By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
When I was a young lawyer twenty-five years ago or so, I remember a particularly enlightening client meeting. A 30ish woman had scheduled an appointment to discuss a sexual harassment case against a prominent lawyer in town. Being the new guy at the firm but with some considerable jury trial experience even then, I was asked to sit in while our senior partner met with the client. The client arrived and began a convincing narrative about a sexually charged work place replete with provocative innuendo, being subjected to daily dirty jokes, some pass-by groping in the hallway and even arriving at the office in the morning with an open Penthouse magazine on her desk. Despite complaints to the other partners with nothing of substance being done, she claimed, the client had taken all she could and resigned citing this treatment as the reason. Since the claimed harassment involved a superior and a text-book hostile work environment seemed evident, we were seriously considering taking the case despite what we knew would be a no-holds barred defense.
When we came to the part of the meeting where we asked about corroborating evidence in the form of witnesses or documents confirming her version of events, the client’s demeanor changed from cool professionalism to anger. “Don’t you believe me?”, she shot back like a dagger. “No, it wasn’t that,” our senior guy said. “We just need to know what kind of case we can present.” Wrong answer! ” I don’t want a lawyer who doesn’t believe me. I know what happened and all you have to do is subpoena every staff person there and they’ll tell the truth.” I recall thinking at this moment about all the clients I represented and their look of absolute betrayal as witness after witness “couldn’t remember” this event or that one in deference to preserving their job status. I didn’t say anything, but the senior lawyer did. “Look,” he said quite understandingly I thought, “This is a bad situation for you but he’s a prominent person in the community. His firm is on tv doing all kinds of charitable work around the holidays. He has represented thousands of people in the area, is well-connected politically, and has tons of financial resources to throw at you. We need to know how strong your evidence is going to be.” That broke the camel’s back. “You’re in cahoots with him aren’t you?,” spat the client. “I was told you would take the case because I was in the right, but now all you want to do is talk me out of it by telling me how good his case is going to be.”
“No, not at all,” came the reply as the client was gathering up her papers to make a fast exit. “I not interested in you representing me ,” came the terse rejoinder and “I’m thinking about reporting you to the bar for being in league [with her tormentor].” With that she turned on her heel and strode out the door. A little sheepish, I asked “Should I go and try to get her to come back? It looks like a winnable case to me, if we can get some confirmation of her story,” I asked. “No,” came the seasoned reply. “She’s a chip person, and juries can smell that a mile away.” I went back to my desk thinking here was an intelligent person with a potential case who can’t step away from the emotion of the moment to aid even those who want to help her. It’s an emotional blindness we all suffer from.
I thought about that while reading about the dust-up between Professor Leong and her Moriarty, dybbuk, as well as the unseemly sandbox dispute between Professors Campos and Leiter. Let me know how these statements strikes you, the blog jury. First from Professor Leong’s website, Feminist Law Professors:
Some argue that racial and gender harassment are part and parcel of participation in online discourse. As one white man commented on my prior post: “Welcome to the jungle . . . . If you want to have a voice . . . just do what we have been doing for over a decade and laugh it off.” (In context, “we” meant “white men.”) Of course, it’s easy to talk about “laughing it off” when, because of your status as a white man, you’re virtually never the target of identity-based harassment that deploys historically subordinate or marginalized status as a silencing tool.
My obvious question is how does Leong know that her poster is a “white man”? Does he say so? Did she ask? Did she track him down and call his workplace to find out? Or is she just assuming and making the same stereotypical argument of which she complains herself? Are her assumptions about white men any more venomous than the assumptions about a “white man’s” reaction to her identity? My reaction, which I think some will share, is that Professor Leong is a “chip person.” That is she views every criticism through the lens of her own personal battle and doesn’t understand how the same statement would be viewed by an independent person freed from the emotional involvement of her circumstances.
And for Exhibit A consider this screen shot of the exchange between Leong and dybbuk which she entitles “Luau Train”:
Leong’s take on the first comment: “Rather than explaining why (for example) he thinks that the racial capitalism framework is analytically flawed, the first commenter disparages my Native Hawaiian background with a reference to the “luau train.” He then attempts to undermine my intellectual contribution to an academic conference by claiming that the reason for my presence is to serve as an object of sexualized attention for a presumed heterosexual male audience.”
Professor Leong in word and deed (naming the image) obviously considers this comment by dybbuk to be a slur aimed at her heritage, but there is also a more benign interpretation that dybbuk is merely commenting about the location of her speech and not her heritage. Why does an educated person fail to consider the view of things than a simpleton like myself would have to concede could also be true? For his part, dybbuk claims he has no knowledge of Leong’s Hawaiian roots and was referring to the sumptuous spreads some speakers get at these seminars that never seem to be scheduled in Dubuque in the winter time.
Now consider the case of the dueling professors. Prof. Campos sends the following email to his apparent long-time intellectual adversary:
From: Paul F Campos [mailto:paul.campos@Colorado.EDU]
Sent: Tuesday, December 31, 2013 11:03 AM
To: Leiter, Brian
Subject: Dybbuk
Brian,
I have been asked by somebody who has passed on (unsolicited) some potentially very embarrassing personal information about you to me, regarding your activities in cyberspace and some related goings-on in the real world, to make this information public, should you choose to “out” Dybbuk.
Paul
Professor Leiter upon receipt of the email launches a broadside attack lambasting Campos for, what he says, is “resorting to blackmail.” He then adds the following dittie that struck my logistician’s eye:
I am told by a colleague who teaches criminal law that this threat is blackmail (criminal “intimidation” as we call it in Illinois, or “extortion” or “criminal coercion” as it is in many other jurisdictions). I have no idea what fabrications Campos would produce this time, but there is nothing truthful he could post, and he knows it. (Remarkably, this is also not the first time Campos has tried to coerce another law professor with threats.)
You guessed it the classic logical fallacies of an ad hominem attack (Campos is bad because he’s done bad before and he lies ergo he is not to be believed) and a borderline appeal to authority (My colleague teaches criminal law hence he must be knowledgeable in charging decisions by local prosecutors. Maybe he does, but Leiter never tells us.) by an unknown source.
For his part, Professor Campos says his email was mere warning and the twisted grammar aside, it’s a reasonable interpretation especially if Lieter has already “outed” dybbuk thus making any such disclosure of “embarrassing personal information” an empty threat since the trigger on the disclosure has already been pulled.
Leiter comes off as prickly and seeking to find the worst possible interpretation of Campos’ actions. I don’t think a fair-minded person would make the same mistake in the courtroom or that other bastion of democracy, the court of public opinion. So why lose your case in both courts simply because you need to “strike back” by questioning anyone and anything that contradicts, in the slightest way, your interpretation of other people’s motives.
Ultimately these two episodes prove to me why litigants need to arrive at court with everything except that chip. It’s unattractive and lends an air of holy crusade to a civil dispute that the resolver of fact will assuredly sniff out. Juries have their limitations but divining motivation isn’t one of them. Oh, they can be mislead and fooled but they never miss a chip the size of a 2×4.
As the pre-eminent blue ribbon jury on the blog-o-sphere what say you about these two alleged wrongs? Chip people or victims — or both?
~Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
I type on an iPad always.
Zipser, as an attorney, when you get sworn into the bar, do you take a pledge, oath, whatever, to uphold a higher standard than, um, lets’s say a sexist cyber harasser? If you break that oath are you subject to investigation and perhaps sanctions of some sort? Use your big brain to answer.
Pre law? You couldn’t possibly be an attorney or even in law school, at least I hope not.
I watch my wife type on her iPad, I don’t think I can make that leap. I’m in my 60’s
Typing on a tiny ipad – sorry for the typos
Your facts will be pertinent to all but a few here. I’m not a barrister but will read the Leong writings.
Zipser:
“I will note that in response to Campos’ passing the warning e-mail to hime we did not see the answer from Leiter “Publish and be damned”, famously deployed by the Duke of Wellington. Perhaps Leiter should quote Wellington – but, I’m guessing he won’t.”
**********************
My favorite Wellington comment occurs while “the Iron Duke” was answering Queen Victoria about what to do with the plethora of sparrows flying about the Crystal Palace. “Sparrowhawks, ma’am. Sparrowhawks,” came the reply.
Zipser, Great research and disclosing your conflict is all I need to know that you are forthright.
Chippy.
It may be mud wrestling with an idiot
But anni – what happens to Dybbuks career if Leong’s complaint succeeds?
Leong and Leiter are tenured – what harm could Dybbuk do to her professor status?
Te only thing Dybbuk said that could prevent Leong moving to a higher ranked school is that her scholarship is a joke and her practice experience non exitent. Should she be a law professor at a higher ranked school with poor credentials. Should anyone?
If you won’t answer these questions then you are someone who has one theme, no intellectual honesty, and nothing but the same thing to say.
My bet is you will post a response that does not answer the questions I just pu
Clarification:
Another professor, or another attorney, not another sexist pig, because if it’s sexist to call a man a “man child” or as having a “mantrum”, I would say that doesn’t compare to sexualizing and objectifying, does it?
Zipser seems overly invested in criticism of Leong. He seems obsessed with Leiter. What a petty, seedy, dirty side of the world of legal scholarship and the legal profession these people have revealed.
It doesn’t change the fact that someone named dybbuk is a sexist pig intent on ruining the career of another.
These allegations are more akin to Three Spots On The Wall by Who Flung Fu. That book was published in Hong Kong in 1964. The gist of the book is that there is no such thing as defamation if the defamer is not a person and the statements are made in gest by a clown at a carnival. This story about this law professor on her blog with these characters who remain unidentified and who might preach interchangeably from the same alter under cover of mask is remarkably similar to Three Spots On The Wall. Over time, many people think that Who Flung Fu was a made up name and a joke to explain how some fu got on a wall. But Three Spots On The Wall is an English translation for a small town in China and Who Flung Fu is the English translation of a Chinese name that does not sound like that when spoken and is not a translation about anyone flinging poop. As with the story on topic here with the Leong and her blog and detractors whom remain unidentified poop slingers, there is much more than meets the ear.
I think that its time for us to tell this lady to go pound sand. Her itchBay is out of order. Her teaching qualifications are questionable. And if she does not like it she can lump it. She can lump it all together with combining the fine art of teaching law with the low farts who comment on law blogs at three a.m. while they are half in the bag. Which is something that this dog never does. It is now 8:56 a.m. in Florida. Over and ausfhart.
mespo727272
Dredd:
I debated the grammar snafu of the picture but Gene Wilder looked so disarming (but with a dagger at your ribs) that I couldn’t pass it up.
====================
Tru dat. And it does fit the narrative quite well.
First, I will say I have nothing to do with the e-mail to Leiter and I did not hack the aduren e-mail account and can only make (educated) guesses as to what is in it. I am almost certainly wrong in my guesses.
That said, I’ll add a sudden guess. At the bottom of this blog are two check boxes:
– Notify me of follow-up comments via email.
– Notify me of new posts via email.
Leiter’s tendency uses sock-puppets for an array of blogging and online purposes led him to set up the anonymous web-mail identity “aduren.” Leiter tends to respond very rapidly in the blogs where he uses his sock-puppets. I wonder if Leiter was using this sort of notification tracking for his comments and replies? Maybe as a crude index to his previous comments?
I’m speculating, but if he did do this, then there would have been a lot of evidence of his pseudonymous activity in the aduren e-mail folders.
I will note that in response to Campos’ passing the warning e-mail to hime we did not see the answer from Leiter “Publish and be damned”, famously deployed by the Duke of Wellington. Perhaps Leiter should quote Wellington – but, I’m guessing he won’t.
Thanks Zipser for some perspective on the antagonists. It reads like a boxing card and that law review article you noted reads like People magazine.
“that law review article you noted reads like People magazine.”
I think there are a whole bar room brawl of issues in all this including the quality of Leong’s academic work, the proper forum to evaluate her work, free speech, sexism, racism, stalking, harassment, pseudonyms, trolls, sock puppets… did I leave anything out…at this point I am just not sure.
I would never claim to be competent to judge the work product of a law professor. But I am entitled to my opinion and I though that article nearly rose to the level of self parody.
Even if my personal view is absolutely correct regarding the quality of the paper, that would not justify Leong’s treatment which seems to include sexist remarks, stalking, outright harassment. And even if Leon’s treatment is exactly as she describes it, I am not comfortable with her response – despite the fact that I am having trouble specifying a more appropriate remedy.
What I think I see is, in effect, the claim that the bad action of one party justifies or mitigates the questionable action of a different party.
I don’t think there is anything hypocritical or contradictory saying I find examples of her work less than compelling, I disapprove of her treatment, and I am troubled by her remedy – a trifecta of bad actors, bad actions and bad effects.
But I am keeping the paper – to help me prep for when I contest my next moving violation.
Don’t they realize that when I got that ticket I was steeping in the mythology of freedom, escape, friendship, romance and the possibility of a better life. Don’t they realize that the judicially authorized policing procedure of pulling my vehicle over inflicted the imaginative injury of keeping me from my American dream – not to mention a hundred bucks plus court costs.
Look, I am working on it – this is a first draft.
Zipser Glad to see you here since I have learned a lot on this subject. I have also learned some from annie, though in a negative way, so her posts serve an educational role too. bfm I think I will read the article Leong wrote since it sounds more entertaining than I thought. As for it being worthwhile because some appeals judge cited it is not a great point, since I have seen some appeals judges who are not exactly mental giants and care little for law or reason.
Leong also suffers from a tendency to her own conduct through her chip.
Let me start by stating a simple fact Leong’s article The Open Road and the Traffic Stop ( http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1905717 ) really is dreadful, awful, embarrassingly sophomoric nonsense. Read it for yourself, reach your own conclusion. To many it is apparent that Leong’s main complaint against Dybbuk (as demonstrated by her original e-mail to him) was that he loudly pronounced the awfulness of the article and linked it to Leong’s status as a Criminal Law professor of zero practical experience. For Leong, who is transparently ambitious and wants to “move up” from the Sturm school of law (one of those that may close in the near future) this is hugely damaging. Articles are usually just lines in a resumé (published – check) that no one reads. Now this article is prominent, going to be read, and in an environment where law schools belatedly want to show experience credentials on the part of new hires, draws attention to Leong’s lack of experience.
Leong really has no defence to the basic allegation Dybbuk makes, that The Open Road and the Traffic Stop is dreadful crap and that her experience in criminal law is non-existent, indeed her legal practice experience is a sad joke about the state of the legal academy. Anyone seeking to support Leong here needs to recognise that this is the case – she really cannot attack Dybbuk’s basic thesis.
Leong also cannot attack Dybbuk’s basic complaint about holding group annual meetings in Hawaii – especially since student tuition is funding this bacchanal. Given that one of Dybbuk’s issues is (a) law school cost, and (b) the poor credentials of law professors – that such a meeting should happen in Hawaii rather than a cheap hotel in an out of season resort is a fair point – and that a key speaker would be someone of almost ludicrous lack of experience is also a fair point.
So we start with a situation where Dybbuk has addressed some pretty devastating criticism at Leong, to which she cannot easily respond, since, well, it seems true enough.
Thus leads to the racial complaint and the sexism complaint. Lets take the racism complaint – Luau train… don’t be silly.
Now the sexism complaint – yep, Dybbuk should not have mentioned that Leong is “comely” and the “undressing her with their eyes” comment was uncalled for. It was not as bad as some sexism I have heard, but it was sexist. Indeed it was sufficiently mild that Leong (and her supporters) have sought to claim that other posters on the same blog were Dybbuk.
Leong (and it suppose Leiter (maybe ghost writing)) have, from behind the security of tenure, and their lack of any need for a law license (they never practice law) have decided that they will seek to have Dybbuk disbarred for these offences.
Now, here is where the chip in Leong’s own eye comes in. Leong is loudly sexist. Her twitter thread for example complained recently that a man seated on an aircraft several rows ahead of her was a “man child” having a “mantrum” because he objected to being given a middle seat – a very sexist comment that completely ignores the fact that women and men both hate and tend to object to middle seats – characterising this as male behaviour. There are numerous other comments and postings in blogs by Leong that display a tendency towards at least sexism…
There is a considerable back-story here – which may have some bearing on the “chip people” issue – and an aspect, which is the inability of such people to view their own conduct through the chip lens.
Let’s start with Leiter. Brian Leiter has a major issue – he objects to anonymous posters on the Internet. In pursuit of that objection he has outed numerous anonymous posters on philosophy and legal issues. In the last years he has focused on seeking to silence “scam-bloggers,” i.e., bloggers who comment on law schools excessive tuition, falsification of employment outcomes (which has been proven in court, but dismisses as “puffery”), etc. His modus operandi is to determine the blogger’s identity – gather information – and then send them an e-mail threatening to “out them” to employers and superiors unless the stop blogging. One of his targets was Paul Campos who was anonymously blogging on the subject. He then went on to target numerous other bloggers. In this he was abetted by the blog “the Faculty Lounge” which bizarrely made IP addresses and blogger e-mails open to dozens of past and present guest bloggers (and according to one was still doing so a month or two ago.) Notably the manager of the Faculty Lounge is Leiter’s co-blogger Dan Filler. Leiter passed on identity information to other bloggers, notably Steve Diamond and it now seems Nancy Leong.
The ironic and indeed hilarious side of all this is that Leiter is a prolific anonymous blogger himself, using a variety of sock-puppet handles. One of the handles was the sock-pupper Aduren (Neruda in reverse.) Someone guessed from Leiter’s clichéd writing style that Aduren was Leiter and announced that fact and the Neruda link. A further anonymous person tested a webmail accound, probably G-mail for the aduren@…. address with the password Neruda – and announced that they had reviewed the contents, and left a warning for Leiter. It is probably something to do with this hack that underlies the threat to Leiter. At the time the hack was disclosed Campos publicly deplored it and stated that materials found in it should not be disclosed. However, some of the aduren posts can be found on an array of websites and they are pretty embarrassing as it is for Leiter – attacks on for example Richard Posner and other colleagues.
I think one should consider the irony – Leiter has engaged in cyberstalking, disclosure of confidential information, blackmail (unless you think demanding silence in return for not disclosing wrongfully obtained identity information is not blackmail.) He then cheerleads bar complaints and complains about an ambiguous e-mail from Campos in terms that would make his conduct highly sanction-able? I would add that Leiter is pretty well bragging on his blog that he put Leong up to her complaint (and may have helped draft it.) It is possible that the criminal law prof he consulted about Campos’ e-mail was Leong (he may want someone with more experience.) Leiter is, so to speak, seeing everything through his “chip,” including his own behavior.
Now I will admit – I am someone who received one of Leiter’s threatening e-mails, and as a result of this and other activities I bear Leiter considerable ill-will – so you can judge this posting in that light. I would however wonder about some of those who will simply say I should shut up – so many “sock puppets” out there.
Oops, I suddenly feel a disturbance in the the force. 🙂
Well, you know what they say if you can’t take a joke, ………………
Jeezus, do you people any idea the suffering my poor lil wife has to put up with living with one of the last remaining pure blood Rednecks? 🙂
The definition of Feminism: The irrational fear of of Testosterone:
Mespo,
Some very interesting guests!