Writes lawprof Stephen Bainbridge:
Indeed... U of L's interim dean has filed trumped up charges against someone who limply objected to the project by encouraging his students to [think for] themselves. Which is obviously heresy in the left-liberal reeducation camp U of L has become.
The real tragedy, however, is that what's happening at U of L is just an express embracing of the leftist hegemony that pervades American legal education. Conservatives, libertarians, people of faith ... heck, anybody to the right of Hillary Clinton are hugely underrepresented in the legal academy and our students who profess such values have learned to hide their light under a bushel lest they be sent off to the Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Tolerance, and Goodness (higher education's version of the Ministry of Love).
Here's
an op-ed by Sam Marcosson, one of the school's lawprofs, defending the school's compassion-and-social-justice branding:
The premise of Professor Milligan’s polemic was that identifying the law school as a compassionate institution is somehow a “partisan” stance that takes sides in ideological wars in which he believes a law school should not take sides.... I do not believe it ever occurred to anyone who proposed this at the law school or voted for it that it had any ideological or partisan content at all, or that supporting it somehow sent a message that a commitment to compassion would, could or should exclude anyone based on party or ideology.....
It also dovetails perfectly with the emphasis on “social justice” that the faculty adopted as part of our most recent strategic plan.... In the public service context, we don’t force our students into any particular project when they fulfill this requirement, and many of them create their own....
Professor Milligan’s claims of enforced ideological conformity are a tired cliché, with no basis in the reality of what compassion actually means in the context of the law school’s participation in the City of Louisville’s initiative....
Are "compassion" and "social justice" neutral terms? Are they starkly, intentionally leftist? Maybe it's something in between: They feel neutral to those who are living within a left-wing environment, like fish in water. It's that third option that occurred to me when I read Marcosson's words: "I do not believe it ever occurred to anyone who proposed this at the law school or voted for it that it had any ideological or partisan content at all."
Posts
108 comments:
When people use terms like that, always ask them to define them and how they will know it has been achieved. They are all euphemisms for the path to marxist socialism where all people earn the same amount and have the same amount of stuff (except for the party leadership who get more because they are special).
Note to the 27% who voted for #2 -- it's you who are blind. The lefties know perfectly well what the dog whistle is all about.
The latest attack on our traditional customs and law is a cheap way to call out mobs to shame people. It is designed to weaken good men by telling them to bow down 5 times a day in shame for whatever reason can be made up.
That makes this movement simply another Muslim attack on Christian culture. It is the opposite of the Christian message of American culture, preached so boldly by MLK, that proclaims men are made righteous in Christ and have nothing to be ashamed of at all.
I would say that the terms are usually but not always delusive bullshit. Self delusion and Other delusion both.
Convervatives know about perverse side effects. Liberals don't.
Repeated exposure to a single orientation makes you blind to any other orientation.
Big Mike: Note to the 27% who voted for #2 -- it's you who are blind. The lefties know perfectly well what the dog whistle is all about.
"You shouldn't underestimate an enemy, but it is just as fatal to overestimate him." - Patton
There is no reason "compassion" and "social justice" can't be and shouldn't be politically neutral terms. After all, is being compassionate and seeking social justice anathema to those who identify as "right" of center? Isn't that, after all, the point of the Constitution, of our body of jurisprudence, of the Bill of Rights, of our jury system and the guarantee that we are all entitled to our day in court with representation if we find ourselves charged with a crime? That there will not be simply an expeditious trial and conviction, a rush to judgment--that those who are irritants to the state will not find themselves persecuted, that the authorities will not abuse their power to afflict the poor and outcast, but that every individual will have every protection against the might of the state bearing down on him? (I realize the reality is quite the opposite of this ideal--brutally so--but, of course, we still lie to ourselves that we actually have a "justice" system.)
Tom Wolfe said: "If a conservative is a liberal who's been mugged, a liberal is a conservative who's been arrested."
"Compassion" is largely a neutral term. Bush ran on compassionate Conservativism. Note also that it does not compel action. You can have compassion for someone without doing anything about it. I am not sure if liberals have co-opted and changed the word's meaning yet.
"Social Justice" on the other hand, is a very nebulous term, at least as I have seen it used. It is definitely part of the leftist world view, because it opposes many of the rights conservatives see as fundamental-free speech, freedom of religion, freedom of association, etc. It is an activist movement straining at smaller and smaller gnats while causing larger and larger stresses within society.
"That makes this movement simply another Muslim attack on Christian culture. It is the opposite of the Christian message of American culture, preached so boldly by MLK, that proclaims men are made righteous in Christ and have nothing to be ashamed of at all."
You can be sure Martin Luther King was a BIG proponent of the notion of "compassion" and "social justice." He spent many years of effort--for which he was hounded by the authorities, spied on by the FBI, castigated by many, and finally killed--to achieve just these objectives.
That you drag MLK, apropos of nothing, into your remarks, along with your fantasy that this has anything to do with Muslims at all, much less that it involves a "Muslim attack on Christian culture," is risible, to say the least.
Compassion is a word with a meaning. "Social Justice" is a made up term that means whatever the writer thinks it means. It is a phrase created to virtue signal. Just that and nothing more. It takes the song "Imagine" and compresses it into two words.
They've also got a new fraternity!
" I do not believe it ever occurred to anyone who proposed this at the law school or voted for it that it had any ideological or partisan content at all, or that supporting it somehow sent a message that a commitment to compassion would, could or should exclude anyone based on party or ideology."
This is why is worrisome. They don;t even know what they are doing.
Cookie thinks it is just fine and that identifies his bias.
" After all, is being compassionate and seeking social justice anathema to those who identify as "right" of center? "
No, just the use of those terms as they have become as weighted as "peoples court" or "peoples" anything.
Cookie's example of a conservative being arrested reminds me of a court case I was involved in and which is in my recent book.
A lawyer called me to take me out to lunch and discuss his client. His client had shot a man he found in bed with his wife. I had taken care of the victim. He was planning to defend his client, who had fired a shotgun at a naked man in his bed, as a case of "self defense." Part of his plan of defense was to keep continuing the case until he got the deputy DA he wanted, an affirmative action lawyer. He told me he was "a bleeding heart liberal" but this was business.
Cookie, when you are the one arrested, who do you want defending you ? The affirmative action lawyer ? Try to be honest now.
"It is definitely part of the leftist world view, because it opposes many of the rights conservatives see as fundamental-free speech, freedom of religion, freedom of association, etc."
Ahem...championing "free speech, freedom of religion, freedom of association, etc." is not the exclusive purview of conservatives, quite the contrary.
Compassion means caring about someone who has less than you.
Social justice means hanging by the neck until dead.
MIchael K., your question makes no sense to me. Any lawyer is bound by his or her professional ethics to defend his/her client with the utmost vigor and determination. I don't know what an "affirmative action lawyer" is, or what you mean by the term. I would want a good lawyer.
Rather, I would wish that the prosecutors and District Attorneys, take seriously the idea that they are there to serve "justice," and not just to rack up career highlights by rushing as many people as possible into prison. I would wish that the police were held to higher standards of behavior and were sanctioned more often for their offenses against the public they are paid to serve.
Robert Cook said...
.....
Ahem...championing "free speech, freedom of religion, freedom of association, etc." is not the exclusive purview of conservatives, quite the contrary.
Robert, SJWs do not champion free speech, religion or association. Quite the opposite, in fact.
What is a SJW?
Only conservatism is a bias. Liberalism is not a bias, it is just plain common sense. Everybody knows that.
"Are "compassion" and "social justice" neutral terms?" Not anymore.
"Are they starkly, intentionally leftist?" Compassion, not "starkly." "Social justice," starkly and intentionally.
"Maybe it's something in between: They feel neutral to those who are living within a left-wing environment" Neutral to some, like a battering ram to others. But when any deviant prof or student dares bring up heterodox objections, neutrality always turns into battering ram.
Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from some speech.
Freedom of religion does not mean freedom from some religion.
Freedom does not mean you live free of unpleasantries or ignorance.
Social Justice means a careful examination of extrinsic and intrinsic values preventing a certain group from otherwise obtaining their destiny.
Unfortunately, social justice has been perverted to look only at extrinsic factors, with weaker and weaker correlations of extrinsic oppression and stronger and stronger demands for rectification. Their aims are fundamentally different than past champions of justice - they seek to force a social group to rise not through their own manifestation of destiny but through fiat.
By not acknowledging that they are exercising thought control at their universities, lefty professors don't have to consider why, if their ideas are so good, do they have to force people to think them?
“Don't let people here—students or faculty—pressure you to compromise your political, legal, social, or religious views. Many of our graduates look back and regret having been sheepish in expressing and developing their political views when they were at this law school. Conservative views have an equal place alongside liberal views at the Brandeis School of Law. I don't care what the Dean says. I don't care what your Con Law professors say. And on this point, neither should you. This is your education—not the Dean's, not the faculty's. Develop your political and legal views freely while you're here. Take care. Good luck on the exam.”-A statement made by an unidentified professor at the U of L law school on the last day of a class. This according to L'vile law prof Russell Weaver (http://www.courier-journal.com/story/opinion/2016/01/16/uofl-law-professor-veered-partisan-agenda/78903362/).
The response of the interim dean? 'When the interim dean found out about the statement, she did not adopt a strong pro-free speech stance, or emphasize the importance of free speech and the exploration of ideas in a university environment. Nor did she, as one might also have expected, speak to the faculty member in order to ascertain the facts.
Heaven forbid that she follow Justice Brandeis’ admonition that “knowledge is essential to understanding and understanding should precede judging!” Instead, that very day, she marched over to file a complaint with university officials regarding the statement, and she then sent the faculty member an e-mail ordering him to schedule an appointment with the officials.'
Social justice at work.
"I don't know what an "affirmative action lawyer" is, or what you mean by the term."
I believe you. If you are ever arrested, I think you'll figure it out.
Dear Ms Social Justice Manners,
There is a conservative that I work with that I really cannot stand. It isn't what he says, because he is quiet and keeps to himself, but I can tell his lack of enthusiasm in our Harassment Seminars.
Would it be OK to tell HR that he touched my breasts so that he gets fired?
-- Equal Rights Jane
___
Equal Rights Jane,
It can be very trying to work alongside someone who is not committed to Social Justice.
But, first, a question: did he really touch your breasts? If not, I would start smaller with Human Resources, and report that he stares at your breasts: a lot of times that is enough in itself -- and let's face it, men stare at breasts, even Feminist ones, so he is no doubt guilty of that, even if you didn't actually see it.
If that doesn't get the necessary results return to HR and report that this worker stares at your ass. Again, men stare at women's asses, even Feminist ones. Proof is not necessary for something so obvious.
If this does not work your HR Department has serious Social Justice delinquencies. This being the case, it is then perfectly justified to report an attempted rape: this will surely improve your Human Resources people to better understand what woman have to deal with in the workplace environment, a worthy Goal that will benefit all women.
Remember: Human Resources without Social Justice is just another way of propping up the Patriarchy.
I hope this helps.
Ms Social Justice Manners.
I am Laslo.
"What is a SJW?"
Social Justice Warrior.
The term came to prominence as a result of the Gamergate kerfuffle (if you haven't heard of it don't worry, it was and still is mind numbingly convoluted). It is typically used to describe people who are obsessed with what they deem to be injustices and demand that others change their behavior/content to solve the perceived problem (these injustices will almost always break down upon political fault lines).
An example would probably be people who complained that the Witcher 3 didn't have enough black characters in it (if any). They didn't care that the world in which the game took place was based on medieval Polish folklore.
the guarantee that we are all entitled to our day in court with representation if we find ourselves charged with a crime? That there will not be simply an expeditious trial and conviction, a rush to judgment--that those who are irritants to the state will not find themselves persecuted
So, you are opposed to accusations of rape being adjudicated in college star chambers?
What is a SJW?
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/missouri-professor-melissa-click-muscle-journalist-tim-tai-protest/
http://www.nbc29.com/story/27439468/uva-fraternity-house-vandalized
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/05/03/dc-gamergate-meetup-disrupted-by-feminist-bomb-threat/
Leftists never cease to amaze me with their ideological smugness. "Social justice" as that term is used today, including specifically how it is used at the University of Louisville Law School, is a leftist political agenda aimed at advancing leftist identity politics. No one at UofL thinks that "social justice" means providing legal support for the small landlord fighting a rent control bureaucracy or for the Christian wedding photographer who doesn't want to use his art to celebrate gay marriages. They understand perfectly well that "social justice" means leftist causes. It's just disgusting how they pretend otherwise.
Robert Cook said...Ahem...championing "free speech, freedom of religion, freedom of association, etc." is not the exclusive purview of conservatives, quite the contrary.
That should be true, but liberalism today is in such a decayed state that few liberals even know what liberal values are. Instead they run from issue to issue arguing vociferously for whatever seems right to them in the moment. They have no greater philosophy, no thread of consistent theory running through their positions. They have no notion of the larger context in which these ideas play out.
You can say the same goes for many conservatives and you may even be right, but conservatism itself does have a philosophy, a theory, and it is interested in the practical question of what works best for the most people.
Both 2 and 4. People aren't uniform, which is why coded language and euphemisms exist in the first place.
And while we celebrate the U of L's cutting edge approach to legal education, a tip of the hat has to go to Portland Community College for naming April as "Whiteness History Month." This will emphatically NOT be a "celebratory endeavor" like other heritage months. No, not at all. It will be "an effort" to challenge "the master narrative of race and racism through an exploration of the social construction of whiteness."
"Compassion and social justice" demand that "whiteness", understood as "an ideology based on beliefs, values, behaviors, habits and attitudes, which result in an unequal distribution of power and privilege based on skin color" be first undermined, and then eliminated.
Compassion can be a very neutral term, but it cannot be neutral when paired with Social Justice. A school might be able to even get away with Compassion and Justice in their mission statement and remain neutral. But there is nothing neutral about Social Justice. It is fixing the scales of justice to a preconceived end.
Robert Cook said...
There is no reason "compassion" and "social justice" can't be and shouldn't be politically neutral terms. After all, is being compassionate and seeking social justice anathema to those who identify as "right" of center?
Note Cook uses words to carefully exclude "isn't". He knows his preference is a fantasy ratehr than reality but still uses it as a cudgel to beat conservatives.
MartyH said...
"Compassion" is largely a neutral term. Bush ran on compassionate Conservatism.
When used by the left though "compassion" means taking money from people who don't vote Democratic and giving it to those who do. Conservatives aren't going to sign up for this. Cook and others who push this are engaged in a bait and switch.
I couldn't really answer your poll. I wanted to congratulate you on your handling of this topic.
I don't think that compassion and social justice are inherently leftist. I do think that in the culturally narrow world of US higher education, they will be interpreted as leftist.
For example, most of us really want a system based more on mercy than justice. I guess you could say that the theoretical system of sharia (divorced from the practical reality, which is hardly just) is a "just" system, in that the law is supposedly applied equally to all men (with women being treated as a different category). It definitely is not merciful.
I think that someone with a background in judeochristian legal and religious history would be far, far more aware of the mercy/justice dichotomy.
In practice in American academic circles, "social justice" has come to stand in for the opposite of equal application of the laws and a government of "laws, not men". It has come to stand for a law that protects certain groups more than others, in a supposed endeavor to redress social inequality.
If the students were permitted to freely debate the meaning of compassion and social justice, especially, in law and sociology courses, as they apply to specific instances and provisions, I would think these principles would be a good thing. It would be both educational and shocking.
But I do not believe that the students will be permitted to debate openly - as things now stand, I believe these principles, which are theoretically objective, will be viewed as a means to shut down discussion, debar free inquiry and debate, and will inevitably degrade the quality of the education within the institution.
What is Google?
Here's the thing, I thought law school was where you went to learn to be, I don't know, maybe a lawyer? I understand that it is very, very expensive and that it takes 3 years of intense work. Student have to learn theories of law and (according to "The Paper Chase") how to think like a lawyer. Long hours of study, often in cooperation with other students organized into study groups, are required. And to top it all off, graduating from law school doesn't make you a lawyer. In order to be admitted to the bar you have to pass the bar exam, which is why the most important metric when choosing to be a lawyer is what the bar exam pass rate is for the law school you can get into. (Closely followed by how much of an income do the school's graduates make.)
So, I have to ask, why is the law school introducing "compassion" and "social justice" into its curriculum? My guess is that a great deal of its faculty are leftists that don't seem to understand that the job market for lawyers is on the down swing and a lot of under-performing law schools are going to be shutting down in the not to distant future. The administrators, however, are just hoping to fleece a few more suckers before the gravy train ends.
Anyway, this is going to be self correcting in the long run. Those NGO and government jobs the graduates think they are going to get, there all going to the kids of the already connected. At best the unconnected graduates will get jobs as unpaid interns and be volunteers for political campaigns. And, if they brown nose enough, after a few years they might get a job as a junior aparatchik and eventually being rewarded with an exciting job at the IRS like the one Lois Lerner had.
Happy times!
As the great satirist Tom Lehrer (a lefty, but he made fun of liberal cant when he saw it) sang some 50 years ago in "The Folk Song Army," "We're all against poverty, war, and injustice -- unlike the rest of you squares."
Fuck "compassion" and "social justice." They're just codewords for the leftist agenda to take over America.
"I do not believe it ever occurred to anyone who proposed this at the law school or voted for it that it had any ideological or partisan content at all, or that supporting it somehow sent a message that a commitment to compassion would, could or should exclude anyone based on party or ideology....."
Bullshit.
Chelsea Clinton, on the other hand, with no relevant experience whatsoever, had $600,000 a year salary from NBC for "reporting" some fluff pieces.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/13/chelsea-clinton-nbc-salary_n_5492427.html
But that's OK because she isn't "into" making money.
"Social justice" has become an idiot identifier.
"Social justice" has always been a leftist concept -- it's related, both in form and concept, to the notion of positive rights. It opposes the idea that justice means treating everyone exactly the same, just as positive rights opposes the idea that everyone should have exactly the same rights and that there can be no right which applies to some people and not others.
Because the goal is equal outcomes, and blind justice and equal treatment always produce unequal outcomes, it is determined that these classically liberal concepts are in fact illiberal and unjust; "justice" then, is redefined as whatever sort of unequal treatment equalizes outcomes between different classes/races/genders etc. (i.e., all the usual neo-Marxist oppressor/oppressed identity groups).
Christopher said...
The term came to prominence as a result of the Gamergate kerfuffle
I recently saw someone on the SJW side asking who wouldn't take this label as an honor. Apparently she didn't understand the connotation that SJWs have hair triggers and their embrace of warrior status influences them to fight in circumstances reasonable people think are absurd.
And Cook's link inadvertently reveals the problems with "Social Justice" untethered from debate and reason.
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv/evidence-s-missing-making-murderer-article-1.2485213
http://www.businessinsider.com/making-a-murderer-prosecutor-ken-kratz-presents-more-evidence-2016-1
In other words: the classically liberal view agrees that we should all be fighting for justice.
"Social justice" is not justice. The modifier "social" is the giveaway that it's something different and less straightforward. If you were merely after (blind) justice, you would not need to use two words.
also
http://boingboing.net/2015/02/24/chicago-pd-maintains-a-black.html
Who has been running Chicago since 1931?
@Robert Cook
If you're interested, you can read all about SJWs and gamergate here. For a few bucks you can read it in one sitting.
"'Social justice' has always been a leftist concept...It opposes the idea that justice means treating everyone exactly the same...."
WRONG. The reality is that everyone is not "treated...exactly the same."
Those with means and influence have greater access to justice than those without. (I posted this link up above as well, but it is apropos to place it here, too.) "Social justice" means providing the same real access to justice, the same presumption of innocence, to the poor and uneducated, and to minorities, even to people who have criminal histories, as to those who are white, educated, and who have the financial means to obtain competent and dedicated legal representation. "Social justice," in a sense, is a redundancy; it means, simply, "justice," which is largely absent from our present system of police and courts. It supports and advocates for the idea that justice means treating everyone exactly the same.
(The problem is, this will become more and more the case, but in a negative sense: more and more Americans, whatever their race, financial health, education and social standing, will find themselves presumed guilty and railroaded to prison expeditiously. A corrupt system cannot long distinguish between those whom it deems worthy of justice and those it does not; it will only see that all who come before it are, by definition, criminals, to be hastened to prison for long sentences with a minimum of care and expense on the part of the state.)
Robert Cook said...
Fuck "compassion" and "social justice." They're just codewords for the leftist agenda to take over America.
1/18/16, 10:04 AM"
True. There may be hope for you afterall. Incidentally there is more to the Avery story than the Netflix version of the facts.
"Social justice" means providing the same real access to justice
Untrue. Social Justice means viewing everyone's activities through the lens of your own obsession and using extreme language and tactics to distort the truth for political reasons. Usually this is a byproduct of trying to make a name for yourself as an activist to enhance future employment prospects.
Get in your peejays and carry your mattress to the Diversity Center, we're having a struggle sesh!
I guess Comrade Cook's next question will be: 'What's virtue signaling?' Hahaha!
The reality is that everyone is not "treated...exactly the same."
Well, duh. But I don't believe that SJWs are actually interested in rectifying that situation. Mostly they seem interested in accumulating power by enforcing increasingly ludicrous speech codes using totalitarian tactics.
What Hunter said@10:10AM and Robert Cook, above. Each, in their own way, are correct. They are just looking at different layers of geological superimposed political history/experience that make up the sum of this definitional debate.
WRONG. The reality is that everyone is not "treated...exactly the same."
That's true. There are proven biases in the justice system, and anyone who values justice would be interested in addressing those biases head-on.
"Social justice" doesn't stop there, but goes on support things like the Racial Justice Act -- all based on outcomes and quotas, heavily favoring some groups over others in an effort to tip the scales back. But the mechanism is adding unfairness onto unfairness in the opposite direction on the theory that, essentially, two systematic wrongs make a systematic right.
@Ron Winkleheimer:
You miss the point. Hedges does not assert the two defendants in the MAKING A MURDERER are innocent or that the documentary proves them to be. He says, "The two men, like most of the rest of the poor behind bars in the United States, did not receive a fair trial. Whether they did or did not murder Teresa Halbach—and the film makes a strong case that they did not—is a moot point."
And, of course those responsible for putting someone in prison for murder will always assert the validity of the convictions, even when those convicted are indisputably exonerated. I do not speak here, specifically of the MAKING A MURDER defendants; I have not watched the show or read much about what is in it; I only make the point that prosecutors and police will always assert they have evidence that suffices to validate their convictions, even in the face of incontrovertible proof to the contrary. So, these after-the-fact assertions by Ken Kratz, who did not consent to appear in the documentary, do not, in themselves, have any bearing on whether the two defendants are or are not guilty, or, more to the point of Chris Hedges' column, whether they did or did not receive a fair trial.
"I guess Comrade Cook's next question will be: 'What's virtue signaling?' Hahaha!"
I have never heard the term, but I guess I can infer it's meaning. Is this even a real term?
You crack me up, Cookie. I'll give you that much.
SJWs like to pretend that they are "speaking truth to power." But in fact, they are "The Man."
Seriously, this guy was Obama's first Treasury Secretary
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Geithner
"Geithner's mother, a Mayflower descendant, belongs to a New England family.[6] Her father, Charles Frederick Moore, Jr., was an adviser to President Dwight D. Eisenhower and served as Vice President of Public Relations from 1952 to 1964 for Ford Motor Company.[7]"
"Geithner spent most of his childhood living abroad, including Zimbabwe, Zambia, India, and Thailand, where he completed high school at the International School Bangkok.[8] He attended Dartmouth College, as did his father and paternal grandfather, graduating in 1983 with an A.B. in government and Asian studies.[8] He studied Mandarin at Peking University in 1981 and at Beijing Normal University in 1982.[9] and earned an M.A. in international economics and East Asian studies from Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies in 1985.[8]"
"
Ahem...championing "free speech, freedom of religion, freedom of association, etc." is not the exclusive purview of conservatives, quite the contrary.
Tell that to the bakers who had to pay a $300,000 fine because they didn't want to bake a cake for a gay wedding.
Tell that to the Boy Scouts.
Tell that to the high school athletes that want to gather for a prayer either before or after the game.
Tell that to the religious organizations that are banned from college campuses because they restrict membership to members of their religion.
"Virtue signalling" is a phrase supposedly coined by Spectator columnist James Bartholomew.
I say supposedly because I could swear the exact concept, if not the exact term as well, was described in some detail by Jonathan Haidt in his book The Righteous Mind. Regardless, it's been in circulation for some months now, and I've seen it used on both political and rationalist blogs that I visit.
@Ron Winkleheimer - The deep dark secret is that the thinking like a lawyer probably comes sometime your first year of LS. And, the 1L classes are geared with this in mind. You start out very, very slowly, but are moving briskly through the material by the end of 1L. It pretty much has to be this way, because that is when you are typically taking the core classes, and after that, you typically take a lot of electives, which means 2Ls and 3Ls (and even some late 1Ls in some cases) together in one class.
The thing about bar pass rates and employment after graduation should maybe be looked at the other way around. If you scored in the top 1% of LSAT takers, then you will probably score within the top couple of percent of MBE bar takers (both multiple guess tests), and most of what you might have missed in LS, you pick up in your bar prep class (BAR/BRE twice in my case). High correlation between those two tests. And, with a high MBE score, it isn't that hard to pass the bar in most states, since it is typically averaged in with your essay scores (first time I took the bar, they ignored my essay scores, thanks to my high MBE scores). What I am saying here is that your LSs pass rate does not really indicate your chances of passing the bar, since they are much more highly correlated to your LSAT scores. It is that less competitive schools are going to accept a lot of less qualified LS students, who will then go on to having problems passing the bar.
Law school ratings though do truly seem to affect what you can do right out of LS. If you look at the income graph for a LS, there is typically a big bulge at maybe $50k or so, and then a spike out somewhere between $120k and $150k. The latter is employment at big law firms. For most law schools in the middle, you may get 5% or 10% or so there. But, for Harvard, Yale, etc., it maybe be half. And, some bottom feeder schools may get close to none. But, then, the bulk of the students at the very top LSs were at the top of the LSAT scores too. Think of it this way - if those Big Law jobs go to the top 10% of graduating LS students, based on their LSAT scores, half or better of the classes at Harvard, Yale, etc. are probably in that 10% nationally. (Ok, and the legacies going to those schools tend to have lucrative connections, and the AA admits tend to be the best of AA admits nationally). I am not saying go to the low ranked LSs, but rather, don't go to a LS if you are at the bottom of the class in that LS, or if your LSAT scores are lower than maybe the middle of those taking the test.
OK...how many of us believe that Squealor really hasn't read Das Kapital and really doesn't know what a SJW or virtue signaling is?
And if that is really true, what does it say about our little Commie's ignorance?
Ron Winkleheimer said...
SJWs like to pretend that they are "speaking truth to power." But in fact, they are "The Man."
Related.
@Ron Winkleheimer:
Your reference to SJWs with a description of Timothy Geithner is a non-sequitur; Geithner was a Wall Street loyalist, a member in good standing of the establishment, and he has and always had a vested interest in safeguarding the sanctity of Wall Street's prerogatives, and to insure the filthy 99% never were repaid any of the money stolen from them by the big banks. Geithner certainly was "The Man," and no one could ever have mistaken him for being other than that.
What? Do you think Obama is anything other than a loyal servant of the 1%, or that he chose members of his cabinet according to their commitment to the people? Hahahaha! Do you also believe "Flo" on the Progressive Insurance commercials is a real person, or do you correctly see her as an actress paid by those who hired her to play a role, to "pretend" to being that which she is not?
As someone above pointed out, social justice is not justice, but rather a philosophy that seeks equality of results on a class or identity group basis. They seek to replace equal opportunity, which is what justice would give you, for equality of results. But, making it worse, the underlying driving force is to use this identity group justice theory to justify one group taking (or, many would say "stealing") the fruits of the labors of another group, in the name of "social justice". And, yes, the people driving this inevitably have their hands out to take a piece of the action as the money is shifted from the group that earned it to the group that is stealing it. Think of it is their vigorish, their rake of the action, for getting the whole scheme to work.
"most of the rest of the poor behind bars in the United States, did not receive a fair trial.
Since most of the poor accept a plea bargain in exchange for a lesser sentence this is almost certainly correct. In fact, they did not actually get a trail at all, let alone a fair one.
My contention is that so called "Social Justice Warriors" seem a lot more interested in keeping computer gamers from enjoying "wrongfun" and punishing scientists for wearing what they consider a bad think shirt than in actually fighting real injustice. And when they do accidentally happen across a real injustice they either ignore or hand wave it away because the perpetrator is in a designated victim class or they mismanage the protest in such a manner as to discredit themselves.
You can usually identify a SJW because their favorite explanation is "shut up." Thus you have the law school professor who is being disciplined for making the perfectly reasonable statement that people are entitled to their own opinions and that debate is a useful way of sorting out the good ideas from the bad.
There is no reason "compassion" and "social justice" can't be and shouldn't be politically neutral terms.
Compassion to some means
..the provision of another's needs from one's own stock of time or fortune; and to some means
..the arrogant appropriation and re-distribution of peoples stock of time or fortune, often to the monetary benefit of themselves as middle person, and always for their personal emotional gratification.
Social Justice is another ill defined term. I have a modest understanding of Legal Justice - often a thing with surprising outcomes here in South Texas.
Social Justice, not so much. Perhaps "Fairness" is a good synonym. (There's that nasty four letter "F" word again!)
Hammond does not follow sports, but has read about a recent coin toss that was redone out of a "sense of basic fairness" because the coin did not turn over in the air.
What are the odds of that? Akin to a Powerball Lottery draw? Well then; Let's re-draw the recent Powerball Lottery.
Compassion is a neutral term. Social justice is a left-wing movement established by the quasi-religious pro-choice doctrine.
Social justice warriors being schooled
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rv5t6rC6yvg
What? Do you think Obama is anything other than a loyal servant of the 1%, or that he chose members of his cabinet according to their commitment to the people?
That's the point, most SJWs are loyal servants to the 1%. They. Are. Hypocrites. Tell me, how did Elizabeth Warren vote in regards to auditing the fed?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/17/elizabeth-warren-rand-paul-federal-reserve_n_6699820.html
Social Justice Warriors Always Lie.
There is no "social justice"; there is only "justice" and "not-justice".
"I have never heard the term, but I guess I can infer it's meaning. Is this even a real term?"
Anybody who believes this raise their hand.
Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?
"...the filthy 99% never were repaid any of the money stolen from them by the big banks."
Never go full retard, Cook.
Cook..ya gotta get out more...if you are seriously that unaware.
Oh..you have to give the left credit for the non-stop manipulation of language to immunize ideas from criticism.
The latest iteration is the re-branding of gun control as "gun safety"
"Social justice" is just a sneaky name for socialism (with a big pinch of racism).
Virtue Signaling:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/2015/10/i-invented-virtue-signalling-now-its-taking-over-the-world/
Might as well get the information from the bloke who coined the term.
Essentially, it is "showing off how right you are" to whatever group you profess to belong. Note that this involves no actual work; simply professing that you like the group or say you support things that the group approves is sufficient. "Liking" stuff on Facebook is a good example.
"Virtue signaling" has a derogatory connotation because very often that's the end of the support provided. Often people involved in "virtue signaling" are apathetic, indifferent, or even hostile to the group, but do it to get along. It is not uncommon for someone to signal they support X, and then either do nothing to actually advance the goals of X or hypocritically act in ways that undermine the goals of X. Empty gestures seems to be a key ingredient of "virtue signaling."
Note that this is not a partisan term, nor is it political. To go back to Facebook, you can "like" a photo of someone you do not like (or even know), just because your group expects you to.
Robert Cook
Hypothetically, if you borrow money from a big bank but do not pay the money back and the bank seizes the collateral you put up to get the loan, has the big bank stolen your money?
Robert Cook is correct about what happens if you get in the cross hairs of the govt. The Feds have something like a 95% conviction/plea rate. You don't stand a chance of winning both your freedom and your money. If you win you will be broke.
Cookie does not borrow from banks. They have these "Social Justice banks" where he lives that give you money.
You just have this extra-large EBT card and put it into the slot and out comes other peoples' money.
Who could object to "Compassion" or "Social Justice?" Well, I've got an even better one for you -- who could object to "Life?"
A law school making an affirmative commitment to being Pro Life would rightly be perceived as taking sides in a huge and contentious issue that touches on a lot of issues only tangentially related to abortion or Supreme Court doctrine.
The label is just the brand name.
From another link commentary on this issue: this is the scariest part to me:
State-sponsored “compassion” and “social justice” left students wondering if they’d need to sacrifice personal privacy, political values, and deeply held religious convictions in order to succeed at law school.
Naturally, the student organizations have lurched leftward. The Student Bar Association shrugged off student complaints about the “social justice” brand as the “best proof yet that students need more social justice.”
See how ugly and pernicious this is to free thought and the free exchange of ideas? If you disagree with me, if you have another paradigm to discuss, clearly your indoctrination has not been thorough enough. Back to the reeducation room with you!
The turnaround game can be tedious to play, but is often instructive.
If the full school assembly included students claiming to be evangelical Christians who believe homosexuality to be a sin, would it really be seen as value neutral to force enthusiastic applause?
Or would people say that this is a very intimidating atmosphere, with strong connotations that some kinds of people are not welcome?
Static Ping said...
Virtue Signaling:
...Might as well get the information from the bloke who coined the term.
In the comments there are two links to earlier usage:
http://on-memetics.blogspot.com.au/2014/02/evolutionary-ethics.html
http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/06/14/living-by-the-sword/#comment-103272
An organization has the right to take sides in its own right, of course -- a Social Justice Club at the University of Louisville would be perfectly within its rights to ask that any member sign on to the basic program.
But since this is a public university, I think you can make a strong argument that it should try to be a public amenity. People who want to practice law in Kentucky should have the ability to learn laws & regulations without having to jump through ideological hoops.
I have expressed opinions on this, as well.
One of the biggest shocks of this election is the realisation that you can’t get a socialist paradise on Earth by tweeting. Or even by putting up really angry statuses on Facebook. Who knew? Actually, as people who do this kind of thing all follow each other, it seems that many of them still don’t realise. In the echo chambers some of us inhabit online, everyone not only votes Labour but crows about it in 140 characters.
I wonder what percentage of the University of Wisconsin Law School faculty think the University of Louisville Law School's commitment to a "progressive social justice" agenda is a great idea.
The opposite of Social Justice would be?
Anti-social Justice?
Social Injustice?
Anti-social Injustice?
Robert Cook said...
@Ron Winkleheimer:
Your reference to SJWs with a description of Timothy Geithner is a non-sequitur; Geithner was a Wall Street loyalist, a member in good standing of the establishment, and he has and always had a vested interest in safeguarding the sanctity of Wall Street's prerogatives, and to insure the filthy 99% never were repaid any of the money stolen from them by the big banks. Geithner certainly was "The Man," and no one could ever have mistaken him for being other than that.
What? Do you think Obama is anything other than a loyal servant of the 1%, or that he chose members of his cabinet according to their commitment to the people? Hahahaha! Do you also believe "Flo" on the Progressive Insurance commercials is a real person, or do you correctly see her as an actress paid by those who hired her to play a role, to "pretend" to being that which she is not?
1/18/16, 11:10 AM"
Bless you Cook. You are an endless source of earnest amusement. By the way did you know that Progressive Insurance is run by and founded by actual progressives? And the filthy 99% did get bailed out as well since the banks didn't just collapse and take their savings and checking accounts into a financial black hole. You are amazing in a way; you think that a leftist such as Obama isn't left enough and even a Communist like Sanders is insufficiently left.
If I follow this correctly a law school that is suffering dwindling admission rates decides to double down on stupid? How expensive is the law school and how good are the job prospects and salaries for SJW lawyers?
Fernandinande, thank you much. So you think the author borrowed it from elsewhere or was it one of those independent inventions? "Virtue signaling" does have a sociological ring to it, so it wouldn't shock me if it is jargon.
The opposite of Social Justice would be?
Justice.
The opposite of Social Justice would be?
Justice.
Gahrie for the thread.
Maybe the UofL law faculty should take some time to study the meaning of justice in the Bible. Leviticus 19 has a number of valuable thoughts on this but I am always taken by this: "Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment: thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honour the person of the mighty: but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbour." Leviticus 19:15. This is the origin of our tradition in thinking of justice as blind - showing no favor to the rich nor partiality to the poor. All must be judged by the same objective, impartial standards. Of course, this is 180 degrees different from the "social justice" in which the UofL faculty want to indoctrinate students, which is all about favoring the poor and punishing the rich.
The opposite of Social Justice would be?
Justice.
This shouldn't be underplayed. Social Justice is an attempt to leverage the word "Justice" to get what they want, which is (as I point out above) inevitably to justify taking the fruits of someone else's labor. But stealing the fruits of someone3 else's labor is the furthest thing from justice, and thence, why Justice and Social Justice are opposites.
Michael asked Robert: "Hypothetically, if you borrow money from a big bank but do not pay the money back and the bank seizes the collateral you put up to get the loan, has the big bank stolen your money?"
But see, Michael, the big banks tricked people into taking out the loans. Right, Cookie?
Compassion by itself is neutral-sounding enough. Social justice is not neutral, because the neutral term is justice. Applying the adjective suggests something that is in some way different than justice.
The older term for what I think is often meant by social justice is charity. That is, someone or some organization would give of their own resources to someone else who was in need. The key difference between this and social justice being that the recipient did not have an expectation of the gift and likewise, the giver had no obligation other than the force of morality and their own conscience to make the gift.
Modern society has turned this on its side by instead guaranteeing certain things to the needy while also forcibly taking the resources necessary to do it. Yet that does something to both parties - it becomes less likely to offer one's time or resources personally if the government is busy taking the resources and doing the helping (especially if it's viewed as the government's responsibility instead of one's own). It also becomes something of a corruption of the poor, in that those who know they are guaranteed to have at least the bare minimum to survive may decide to simply settle with that for life and not bother to try and make an honest living or otherwise better themselves (not to say that all do, but certainly some proportion will).
The authentic idea of social justice is to motivate people to do their part personally as best they can to be charitable to their neighbors. The way it is used currently is to motivate government to forcibly produce desired outcomes. Whatever else it may be, that kind of thing is certainly political.
I don't think the bulk of commenters here are giving Cookie his due.
After all, in the mass graves of the leftists, all are utterly, completely "equal".
The left-wing oriented monopolists have made murder, rape, enslavement (e.g. "free" labor), discrimination (e.g. class diversity, female chauvinism), exclusion (e.g. congruences or "="), womb banks, progressive wars, liberal morality, and now overflowing toilets and clinical cannibalism in Planned Parenthood offices cool again.
The social justice movement "Arab Spring" was especially successful to give a voice and reestablish terrorism in the Middle East and Africa, and following the defeat of the combined forces of America and NATO, a global humanitarian disaster.
SJW profs are easy graders. That's the bait here.
It's counterintuitive for a "democratic" party to oppose economic democracy (i.e. capitalism), but well within their philosophical norms to pursue establishment of monopolies that undermine its proper function.
n.n, look at the history of the phrase 'economic democracy'. From the 30s to at least the late 50s it was used to describe a system in which the workers took over the plant they worked in and ran it themselves, similar to Spanish Syndicalism. It was also called Industrial Democracy.
I suppose I should add at this late point that virtue signaling can also involve the person supporting a course of action that will have little or no impact on his or her own life (i.e. no sacrifice involved) when said course of action will require significant sacrifice from others. A common form is rich people, especially celebrities, supporting various policies that will have little to no impact on their lives but cause major pain to the middle class and/or poor. I suppose the "pure" form of virtue signaling would require said celebrity to do very little about this support - have his or her assistant send out a tweet, maybe spend an hour at a photo op, include the cause in an award acceptance speech - to make it clear that he or she supports this plan and should be praised by other celebrities for it, but is not really going to make any serious sacrifice. In the purest form, the celebrity may not have a clue what the heck he or she is supporting other than his or her in crowd will like it. If the celebrity actually knows what he or she is talking about and/or puts serious sacrifice to the cause, then we get past simple virtue signaling and move onto activism. Activism can be wrong, but at least it involves real work.
Social justice is a full bore, hardcore lefty term. Always.
Compassion is not. Except this is a law school using the term. What the hell is compassion law? Using compassion in this context screams politics.
This is from Orwell's "Politics and the English Language". "Social justice" fits in here perfectly.
The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies "something not desirable". The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. ... Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different. ... Other words used in variable meanings, in most cases more or less dishonestly, are: class, totalitarian, science, progressive, reactionary, bourgeois, equality.
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