“About a dozen new teachers of criminal law at multiple institutions have told me that they are not including rape law in their courses, arguing that it’s not worth the risk of complaints of discomfort by students,” writes Harvard Law Professor Jeannie Suk. In this piece for “The New Yorker,” Suk discusses how it is increasingly difficult to teach rape law on law school campuses because of an outrage of sensitivities from large swaths of students.
This points to a larger, disgraceful trend across the country where students insulate themselves in friendly, safe and unchallenged cocoons of ideas that prevent them from being exposed to ideas they find objectionable. The advocacy for “trigger warnings” to give students a cautionary notice of potentially unsettling topics is a symptom of these sensitivities.
Suk continues, “Individual students often ask teachers not to include the law of rape on exams for fear that the material would cause them to perform less well. One teacher I know was recently asked by a student not to use the word ‘violate’ in class — as in ‘Does this conduct violate the law?’— because the word was triggering. Some students have even suggested that rape law should not be taught because of its potential to cause distress.”
It’s shameful students at some of the premier law schools in the country can cause professors to cower from teaching a vitally important area of law. Some details of rape law might not be pleasant conversation, but victims of rape deserve lawyers that can prosecute rapists. This means we need lawyers that thoroughly understand rape law and not ones who have decided it is simply too unpleasant to discuss.
Those who have gone through the rigor of being accepted into law school should be able to come to terms with the idea violence, rape and other grisly realities exist. Not only should they recognize their existence, these soon-to-be lawyers should understand they are exactly the people who are professionally trained to understand, discuss and argue in a court of law these difficult subjects. Where will we be in 30 years if these same law students cannot function in a courtroom because they’re so traumatized by the facts of a brutal rape and murder case?
At the UCLA Law School, there was similar outrage over a question on a First Amendment law exam that tested students on events in the aftermath of the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. The exam question asked students to write a memo on the First Amendment implications of Brown’s stepfather purportedly advocating fellow protesters to “Burn this bitch down!” in reference to the Ferguson Police station.
In response to the exam, Shreya Maskara writes in The Daily Bruin, “Hussain Turk, a second-year law student who took the exam, said he thinks the question was problematic because he thinks exams should not ask students to address controversial events. He added that he thinks the question was more emotionally difficult for black students to answer than for other students.”
This is astonishing. You be the judge of what’s more appalling; A) suggesting black students don’t have the emotional capacity to be tested on this difficult subject, or B) arguing students shouldn’t have to address controversial events.
I’m not a lawyer nor a law student, but I do know an important trait to own in the courtroom is the ability to manage one’s emotional response to a case in order to understand the argument. To suggest black students don’t have the same ability as their peers to set aside emotions in order to rationally respond to a law school exam is absurd. And the idea students shouldn’t have to address controversial subjects would border on parody if it weren’t such a dangerous idea.
Of course this problem is not exclusive to law schools. Writing for the New York Times, Judith Shulevitz tells the story of an undergraduate student at Brown University who was concerned about an upcoming debate about campus sexual assault.
In response to the debate, Shulevitz writes, “student volunteers put up posters advertising that a ‘safe space’ would be available for anyone who found the debate too upsetting.” One student who attended the debate but then returned to the “safe space” said, “I was feeling bombarded by a lot of viewpoints that really go against my dearly and closely held beliefs.” Establishing physical “safe spaces” for shelter from objectionable ideas is the antithesis to the mission of higher education.
It’s a chilling thought to entertain: society could eventually become too delicate to face and wrestle with the most difficult realities of our toughest problems. Institutions of higher learning should be places where students seek out tests to their beliefs, not hide from them.
If you are too sensitive and delicate to have your views challenged in an academic environment, you need to give your seat to someone else.
