Posted on 12/10/2014 6:49:00 PM PST by Impala64ssa
Minority students at three prestigious law schools say they want to delay final exams because they’ve been busy protesting grand jury decisions in the deaths of unarmed black men at the hands of white police officers in New York City and Ferguson, Missouri, and haven’t had time to study. Student groups at Harvard Law School, Georgetown University Law Center and Columbia Law School say demonstrations and rallies over the Eric Garner and Michael Brown cases have prevented many students from adequately preparing for exams. Cities across the country have seen large-scale demonstrations since grand juries in both cases recently decided not to indict the police officers in the men’s deaths. A medical examiner says Garner, who had asthma, died after being placed in a chokehold by an officer on Staten Island. Brown was shot by an officer in a St. Louis suburb. At Harvard Law School, a coalition of student groups representing Asian, black, Native American and other minority students says many students have been compelled to take action because the “national tragedy” implicated a judicial system they had chosen to join by studying law. They criticize administrators for largely staying on the sidelines. “We led rallies, held vigils, and published an oped. You were silent on this issue,” the coalition wrote in a letter issued over the weekend. “We petitioned the government, served as legal observers, created spaces of solidarity, drafted model legislation, and marched through the streets of Boston and Cambridge.” Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow, with Yale Law School Dean Robert Post, penned an op-ed that ran in the Boston Globe on Tuesday. In it she called for criminal justice system reforms. Minow also is hosting a Wednesday campus discussion in which faculty and students are expected to participate. University officials at Harvard, Georgetown and Columbia have said students can petition to have their exams rescheduled and the requests will be considered individually, a process their policies already provided. Columbia and Harvard also are offering students special sessions with trauma counselors, mental health professionals and professors to talk about the lack of indictments in the Brown and Garner cases in the coming days. “Our practice of individualized consideration, among other things, allows us to connect with students and provide them the support they need when they are suffering trauma severe enough to warrant deferral,” wrote Ellen Cosgrove, dean of students at Harvard Law. Officials at the three schools did not specify how many students have sought or been granted the exam exceptions. And none of the schools has issued a general postponement of end-of-semester exams. But the Harvard Law School coalition, on its website, notes that a campus-wide delay is not without precedent: In 1970, the faculty voted to delay all exams in response to demands by students participating in anti-war protests. At Columbia, officials urged students to remain focused on the serious issues the cases raise. “Focusing on routine matters such as exam schedules … diverts attention away from the real issue that should be examined now: how to ensure a criminal justice system that protects fairness, due process, and equality,” the school said in a statement.
don’t know why they need the delay:
Harvard will pass them regardless — heck Obama has such a degree.
-disgusting—
What kind of lawyers will they make anyway if they cannot simultaneously follow the news and study law?
"Your honor, I was up late last night protesting, therefore I request a delay in the trial because I didn't have time to prepare"
Yeah.
Why should rules, regulations and laws matter to students in law school?
I'd like to see it burnt down. Its an affront to American values.
They can always pull the same sympathy card out when they are working for a living, I’m sure.
Of course, the P.C. jackwagons at Harvard will probably let them get away with it. Can't be called racist doncha know.
For about 25 years. How does that work out for you, morons?
now we learn what these privileged youngsters really want...
an excuse to avoid writing their exams
no wonder so much legal work is being outsourced to India, etc.
What happens when they get real clients?
If the little wimps can’t handle this, they certainly cant handle hardened Judges or more aggressive and successful lawyers from tier two, three and even four law schools that could hive a damn that they are up against an ivy league graduate. They lose just like everyone else does. Law school names don’t guarantee success.
Time off from law school to protest and mourn the killing ofa hug who attacks police can actually lead to scorn from the more “common” law school graduates. It is not a badge of honor.
Just because you graduate from a school with a big name
DOES NOT guarantee your success in court.
How many Harvard or Georgetown or Columbia law graduates actually ever see the inside of a court room?
Today's college kids grew up in schools where no kid "failed"; score was not kept in games; schoolyard games were considered too violent.
Only going to get worse.
The real world is an alien place to these hothouse plants.
they ‘know’ the other Aholes that ‘know’ ...you know… the “Connections”
it is not a ‘’Degree”! it is a “Pedigree”! Like trained dogs sorta.
My lab is smarter than these Losers.
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