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[acrimone]

So here I am, teaching my way through the Professional Responsibility for the second time in seven years, minding my own business and trying to get a student discussion going about the ability of the various state bars to control their membership.

Specifically, we were discussing whether State Bars can or should limit the speech of their members (or rather, limit their members based on speech).  There are a few cases that deal with this, such as where the State Bar kicks out the guy who's an active member of the KKK, etc.

There are obvious First Amendment issues, especially since the State Bar is, in many senses, a state actor.  Anyway, it's a nice discussion, and the students are really going at it over racist speech, tolerance, and the duty to uphold the "standards of the profession."

One of my favourite students, a little troublemaker if ever there was one, raises an interesting hypothetical.  He says something like this:

Troublemaker: What about speech urging a return to slavery?

Me: What about it?

Troublemaker: Wouldn't that be considered political speech?

Earnest Young Idealist Student: (after receiving the floor) I don't see how that's political speech.  It's advocating something that's expressly barred by the Constitution.

Troublemaker: Well hang on a second,  what if the guy is advocating the perfectly legal repeal of the Thirteenth Amendment?

Then comes one of the biggest shocks of my professorial life.  The EYIS -- who I *know* took Con Law II -- opens her mouth and says...

EYIS: That's not the type of speech the First Amendment was designed to protect.

But wait... that's not all.  The majority of the class nods and murmurs in agreement!

We had an impromptu lecture on the nature of Constitutional Law for the next five minutes, but I was absolutely floored by the students' readiness to abandon First Amendment protections for core political speech that they just decided was beyond the pale.

Just thought I'd share.  Feel free to discuss.

[dr_stones]

Welcome to the end product of political correctness, postmodernism, and outcome-based education.

If you cannot discuss it here, then where?

[busyslinky]

Rather than being floored, could you have cited some case law that specifically proves this student incorrect in their assumption?  The issue here is that for some reason, even after taking Con Law II, the student felt that this was a reasonable and correct response.  Isn't it your duty as an instructor to make sure the students understand the basics of this argument?  If you were going to discuss first amendment rights and free speech and how the various rights may contradict each other, then it is encumbered upon you to point out the discrepancy and why the interpretation may not be correct.  Standing dumbfounded is not a way to instruct.  There are limits to Free Speech and you are probably quite aware of them.

Is this one of them?  Clearly not, by your response.  Also, the students who nodded their head did not realize this.  Have them critique it better and find out what they are learning or not learning in Con Law II.  This is an opportunity for you to learn as well (learn why the students responded in the way they did, and it may not all be politically, P.C. motivated).

[untenured]

This does not seem terribly shocking.  A significant component of First Amendment instruction is noting that the FA protection is not limitless.  Such instruction counters the false belief in general culture that the FA protects speech anytime, anywhere, and even prevents private actors from restricting speech.  The "this was not what the FA was designed to protect" issue comes up quite a bit in Con Law.  Think fire in a crowded theatre, poltical speech, hate speech ... all things that attract controversy and debate about the FA's limits.  Your student and your class simply misapplied that idea to unpopular political speech.

Interesting though.

Untenured

[prytania3]

I'm not sure how important issue discussions are in this type of class.

[acrimone]

Rather than being floored, could you have cited some case law that specifically proves this student incorrect in their assumption?  The issue here is that for some reason, even after taking Con Law II, the student felt that this was a reasonable and correct response.  Isn't it your duty as an instructor to make sure the students understand the basics of this argument?  If you were going to discuss first amendment rights and free speech and how the various rights may contradict each other, then it is encumbered upon you to point out the discrepancy and why the interpretation may not be correct.  Standing dumbfounded is not a way to instruct.  There are limits to Free Speech and you are probably quite aware of them.

Is this one of them?  Clearly not, by your response.  Also, the students who nodded their head did not realize this.  Have them critique it better and find out what they are learning or not learning in Con Law II.  This is an opportunity for you to learn as well (learn why the students responded in the way they did, and it may not all be politically, P.C. motivated).

Dude, I was floored in a mental sense.  As the rest of my post indicates, I didn't stand there like an idiot.

And I never said the comment was "P.C." motivated (although it very well may have been, but that's not important), I just used the expression "beyond the pale."  I wasn't trying to pick a political fight, just share what I considered to be a shocking story.

Please don't beat up on me for something DrStones said.


INTERTHREAD ALERT:

And Pry... the point of this class was that issue.  My parenthetical aside about your comp class in the other thread was based on my (perhaps mistaken?) belief that comp classes are about learning to write.

We don't have Comp at my school, so you should know I'm talking out my ass here, but it seems that the "issue discussion" should take place in the papers, and that class time should be spent discussing writing, editing, structure, etc.  Is that not how it's done?

Maybe I'll start a thread about that.... hmmm.

[dogstar]

Sadly, I'm not that surprised.

In an intro course I once taught we had spent weeks learning about the origins and effects of social inequality, the various ways societies can be organized and the types of stratification that emerges in each, etc. It was a summer course, and most of the class were juniors and seniors who needed it to graduate in time.

As a project that was supposed to allow them to apply their newfound understandings in an imaginative manner and practice real-life problem solving, I divided them into groups and each group had to imagine it had been given the task of setting up a colony on another habitable planet. The founders of this colony wanted it to avoid all the various sorts of problems we'd just been talking about, and the colony strategists had to figure out some combination of economic and social organization that would *not* produce systemic social inequalities.

  First off, not a single group was able to imagine anything other than an economic order very similar to our own, even though we had spent a long time talking, reading and watching movies about other types of social organization and cultures. I was a little surprised at that, because I had explicitly said this was their chance to play God and create Utopia, and I was disappointed that Utopia to most of them looked like a big shopping mall. The real problem they had in this was figuring out how to get a "shopping mall" society without sweatshop labor, the greenhouse effect, gender inequality, etc., which was OK, I suppose, but what really shocked me were some of their solutions.

  One group came up with the idea that since teenagers do a lot of low-paid work already, and don't need the jobs particularly since they're supported by their parents, that teenagers should do the low-paid work. It would be OK because it would only be temporary and the society was also set up to guarantee everyone a college education, so they would go on to become professionals of various sorts. It was a sort of "classless" society because it consisted solely of middle class professionals and their children.
 
  What shocked me was that it never once occurred to them to try and imagine a way that incomes could be organized more evenly, in general. When I challenged them on this, they felt it perfectly right that a CEO or a doctor could earn exponentially more than a housekeeper or restaurant worker. And what amazed me even more was that they considered it fair to farm this work out to kids. When I asked how those kids were going to do well enough in school to get into college if they were working so many hours, they kind of didn't know what to do, and what would happen to the kids who didn't do well in school no matter what, or who weren't interested in going to college they had various ideas, llike they should learn a trade, but generally assumed college to be something that would just "happen" for these kids regardless, that it was just a gateway into a lifestyle. And no one would be marginalized because anyone who couldn't find a place in this system would be sent back to Earth.

  But it led to a very interesting and fun discussion that left everyone thinking about the topic, but I don't think I succeeded at getting them to stretch their imaginations very much.

[acrimone]

Yikes!  I'm not a huge proponent of social equality, mind you, but that sounds trying.  This was interesting though...
 
 

   What shocked me was that it never once occurred to them to try and imagine a way that incomes could be organized more evenly, in general. When I challenged them on this, they felt it perfectly right that a CEO or a doctor could earn exponentially more than a housekeeper or restaurant worker. And what amazed me even more was that they considered it fair to farm this work out to kids. When I asked how those kids were going to do well enough in school to get into college if they were working so many hours, they kind of didn't know what to do, and what would happen to the kids who didn't do well in school no matter what, or who weren't interested in going to college they had various ideas, llike they should learn a trade, but generally assumed college to be something that would just "happen" for these kids regardless, that it was just a gateway into a lifestyle. And no one would be marginalized because anyone who couldn't find a place in this system would be sent back to Earth.

  But it led to a very interesting and fun discussion that left everyone thinking about the topic, but I don't think I succeeded at getting them to stretch their imaginations very much.

It seems that you were asking them to assume "college" in their Utopia, and to assume some sort of educational hierarchy.... or were you just working within the systems they devised?

It's also fascinating that the students were able to understand that a "perfect" society requires a "release valve," a system for exile.  That's something a lot of people don't get.

This sounds like a terribly fun project though... it's a shame it didn't go over so well.  Better luck next time!

[busyslinky]

Dude, I was floored in a mental sense.  As the rest of my post indicates, I didn't stand there like an idiot.

My apologies for my confusion.  You had me floored by the original way I interpreted things.  I'd still be concerned on why they don't understand basics like free speech at your school since everything I know I learned on cable.  What is blinding them?

[dogstar]

It seems that you were asking them to assume "college" in their Utopia, and to assume some sort of educational hierarchy.... or were you just working within the systems they devised?

  No, I didn't say anything about college or educational hierarchy. Just told them that the society they created should be something that could plausibly "work", meaning it had to have some kind of economic system, some kind of social organization, etc. and they had to be integrated with each other in some way (and since we'd been studying both, they had good case studies and examples of different types to choose from) that would not generate systematic inequalities of the sort we'd been looking at. They had to consider what the subsistence system would be, how people would raise and socialize children, maintain social order, deal with things like illness, etc. Basically, I had wanted them to see connections between different aspects of society-- say you achieve some kind of perfect balance in one area, what are the implications for other areas? There wasn't really a "right" answer, and some groups were more creative than the one I mentioned. The discussion then revolved around the systems each group had devised, with students asking each other questions, challenging each other, pointing out strenghts and weaknesses, of each system, or where it wouldn't be "balanced" and so forth.

It's also fascinating that the students were able to understand that a "perfect" society requires a "release valve," a system for exile.  That's something a lot of people don't get.

  I think their solution how to handle "deviants", law-breakers, malcontents, and people who just plain didn't "fit in" was simplistic.

This sounds like a terribly fun project though... it's a shame it didn't go over so well.  Better luck next time!

  Thanks. It was quite fun, and the whole class enjoyed it. For something we did in one 90-minute class period, it did accomplish its main purpose of getting students to see interconnections between, say, an economic activity and the kind of social organization that might be required to support that activity, or which arise as a consequence of that activity, in a more interactive way than the case studies did. But if I do it again, I will assign it as something they do outside of class, then present, and also give them more imaginative readings to accompany it-- some science fiction short stories or something to get their juices flowing.

[acrimone]

It seems that you were asking them to assume "college" in their Utopia, and to assume some sort of educational hierarchy.... or were you just working within the systems they devised?

  No, I didn't say anything about college or educational hierarchy. Just told them that the society they created should be something that could plausibly "work", meaning it had to have some kind of economic system, some kind of social organization, etc. and they had to be integrated with each other in some way (and since we'd been studying both, they had good case studies and examples of different types to choose from) that would not generate systematic inequalities of the sort we'd been looking at.

Sorry... I misinterpreted your saying "When I asked how those kids were going to do well enough in school to get into college if they were working so many hours..."

[dogstar]

Sorry... I misinterpreted your saying "When I asked how those kids were going to do well enough in school to get into college if they were working so many hours..."

  Oh, no need to apologize. I was writing really fast and kind of stream of consciousness, more like I speak than how I suppose I really ought to write. That sentence wasn't clear. What I meant was, the students expected all the low-paid and manufacturing work to be done by teenagers. Since they had assumed all the kids would go to college, I then asked how those teenage workers were going to do well enough in school to get into college while also working so many hours outside of school. That one had them stumped for a little bit.

[prytania3]

Acrimone wrote:

We had an impromptu lecture on the nature of Constitutional Law for the next five minutes, but I was absolutely floored by the students' readiness to abandon First Amendment protections for core political speech that they just decided was beyond the pale.

I'm not surprised at all. This is what I was trying to convey (late at night) about my "square students," and I use the word square because it covers students from the left and the right. (Also, Allen Ginsberg was my teacher.)

This new wave of students seems to be very entrenched in their individual beliefs--not that that hasn't always been the case, but there seems to be something different with this new group (the newer Gen Y's), They don't even want to consider the other side, and they have an eerie complacency. What's more, many people think it is worth compromising their constitutional rights if it guarantees them X,Y,Z.
I can't say what exactly is happening or what the nature of the beast (squarism?), but I suspect it has to do with having George W. as president during their formative years.

And btw, the moderators have already admonished me via PM.

[gennidad]

Actually Pry I have noticed this movement toward the extremes in our major parties.  If you look at what some of the leaders of the Democratic party react to anything proposed by George W.  you will see what I am talking about.  Certainly many Republican leaders did the same with Clinton.  Our two party system is polarizing and there seems to be a more difficult time agreeing on the things that need to be accomplished (much less getting them done).  I worry about how divided our country will become if we continue down the path we are on.