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Comment by 1attice | Hacker News Reader

I see lots of comments with emotional responses that seem to have the commenter identifying with the judge, and describing the protest as a mob.

It would be useful to look into what the man has actually said and done, the context of the protest, before coming to a decision.

Free speech is important, yes, but so are consequences and context. A justice system that fails to provide justice is worth protesting. Having power is not an excuse for abusing it.

As Angela Davis put it, freedom is a constant struggle, and sometimes that struggle means speaking truth to power.

Sometimes you have to holler.

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> but so are consequences and context.

The context is that students invited him to speak about topics unrelated to his controversial rulings (which for the record I think are terrible). The students who wanted to hear him speak are the one's who faced consequences here. As are any students who may disagree with him, but will one day have to argue in court in front of Federalist judges and would be aided by better understanding those same judges. The Judge himself suffered no consequence other than inconvenience and perhaps frustration. It is unclear how the mao-maoing of the judge before he spoke imposes any consequence on him or accomplishes anything other than undermining free and open intellectual exchange.

EDIT for those down voting, I'm curious to hear your specific disagreements.

"hollering", as outlined in the Dean's memo, is fine. Attempting to execute a 'heckler's veto', however, is not.

I'd love to see a short paper on the difference between hollering and heckling that you perceive.

The idea that it is some kind of "veto" is again to misattribute power to the powerless. This figurative and hyperbolic language ('veto', 'witch hunt', etc.) clouds judgment.

This isn't the UN security council. This is a lot of horrified young people attempting to find self-expression. Sometimes, it's messy.

I think the insistence on wishing to appeal to emotion (think of the horrified young people!) is what is causing the consternation you're commenting on. Serious people - especially lawyers - shouldn't do this, and the event has made me take SLS less seriously as a law school. The students can find their "self-expression" in a number of different venues and no one - not a single person anywhere - is preventing them from doing that. Throwing your hands up and saying "well shucks, it's messy" isn't a standard or a reliable norm, and, this whole thing being about lawyers, one would expect these people to be very interested in what the rules actually are.

FWIW I don't think there's much daylight between "hollering" and "heckling". "Protest is allowed but disruption is not allowed" is the (directly quoted) standard that the SLS Dean is attempting to enforce.

Well, just read the Dean's letter linked in the article.

We’ve had four generations now raised on stories of the heroes of the civil rights era. Four generations of people trying to emulate them. Four generations of conspicuous failure to make any meaningful progress on any issue via protest and civil disobedience.

Maybe it’s because these kids aren’t MLK or maybe it’s because their cause isn’t dismantling Jim Crow.

Whatever the reason if they actually care about their issues and not just about getting high of public acts of self righteousness, it’s time to look at decades of failure and conclude that these tactics won’t work for them.

Maybe do the hard work of boosting under 30 voter turnout instead.

this doubles as a job interview

the Dean is wrong in asserting that the students will need to encompass and address disagreement later in their careers to serve their clients

the students protesting will take up work at places like SPLC where donations from Silicon Valley elites will pay them $1 mln/year to witch hunt Americans

the protest is just job prep

The notion that there are these well-paid (as you put it) 'witch' hunters out there, just lying in wait to "hunt Americans", is firstly, specious (where are these riches?) and secondly shows exactly who you think is deserving of protection, and from whom.

You are telling on yourself.

If Salary.com [1] is to be believed (I have no idea), then a summer intern at SPLC makes $95k (presumably on an annualized basis). Lawyer salaries appear to be higher, but still in the low six-figures. Working here would be much less remunerative than working at a firm, but it would have the benefit of qualifying for student loan forgiveness (either through a program that Stanford runs, or through the federal govt's program).

https://www.salary.com/research/company/southern-poverty-law...

Are you saying the SPLC is an organization of these "witch hunters"?

Actually, it in fact is.

The previous commenter referred to SPLC, so I looked it up.

So they did. I probably should have asked them why they thought that instead of you, then.

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