Writes David Lat in "The Latest (Ridiculous) Controversy At Yale Law School/'Cancel culture' gets crazier" (Substack).
October 15, 2021
"Now, could someone write an erudite, historically informed analysis arguing for why 'trap house' should be considered offensive?"
"Sure—and [Yale Law School diversity director] Yaseen Eldik, in his lecture to the sender of the email, has provided a helpful outline. But if you have to write a mini-dissertation on why something should be seen as offensive—or deliver a twenty-minute speech, as Eldik did—then it’s… probably not offensive.... In situations like this one, involving an allegedly offensive communication, law schools should have a 'meet and confer' requirement, like courts do when it comes to discovery disputes. Before the administration gets involved, the complaining students should be required to try and talk things out with the offending party....
... I think that when students disagree with each other or take offense at certain statements made by other students, the students should be allowed to work out those differences on their own, without involvement by the administration (except in the most extreme circumstances). I recognize that the viewpoint I'm about to articulate is seen in some circles as naive or outdated, but I still believe that the proper response to misguided or offensive speech is more informed and appropriate speech (again, excluding situations of harassment, threats, and the like, which I realize can occur)."
Writes David Lat in "The Latest (Ridiculous) Controversy At Yale Law School/'Cancel culture' gets crazier" (Substack).
Writes David Lat in "The Latest (Ridiculous) Controversy At Yale Law School/'Cancel culture' gets crazier" (Substack).
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I think that when students disagree with each other or take offense at certain statements made by other students, the students should be allowed to work out those differences on their own, without involvement by the administration...
wait for it... WAIT for it...
(except in the most extreme circumstances)
Self awareness = zero.
Democrats just cannot listen to themselves or hold themselves accountable for anything they do or believe.
I recognize that the viewpoint I'm about to articulate is seen in some circles as naive or outdated
…and hopefully ahead of its time…
I recognize that the viewpoint I'm about to articulate is seen in some circles as naive or outdated, but I still believe that the proper response to misguided or offensive speech is more informed and appropriate speech (again, excluding situations of harassment, threats, and the like, which I realize can occur)."
The words of an enemy of the people. The writer should be jailed for such offensive and harmful counter revolutionary thinking.
Jonathan Swift would have had such fun with these YLS morons.
trap house
: the enclosure from which clay targets are released in trapshooting and skeet shooting
Google ngram shows the term was popular around 1920, and the articles from that period seem to be about either raising or shooting birds.
"Trap house" still meant a place for skeet shooting as of the year 2000.
Former Obama White House official* says: "...the fried chicken reference is often used to undermine arguments that structural and systemic racism has contributed to racial health disparities in the U.S."
* Where do they hatch these creatures?
I sure hope they don't find a workable solution. Nothing is more entertaining than to see a law school eat itself alive
As soon as I saw "trap house" I had a pretty good idea of what this controversy was about. However, the "offense" taken by the law students seems pretty overwrought, considering the ubiquity of that term in popular culture, and especially considering that one of the most popular genres of modern electronic music is named after it.
Young people's inability to handle disputes themselves stems at least in part from the prevalence of organized sports at a very early age. Kids rarely if ever play pick up games without coaches, referees, umpires and parents present. Disputes over calls and rules are handled for them. They never learn how to work it out themselves.
"should be required to try and talk things out"
Whoever he is, he's illiterate.
"when students disagree with each other or take offense at certain statements made by other students, the students should be allowed to work out those differences"
The naïveté lies not in advocating more speech but in failing to recognize the purpose of taking offense: it's a power move, eagerly aided and abetted by administrators, to instill and enforce correct opinion and favor some groups over others.
Would the administration take seriously a complaint that being falsely accused of racist behavior is offensive and creates a hostile environment.
Hahaha.
From the article:
I don’t doubt that some students at Yale felt genuinely offended by the trap-house email.
I do.
If you are at Yale Law School, then that means you are really smart.
I think that when students disagree with each other or take offense at certain statements made by other students, the students should... be told to keep their feelings to themselves and behave like responsible adults, not three year olds.
When you bestow titles like Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) and give them a salary and budget, the people in these jobs are going to justify their paychecks.
Eliminate the positions.
Or eliminate Yale.
This brings me back to my latest hobby horse. Most Yale Law Students, and under 25s all over the US, have spent most of their lives in nurturant and semi-nurturanrt institutions. First day care, then K-12, and increasingly college. The institutions "provide for your needs" and in turn require you to act "appropriately". Young people are fairly specifically told not to try to solve their problems themselves. "If you have a problem, see a teacher or counselor."
(It is also why the idea of socialism is so popular among young people. It is a continuation of institutions providing for your needs.)
This whole situation reminds me of the discussions in my youth about sexual harassment in the workplace. The disparity of power between those two Diversity fascists and the student they were oh-so-politely threatening is vast. "Nice career you've got - too bad if something were to happen to it."
The HR department of that university needs to deal with those two, just as my hospital's HR dept. would speak to a doctor who subtly threatened an intern who didn't do his will. One strike and you're out. We have yearly required classes that drill that into us.
Interesting that none of the articles I have seen about this explain why a recording of the conversations is available. Did the student record the meetings with permission or without?
I'm thinking that it's a great idea to record such a conversation. If nothing else, it helps the student be careful not to say something stupid. Throughout, he was very noncommittal.
The Millenials and GenZers love those Escape Houses.
"I think that when students disagree with each other or take offense at certain statements made by other students, the students should be allowed to work out those differences on their own, without involvement by the administration"
So in short, the proposal is to ask/require/allow adults to handle their problems as adults. How is this not how things are already done? By the time anyone reaches law school they are be definition no longer children. Let's stop treating them as such.
By my 1L year (when I was 23 or 24) I was married and had a child. I had a second child before I graduated. I neither needed nor wanted the administration to be my parents.
I wondered if this was about the brouhaha involving the party invitation issued jointly by the Federalist Society and the Native American Law Students' Association, or if somebody found the left-wing blogcast Chapo Trap House offensive. Now I see that it was about something even more insignificant.
To be honest, my first thought was of "Escape Room" writ large. Can't just use the doors to get out- have to solve the puzzles.
My daughter had the opportunity to lead an IT project for the Diversity Group for a major hospital. I advised her to find an excuse to let someone else do it.
After the first couple of meetings, she did exactly that. She said that they were out of their minds, and incredibly powerful at the hospital with a direct line to the top leadership. And they thought their way of looking at things was gospel, no disagreement sought or allowed.
'...law schools should have a 'meet and confer' requirement...'
If it's not criminal then it shouldn't be addressed at all.
It's called first amendment right to free speech.
There should be no 'conferring.'
The student should tell the school to fuck off and then sue them out of existence.
'Diversity Director.' What a scam.
There is no diversity of thought. But you're damned sure that Yale counts the number of trans, black, gay, etc. students. That's essential to a quality education.
But if you're Asian or a Jew, good luck.
Roger Sweeny @ 9:22: Good point about the continuum of coddling. These people have never had to stand up for themselves abd by themselves. So they are left without resources and become mature snowflakes (oxymoron alert). And the bureaucracy twines itself them, happy to “help” (I.e. control) them, in return for stunning amounts of money. Strip out the student affairs and services component, Watch tuition drop by 50%.
The DEI director graduated from Harvard Law School. I see this as a part of an insidious Harvard plot to knock Yale off its perch as the top ranked law school. Why else allow the student to record it all?
The offending part of that invitation was that it was Federalist Society- nothing more, nothing less. The student could written the e-mail invitation without all the "offending words", and the complaints would simply have morphed into some other complaint about the invitation. This was an attempt to get a conservative law student expelled from the law school, and it will probably work.
My response to being called forward by this "Diversity Director" would be to tell him to go fuck himself sideways, and for him to invite the complaintants to do the same.
My comment at 11:29: “…And the bureaucracy twines itself AROUND them…”
Sorry.
"Look for the helpers"
Personally, I blame Fred Rogers for all of this.
Listening to the audio recording of the meetings with the dean and diversity director with the offending 2L student, I can't imagine a more exquisite parody of what such a conversation would be if I had the help of Dave Chappelle to write and perform it.
Most impressive was the student's restraint and charm in dealing with these leftie apparatchiks. His continuously interested "uh huh"s interspersed throughout his turn on the rack were very disarming to his reedukators, and they blathered on relentlessly unaware that he was mentally giving them the finger.
But the self-parody of the diversity officer was extraordinary.
- Krumhorn
Lol @ YLS students getting kicked around by a SUNY Stony Brook sociology major. These are not all equally hyper educated idiots.
Kind of a "the emperor has clothes made of the finest thread that only the best people can see" thing.
Is that all? I thought maybe they were inviting the students to a trap house party at Amy Chua's or inviting them to turn her house into a trap house.
I remember more offensive posters and flyers for fraternity parties. We just figured the frat boys were idiots and ignored them (though freshman year, I could not avoid the lure of free beer).
The obvious answer to all this is to forbid law students from ever having parties.
"Traditional" is not the same thing as "outdated." Things are traditional because they have stood the test of time, or many times. And times do not, nor should they, change as fast or as much as 20-year-olds think they do.
Since the early days of the internet, internet security providers produced almost daily lists of new digital viruses, trojan horses, and similar menaces that needed to be blocked from infecting computers. Likewise, nowadays, there are ever increasing numbers of so-called racist, triggering, and insensitive words being discovered in order to trap the unwary and unwoke. The only solution is for some new (hopefully sane) McAfee to come up with a daily service that warns users (e.g. academics, politicans, etc) of the latest newly concocted verbal land mines that must be avoided at all costs.
“ When you bestow titles like Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) and give them a salary and budget, the people in these jobs are going to justify their paychecks.”—public choice theory rides to the rescue.
in the same vein let us discuss : asking for death penalty / trapping prisoner in electric chair etc.....
Barrett to Biden admin: Why are you asking for a death penalty you won't carry out?
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