"Every arguably 'moral' conflict is an all-or-nothing proposition within the Ivory Tower because there’s pretty much no downside to ranting about every slight, real or perceived. And that’s generally a good thing. It lets students work out the kinks in their personal ethics — learning to pick and choose their battles — so they won’t grow up to be hopeless, untethered rage-aholics. But part of that learning process is smacking down that unfettered idealism from time to time and forcing the students to get some perspective. That time has come for the assembled NYU Law students throwing a fit over the school letting Harold Koh teach an international law course...."
Writes Joe Patrice at Above the Law in a piece titled
"NYU Law Students Need To Get Off Their High Horse."
From the law students' letter:
While we believe that NYU Law should remain committed to academic freedom, we take issue not with Mr. Koh’s opinions but rather with his actions — that is, his direct facilitation of the U.S. government’s extrajudicial imposition of death sentences on U.S. citizens along with civilians of other nationalities....
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35 comments:
The Red Guards are always useful to those who can control & target their rage.
If Mr. Patrice thinks that the students' self-righteous rage has not been carefully cultivated for just such an occasion, he is sadly mistaken.
And, if you think I'm mistaken, find me a recent example of when some lefty nutjob speaker has been the target of the student commissars' ire.
Substitute "John Yoo" for "Harold Koh" and see if JoePa writes a similar article...
Hey kiddos,
After you finish law school and pass the Bar, you can start your own school and you can have whoever you want or not want teach a course.
Would these same students protest Obama teaching them a course?
Large rocks are idealistic.
Sand has outgrown it.
Idealism is admirable, but harassment, censorship, and going after people's livelihoods aren't the same thing.
As the article points out, protesting Koh is ridiculous if you're letting Obama off the hook. If you're saying that Koh's position is so legally indefensible that he shouldn't teach at a law school -- well, who do you think asked him to prepare that policy?
Beating up on little guys and letting big guys off the hook is another example of fake idealism.
That's the theme of "My
Back Pages." Shocked you didn't use it.
Crimson flames tied through my ears
Rollin' high and mighty traps
Pounced with fire on flaming roads
Using ideas as my maps
"We'll meet on edges, soon," said I
Proud 'neath heated brow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I'm younger than that now.
Believe what you'd like, that's all well and good.
But act on those beliefs? Oh hell no!
The other part of being a student is to learn some humility in the face of the vast universe of ignorance that is your consciousness. That is difficult when arrogance is taught as an aspirational goal.
Why would a big New York firm (or any law firm in its right mind) hire any of these smug assholes. The internet is forever and these jerks should just go ahead and put "I'm an intolerant, immature SJW asshole" on their resumes.
It's a life lesson without suffering casualties. The students should invite philosophical discussions to tune their critical thinking and force moral reconciliation. If they can successfully argue to commit murder (e.g. elective abortion) without due process or cause, then they should revel in their intellect and religion (i.e. moral philosophy), or question the first, second, or both.
A protest against Harold Koh, of all people! Now that's (almost) funny.
What's next, marches against Barry O.?
"by all means use this event as an opportunity to spread your message about the administration’s policy or to protest the international laws of war themselves, but let’s stop short of calling a lawyer unethical for doing his job"
The law of the Left is: never enough. Even 100 million wasn't enough. Why stop now?
Time for Mr. Patrice to be sent to one of Hillary!'s Fun Adult Re-Education Camps in the countryside.
Semi-pseudo-kidding aside, perhaps there's a tiny saving remnant of actual liberals left to stop the madness. Maybe Koh and Tribe can get together?
Jackal,
Read the article (in detail)
"This is why, for all the rhetorical jabs I’ve launched at Professor John Yoo over his interpretation of what makes for “legal” torture, I’ve never joined the critics who want to ban him from civil society for writing a legal memo"
the jackal: Substitute "John Yoo" for "Harold Koh" and see if JoePa writes a similar article...
Heh. He actually uses Yoo as an equivalent of Koh. So, yes, he would. Somewhat surprising, yes, but well appreciated.
From a practical matter who gives two hoots about the legality of drone strikes? Does anyone really think that the current administration cares, even a little bit, if something they does is legal? Recent activity points to "no." Anyway, international law is one of those meaningless things that only comes up at post-war war-crime trials and diplomatic blather when a country needs an excuse to do something they were going to do anyway.
The children refer to "extrajudicial imposition of death sentences on U.S. citizens along with civilians of other nationalities . . . ." I wonder if they've ever heard of WWII? When the US and Britain bombed German cities, they imposed death sentences on thousands of people, with no judicial process. Some of them may even have been American or British nationals. Judicial process is not part of the way wars work.
There ARE serious legal and moral issues about how drone warfare should be carried out. But those are difficult issues, and the children don't appear to want to tackle difficult issues.
I do consider that critically important, but even more important is to smack down the [evidently] unfettered notion that the rights of accused people do not matter, those having been smacked aside into unmentionable territory by those whose love of "rights" start and end strictly with not just freedom of speech, but also only their own freedom of speech--
--and no matter the cost to not just other people, not just to freedom of speech even, but to the very notion of rights, including constitutional rights, belonging to people in general, and not just themselves and those like themselves.
----
Has there ever been a law or rule against killing American citizens fighting on the other side in wartime?
Does anyone think FDR for Truman would have hesitated to order a strike that would kill Tokyo Rose, if the technology of the time had allowed such precise targeting? She was a woman, and a civilian, but she was working for the enemy, and I think that would have been enough to justify killing her.
To be clear: I read the post and followed links (how not unusual of me, both ways), and then I chose to respond to the blogpost title (a quote) that Althouse chose.
It resonated, and so I vibrated back.
Compare and Contrast assignment for today: Idealism vs. Fascism
The lunatics are running the asylum.
Your opinion is duly noted.
--the Administration
Patrice is right and I find a lot of the comments here ridiculous. Wisdom comes from experience, only a fool would expect young people to not be foolish. Part of the role of the university is to give kids a safe space to get passionate about something. The passion is a good thing and only a short-sighted fool (yes, I keep using that word, there's a reason) would make a big deal of the fact that it is misdirected sometimes.
Part of the role of the university is to temper that passion without extinguishing it, give it a rational framework in which to operate. But universities far too often are run by people who went straight from student to teacher or administrator with no real world experience between and so are little more than students themselves. They recognize the importance of nurturing this passion but have failed in their own duty to shape it.
It is their failure, not the students', that we should be upset about.
"
"Every arguably 'moral' conflict is an all-or-nothing proposition within the Ivory Tower because there’s pretty much no downside to ranting about every slight, real or perceived. And that’s generally a good thing. It lets students work out the kinks in their personal ethics — learning to pick and choose their battles — so they won’t grow up to be hopeless, untethered rage-aholics. But part of that learning process is smacking down that unfettered idealism from time to time and forcing the students to get some perspective. That time has come for the assembled NYU Law students throwing a fit over the school letting Harold Koh teach an international law course...."
It's not really a good thing if you never work out the kinks and argue every issue the same way when you're in your fourties. How have the left moderated their arguments over time? It's the same stridency as these college students.
I'm wondering why there would be a legsl objection to drone strikes. Drones are bombs thst are more efficient than carpet bombs. You might as well have a legal requirement thst you can't use bombs in wars.
But if you're going to use a bomb, why not one thst causes less damage and can target specific people (though with risk of hurting people standing next to them).
As opposed to an entire city.
If the objection is thst certsin people are being targeted as terrorists who may not be terrorists let's acknowledge that they are on a battlefield. We have intelligence they are acting in that capacity.
Then we can either deal with them by bombimg them based on the limited Information we have, which is usually more than enough, certsinly from w legsl capacity, or we have to go in and capture/kill them. And then put them somewhere until we know what to do with them.
The left has been opposed to Gitmo,and opposed to any meaningful interrogation. So what is left? Drone strikes.
You got the policy you wanted by opposing all the other policies.
And now you're crying about it?
So what shouldb e done instead? Nothing.
Anything aside from actually doing nothing is unlawful to these law students.
I question drone strikes by this president. Beciase I don't think you can win wars by drone strikes. But I do t think they are illegal.
"But part of that learning process is smacking down that unfettered idealism from time to time and forcing the students to get some perspective."
Students get perspective. Professors get tenure. Administrators get non-dischargeable student loans. Adjuncts get second jobs.
Campus free speech zones begin to make sense.
Freedom to hold an opinion, even with tenacity, does not imply the right to be taken seriously by others.
Here's irony:
If NYU Law hired former president Obama to teach, there would not be a peep about it from these students.
The NYU law students have the right to make fools of themselves, to be sure. So long as all they are doing is circulating petitions, the school should just ignore them. The minute they attempt to interfere with Prof. Koh's class, they should be expelled.
It would be nice, though, if someone would publicize the names of the students involved so that future employers would know about their lack of judgment and could take that into account in their hiring decisions.
Wait what? These are law students? The school needs to be shut down and the students need to start over at year one.
Because they have clearly demonstrated they would not defend a client according to any principles of justice.
"Your honor, I must recuse myself because I've learned my client is a jackass..."
"Given Mr. Koh’s role in crafting and defending what objectively amounts to an illegal and inhumane program of extrajudicial assassinations"
Uhm, its objectively illegal even though its legal?
My brother-in-law manages a Starbucks. Here's his card. Good luck.
Next applicant please!
How many drone strikes has Obama used in the past six years? Or are his extrajudicial killings somehow different from those of the Bush years?
Oh, right, Obama is a Democrat, hence whatever he does is above reproach, even if it is the same thing as a Republican is criticized endlessly for doing.
This isn't a protest of Koh, it is a censorship effort of a political opponent.
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