XXX Internet in the Classroom?
We've been covering the University of Chicago Law School's decision to ban internet in the classroom. Courtesy of another law school, here's some evidence to support denying internet access to law students while in class.
Over at American University Washington College of Law, some students are apparently taking full -frontal advantage of their internet privileges:
From: David Jaffe
Date: Tue, Apr 22, 2008 at 5:11 PM
Subject: Classroom Incident
To: undisclosed-recipients
It has been brought to my attention that several students in the second-year part-time division were viewing pornography online during a recent class, in plain view of a portion of the class and with no attempt to disguise their behavior. This conduct not only reflects poorly on the students involved but also may serve to create a sexually hostile environment. Such conduct violates federal law, the rules of professional conduct, and the American University Code of Student Conduct.
WCL expects students to act with integrity and to maintain high personal and professional standards. This expectation is called into question by the inappropriate behavior that I have described. I call on those students who were involved in this incident to present themselves to me with an explanation for their actions, suggesting in the strongest terms that they do so before I am forced to follow a specific course of action through the WCL Honor Code and the American University Code of Student Conduct.
David Jaffe
Associate Dean for Student Affairs
American University Washington College of Law
Solitaire wasn't doing it for them, apparently.
We contacted Dean Jaffe for comment (and to learn the fate of the purported pornaholics). He issued the following comment:
I received in response to the foregoing email a communication from a student who acknowledged opening in class an email forwarded to his non-law school account containing what was meant to be humorous pictures, which he described as having the potential to be taken inappropriately. The student indicated that while someone could have thought the email was in bad taste that it was not pornographic. The student expressed that he did not intend for anyone to read his screen, and asked for the chance to personally apologize to anyone who may have been offended. The student added that he holds himself to a higher moral standard than the email portrayed, but accepted full responsibility for opening the email while at school.We intend to take the necessary and appropriate steps to resolve this matter and to ensure that other students are not affected in the future.
Was the email in question pornographic? We don't know, since we never saw it. As Justice Potter Stewart famously observed, when it comes to porn, you know it when you see it.
(118) Comments
hmmm. Kash loves her some sex.................
thanks for making the day interesting.
FIRST...KUNG-FU OPERA
Porn is good...but only the midget kind...
This type of behavior is typical of part time students, i.e. those students who back-door their way into schools with lower admissions criteria. I'm looking at you G-town part-timers!
Any bets? I bet this student gets punished for trying to do the right thing.
Ha.... You said back-door.
1:21 - Internet abuse is far less prevalent in the part-time program. The spoiled day students are the offenders.
Kash...back-door....hmmmm
I bet Pressly has a comment on this one...
That poor schlub is going to get a headache of a disciplinary action. He probably wasn't even responsible for the complained-of behavior. Once again law school deans teach soon-to-be lawyers a very important lesson: don't talk unless you have to.
that sounds like a good excuse.
I don't understand why people make official complaints about stuff on other students' screens during class. Whatever happened to a quick "hey, can you look at that stuff outside of class" or, heaven forbid, ignoring it. I hate how cowardly we've all become.
There was a guy in one of my classes last year who would play either (1) the video of the chimp peeing in its own mouth; or (2) the video of the bull trying to mount the cow and falling. He essentially had them on a continuous loop.
OMG, the dude three rows in front of me is looking at naked women kissing naked men. I am so offended. Ewwww. Sex is bad. I must call the Dean. While I am there I am going to complaint about that girl in the front row eating a peanut butter sandwich.
Kash - I dare you to post something that isn't sexual. You are such a dirty little girl.
This is almost as funny as the time three years ago when Jaffe complained of people peeing the closets at the Law School Prom.
Come on. Seriously? A violation of federal law?
Everyone knows that looking at porn is what the individual study rooms are for. Am I right, fellow Wolverines?
1:32 - Kash writes lots of stuff that has nothing to do with sex. Like this interesting post about DNA and criminal law:
http://abovethelaw.com/2008/04/the_dna_made_me_do_it.php
What federal law could this possibly violate? AU is a private entity.
I, for one, would like to know the ratio of girls to cups in the attachment in question.
"What federal law could this possibly violate? AU is a private entity."
Title IX of the Civil Rights Act?
This is what happens when you admit part-time students to law school. Part time students are nothing more than moronic animals that have no business being in law school. Law Schools admit them because part time students are cash cows whose statistics don't have to be included in US News statistics.
Moooo!!! Mooooo!!
Signed by: part-time 2L
Expect more of this in the part time programs. Now that the credit crunch is beginning to restrict private loan access, expect these toilets to start allowing the guys from To Catch a Predator into the part time program.
1:48 - a carroll on Sub-2 always gets the job done.
Sure, this guy should have used some more discretion. But, what rule of professional conduct does this violate? Unless the state has some general catch-all rule about not bringing the profession into ill repute.
That's a pic of Kash in the computer, right?
Great photo to alongside the post!
Keep up the good work, Hef...I mean, Kash.
2:02: How is looking at porn discrimination on the basis of sex?
Hey 2:02, we don't know that all the students in questions were male. I believe AU does have a larger female population than male...
Title IX or not Title IX, I'm still not seeing how a student viewing porn in class could possibly violate federal law. The Dean would have more credibility if he didn't go so far over the top.
Let's be clear. It's not against the law for a student to look at porn in class. It *is* against the law for the administration to ignore complaints and sit idly by, allowing the persistence of what some might call a "hostile environment." Hence the letter, yadda yadda yadda.
Former Evening Program Gtown grad here . . . worked the whole time, graduated magna and clerked on the Circuit. Suck it!
"we don't know that all the students in questions were male"
Doesn't matter. Search Westlaw for same-sex sexual harassment.
Question: What is YOUR personal preference when it comes to porn??
Sapphic Erotica. Kash.... any comments?
This story doesn't support banning internet at all. That's as ridiculous as saying a school should ban dating because an unscrupulous couple had sex in the middle of the library.
Not that there's anything wrong with having sex in the middle of the library.
I can no more disown pornography than I can my racist white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.
I appreciate Jaffe's forthright style. The original e-mail was to the point but it wasn't pompous. The later statement was open and direct. I don't know anything else about the man, but I'd say he handled this well.
To all the part-time student haters out there:
I'd rather hire a true part-time student (one who works full-time and goes to school) over a whiny, spoiled, immature day student who likely has mommy and/or daddy paying for their education. Most day students are fairly pathetic and bring nothing to the table other than their college experience, which isn't as great as they think they it is.
Inappropriate? Yes.
Federal law? No.
MPRE? Give me a break. They're not even lawyers.
Honor code? Where's the deception or theft in making the choice not to come forward? If asked specifically, yes, but failing to respond to a general email does not seem like an honor code violation to me.
WCL to 3M privacy shields.
I go to WCL, and last week I saw a guy looking at porn in the library. Wonder if it was the same guy... In any event, I won't be using that computer ever again.
What's amusing about the PT bashers is that they never stop to recognize that some of a school's most notable alumni were PT students.
Not to mention, while we may not affect your US News rankings, we do positively affect your school's JOB PLACEMENT PERCENTAGE, since we all have jobs and generally go on to lucrative careers.
I love the haters.
2:00 = hilarious, awesome.
And I believe that ratio would be 2:1.
2:00 = hilarious, awesome.
And I believe that ratio would be 2:1.
I don't understand all the PT bashing...
But lets look at the real issue here. Someone was viewing pornography on their own computer. So fucking what?
Then some asswipe who couldn't mind his or her own business decided to make a disciplinary issue about it?
Get over it. I am offended by anyone reading Andrea Dworkin materials. Why shouldn't what offends ME be banned too?
3:01 - so funny
2:44 - I like sex in the library. Especially in the sci-fi section.
I know I sound like Frat Stud... but hasn't everyone who uses the internet in class accidentally stumbled on something inappropriate at some point? At my law school it happened all the time, and as long as you didn't have the pic up for more time than it took to realize you should exit your browser, no one had a hissy fit about it. Shit happens. Hell, a couple times the inappropriate picture was linked FROM THIS SITE. Anyone else remember that bluebook photo with male nasty bits?
only in-class porn watcher in our 1L class was a girl. my roommate hooked up with her my second year. proud day...
Again Kash proves she's a dirty girl...
I'm surprised that all of the far left, obama supporting, feminists at WCL did not organize some sort of protest against the student caught looking at the porn in class.
American University Washington College of Law night students have.........JOBS. Political animals, teachers, computer scientists, IT consultants, paralegals, tax experts, accountants, patent examiners...Some of them ALREADY work at top DC law firms.
4:58 -- exactly what I was thinking. Maybe they were out ordering a soy-chai mocha skim half-caff latte and chatting on their iPhones and missed the whole controversy.
"It's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to porn, or guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."
-- BHO
Title IX prohibits an educational institution that accepts federal funding from discriminating on the basis of gender, among other things. Students viewing porn in class could certainly create a hostile environment for female students. Everyone knows that lawyers are going to take the most conservative position possible when assessing legal liability. The school acted appropriately in responding to complaints
Dear Mr. or Mrs. "This is what happens when you admit part-time students to law school. Part time students are nothing more than moronic animals that have no business being in law school. Law Schools admit them because part time students are cash cows whose statistics don't have to be included in US News statistics."
I am a part time student, and I guarantee that my summer job is way better than yours. If you want to prove otherwise meet me in the caf at 7:00 pm you son of a bitch.
WCL is filled with angry feminazis with huge gender chips on their shoulders.
I once saw a female student make nasty comments to a man for holding an elevator door open for her (and non-female students as well, but nevermind that).
I hate people like that. Too bad that's a core part of WCL's culture. Part of why I transferred. That, and because I could.
1 Word: Bridgewater
1 Word: Bridgewater
6:13PM -
where did you transfer to?
Franky, as a WCL student, i couldn't really think of much more thats harmful to the school than the reposting of every e-mail send out to us by Dean Jaffe. But, don't get me wrong, this is the Dean's fault...perhaps he should grow up and find a real job instead of wasting his time addressing issues that really have no impact on the community. So sorry to hear that some fragile WCL eyes had to encounter porn in class, but honestly, who gives a fuck...have a heart attack over being exposed to such a monstrosity and then sue the school for your pain and anguish. The Dean and every other freak around the place could be best served by finding productive things to do with their time...and perhaps, get a life.
And, before i forget...i've never seen a place so involved in dedicating time to things that don't matter, i.e., the 'War Crimes Research Office' or the stupendous number of mindless student organizations that have no impact on issues either inside or outside of the building. Should the school ever say, put a man like Milosevic behind bars or see a student group actually make strides to make the outside community aware of real problems in the world, let me know. But franky, the school's a joke...i go there and now that...if you go there and feel otherwise, well then you really have wasted $150K. What WCL really is is an education in just how little of a difference people actually make it the world, no matter how hard they try.
Mmmmm, gender chips. Do those come with dip? If you catch my drift?
Hey 4:59, I know quite a few PTimers who at least didn't have jobs during their 1L year and used it as a way of getting into this school. Not sure what they're doing this year...
I thought Justice Stewart's observation was about obscenity, not pornography.
Who told?
why did this whole conversation turn into 'who's got a better job than who?' you ppl are always sizing yourselves up against each other...i dont blame the guy for watching porn in the middle of class. he was just drowning out the daily pretentious nonsense that comes with lawschool.
Actually, I think this happened about three weeks ago. But Jaaafeee didn't want to bring it up before the end of classes.
It was about the same time a 1L got yelled at for telling a tour of Admitted Students that he was transferring out because the school was an overcrowded shithole full of obese mouth-breathers.
At American, the truth is too inconvient to deal with.
Posted by guest | Permalink
Wednesday, April 23, 2008 2:50 PM
I appreciate Jaffe's forthright style. The original e-mail was to the point but it wasn't pompous. The later statement was open and direct. I don't know anything else about the man, but I'd say he handled this well.
Hi Dean Jaffe !!!
Are you still spamming the school e-mail list to sell your baseball tickets ?
WLC's Hiring Policy:
1. We hire "people of color" (note that at WCL, white is not a color.)
2. We hire gays
3. We hire fat people
4. We hire illegal alien shills.
A fat, black, gay illegal alien shill - how can it get any better than that ?
28th Amendment - right to bare porn
Who's with me?
Oh, and Kash - you keep posting the way you want to - clearly we all love it
Stop looking at other persons' computer screens. Anybody wanna throw a red flag for personal privacy violations. This guy should call the ACLU.
8:10, it happened last Thursday, not 3 weeks ago
Maybe we will see signs up at WCL advertising something like the following:
The WCL administration is proud to announce that it is hosting a delegation from a remote mountain village somewhere in Costa Rica to discuss the intersection of Central American human rights, gender issues, [insert other topics which are hard to actually start a career in], and porn.
Heh, I guarantee the porn viewing made the offended student's day. Students at WCL get the same rush from being outraged that students at other law schools get from receiving nice job offers.
8:10
Then it happened before as well - like April 1st or second. But I don't think that was a PT student - I heard several 2L full time students talking about it.
I wasn't listening really closely but it seems like the professor actually knew and kicked the guy out of class.
It was the same day I heard that the 1L was telling the Admitted Students that WCL was an over-crowded shithole full of mouth-breathers.
Again.... Bridgewater. That;s pretty much an embodiment of WCL's hiring policy. Those of you who go to this shithole will know what I mean.
The WCL closet pisser of 2006 was actually a friend of mine (a fellow part-timer) - and the federal law it violated has nothing to do with Title IX, but rather destruction of federal property since our Barrister's Ball (used to be held) at a federal building in DC
Are you talking about the small college called Bridgewater?
no im talking about a large professor called bridgewater
You couldn't be more dead-on...the most under-qualified, over-sensitive, insane person I've ever seen
I joined the part-time section just so I would avoid spoiled FT brats, much like the ones commenting here. Looks like I chose well.
Dean Jaffe - Why did you bother posting the information below ? Everyone knows your grasp of the law is somewhere between non-existent and non-existent. Although its nice for 3Ls to now that if you can pass the bar, anyone can.
Posted by guest | Permalink
Wednesday, April 23, 2008 5:52 PM
Title IX prohibits an educational institution that accepts federal funding from discriminating on the basis of gender, among other things. Students viewing porn in class could certainly create a hostile environment for female students. Everyone knows that lawyers are going to take the most conservative position possible when assessing legal liability. The school acted appropriately in responding to complaints
Has no one ever received a seeminly innocent link that opens up porn and screams "HEY EVERYBODY, I'M LOOKING AT GAY PORNO." No? Just me? Okay.
it is actually a toss-up who is worse:
Bridgewater or Hutchinson
11:07, you misspelled "know." Genius
Thanks Dean Jaffe, I'll be sure to read my posts more carefully.
But what can you expect - I'm a student at your shithole of a school. I'm too stupid to spell good.
I'm willing to be you're in the FT program too
Excuse me, "bet"
bridgewater really is painful to watch and listen to. and to make matters worse she bans computers in her class.
Men are just as offended by pornography as women are (there goes your Federal offense)....unless of course you think there is a difference between men and women...in which case your Gender Journal topics from the last 10 years have officially been contradicted
I am sure that 95% of these comments were written by students holed up in the library, wishing they were outside and enjoying life.
Why do law students waste 3 years of their 20's insulting each other over the internet instead of actually doing something productive with their lives.
Next time you want to criticize a PT student for being too stupid to get into a FT program, or a FT student for living off of mommy and daddy's money, take a good look at yourself and ask, "what is the point of all of this?"
Law students and lawyers are the most pitiful, unhappy people in this country. Reading these angry and pointless posts gives me some insight as to why.
Get a life!
Last year Bridgewater did the following things in her Property class:
1) Quit teaching the class for reasons that remain mysterious (she was supposed to contribute a question to the final, but its unclear that she did so).
2) Gave a lecture on property law on the moon.
3) Got her boot laces stuck on the table at the front of the lecture hall, confessed "Class - I'm stuck," and then made a 1L untie her laces.
This is the type of talent that WCL retains, while losing good young professors like Ventry. Good thing their priorities are in the right place.
Although it's not surprising for a school that offers one section of Antitrust (per year), one section of copyright, and one section of sales, but has an endless buffet of classes about human rights. Not that those classes shouldn't be taught, they just should crowd out classes that law graduates need to take to be successful at firms.
It wasn't all property law on the moon. Just how to deal with moon gold. And I think it spanned two classes.
If they hired hot strippers to teach law, we wouldn't be forced to surf the web for our jollies. Are you listening, Jaffe?
All I know is that this gets to be Kash's & Lat's first clusterf*ck on the new format.
I guess procrastinating on exam studying brought out the law students for this one.
Congrats on your first comments clusterf*** of the new format, Kash & Lat.
12:10 - No, 95% of the posts are written by WCL students who regret, very strongly, that they decided to attend the school.
One look at the course catalog will give you a clue why so many WCL students regret their decision.
Basically, the course selection prepares you for a career in legal aid. Does any employer consider "Gender Issues Around the World" an important foundation for a legal career?
And how many 'International Organizations" courses does one school need to offer ?
Students at WCL are nothing but cash cows for an egomaniacal dean who wants his name on every single "International Human Rights" organization in the world.
At WCL, the students come last. The only thing that is important about students is their money.
According to the latest e-mail from the 2008 Graduating Class Committee, 72% of the graduating class thinks WCL sucks.
I'm willing to bet that over 50% of the people who have posted on this board have seen the e-mail in controversy. It is clearly not pornographic there isn't even any nudity. People cruising facebook during class can see images just as obscene. I'm not saying the e-mail was in good taste or should have been viewed during class, but Jaffe took a mole hill and turned it into a mountain.
12:10: If you're life is so great why are you posting comments on message boards in the middle of the night? Who's kidding who here? Take your own advice.
Some prudish idiot complained about someone opening a funny email - what a waste of the Dean's time. Even if the person was actually looking at porn, anything more than a talking to or a slap on the wrist is taking the issue way out of preportion. No wonder Europeans look down on American's (and American University) as culturally backward and frigid. I've been in class, at another fine DC law school, and seen girls open up extremely risque pictures during class from trashy hollywood websites, but I didn't go complain about it. I such instances I either focused in on a nice picture, or just ignored it and paid attention to the class, depending on which one was more interesting to ME (there is choice involved). If it is creating a major distraction, then the school can say stop doing it, but more than that is overkill.
8:34: "At WCL, the students come last. The only thing that is important about students is their money."
How can you say that? Obviously no one told you about the free pancakes on Tuesday, served by none other than Jaffe himself.
Ok, you're right.
It's been my experience that part-timers are better looking and more fun than the full-time social freaks that scurry around the halls and try not to make eye contact.
Also, anyone that complains about porn in a classroom just needs to get laid.
What this free-flowing exchange shows is how badly some of you need to get out. It also seems to reflect how some of you have done little growing up since graduating from college. Whiny, name-calling of a dean and apparently some professor. Have any of you who claim to attend WCL done anything constructive while there? If it's so bad for you you should have transferred - oh: grades weren't good enough to do so? Perhaps you ought to get your spineless selves out of senseless email exchanges and try to learn something.
And I met the Jaffe dean at a conference at our (crosstown) law school recently. Seemed like a decent guy, and was certainly knowledgeable about disability issues and the law. Based on the foregoing, I would think a number of you at WCL could benefit from that (is excessive diarrhea of the mouth recognized as a disability?).
"WCL is filled with angry feminazis with huge gender chips on their shoulders.
I once saw a female student make nasty comments to a man for holding an elevator door open for her (and non-female students as well, but nevermind that).
I hate people like that. Too bad that's a core part of WCL's culture."
THE AUDACITY!!!! ...talking about the beautiful law school I graduated from that way! Looks like all they admit now are whiny little brats who don't have anything better to do than complain about everything.
As a current WCL student whose grades unfortunately were not good enough to transfer out, I can empathize with a lot of the above comments.
I deeply regret attending this school. If I had realized my 3L course selection would only be "Gender Issue" and "Human Rights" courses I would have tried A LOT harder 1L to make sure I could transfer out.
Similarly, if I had realized my tuition would be going towards an endless parade of symposia on "human rights" and "international human rights" and "gender rights" and "people of color" rights, I never would have applied to the school in the first place.
As someone said above:
AT WCL, THE STUDENTS TRULY DO COME LAST.
Then you should have done a little more reading on the school. BTW, feel welcome to express your views about student of color in our classes. I hope I get a chance to hear you.
Hi Dean Jaffe !
Yes, you are right, I should have done a little more reading on the school. I read the course catalog, which listed a lot of courses that aren't offered. My mistake.
What should I have read to learn that a lot of courses are taught by people with really no qualifications for teaching, i.e. THE LIBRARIANS !!!! Funny, you don't list them as faculty. Is that because they graduated from places from New England School of Law ???
I don't have any views about students of color. Are they different from other students such that I should have views about them ?
So tell me, do most schools have such a large number of students who really and truly dislike their school ? Don't you think you have a problem, Houston ?
72% of the graduating class agrees that the school sucks. And those are the ones that didn't transfer out. Doesn't that tell you something ?
I go to WCL. I got good enough grades to transfer, but didn't. Part of the reason was that I liked the athmosphere - people are more chill and less competitive.
That said, the poster who commented that WCL student just can't wait to get offended is dead on. Lord knows when they graduate they will find the rest of the world ENDLESSLY offensive.
8:53 - You made a decision that will affect the rest of your life on the basis that the students at American "are more chill".
That is about the level of maturity of the student body. A large number of students take no substantive courses (Tax, BA, Wills) because there schedule doesn't have room for them. There upper level classes are all "Human Rights" seminars. And then they wonder why they are unemployable.
Who are these people: the ones acting as pimps for PMBR and BAR/BRI because they will get the course for free.
WCL rules. I love hooking up with chicks with hairy legs that smell like mustard.
Wow. That 10:57 comment doesn't make any sense but it's killing me!!
Oh, the domino effect of the suggestive, yet not at all pornographic, email forward...
Sometimes you just want your friend to see some hot chicks.