Re Stanford: no one covered themselves in glory, to say the least. Part of being an attorney (if you plan to be a litigator) is representing your clients in front of judges who are stupid, mean, prejudiced & any other number of things. You cannot shout them down in the middle of the hearing or in front of a jury. One way to look at this …
Re Stanford: no one covered themselves in glory, to say the least.
Part of being an attorney (if you plan to be a litigator) is representing your clients in front of judges who are stupid, mean, prejudiced & any other number of things. You cannot shout them down in the middle of the hearing or in front of a jury. One way to look at this is that Stanford just provided an opportunity for some (tragically) realistic job training.
In my non-existent perfect world, groups of law students would have gotten together, researched the most egregious crap the judge had written/said, and crafted a line of questions exposing just how toxic some of his ideas are by using his own words against him. You know, calmly but insistently questioning him on evidence and exposing the fallacy, a/k/a, good lawyering.
All of the above aside, the recent years have made it hard to retain my belief that you fight bad ideas & information with better ones.
Agree. Recently, Mona said something like "don't suppress his speech, refute it". You would think law students, of all people, are capable of refuting. But that involves thinking, writing and publishing, not acting out on video. There's no thrill in the former. A very, very sad state of affairs for our future lawyers from the top law schools.
Thank you. I am no lawyer, but this idea makes sense to me. The Supreme Court grabbed its constitution-divining authority by fiat. With their current behavior, they are indeed "inviting a response"!
The judge treated the one student who asked him a question about his views pretty poorly. He asked her for her proof, and while she hesitated a bit, he mocked her saying repeatedly "citation, citation, citation." When she did provide the citation that he said exactly what she had asked about, he proceeded to ignore her.
So at least one student (probably/hopefully more) called him out appropriately. But as Sandy noted, that doesn't get airplay.
Personally, I think Ken is correct when he noted at least the students have a chance to outgrow it. Dean & judge, not so much.
"When she did provide the citation that he said exactly what she had asked about, he proceeded to ignore her." Without the prior student's stupidity, THAT could have been the headline. So the shouting down prevents people from seeing what a doofus Duncan is.
Agree re the students growing up. I was in college from '69-73 in a time of campus protests. We are always in high dudgeon over something. But we did outgrow it.
When you were a high school senior, Secretary of State Dean Rusk was shouted down by students and prevented from giving a speech at Harvard U. Rusk was a highly intelligent, low-key, courtly gentleman. He was there to explain the LBJ administration's policies. While those policies were controversial, the students' lack of respect for a senior official and refusal to listen was unforgiveable. The recent Stanford students' actions were a nasty reminder, despite Duncan's own faults.
I think that faith has to be maintained. Yes, it doesn't always work and there are setbacks along the way. At times the bad actors win and then proceed to do their dumb shit, and then there is pushback. And yeah, that sucks as a way of going through our civic life and making what progress we can, but I can see no case where all sides shouting louder and louder will produce better results.
I feel like there is a corollary to JFK's famous line: "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
Those who make deeply held dissent unexpressible will make violent dissent inevitable.
Doesn't roll off the tongue quite as well, but ours is a free society and even the most vile are supposed to be free to try and convince those they can.
Re Stanford: no one covered themselves in glory, to say the least.
Part of being an attorney (if you plan to be a litigator) is representing your clients in front of judges who are stupid, mean, prejudiced & any other number of things. You cannot shout them down in the middle of the hearing or in front of a jury. One way to look at this is that Stanford just provided an opportunity for some (tragically) realistic job training.
In my non-existent perfect world, groups of law students would have gotten together, researched the most egregious crap the judge had written/said, and crafted a line of questions exposing just how toxic some of his ideas are by using his own words against him. You know, calmly but insistently questioning him on evidence and exposing the fallacy, a/k/a, good lawyering.
All of the above aside, the recent years have made it hard to retain my belief that you fight bad ideas & information with better ones.
Agree. Recently, Mona said something like "don't suppress his speech, refute it". You would think law students, of all people, are capable of refuting. But that involves thinking, writing and publishing, not acting out on video. There's no thrill in the former. A very, very sad state of affairs for our future lawyers from the top law schools.
Thank you. I am no lawyer, but this idea makes sense to me. The Supreme Court grabbed its constitution-divining authority by fiat. With their current behavior, they are indeed "inviting a response"!
The judge treated the one student who asked him a question about his views pretty poorly. He asked her for her proof, and while she hesitated a bit, he mocked her saying repeatedly "citation, citation, citation." When she did provide the citation that he said exactly what she had asked about, he proceeded to ignore her.
So at least one student (probably/hopefully more) called him out appropriately. But as Sandy noted, that doesn't get airplay.
Personally, I think Ken is correct when he noted at least the students have a chance to outgrow it. Dean & judge, not so much.
"When she did provide the citation that he said exactly what she had asked about, he proceeded to ignore her." Without the prior student's stupidity, THAT could have been the headline. So the shouting down prevents people from seeing what a doofus Duncan is.
Agree re the students growing up. I was in college from '69-73 in a time of campus protests. We are always in high dudgeon over something. But we did outgrow it.
The same cannot be said of the grownups.
When you were a high school senior, Secretary of State Dean Rusk was shouted down by students and prevented from giving a speech at Harvard U. Rusk was a highly intelligent, low-key, courtly gentleman. He was there to explain the LBJ administration's policies. While those policies were controversial, the students' lack of respect for a senior official and refusal to listen was unforgiveable. The recent Stanford students' actions were a nasty reminder, despite Duncan's own faults.
In any case not really new. And even the students today, like my generation, will grow up.
One of my nieces was a rebellious teen - climbed out of a window to see a boy once. Married with 3 kids now, even attends Bible study.
We are all assholes as kids - or at least most of us are.
I think that faith has to be maintained. Yes, it doesn't always work and there are setbacks along the way. At times the bad actors win and then proceed to do their dumb shit, and then there is pushback. And yeah, that sucks as a way of going through our civic life and making what progress we can, but I can see no case where all sides shouting louder and louder will produce better results.
I feel like there is a corollary to JFK's famous line: "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
Those who make deeply held dissent unexpressible will make violent dissent inevitable.
Doesn't roll off the tongue quite as well, but ours is a free society and even the most vile are supposed to be free to try and convince those they can.
Completely agree. I'm also putting my faith in the hubris & overreach of the dumb shits, but the damage done in the meantime.....sigh.
Agreed. Fun to think in terms of the dog who catches the car, but the 20 years it is going to take to unwind everything they do...ugh.