In the wake of the Michael Brown verdict and the Ferguson uprising, a number of “elite” law schools decided that their students could get a deferral on exams if they were “emotionally” unable to proceed. (source)
This reinforces the impression that the so-called elite law schools are simply places where students are pre-selected and then coddled. As a graduate of one of these schools (Georgetown), I’ll confirm that the quality of the education is clearly secondary to the “brand name.” I did a year as a visiting student at the University of Florida, which is a little lower ranked – and got way better education there.
Of course, I only got into Georgetown as a fluke. I actually got piss drunk with a member of the admissions committee one night in September of 1997, at the Irish Times. He asked me what I did before law school. I said “my last job was working on oil tankers and freighters.” He said “ohhh, I remember you! We thought it would be very interesting to see how the other students would react to someone with your background.” I held back from punching him in the face. But, at least I knew what the fuck I was doing there. Yep, I was an affirmative action admission – I guess they saved one seat for foul mouthed sailor working class shitbags.
And then I figured out that it was impossible to get less than a C. Even then, you really had to work at it — like by falling asleep in class, snoring, not studying for the exam, and getting two right out of 10 questions. That was C performance.
Tag: Michael Brown
FBI Director Defends Police, Says Everyone’s A Little Bit Racist
FBI Director James Comey repeatedly defended the police in a speech intended to address race relations after a series of high-profile killings by law enforcement officers.
Speaking at Georgetown University this morning, Comey said citizens need to have more empathy for police, that police response time is not influenced by race, and that “law enforcement is not the root cause of problems in our hardest-hit neighborhoods.”
Comey also cited and quoted from the song “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist” from the Broadway play “Avenue Q,” adding that while everyone has a duty to try and overcome bias, “racial bias isn’t epidemic in those who join law enforcement any more than it is epidemic in academia or the arts.” And yet “after years of police work, officers often can’t help but be influenced by the cynicism they feel” and begin viewing black citizens differently.
The much-anticipated address comes in the wake of a series of killings of black citizens at the hands of local police, including Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri; Eric Garner in New York; and Tamir Rice in Cleveland, Ohio.
Ferguson, Mo., police begin testing new ‘less-lethal’ attachment for guns
About a month after a white officer fatally shot an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson, Mo., the city’s assistant police chief, Al Eickhoff, took to Google and searched under the words “less lethal.”
Eickhoff, a 36-year veteran of Missouri police work, said he was looking for any new device, weapon or ammunition — any alternative to lethal force — that might have prevented a deadly result when Michael Brown and Officer Darren Wilson encountered each other in the noonday heat last August.
Browsing a California company’s Web site, Eickhoff found pictures and videos of an odd-looking, blaze-orange device docked on a normal handgun barrel. When a bullet fired, it melded with an attached projectile the size of a ping-pong ball that flew with enough force to knock a person down, maybe break some ribs, but not kill him, the product’s makers said — even at close range.
Its name: the Alternative.
Great, but how about actually teaching officers gun safety and incident management, instead of letting them shoot at anything that moves?