
"'Color-blindness' negates the cultural values, norms, expectations, and life experiences of people of color. Even if an individual white person could ignore a person’s color, society does not," the document read. "By saying we are not different, that you don’t see the color, you are also saying you don’t see your whiteness. This denies the people of colors’ [sic] experience of racism and your experience of privilege."
The literature even considered white people who consider other whites to be racist as a form of racist "denial," leaving no possibility that a white person cannot be benefitting from racism in some form.
"There are no 'exceptional white people.' You may have attended many anti-racism workshops; you may not be shouting racist epithets or actively discriminating against people of color, but you still experience privilege based on your white skin color. You benefit from this system of oppression and advantage no matter what your intentions are."
According to the Federalist, a source who attended the session said parts felt like a confessional rather than a seminar. The unnamed attendee said that students were asked to provide possible slurs for different racial groups, but "when it got to white people and the derogatory terms used for white people, [Oteng] was implying that it was OK to laugh at white slurs because white people don’t have any problems."
While the law school did not reply to a request for comment, a University of Wisconsin-Madison spokesman said that the session was "held in partial fulfillment of ABA (American Bar Association) Standard 303’s requirement that law schools provide education to their students on 'bias, cross-cultural competency, and racism.'"
According to the National Association for Law Placement, the education is required to address "values and responsibilities of the legal profession" which includes "cross-cultural competence" and the "obligation" of lawyers to promote a justice system that "provides equal access and eliminates bias."
In addition to other examples of racism that included asking to be told if something is racist, or when a person tries "not to notice" another's race, even attempting to understand the point of view of native Americans is considered racist in the literature.
The document warned of the use of native culture to "service white people searching for life’s meaning."
"Rather than escape one’s white racism by finding a spiritual path, whites instead collude in one more way with the genocidal attacks on native cultures," the anti-racism initiative claimed.
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Law firms sound alarm about anti-Semitism in letter to law school deans
In a letter to law school deans, multiple law firms expressed concerns about anti-Semitism on college campuses.
"Over the last several weeks, we have been alarmed at reports of anti-Semitic harassment, vandalism and assaults on college campuses, including rallies calling for the death of Jews and the elimination of the State of Israel. Such anti-Semitic activities would not be tolerated at any of our firms. We also would not tolerate outside groups engaging in acts of harassment and threats of violence, as has also been occurring on many of your campuses," the letter declares, according to a copy posted online by CNN.
Bloomberg reported that the letter was sent to over 100 law school deans. CNN reported that according to an individual acquainted with the issue, the message was sent to the deans of law schools including Yale, Harvard, Columbia, the University of Virginia, Georgetown, the University of Pennsylvania, Cornell, the University of Michigan, New York University, and Stanford.
"As employers who recruit from each of your law schools, we look to you to ensure your students who hope to join our firms after graduation are prepared to be an active part of workplace communities that have zero tolerance policies for any form of discrimination or harassment, much less the kind that has been taking place on some law school campuses," the letter states.
"We trust you will take the same unequivocal stance against such activities as we do, and we look forward to a respectful dialogue with you to understand how you are addressing with urgency this serious situation at your law schools," the message reads.
More than two dozen law firms are listed at the end of the letter, which is dated November 1.
The presidents of Columbia University in the City of New York, Barnard College, and Teachers College have announced the creation of a "Task Force on Antisemitism."
"We have been distressed that a series of antisemitic incidents on campus have been reported in the three weeks following the October 7 terror attack in Israel and outbreak of war in Gaza," the presidents noted. "We want to reiterate that we will not tolerate such actions and are moving forcefully against antisemitic threats, images, and other violations as they are reported, and we will continue to provide additional resources to protect our campuses. But we also need to address the root causes. The Task Force on Antisemitism will be a critical tool for making our institutions more inclusive and compassionate."
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Judges Are Right To Be Mad At Yale Law, But Lefty Students Aren’t The Only Ones To Blame
At Yale Law School, leftist professors tend to recruit liberal students, creating a perpetual cycle of left-wing indoctrination.Georgetown Law students ask for 'reparations' and a place to 'cry' because of Ilya Shapiro's tweets
Georgetown Law students held a sit-in demonstration on campus Tuesday to demand the immediate firing of Ilya Shapiro, a libertarian legal scholar who was recently hired as a lecturer and administrator at the school. They also called for a "reparations" package for black students to compensate them for missing class to attend the protest and asked for a safe space to "cry," requests that school administrators reportedly took seriously.
Shapiro, the vice president and director of the Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute, was put on administrative leave Monday because of a controversy regarding several tweets he posted on Jan. 26. Those tweets were critical of President Joe Biden's promise to exclusively nominate a black woman to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Shapiro's critics accuse him of harboring racist views towards black women and are calling for his cancellation by the university. The students conducting the sit-in declared in an announcement that the school did not go far enough, and that "Shapiro's rhetoric is not welcome at Georgetown Law, period."
"A coalition of Georgetown Law Students will gather for a sit-in calling for the immediate termination of Ilya Shapiro," the Georgetown Black Law Student Association said Monday.
The sit-in was live-streamed on the BLSA's Instagram page, National Review Online's Nate Hochman reported. Georgetown Law Dean William Treanor attended and answered questions from students, along with Mitch Bailin, the Georgetown University Law Center associate vice president and dean of students; Sheila Foster, the associate dean for equity and inclusion; and Amy Uelmen, the director of the school’s “Mission & Ministry” program.
William Treanor, the dean of Georgetown Law, is front-and-center at the sit-in. Taking questions from the Black Law Students Association, he tells the crowd that he wants "to draw a line between conservatism and things that are racist." https://twitter.com/njhochman/status/1488337388636147716\u00a0\u2026pic.twitter.com/mcGJuTeJK0— Nate Hochman (@Nate Hochman) 1643728768
According to Hochman, Dean Treanor told the assembled students he was "appalled" by Shapiro's "painful" tweets and promised to "listen," "learn," and "do better" after hearing the complaints from students. While he emphatically apologized, he would not commit to taking further disciplinary action against Shapiro beyond investigating whether his tweets violated school policy.
“Since we’re a private institution, the First Amendment doesn’t apply to us,” Treanor said. “It’s not the First Amendment that’s the university’s guideline.” But he added, "on the other hand, the university does have a free speech and expression policy which binds us.”
Shapiro had tweeted that in his opinion, the best person Biden could nominate for the Supreme Court is Sri Srinivasan, an American of Indian descent who is currently the chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Observing that Biden instead pledged to nominate a black woman, Shapiro said Srinivasan "doesn't fit into latest intersectionality hierarchy so we'll get lesser black woman."
After online backlash led by Slate writer Mark Joseph Stern, Shapiro deleted his tweet and apologized for his "poor choice of words, which undermined my message that nobody should be discriminated against for his or her skin color." He expressed confidence that an investigation by the school would determine his tweet "didn't violate any university rule or policy, and indeed is protected by Georgetown policies on free expression."
The students at the sit-in were not satisfied by Treanor's appeal to school policy on free expression.
Hochman reported that the crowd accused him of being "dishonest" and demanded action be taken against Shapiro, who was set to become the executive director of the law school's Center for the Constitution. One student reportedly suggested that the school defund the center "if, worst-case scenario," Shapiro "were allowed to remain." She insisted that the ideas expressed in his tweets can't "be divorced" from the center going forward.
“If Shapiro is there, then his ideas and his rhetoric will be the center,” she said.
Another student questioned why the center exists in the first place, noting that its current director, Randy Barnett, is a constitutional originalist.
“Why was it created?” she asked. “Because so far it seems like it has done more harm than good.”
“You can do as much diversity training as you want with staff,” she continued. “But I feel like that center has a certain ideology ... so I really want you to defend why we really need it, beyond, like, you know, free speech, and beyond diversity of opinion. I really want us to think critically about why we still need it.”
Treanor said the center is "important" and added that he wanted to "draw a line between conservatism and things that are racist," according to Hochman.
Student demands did not stop at having Shapiro fired and the center where he is supposed to work defunded. One student asked the dean to cover for the classes they had missed to attend the sit-in as part of a larger "reparations" package for black students. In a follow-up question, she asked for a designated place on campus where traumatized would-be lawyers can go to cry.
“Is there an office they can go to?” she asked. “I don’t know what it would look like, but if they want to cry, if they need to break down, where can they go? Because we’re at a point where students are coming out of class to go to the bathroom to cry.”
“And this is not in the future,” she added. “This is today.”
"Coming back to this reparations thing...I don't know if it's a couple dinners or lunches or what, but that would help us," one activist says.\n\n"We have food on the way," the dean assures her.\n\n"Oh good, okay," she says.pic.twitter.com/W8lT3hPfIF— Nate Hochman (@Nate Hochman) 1643743168
That request was taken seriously by school administrators, Hochman reported.
"It is really, really hard to walk out of class or a meeting in tears, and you should always have a place on campus where you can go,” Dean Bailin answered. “And if you’re finding that you’re not getting the person that you want to talk to or not getting the space that you need, reach out to me anytime — anytime — and we will find you space.”
Mitch Bailin, GULC's dean of students, in response to the \u201cwhere can we cry\u201d query: \u201cIt is really hard to walk out of class or a meeting in tears, and you should always have a place on campus where you can go...reach out to me anytime\u2014anytime\u2014and we will find you space.\u201d https://twitter.com/njhochman/status/1488534446773051400\u00a0\u2026pic.twitter.com/KquNfF2Dlf— Nate Hochman (@Nate Hochman) 1643736363
White dean of law school cancels herself for saying she's a 'slaveholder' during faculty meeting
The dean of the City University of New York School of Law said she's retiring as soon as possible because she referred to herself as a "slaveholder" during a faculty meeting last fall, the New York Post reported.
What are the details?
Mary Lu Bilek, 65, said at the beginning of the year she would step down in June — but on Saturday she revealed the reason why in an email to the college community, the paper said.
During a personnel committee meeting in November about an open position for associate dean, Bilek used the word "slaveholder" as a way of taking the blame for a hiring proposal some colleagues thought would have a "disparate racial impact," the Daily News reported.
"In a misguided effort to draw an analogy to a model of reparations in order to place blame on myself, as Dean, for racial inequities at our school, I thoughtlessly referred to myself as the 'slaveholder' who should be held responsible," Bilek wrote, according to the paper.
"I realized it was wrong the minute I heard myself say it, and couldn't believe the word had come out of my mouth," she also noted, the Daily News said.
Bilek added that she apologized immediately at the meeting "and have since apologized without reservation to the faculty," the paper said.
"I am still shocked at what I said and have begun education and counseling to uncover and overcome my biases and further understand the history and consequences of systemic and institutional racism," Bilek also wrote, according to the Daily News.
More from the paper:
BIlek, a Harvard Law School grad, first joined the faculty in 1985 and was later associate dean for academic affairs. She was named dean in 2016.
She wrote that she ultimately decided to retire "because the work it would take to repair the trust necessary to lead the Law School is a burden I don't want to impose on the faculty or the community."
Bilek said she urged CUNY to appoint an interim dean "as quickly as possible so that I can step aside as Dean even sooner" than she planned to leave.
Bilek did not return messages for comment.
Anything else?
Also last fall, Reason said Bilek came to the defense of a student who threatened to set on fire another student's Israeli Defense Forces sweatshirt — which the student was wearing at the time. Even though the threatening student was wielding a cigarette lighter during the incident and stated, "F*** Israel. Free Palestine" in subsequent social media post, Bilek said the student was merely expressing an opinion, Reason added.
Bilek's CUNY faculty page says she's credited with "spearheading programs that increased the diversity of the Law School and the profession, and supporting the development of programs to address the justice gap." The page also said she's chaired the Section on Legal Education Diversity Committee, has served on the Massachusetts Access to Justice Commission and the National Center for Economic Justice, and is a member of the NYC Bar's Committee to Enhance Diversity in the Profession.
(H/T: The College Fix)
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