In recent years, there has been much discussion of the claims of “trauma” by students caused by court rulings and other events. These developments are often cited as a basis for the cancellation of exam or classes. Conservative speakers, case decisions, and protests have all been cited in the past for such demands as well as the creation of therapy tents and trauma counseling. Now, editors of the Columbia Law Review (and editors of other journals) have called for the outright cancellation of exams due to the trauma of watching recent protests on campus. This is indeed a learning moment. Law students need to be able to face such moments without shutting down due to the stress. Our profession is filled with stress and trauma. It is the environment in which we operate. In those moments, we do not have the option of being a no-show. We make our appearance and speak for others.
Such claims have been commonplace. Black Harvard and Georgetown law students demanded exam cancellation after the death of Michael Brown in 2014. Administrators and faculty foster these claims by calling free speech “harmful” and “triggering” for students.
Students have also complained of the trauma of taking classes by faculty who do not recognize “white privilege” or classes that touch on certain crimes. After Trump was elected in 2016, universities set up “safe areas” and trauma tents for students.
The editors of the Columbia Law Review are virtually guaranteed their picks of top jobs after graduation. Yet, they told the law school that the clearing of the unauthorized encampment constituted traumatic “violence” that left them “irrevocably shaken” and “unable to focus.” They were joined by editors of five other law journals, including the Columbia Human Rights Law Review & A Jailhouse Lawyer’s Manual.
They portrayed the trauma as the appearance of counter protesters and police on campus, accusing a “white supremacist, neo-fascist hate group” of “storming” campus.
The Columbia students told the university that “many are unwell at this time and cannot study or concentrate while their peers are being hauled to jail.”
The law school has postponed exams due to the protests but has not cancelled the exams.
The students offered an alternative but not preferred option of allowing them to take exams pass/fail. However, they emphasized that “instituting an optional Pass/Fail policy is not really optional when employers will see that some students have grades and others do not… [T]his leaves room for the introduction of extreme bias into the hiring process.”
It is true that law firms are likely to look for students who can handle high-stress situations. This letter suggests the opposite of students at the very top of the Columbia law class.
More importantly, the question is how such law students are emotionally prepared for the pressures of practice when such protests shut them down and leave them “unable to focus.” However, they have been educated in systems that have fostered the sense of victimization or trauma from opposing views.
While often called the “trophy generation,” it sometimes seems like this is becoming the trauma generation. I do not blame these students. Teachers and administrators have reinforced this view. That was evident in the controversial cancelling of a federal judge at Stanford Law School last year.
The Stanford Federalist Society invited Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to speak on campus. It is a great opportunity to hear the views of one of the highest ranked judicial officers in the country. However, liberal students decided that allowing a conservative judge to speak on campus is intolerable and set about to “deplatform” him by shouting him down. It was reminiscent of an equally disgraceful event at Yale Law School when another conservative speaker was similarly canceled — the law students then objected to the fact that campus police were present.
In this event, Duncan was planning to speak on the topic: “The Fifth Circuit in Conversation with the Supreme Court: Covid, Guns, and Twitter.” A video shows that the students prevented Duncan from speaking and the judge asked for an administrator to be called in to allow the event to proceed.
Dean Tirien Steinback then took the stage and, instead of simply demanding that the students allow for the event to proceed, Steinback launched into a babbling attack on the judge for seeking to be heard despite such objections.
Steinbach explained “I had to write something down because I am so uncomfortable up here. And I don’t say that for sympathy, I just say that I am deeply, deeply uncomfortable.”
Steinbach declared “It’s uncomfortable to say that for many people here, you’re work has caused harm.” After a perfunctory nod to free speech, Steinbach proceeded to eviscerate it to the delight of the law students. She continued “again I still ask, is the juice worth the squeeze?” “Is it worth the pain that this causes, the division that this causes? Do you have something so incredibly important to say about Twitter and guns and Covid that that is worth this impact on the division of these people.”
These students have spent years with such faculty telling them that they are fragile, vulnerable victims. However, our clients are often victims with traumatic injuries that must be addressed. Securing an equally vulnerable and triggered lawyer is not going to help them much.
Outside of the Columbia Law Review offices is a thing called life. It is neither predictable nor comfortable. We enter the lives of our clients when they are often failing apart. We have to bring our skills and support at those moments without the assistance of a trauma tent or emotional coach. We also cannot ask judges for postponements to allow us to process the stress of the moment.
This is not meant to be another “buck up buttercup” dismissal. I understand that the campus faced disruption and that many feel deeply about the underlying issues. That passion is needed. Young lawyers should be motivated to right wrongs in this world. I also understand that many of these law students likely had friends who were arrested or involved in the protests. However, our clients look to us for strength not fragility in such moments.
The response from Columbia Law School should be simple: see you at the exams.
Maybe some of those future lawyer snowflakes could cowboy up and use this situation as a learning experience by doing some legal research and explaining to the protestors what laws they may be breaking and what the consequences to their future careers and lives might be.
Sometimes opening a giant can of whoopass is the best cure for refocusing these riotous children. I wonder how many are actual students, how many are US citizens and should they continue will they face real consequences, expulsion and/or deportation.
How many of these students should be associated with any school?
Jonathan: When I was a university student anti-Vietnam protests on campus were almost a weekly occurrence. I had a close friend who participated in one such protest. He was beaten by police, arrested and put in jail. The charges were eventually dropped but that left me “irrevocably shaken”. I found it difficult to study for final exams. I did overcome that “stress and drama” and went on to graduate. But I remember the events of those days like it was yesterday.
I don’t think cancelling law school exams is the answer. Postponing them might be better–because cancelling exams can have an adverse impact on employment decisions. I would tell the law students at Columbia to tough it up because life is full of “stress and drama”. You’ll learn that if you want to become trial lawyer!
Dennis, you sound exactly the way I assumed you would sound. As someone else asked earlier, how many exams were canceled during WWII. Also, if you look very carefully you will note that NO PROTESTERS were beaten by cops. The only group that should be stressed is the Jews that are being attacked by their so-called friends, denied entry to campus and being told to go back to Poland…and yet they are not calling for exams to be canceled or postponed.
Dennis, a soy diet has made you weak, being a far left radical has made you dumb and being a contrarian oddball has made you pathetic. But hey, you do you.
HullBobby,
He does give us insight to the kind of person he is.
@Hullbobby
No doubt. Dennis is neither a layer nor a human being with anything better to do. Volunteering at his local soup kitchen, or even in the immigrant camps that he defends to his dying breath, might awaken a tiny spark of compassion in him, a tiny peek into what constitutes shared, human, experience. He won’t too easy too cr*p on someone that provides this space to us everyday unfettered and for free. He is the definition of entitled, and I have no patience left.
*lawyer. He’s certainly a ‘layer’ around this blog, which again, the Professor provides us for free with a myriad of other life stuff going on.
Dennis,
When I grew up encounters with phony, unintellectual boobs like you was almost a weekly occurrence. I had a friend who was moronic like you and he was mocked and his feelings got hurt. He eventually grew up, but it left me “irrevocably shaken” that such a mental weakling could make it that far in life. I don’t think canceling needy folks like you is the answer. Life is full of stress and idiots, and it’s best to let them work it out on their own. At least you have the common courtesy to let us know at a distance, that you are still trying to mature.
Dennis my friends were KIA and WIA as I was in Vietnam.
Never thanked. I have not forgotten how you treated us when we came.
zzclancy: I have great respect for those who served in Vietnam. In my second year of law school I worked in a project that helped men and women coming back from Vietnam with legal problems. To this day I never miss an opportunity to honor those who served. I was in a restaurant recently and saw an old guy with a cap with all his Vietnam patches. On my way out I briefly stopped and told him what I will tell you: “Thank you for your service”. My quarrel was not with the men and women who served in Vietnam. They gave their lives, their limbs and many came back with PTST that lasted the rest of their lives. That was a horrible price to pay for a war that never should have happened!
These poor sensitive souls. Upon returning from calling for the annihilation of Israel they are too fragile to take their exams. They need to go practice law in Kabul or Teheran
Let me see if I understand this correctly. This all-volunteer force of radical leftists on college campuses freely chose to attend college to get a degree. They weren’t drafted, nor are they conscripted. They then freely chose to protest and riot, occupying large areas of the campus, all the while preventing Jewish students from freely attending classes. They freely chose to do all of this in the days leading up to finals. And now that finals are upon them, they’re too traumatized by the repercussions of their own actions, that they demand their school change the finals to fit their needs. GFY! I have a better idea. Waive the finals, or make them pass/fail only for students prevented from their studies. Then, once these America-hating anti-Semites finish the term, do not allow them to return.
OLLY,
Well said.
These may be the great grandchildren of the men who stormed the beaches of Normandy and the Pacific islands, but they don’t hold a candle to them. They are a disgrace.
@Mary
You said a mouthful. Let this be a lesson to us how quickly things can be turned on their heads. This is all within our lifetimes. We’d best start paying VERY close attention and doing what we need to do. These little poops have no idea how good they have it, and have had, their entire lives up to today, because of what you elucidated.
Law students these days seem like sissies.
They are.
Is this not a glaring example of “white privilege?”
Dear Prof Turley,
This is indeed a learning moment. And the lessons-learned will be far-reaching, and world-shaking, I suspect.
How many students do you expect will show up for the exams? The protesters, at least, are all in flagrant violation of recently enacted H.R. 6090. The new ‘antisemitism’ law. Will that be on the exam?
To be honest, I’ve had my reservations about [the product of] U.S. law schools and congress over the entire 21st century. I’m sure we can both agree with esq. Michal Cohen, Trump’s ‘fixer’, e.g. no amount of law-schooling can help him. President Obama was the editor of the Harvard Law review and he’s slicker than snot. By all accounts. Hell, President Biden graduated with top honors somewhere-or-another, to hear him tell it.
Hunter Biden is a law school grad. So are his attorneys. Most of the time, Harvard’s Lawrance Tribe, as well as the ‘whirling’ Dershowitz, should be put in padded rooms, imo.
That’s why I’m so proud of these students. Speaking their minds. Especially these ‘trophy’ students, with so much to lose.
(*tbh, I had almost given up hope this generation would be anything other than more money-grubbing fools with a law degree. .. infesting the halls of congress.)
The many lawyers reading these comments are likely going to resent this one. Oh, well. Frankly, I don’t see this as a serious problem. If these spoiled, spineless, woke, over-entitled, apprentice a$$bag$ fail to be hired by a prestigious law firm, or even fail to pass the bar at all, would we, as a society, be worse off, or better? Is there a shortage of left-leaning lawyers? Is there a shortage of lawyers at all?
I think it is a great idea to let them pass. Make it a choice. Take a Pass or take the exams. Let it be noted on your record which you chose. This is the perfect insight into what kind of employee you are hiring.
I am an old trucker. We had a saying, “Go to work”. Now if truck driver can go to work through the worst of their lives, law school students can go to work. Traumatized, go to work. Worried about your friends, go to work. worried about your grades, go to work. Worried about your safety, OK fair enough.
What has to be understood is this too shall pass, but not working through the hard times and overcoming troubles can become a habit. Is that what you really want? I am not laughing at these kids, I am actually very worried for them because they are not facing adversity and the longer they push it off, the bigger the monkey on their back.
Food for thought, if the law school students showed the same fortitude of the protesters, they would be taking their tests. By bowing to the fringe, you allow them to control you.
I am not going to tell the law school students to “Suck it up” or “Man up”, only to go to work.
@The Quiet Man
I am not a trucker, but I was taught, ‘You don’t work, you don’t eat.’. And IMO, ‘Go to work.’ IS manning up. Sounds like you know well the wheel doesn’t stop turning because someone is upset. I’ve actually gotten past concern with them, I think it may be a lost cause in their case, their actions are very much reflective of their mentalities; we can give them consequences and do better with subsequent generations, that’s the way forward to my mind.
Let the exams be optional w/ a check the box reason that becomes part of their academic record: the who’s who will shake out.
Those looking for an easy excuse will think twice when they have to own it.
What comes to mind is F. Lee Bailey during the questioning of a witness at trial — ” marine to marine ” …..
Proceeding with the exams would be the right and responsible thing for the administration to do. So they won’t. Not a chance.
What a great opportunity for the principals of law firms to seize leadership of the law profession abdicated by legal academia. Law firms should state unequivocally both academic requirements and character requirement in their prospective hires, and stick with them. It’s really hard to believe that any law firm would want to coddle a graduate unable to deal with stress.
But aren’t law firms “woke”? Would they interpret the taking of the exams as showing lack of respect to the rioters?
Tough toenails – buckle up and take the exams. No one should ever told you that life is either fair or esy
Too bad….so sad…..bye, bye Hedge Fund job!!!!!
Pi Kappa Phi Men Defended their Flag. Throw ’em a Rager
https://www.gofundme.com/f/pi-kappa-phi-men-defended-their-flag-throw-em-a-rager
Something tells me, these guys would not be crying for their exams to be canceled.
I was at Ohio State during the Kent State riots of the 60’s…Ohio State didn’t outright cancel finals although some professors did. One professor I had gave us the option of giving ourselves our own grade. I took the A but never thought I would be able to do that again. Hard work matters once you enter the workplace. Many of these children will be surprised to learn that lesson after 16 years of being told they are above average.