Academia, Lawyering, Politics, Society

Arkansas Dean Resigns After Trump Election Controversy

dean-schwartzUniversity of Arkansas’ Dean, Michael Schwartz, has resigned after a backlash to his reaction over the election of Donald Trump. Schwartz, who has served four years as Dean, free counseling services to students who “feel upset” following the “most upsetting, most painful, most disturbing election season of my lifetime.”

I have previously expressed my concern over how schools cancelled classes and ordered “therapeutic” measures from puppies to counseling for students. One of those professors is Schwartz who combined his concern for the mental health impact of Trump’s election with his own obvious opposition to Trump. Previously, the only such occasion where the school offered counseling, according to one faculty member, was when a student committed suicide.

Here is the original email that was sent to students:

This election season was the most upsetting, most painful, most disturbing election season of my lifetime. And, as you know, I am old. …

For those of you who feel upset, we have arranged extra on-campus counseling services today. We will be offering 30-minute appointments between 2:30-6:00pm. If students do not sign up for all appointment times and/or do not use all of their allotted 30 minutes, walk-in appointments may be available on a first come, first served basis. Counseling will be located in room 423 – the office next to the Faculty Library on the 4th floor. If there are no more appointment times available and you wish to speak with a counselor, please sign up for a counseling appointment here.

No matter how you are feeling, the most important thing for you is to focus on your studies. If your goal, in attending law school, is to make a difference in your community, the first step has to be getting through law school and passing the bar. Please do not lose sight of that goal. Most of all, I want every member of our community to feel welcome and supported here. Our diversity is a strength and a goal that we need to cultivate in every way we can. Everyone deserves a safe, supportive, collegial learning environment. In fact, the research shows that learning from and with those who are different from us makes us smarter, more thoughtful, more tolerant, and happier. Please reach out to your peers and let them know they are valued. And, if you witness someone being mistreated because of his or her politics, religious beliefs, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or gender, please do not sit silently by.

Once again, I fail to see how this measure is a constructive measure for law students. I have many students who were upset by the results. However, they were back in my class the day after the election. (I gave off election day so students could participate in this historic event). Lawyers need to learn to process disappointments and even draw strength from challenges. Schools today have wonderful counseling services that are always available and it is important to advertise such services (I mention our office repeatedly during the classes over the course of the year for students dealing with depression and other issues). However, to make such an intervention over an election is a problematic response in my view.

Schwartz will now teach full time—in as a member of the faculty after his resignation.

89 thoughts on “Arkansas Dean Resigns After Trump Election Controversy”

  1. Just to throw gas on the fire I’m using this post once again for another bit of good news

    http://cookpolitical.com/story/10174

    Even though the popular vote is meaningless at the federal level and despite the tantrum about Hillaries massive lead SHE DID NOT get a majority of the votes

    48.2 was her top score in the popular vote. 51.8 voted against her. That would have meant something in the primaries which might allow plurality wins IF the rules of the Party agree and possibly those of the State.

    But the popular votes means nothing at the federal level Essentially the target is 50 % plus one voter. Which is why California wants to do percentage split but funny enough it’s the Democrats asking.

    Thanks to Klein and Johnson and Trump. Hillary was blocked from getting a majority of hte popular vote. Gotta love those message candidates

    The full breakdown minus any last second changes at the URL above.

    So why is Klein asking for recounts?

    Same reason as Bernie who isn’t asking. They both see the Democratsa as ripe for takeover and todays Pelosi vote will serve to fuel that fire. along with a probable 7% increase in anti Democrat voting. You noted that the couhnter revolution struck at all levels in all precincts, districts, states and demographic breakdown groups

    Klein and Bernie, or Klein or Bernie are looking at 2020. The whole recount thing was just to start the campaign and it also serve to allow Klinton to die a seconed political death.

    Another splash of gas
    To fan the flames
    Ain’t it a shame
    With all the gas
    That Hillary passed
    Much more than most
    To end up Toast

  2. How upset would the dean be if his house burned down? Of if he was ordered into combat? The families of the children killed in the Chattanooga school bus crash need counseling, not students whose candidate lost an election. Come on, dean, show some perspective here. In elections, there are losers and winners. If you lose, you’ve got to suck it up and take it like a man, even if you are not.

    A friend of mine for 40+ years lost his election to Congress. To my knowledge, no one took to the streets to protest, a la, a banana republic. No one said the computers weren’t working properly. No one tried to sandbag the results by waiting until after the election to claim alleged improprieties which allegedly existed prior to the election. No one said his opponent was not their Congressman. Media reporters did not rant and rave like petulant children disappointed at what Santa brought them.

    A little more adult behavior would behoove us all.

    1. Vince Jankoski – just watched the documentary “Weiner” about Weiner’s run for mayor of NY. Why he allowed them to film after the s*it hit the fan is beyond me. He was in first place when he started and last place when he ended. I did think he needed a safe place from his staff after the scandal broke.

      1. Paul,

        I was as amazed as you were. The only thing more amazing was that Huma agreed to be a part of the documentary. My wife and I discussed the matter at length. Here are our conclusions, well, mostly my conclusions, but she had an input and I don’t think she disagrees.

        Huma took her cue from Hillary. Stand by your man, especially when your man has influence. If Hillary had dumped Bill when the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke, she would have fallen out of favor with the Democrats and would have never been elected to the Senate, become Secretary of State, etc. Huma was worried that, if she dumped Weiner and he won, she would be a pariah in her own party and any political ambitions she had would have evaporated which, of course, they have anyway because her emails made their way to Weiner’s computer.

        Weiner’s explanation is simpler. He is an exhibitionist and the documentary was part and parcel of being an exhibitionist.

        1. Vince Jankoski – I am not sure if he is an exhibitionist as much as a narcissist. The highlight of the film was all of the team ducking the girl he had been sexting with so he could get to his supporters.

  3. We need to get the Left out of control of our schools. The Left is destroying this country.

  4. “You hardliners simply don’t fathom what you just elected.”

    Marcia,
    We knew what got elected in 2008 and again in 2012. Odds are likely that our critical-thinking skills haven’t diminished. Counter that with the grubers that have proven to be ethically-bankrupt on top of willfully ignorant.

    1. Mr.Oily, What DID get elected in 1908 and 2012? You have been exposed.

      Mr. Spineli, if I wanted to populate the internet with lies and half lies,the first thing I would do is discredit an independent fact-checking source. You have been exposed.

  5. Omar Bradley was called the GI’s general. I still think General Bradley wouldn’t loose any sleep if his candidate lost.

    1. Independent Bob – It was Omar Bradley who thought the beginning of the Battle of the Bulge was just the Germans testing out lines and saw no reason to send his troops there. It cost him his Corps. His Corps was put under Montgomery’s command after that while Patton got to operate on his own.

  6. The country and Arkansas can withstand this display of liberal snowflake silliness.

    I’m saddened to hear that Dean Schwartz resigned.

  8. I’ll add Arkansas to the list of colleges from which I will not hire graduates. AND, one of my associates graduated from Arkansas and we rib him endlessly (bullying?) about the kindergarten from which he got his degree. The good Dean has managed to tarnish the reputation of Arkansas for his current students and his alumni. HIs students won’t care or remember. The alumni cares and won’t forget.

    Oh, to quote Obama: “Elections have consequences and I won.” (2009, I believe)

  9. Also, FWIW, all the coloring books, therapy dogs, counseling sessions, pacifiers and stuffed animals are for the DEMOCRATIC PARTY students. Republicans don’t need stuff like that.

    Just sayin’.

    Squeeky Fromm
    Girl Reporter

    1. You didn’t run the reports about play dough and coloring books for students through a fact checking site, such as snopes. How many other lies do you post without checking their verity? Maybe you shouldn’t be “Just sayin’.” I don’t believe you understand how serious this whole election is.

      I suggest you check the “snowflake” status of the bully you Republicans just elected. How many deferments from the military? How many women attacked and insulted? Well maybe you tough Republicans can take it.

  10. Patton is a perfect example of the one liner. Patton was a genius at moving men and equipment in the field. He was also a megalomaniac that did so at the cost of lives for his own glory. One could argue that considering the lives of soldiers before advancing a risky venture might cost more lives in the long run. However battles can be fought only once. The only result that remains is victory. The British, French, Italians, Canadians, Australians, and Americans were victorious in WW1 but hindsight surfaces that the war could easily have been won with far fewer dead. Canadian and Australian victories were far grander at the cost of far fewer dead than those of the major players.

    Patton would never have made a good President. There is winning but those who can win in a narrow theatre don’t necessarily excel in the complicated and diverse world of the Presidency. They attract a lot of attention and to the shallow minded and emotionally challenged a winner seems at times to be the answer, regardless of how, what, why, and at what cost.

    1. issac – statistical looks at Patton’s campaigns show he lost fewer men then his contemporaries. I know the old saw has been Blood and Guts Patton, his guts and our blood, but the stats prove him right in his tactics.

  11. The part of my comment that went over your heads was the first sentence. “You hardliners simply don’t fathom what you just elected.” General Eisenhower didn’t agree with Patton. Moreover, where did all of you students, etc., of law get your diagnostic degrees? You know nothing about mental health, obviously. Mr. history student, you might review your twentieth century history. Maybe the pages were torn out of your book? Nevertheless, there are plenty of other demagogues, sociopaths, and narcissists throughout history you can study Especially pay attention to what it took to dislodge them from their thrones. You all talk as though this election was an everyday event like breaking up with your boyfriend. Get real!

    1. OR, in the alternative, maybe YOU don’t fathom what you didn’t vote for. There is no right or wrong on this kind of stuff – – – only opinions. Which are maybe better or worse if backed up with real facts, not other opinions. Like Trump is a nut, because 12 reporters for major papers say he is a nut. Sorry, but multiple shared opinions are still just shared opinions.

      As far as mental health, to people who work in that field, it has been my experience that a lot of things look like mental health issues that aren’t. Sometimes it is just habit and behavior.

      Drill sergeants in the military yell, screams, and get in peoples faces, and you know what? It works. People get their poop together. Meanwhile, the social workers and psychologistsetc. are coddling people, and being oh sooo understanding, and their patients only end up needing more coddling, and drugs, to boot.

      Sooo, maybe Patton was on to something by not putting up with a bunch of crap. Have you ever noticed kids? They tend to be wild Indians with Mommie, and when Daddy gets home, they civilize right up. Wonder why that is???

      Squeeky Fromm
      Girl Reporter

    2. Yeah, and we have over 20 vets committing suicide daily. Wow oh wow. How dare YOU pretend to speak for veterans. Since YOU are such a student of history maybe you wanna go back examine the fact that vets have been screwed in every way in every war. Re read or read the screed by Smedley Butler. But then that woudln’t fit in your misplaced narrative……..

      1. Somehow Autumn I don’t think you are paying very careful attention. The fact that 20 vets are committing suicide daily fits much better with Marcia’s comments that your’s or Squeeky’s.

        Also, Marcia probably has as much right to speak for vets as do you. So how much right do you have to speak for them?

        1. The fact that 20 vets a day (about 7,400 per year) are committing suicide is interesting. First, this stat:

          And roughly 65 percent of all veteran suicides in 2014 were for individuals 50 years or older, many of whom spent little or no time fighting in the most recent wars.

          http://www.militarytimes.com/story/veterans/2016/07/07/va-suicide-20-daily-research/86788332/

          There is more at the link. For example, vets comprise about 9% (???) of the population and commit 18% of the suicides. I think that fits in with what my father says, that a lot of this PTSD is in their heads. He says that the real downer for a lot of people who have been in actual combat, is more the lack of excitement, the lack of a feeling of belonging/camaraderie, the loss of a sense of purpose, and the fact that you no longer have someone else telling you what to do with your time and you have to figure that out for yourself. He says that for a lot of people, war is a really fun thing, and can get addictive. And that you miss it when you don’t have it. Which is what I think also explains people who get broke up about their divorces. They miss the combat, and don’t know what to do without it.

          He says that from his perspective, people tend to live up or down to the expectations put upon them. If they are expected by society to be sullen and moody, then they will be sullen and moody. The same as with teen age girls. Or blacks, who expect to be victims of racism, and thus live down to those expectations.

          Back of the envelope calculations are 21.8 million vets, and at 7,400 suicides per year, that works out to: .00033 or about 1/3 of 1/10 of 1%. Sooo, we are talking about a pretty small number.

          Squeeky Fromm
          Girl Reporter

          2. Squeeky,
            Soldiers are given quite a few vaccinations and exposed to a wide variety of chemicals. There is medical evidence that is pointing to vaccines (the adjuvants in particular) as a probable cause of Gulf War Syndrome (and I would argue that PTSD might be, too). That is not the only element (MTHFR SNPs, lousy diets, and stress tie in). Gulf War Syndrome falls under ASIA (Autoimmune Syndrome Induced by Adjuvants).

            https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22235052

      2. Perhaps I can speak for the Vets, given that I participated in the unpopular, non all volunteer, mess in Southeast Asia. I was passing through and found this discussion and would like to comment that I do not see a connection between a soldier and the modern student. I would hate to see any of the little darlings in the heat.

        The world is an unpleasant place. In much of the world, the reality is that there is not enough to eat, there is little clean water, and the police are an force of suppression. I have friends who did not survive. Some have their names on the wall, and others are living off the grid. (There are at least 100 prior combat vets living rough in my community today simply because they can no longer cope with “civilization”.)

        With all due respect to the girl reporter’s father, he is as full of it as a Christmas Goose. (By the way, horrible choice in names. She was a piece of work and no one to look up to). Military discipline is required. It makes the difference between an army and a mob. It is sometimes necessary to take action that is not in your own best interest. The discipline is how you charge into gun fire or send someone else to do it when you want to take the brunt yourself.

        That said, when a person is down, when they are broken, harsh treatment is not always the proper response. General Patton was a bully and a prima donna, and slapping a broken soldier was not the mark of a great man. General Bradley, was the better general. (There are time when you would slap, or worse, someone who was having a breakdown. But not after the fact.

    3. With a two party system like we have in place. How do you think the other half feels when they lose? Do you think that they aren’t just as devastated as the losing side this election? Seriously. Those that are upset over this are only part of the system. Wow. How are people not understanding this?

  13. You hardliners simply don’t fathom what you just elected. Your solutions to students who do is probably to slap them around a little and tell them to shape up. You have just elected the worst non person who will ever occupy the White House, who is already installing the trappings of the movements in Germany and Italy in the 1930’s. You may have learned law, but you apparently never learned your history. You probably won’t understand the analogy to people who won’t acknowledge PTSD among our soldiers who return from the horrors of battle you send them to fight for you but I will post this quotation from Wikipedia anyway.

    In early August 1943, Lieutenant General George S. Patton slapped two United States Army soldiers under his command during the Sicily Campaign of World War II. Patton’s hard-driving personality and lack of belief in the medical condition post-traumatic stress disorder, then known as “battle fatigue” or “shell shock”, led to the soldiers becoming the subject of his ire in incidents on 3 and 10 August, when Patton struck and berated them after discovering they were patients at evacuation hospitals away from the front lines without apparent physical injuries.

    1. Marcia Hubbard – these special snowflakes do not have PTSD. I have a degree in history and know a little bit about it. This may be the first election they have actually been involved in, but they come down the pike every two years. They are going to have to grow up and get over it. Are they going to be taking time away from a student who is suicidal? Or a rape victim? Or someone whose parent just died? Or someone whose goldfish just died? Everything is a crisis at the counseling center.

      BTW, the last place I would go to a counseling center was near the faculty library. The faculty are the last people I want knowing my business.

    2. Well, my father was in the military, and he says that Patton was right. Once you start pampering soldiers, they tend to expect it. He said people need to learn to tough it out, and that about 95% of the military PTSD going around is bullsh!t, by people who think they are supposed to have it. So they do. That is his opinion.

      Squeeky Fromm
      Girl Reporter

      1. Squeeky – right near the end of WWI, Hitler was hit by a gas attack and was blinded. The doctors did not think it was a medical problem and sent him to a psych ward to recuperate. By the time he healed the war was over. This became a major issue in his election campaigns.

      2. Sure, Squeeky, your father, the world’s leading authority on PTSD. I too was in the military and I say that Patton was wrong. So what. My credibility on this subject is probably about the same level as your father’s: zero.

        1. I gave you my father’s perspective! Do with as you wish.Which will probably be to ignore it since, as a Liberal Democrat, you think you know everything. But I am quite sure that other people here found his perspective quite illuminating!

          Squeeky Fromm
          Girl Reporter

          PS: Has anybody heard from PhilaT since the election??? I hate to think that maybe he has become a statistic here. He was pretty dumb, but he was still a human being. Has he fallen, and can’t get up??? Does anybody know???

    4. Ah, yes…the old “you’re stupid/ignorant if you voted differently than me” meme. Republicans can’t buy advertising like this. Keep it up!

    5. Please let Marcia rant with her predictions of doom and gloom. She’s experiencing election envy with a secret dash of wishful thinking folded neatly into that bile soup there. She launches grand fusillades of superior insight to all we sycophant fools who voted Trump into office even as she is mindlessly oblivious to the pantsuit-bedecked Miss Havisham we narrowly avoided. Yes, Marcia, who decries others for amateur psychological analysis, assures the future legal warriors of tomorrow that they need the safe spaces and pajama boy-like timeouts to avoid her diagnosis of “Disappointment Psychosis.” We get lots of those in the litigation crucible. Her knowledge of history is so keen as to paint the greatest field general in American history (and yes I do know about Washington, MacArthur, Forrest, Lee and Sherman) as an abject failure for losing his temper in favor of fighting men over fighting-averse men. Yes, Marcia has it all except perhaps what every radical promised us – pre-election – a one-way red-eye to Canada.

      Can I get a Fund-Me page along with a hallelujah?

      1. mespo – speaking of GoFundMe, I saw that Jill Stein is using GoFundMe to raise 3 times the money she needs to apply for vote checking in 3 states. She is careful to say that she cannot guarantee they well do the checking, they just need $2m for the application fees. When she got the 2m she upped it to 6m. She is a Democrat in sheep’s clothing.

        1. Sure she is. Just another political get-rich-quick scheme. She did that correspondence course with the Clinton Global Initiative, I think.

    6. How can you compare soldiers who witness death by bombs, guns, and whatever else, to students that were on the losing side of this years election? Please tell me you are joking. There is surely sadness, frustration, and anger for those that did not see the election go their way. That is by no means the same as ignoring PTSD. I can’t believe that you even suggested they should be similar. That’s like saying that if your child takes a toy away from someone, it’s okay. Which we all know is not okay. You teach your child to share, or you teach it to be fair at the very least. You don’t reward bad behavior. Or you know you’ll end up with a stubborn, selfish, cry baby of a child.

  14. “However, to make such an intervention over an election is a problematic response in my view.”

    What makes them problematic?
    You do realize that your students are a small, non-random sample from which to draw any conclusions.
    Also, your post could well be a case of making a something out of nothing if no students actually attended any of the sessions. Have you bothered to investigate whether any took up the offer?

    1. Is it really necessary to say for the umpteenth, millionth time Trump won approximately 3,084 out of 3,141 counties across these United States? Clinton won 57! Notice the difference? The Electoral College gave Trump 306 votes to Clinton’s 237. Need I repeat notice the difference?

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