University 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.
“Once again, I fail to see how this measure is a constructive measure for law students.”
Just because you fail to see how it could be constructive does not mean it can’t possibly serve some constructive purpose for some students. Perhaps you should make the effort to find out how many, if any, students signed up for these sessions and then ask a few of them why they attended. If any students attended, then who better to inform you of what constructive purpose these sessions served than to ask the students who attended the sessions.
I agree, I would love to know what students attended, so as to make sure I NEVER hired them if they actually graduate and pass the bar exam
It’s a ploy called gaslighting – treat them like helpless imbeciles, but assure them that you’re there to help them “pull through”. In the meantime – fleece ’em.
I heard a quote about education this week: Education is the process by which we take an empty mind and make it an open mind. Not sure who said it, but they are not doing it at this school.
Not so open that your brains spill out onto the floor.
it would be interesting to know how many, if any, students actually sought counseling. Jimmy Carter was president when I was in law school, but I was too busy to keep up with what he was doing and frankly didn’t care as I was trying to finish and start making some money…
Honestly, this is hysterical, just as it was hilarious to offer coloring books and stuffed toys to law students at the University of Michigan. I know those students and there are plenty of them who’d walk over a homeless person lying on the sidewalk without a second thought!
Many of these law students long for careers in some of the most evil business in the world. They will line up to serve masters in corporations which throw people out of their homes, starve the poor and hose down water protectors in 20 degree weather! I don’t think they really acquired a social conscience because Trump was elected. (I will stress that there are people who graduate from law school with a sincere desire to help others and I don’t want to dismiss their genuine altruism.)
Yes, this election season is one of the worst I have ever experienced. Apparently, factions of the elites are duking it out, using all kinds of tools in the toolbox to get an upper hand. They’ve not hesitated to create lies, foment violence, steal primaries, etc. in order to get their gal or guy into place. If you’re really looking at what’s happening, you’d be upset no matter which party (including the smaller ones) you belong to. It’s pretty obvious we don’t live in a representative democracy. Rather we live in a totalitarian nation which currently has powerful factions at war with one another. I find that very upsetting.
That said, he had no business shoving his own opinions onto all the students. He’s entitled to his opinion and he’s entitled to state it honestly and openly. He’s not entitled to assume everyone agrees with him. If he wants to create diversity, then he needs to understand diversity means Trump voters are at the school.
It would be so much better to have offered a space for honest discussion. I rarely agree with Nick, but I thought he made an excellent point about this election being a cause for people getting out of their bubble and talking to people who don’t agree with them. We really need to do this as a society and the law school could have taken that opportunity. Honest discussion assumes that people are competent and emotionally mature. I would hope that would be any dean’s message to the students.
“It’s pretty obvious we don’t live in a representative democracy.”
Were you asleep in your high school history class? We never did live in a representative democracy. It’s a Constitutional Republic with some elements of democracy.
To apply the term totalitarian to the United States reveals that you don’t really know what a totalitarian government actually looks like.
“…he had no business shoving his own opinions onto all the students.”
In what way did he do this? On the contrary, the First Amendment gives him the right to express his opinion even if it makes him look foolish, just as it gives you the right to do the same thing.
“He’s not entitled to assume everyone agrees with him.”
What part of his statement leads you to conclude that he assumed that everyone agrees with him.
“If he wants to create diversity, then he needs to understand diversity means Trump voters are at the school.”
He should silence himself because there are Trump supporters at the school? Are they so sensitive that they can’t hear an opinion that differs from theirs? They need protection from opinions that might distress them? Just what part of the concept of free speech do you not understand?
It’s not counseling that is needed, but rather brainstorming on how to address the large number of people who use racism and misogyny to deal with their own fears and inadequacies.
Says the man accomplishing nothing but attempting to feel better about himself.
Doglover,
So true. All that stuff about tacos, the black, winy gays, self internalized misogynist women? J-C, Cinton and her campaign staff/minions need to take a deep look into their racism, sexism and classism! I hope this will be part of her healing process.
In a conversation with a neighbor yesterday we were lamenting what has happened to our country. There are a few facts about life. The first being things will not always go you way. The world is going to hit you in the face when you least expect it. Change happens every second of everyday. I know of someone whose wife had 2 open heart procedures done 9 days apart. That is the real world and to hear a bunch of cry babies complain because an election didn’t go there way there is only one thing to say is GROW UP! So a college dean gets upset and steps down .and guess what? The sun still came up and life goes on. The sad part is that he will be replaced by someone probably just like him.
I figured out what the problem is. Schwartz did not eat dinner & was not given cookies when he was a baby. Years later guess what happens? Same thing.
Whole lotta internalized misogyny and Russia hating being treated at my alma mater, when the state went red on November 8th. I have no idea why there was a reference to the law school. While both Bill and Hillary taught there, that was back in the ’70s. I don’t know that either has even been in the State since Clinton’s presidency.
Don’t you just love it when the right tells the left to just calm down? I’m telling everyone this is a good thing, cause now we can get back all the guns that Obama took. And how healthcare is a job killer, and how giving tax dollars to very rich people will help them back on their feet, and how Obama is the worst black President we ever had……i could go on for years on how the right runs around with their hair on fire for things that never existed but life is to short.
While I agree the smelling salts and vapors are just about impossible to cut with an oxy-acetylene torch, much less a machete, this guy’s last paragraph, I mean the last one cited in Professor Turley’s post above, seems pretty generic. If I were to read it alone, without knowing anything but that it has to do with the election, I would feel the advice at least in the vicinity of reasonable.
1) Keep to your studies (platitude but ok, – a pass on that one)
2) “…Our diversity is a strength and a goal”(I would – mistakenly? – interpret that as, “don’t judge a book by it’s cover”
3)“…Everyone deserves a safe, supportive, collegial learning environment “ (Ok, that one’s a little iffy, but then only dorks are allowed in administrative positions. Everyone knows that.)
4) “…research shows that learning from and with those who are different [(Trump is different)] from us makes us smarter, more thoughtful, more tolerant, and happier.” (Not bad for a dork)
5) Be active, “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.” (on the face of it, that cuts both ways, right??? Perhaps overplaying the violin, but still excusable for a dork).
Look, these guys get paid for saying stuff like this. If they don’t, people start asking what it is they do do for all that money and the answer is a big fat zero* which, frankly, is embarrassing and might lead the board of trustees (or whatever) to get ideas…
*With the sole exception they argue endlessly why the tuition must be kept at least 5 times higher than anyone except the .0000000001% can afford and they have what was once a distinctly unusual ability to do so with a straight face.
If this nation was ever under any real attack what would these “Millennia Mary’s” do? These professors I imagine offer a course of surrender and the appropriate way to raise your hands over your head. Tell your captors your upset and need a puppy to calm you while they cut your throats. Their grandparents of the Greatest Generation must be crying their eyes out.
Squeaky I see your favorite Hawaiian Democrat is on the short list for a position in the Trump Administration that would be two Democrats counting the former Democrat Rep. from Tennesee.
Reciting some headlines. Trump is building a business like management team
and the left? What is hari kari without honor? Straight up it’s a good thing for the counter revolution and a great rime to be a moderate Centered supporter of the Constitutional Republic and it’s grass roots foundation of Representtive Democracy.
Terms unfamiliar. You should have gone to the library instead of to University. (Two College excepted and maybe U of Illinois)
Prediction: Breadlines and Welfare applications for Professors and Lame Stream Media Propagandists
Life is sweet?
By the way How Much Does George Soros Pay In Taxes? Add Geoge Lakoff or is it Lykoff and George Clooney to that list?
Public wants to know media Do Your Job!
My best regards to the Rust Belt!
Michael A, Tulsi Gabbard is Autumn’s favorite.
Nick, Michael must see all women as the same if he cannot differentiate between me and the Squeekster. I am still laughing! For my part I think it’s great that the Donald reached across the aisle to a Progressive Democrat who has actually served her country in combat – unlike most of those other tired corporate owned leeches.
Dear God…He’s going to be allowed to TEACH!🙀
Right, I think you hit it on the head. That is the one disturbing take-away.
Shannon & BB – this is an argument against tenure. =)
No, it is not. You need to brush up on your understanding of argumentation. One bad example is not an argument — not even close — for eliminating or revising anything.
Seriously? you base your terror about his teaching on 1 email? Did you even bother to review his impeccable history and accomplishments? is that your motto? One step outside YOUR idea of acceptable, and all is lost. I think that is what is so scary about the logic I find here. I am sure you have made a mistake (And,i am not saying this email was a mistake, but, even it it was, you are acting like he is some criminal. Clearly his intentions were to help his students. Is that really a crime for which he should not be allowed to teach?
He has been called brilliant and talented professor throughout the country. important to research and gather COMPLETE and accurate information
Elena, not sure your proofreading services are up to par or even worth a small fee. The professor included a link about “faculty member” Steinbuch. I know, you were just to upset about Trump to process it. Get some counseling.
I think what he did was silly, stupid and childish but I’ll be there were also other issues that resulted in his resignation.
I know hundreds, maybe a thousand attorneys over the years. The successful ones deal w/ losing like a good athlete. They process the defeat, analyze why they lost, and move on to the next case. The only counseling needed is for this dean. He needs to be taught not to project his problems and issues onto his students, which is clearly what he did.
how can he project “his” issues onto his students, when he is a white male? and he has a large diverse student body, who were NOT upset about losing, but, rather the meaning and fear surrounding the impact of bigotry on themselves and their families. Check your facts, before you are so sure of them!
If those law students cannot handle election results, how can they handle their legal cases?
Who would want such an emotionally immature lawyer?
A simple life truth should have been learned by 3rd grade: Get used to disappointment.
The students are guilty??? Just because the dean is a dork?
If you need proofreading services, I am available for a small fee. Who is Steinbuch? Trump is worse than your typical Republican. Most Republicans are not endorsed by the KKK. Not publicly, anyway.
That has to be one of the dumbest clips I have ever seen, apart from the idiot who says the KKK endorsed Clinton and was mentored by Strom Thumond who was a GOP Senator from SC. This is just another of the Russian agitprop that we are seeing infiltrating the internet. The REASON Trump’s so called disavowal is worthless is that he appointed Bannon to be his top adviser. Bannon is the guy who as HEAD of Breitbart fostered the rise and sponsored the alt-right which held the latest Sieg Trump rally. It is like Trump saying that he is against the KKK and appointing David Duke to be his top adviser. In FACT, when he first started running, he REFUSED to disavow them, and pretended he had never even HEARD of the KKK! If you can believe that, I have a bridge for sale in Brooklyn. When Bannon goes, THEN I will believe Trump’s disavowal, NOT BEFORE!
randyjet – you can pretend the KKK did not endorse Hillary and you can pretend Strom Thurmond was not head of the KKK in his town and a mentor to Hillary in the Senate. You really need to read more.
Paul, you need to provide evidence for your claim about the relationship between Clinton and Thurmond. I have looked into it and have found nothing to substantiate your claim. So if this evidence is there then provide links or citations to where it can be found for examination.
dogfightwithdogma –
Hillary was endorsed by the KKK as well. And just to make it worse, one of her buddies in the Senate was Strom Thurmon, former head of the KKK. He was her mentor.
Her tenure in the Senate overlapped with Thurmond for all of two years. Thurmond was at the time nearly 100 years old and (it’s a reasonable inference – see Mark Steyn’s account of meeting him around that time) non compos mentis for the most part.
Oh good god, get over it. If Trump bothers you that much, whenever his face is on TV, just change the channel. I don’t care if you like certain politicians, don’t fall in love with them, they’ll always break your heart.