Black Law Students at Georgetown: We are shaken and angry at conservatives’ resp

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After the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, an unusual debate unfolded at Georgetown University Law Center, not only over the legacy of the conservative scholar, but whether political correctness and a left-leaning bias had stifled the possibility of open discourse in academia.

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Two professors questioned a laudatory memorial announcement that was issued by the law school; one publicly argued that the campus community would not mourn Scalia, who is one of the university’s most prominent alumni, calling him “a defender of privilege, oppression and bigotry.”

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They (Professors' response to students' claims of Scalia's bigotry*) also wrote, “This incident is symptomatic of a larger problem in academia: the utter lack of intellectual diversity among faculty, and the deep intolerance for views that dissent from the liberal orthodoxy.”

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The Black Law Students Association at Georgetown followed that debate, and wrote their own response:

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The Black Law Students Association takes issue with some of the responses and email exchanges shared with the entire Georgetown University Law Center student body in the days following Justice Scalia’s passing.

We recognize that many in the legal community, including some in our own organization, mourn the death of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, an influential and widely respected legal mind. We also understand that his passing has left many Georgetown Law students deeply saddened and we offer our sincere condolences to these students.

While we support an individual student’s choice to mourn, it must also be acknowledged that Justice Scalia’s legacy affects us in vastly different ways. As a result, some of the viewpoints expressed in the email exchange were disheartening for many in our membership. It is our hope that we can be candid with you in this letter regarding those disheartening sentiments, and as a result we can hopefully foster an environment of greater inclusiveness at Georgetown Law.

One particular email response from Professors Nick Rosenkranz and Randy Barnett decries the lack of intellectual diversity at Georgetown, citing the experiences of conservative students in the wake of Professor Gary Peller and Louis Michael Seidman’s emails:

“Although this email was upsetting to us, we could only imagine what it was like for these students. Some of them are twenty-two year-old 1Ls, less than six months into their legal education. But we did not have to wait long to find out. Leaders of the Federalist Society chapter and of the student Republicans reached out to us to tell us how traumatized, hurt, shaken, and angry, were their fellow students. Of particular concern to them were the students who are in Professor Peller’s class who must now attend class knowing of his contempt for Justice Scalia and his admirers, including them. How are they now to participate freely in class? What reasoning would be deemed acceptable on their exams?”

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