Law Students, Traumatized By Grand Jury Decisions, Demand… Exam Delays

Students are so coddled by the
feelings-protection regime at university campuses that they now
believe disheartening national news developments—such as the grand
jury decisions in the Michael Brown and Eric Garner cases—entitle
them to final exam extensions.

To be clear, the grand jury’s decision not to indict the police
officer who choked Garner to death is indeed a travesty of justice.
It’s a horrible thing—for the victim and his family—and a reminder
that racism endures in law enforcement agencies around the country,
which need reform.

Why on earth that means Columbia University law students should
be granted relief from their coursework, I have no idea. But the
university evidently agreed with the conveniently traumatized
students,
according to Fox News:

This won’t prepare them for tough judges, unscrupulous clients
or merciless partners at the law firms they hope to work
for. 

Columbia Law School has agreed to delay final exams for students
who face “trauma” and disillusionment following two recent,
racially-charged cases in which grand juries declined to indict
white police officers in the deaths of unarmed black men. And now,
students at Harvard and Georgetown want the same dispensation, also
saying they just can’t face their tests in the wake of the grand
jury decisions in Missouri and New York.

“For some law students, particularly, though not only, students
of color, this chain of events is all the more profound as it
threatens to undermine a sense that the law is a fundamental pillar
of society to protect fairness, due process and equality,” Robert
E. Scott, Columbia’s interim dean, told the school in an email
Saturday.

David Bernstein, a professor of law at George Mason University,
described Columbia’s decision as “infantilizing.” He explained that
if any students received special extensions, all would soon require
them:

“In an understandable effort to show sensitivity to students
upset by the grand jury decisions, Columbia has unfortunately
chosen to infantilize them, suggesting that adult law students
can’t handle hearing about perceived injustices in the world. 
I can’t imagine why any law student would admit that hearing about
a seemingly unjust legal decision incapacitates them; how would
such people function as lawyers, given that many verdicts deeply
disappoint advocates for one side or the other? Meanwhile, to the
extent that Columbia students take advantage of delaying their
exams, they are getting an unfair advantage – that is, more time to
study – over students who don’t claim the delay.”

Unsurprisingly, this malady of entitlement has spread to other
universities. According to
Businessweek.com:

“This is more than a personal emergency. This is a national
emergency,” Harvard Law School students wrote in a letter to the
school’s administration over the weekend. In a similar letter,
Georgetown Law School students wrote: “We,
students of color, cannot breathe. … We charge you to acknowledge
that Black Lives Matter.”

Most schools have policies that allow students who are observing
religious holidays, have suffered a death in the family, or
have a medical emergency to reschedule their exams. Yet
the Michael
Brown and Eric
Garner cases could signify the first time schools
have been asked to move exams because of a grand jury’s decisions.
It’s also forcing law schools to evaluate individually whether
students are traumatized enough that their exam
grades would suffer should they be asked to press forward.

If law students are upset about the grand jury decisions,
perhaps they should rededicate themselves to their coursework in
hopes of one day working to reform the system or standing up for
those abused by it. But if disappointing legal decisions render
them truly unable to function… well, they aren’t going to make
very good lawyers.

In related news, the president of Smith College
had to apologize for writing “all lives matter” instead of
“black lives matter,” and an associate director of the
journalism program at the University of Iowa thinks an offensive
art display
should be banned.

Perhaps today is the day we can formally announce the completion
of a transformation begun long ago: higher education has officially
become bumper bowling. Colleges should cease handing out diplomas
and instead award participant ribbons.