Please excuse the idiotic title. It is used because this blog is about an idiotic claim.
Excerpted from an essay in the National Law Journal by William Desmond, a third year Harvard law school student who also is an editor of the Harvard Law Review (which should put some fascinating thoughts of remorse into more than a few tuition-paying parents):
Overthe last week, much has been said about law students\’ petitioningfor exam extensions in light of the circumstances surrounding thedeaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner at the hands of policeofficers. Students at Harvard Law School, Columbia Law School,Georgetown University Law Center and several other schools requestedthat their administrations allow extensions on final exams forstudents who have been confronting the aftermath of the recent failedgrand jury indictments of the officers who killed the unarmed blackmen.
Inresponse, opponents of exam extensions have declared that to grantthese requests would be a disservice to the students….theseopponents portray today\’s law students as coddled millennials usingtraumatic events as an excuse for their inability to focus on athree-hour exam. In essence, law students are being told to grow upand learn how to focus amidst stress and anxiety-like “real”lawyers must do.
Speakingas one of those law students, I can say that this response ismisguided: Our request for exam extensions is not being made from aposition of weakness, but rather from one of strength and criticalawareness.
Althoughover the last few weeks many law students have experienced moments oftotal despair, minutes of inconsolable tears and hours of utterconfusion, many of these same students have also spent days inaction-days of protesting, of organizing meetings, of draftingemails and letters, and of starting conversations long overdue. Wehave been synthesizing decades of police interactions, dissectingproblems centuries old, and exposing the hypocrisy of silence.
Wheresome commentators see weakness or sensitivity, perhaps they shouldinstead see strength-the strength to know when our cups ofendurance have run over and when the time for patience has ended.
Translation: a grand jury ruling got their underwear in wedgies, it is true. But that is strength, because they have bravely overcome their total despair, minutes of unconsolable tears and hours of utter confusion over the grand jury ruling and can join a protest march.
Wowee. Where are they giving out the Medals of Honor these intrepid souls so richly deserve?
And once they\’re out in the real world, maybe trying cases, how long a recess do you figure they\’ll need every time a judge rules against them? Days? Weeks? Months? Or will judges just summarily rule in their favor on the grounds that asking for the recess shows how strong they are?
Gee, maybe the law students who are not out their protesting should be exempted from taking the exams altogether. After all, they\’re pitifully weak; not strong, like the ones who couldn\’t face exams but could march in the street.
To the tuition-paying parents of Mr. Desmond and other similar-minded law school students: if this is the kind of “thinking” that results from the law school education you are funding, I suggest an immediate transfer to the nearest community college. It costs a helluva lot less, and your child just might walk out with a view of the world that coincides with reality.
