The Disgrace at CUNY Law School

Following up on Tuesday’s dispatch about the recent disgrace at Beloit College, today comes news of an even more disgraceful outrage at CUNY Law School. Josh Blackman of South Texas College of Law, a fine legal mind and author of many excellent legal articles as well as cogent popular articles for National Review Online and elsewhere, was invited by the CUNY Federalist Society chapter to speak on free speech. The Federalist Society was unable to find anyone from the faculty to comment or offer a rebuttal to Prof. Blackman (the Federalist Society’s usual practice is to invite someone from the faculty of the host school to offer a different opinion). This is not unusual in my experience. Leftist faculty are increasingly unwilling to have their views contested in public.  (Some day I’ll have some of my own stories about this to share.)

Instead, Prof. Blackman was greeted with a protest that was off the chart even on the usual scale of infantile campus protests. Go see his own full account and pictures of the event at his website. Among other offenses, Blackman had written that the Trump Administration was legally correct to rescind DACA because it exceeded the President’s authority. But Blackman supports enacting DACA through proper congressional legislation. This was apparently not sufficient for “law” students at CUNY Law. Such a view—once held by none other than Barack Obama before he decided he could get away with it—makes Blackman a “white supremacist.” Here’s some of his description:

The protestors called out: “Shame on You.” “I don’t understand how CUNY allows this.” “There are students that are directly affected by this hate speech.” “Legal objectivity is a myth.” “You still have an opportunity to leave.” As the President began my introduction, the protestors heckled him. “This is not okay.” As he said my name, someone called out “He’s a white supremacist.” Others booed. “I don’t understand how CUNY law allows this.” One of the protestors observed, “He’s filming us. Just so everyone is aware, he is filming us.” I told her, “I am.” (New York is a one-party consent recording jurisdiction.)

A few students in attendance clapped as I began to speak. “Well thank you very much to CUNY for having me,” I said. In unison, they yelled out, “CUNY is not having you.” “You are not welcome.” Another shouted out something about “white men and those who support white supremacy.” An African-American student who was attending the event replied, “I am not white.” A protestor, holding a sign that said “Josh Blackman is not welcome here and neither is the Fed Society” asked, “then why are you here? Why aren’t you with us?” . .

A student shouted out “Fuck the law.” This comment stunned me. I replied, “Fuck the law? That’s a very odd thing. You are all in law school. And it is a bizarre thing to say fuck the law when you are in law school.” They all started to yell and shout over me.

Read the whole thing if you have time. Here’s just one pic of the calibre of future “lawyers” at CUNY:

And here’s a complete video of Josh’s talk—over an hour long, but you may wish to sample it.

P.S. For what it’s worth, I have at last been implicated as a “white supremacist” at Berkeley  as of yesterday, so I’m finally making progress!

And note to self: I’ll try to get Josh on the Power Line podcast some time soon.

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