University of Chicago Law School Listserv: The Dean of Students Weighs In
Things just seem to be getting more and more draconian over that the University of Chicago Law School. Yesterday we reminded you of the school’s attempts to shut down internet access in class. The day before that we mentioned that some student was calling for an end to video games on personal laptops during lectures.
Today, the UofC Dean of Students has piped up with thoughts about the appropriate use for a law school listserv:
It has come to my attention that there may be some confusion among our student body about the proper use of our student listservs, and now is an ideal time to clarify this information. For your review, I have attached the guidelines for the use of the LawAnnounce listserv. You will notice that the LawAnnounce listserv is meant for informal announcements that may be of general interest to the law school community, and serves as an electronic bulletin board of sorts. While the list is monitored by our administrative staff, the Law School generally does not restrict content on this site with few exceptions. For example, while students are not permitted to use the listserv for “political commentary,” students may be permitted to invite others to a political rally. (*See restrictions below.) The listserv is not meant to be a discussion board, however, on any political issue. Therefore, rebuttals or commentary about a posting should be directed to the poster and/or to the administration, but not to the listserv. This kind of back and forth discussion is more appropriate for a blog and not for this forum. Similarly, any offensive language, including the use of racial slurs, is strictly prohibited on LawAnnounce.
ATL would love to take credit for the “ideal” timing of this letter. But sadly, it appears that politics made this message necessary.
After the jump, more stern warnings from the Dean of Students that are promptly disregarded.
For some reason, UofC’s administration really desires the level of information control that the Chinese government enjoys:
Please note that “information on either list should not be shared (forwarded to, or copied to) anyone outside of the University of Chicago Law School community without express permission from the original poster.”
It’s funny how legal sounding threats that have no basis in the law don’t tend to work against law students.
Read the full letter below. And note that “guidelines” are nothing more than guidelines.
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO LAW SCHOOL — OPEN LETTER — APPROPRIATE USE OF THE STUDENT LIST SERV
Dear Students,
It has come to my attention that there may be some confusion among our student body about the proper use of our student listservs, and now is an ideal time to clarify this information. For your review, I have attached the guidelines for the use of the LawAnnounce listserv. You will notice that the LawAnnounce listserv is meant for informal announcements that may be of general interest to the law school community, and serves as an electronic bulletin board of sorts. While the list is monitored by our administrative staff, the Law School generally does not restrict content on this site with few exceptions. For example, while students are not permitted to use the listserv for “political commentary,” students may be permitted to invite others to a political rally. (*See restrictions below.) The listserv is not meant to be a discussion board, however, on any political issue. Therefore, rebuttals or commentary about a posting should be directed to the poster and/or to the administration, but not to the listserv. This kind of back and forth discussion is more appropriate for a blog and not for this forum. Similarly, any offensive language, including the use of racial slurs, is strictly prohibited on LawAnnounce.
Also note that LawAnnounce is distinguishable from our LSAOrgs listserv. The LSAOrgs listserv should be used by student organizations to announce events that are open to the entire law school community. No more than two (2) announcements per event (an initial announcement and a reminder) should be posted on the listserv.
Please note that “information on either list should not be shared (forwarded to, or copied to) anyone outside of the University of Chicago Law School community without express permission from the original poster.”
Students are automatically subscribed to both listservs when they matriculate, but may unsubscribe at any time. In addition, any student who violates these guidelines will be given a warning, and may lose their posting privileges on the listserv.
These listservs are wonderful resources for our community, and I urge all of you to continue to use these resources responsibly.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Best,
Dean Richardson
*In pertinent part, the guidelines are as follows …
The LawAnnounce listserv should NOT be used for:
1) Excessive event advertising (no more than 2 posts per event)
2) Postings that encourage unsafe drinking (i.e. refer to getting “wasted,” etc.), are sexually explicit, use racial or other slurs, personally attacks a member of the law school community (including professors and administrators), or are otherwise inappropriate in any way will be restricted.
3) Rebuttals to previous postings you found offensive or about which you disagree (respond to the poster individually)
4) Political commentary
5) News stories that you think are interesting
Michele Baker Richardson
Dean of Students
Earlier: War on Laptops
University of Chicago Law Student Hates Nintendo
(67) Comments
Comments
First!
second
second
KICK ME IN THE KIDNEY!
I saw a CWT NY 05 female associate at a Donkey Show once.
_________________________
This post has nothing to do with CWT.
Dean says LawAnnounce listserv for law announcements, not flame wars. This is news?
How incredibly lame. With how boring the general populace of law students is, often times the moments I feel closest with my fellow students are during email flame wars.
And I urge you all to lose your pants!
more confirmation that U of C is where fun goes to die
BITCH SPREAD DEM BUTTCHEEKS SO I CAN LISTSERV THOSE JUICY INSIDES!
Dean Richardson is a fucking douche. We should all get wasted and fornicate on his front lawn.
But i guess its ok with Messrs. Lat and Mystal to keep blatantly anti-semitic posts up on Abovethelaw. Would their attitude be different if it was another group that was attacked? Hmmm. I wonder.
Elie,
Who on earth would care about this, other than perhaps UC law kids, who got the message directly.
Although I suspect even UC kids don't care. Hell, I suspect the Dean does not really care.
12:
Agreed. Unless they are personally affected, they will permit egregious anti-Semitic remarks to remain.
12 -- Please shut up. You are killing my buzz with your incredibly nasally whinny voice.
Coke on a Thursday
Hey Elie, the bathroom on the first floor of AU Law is out of paper towels. Please confirm and post story on same.
The better story is the retarded postings that led to the warning. Fag Palestine supporters and fag Israel supporters fagged up my inbox.
Thank god I go to UVA where students have some class and dignity.
1L
Faggy middle-easterners of all religions please fight your land war in asia and not here on my nice happy blog.
Not funny #5. Where do you think you are, the Golan Heights?
I don't see why this is worthy of a post. The Dean isn't punishing people for participating in the flame war, just reminding them of the purpose of the listserv. I (and a lot of other students) don't really care what certain people think about the particular issue, and if we did we could start our own listserv for that purpose. Of course I don't really care about this whole thing since I just delete these emails, but I could see how it would get annoying. In fact, I just forgot why I'm even posting this comment.
21 = liar and probably a racist
12 - They have left up anti-gay, racist and sexist comments which covers Lat, Elie and Kash. Go inform yourself before you open your mouth, asshat.
KICK ME IN THE KIDNEY!
18/douche - you might go there now, but just wait until grades come out.
KICK 12 IN HIS GAY KIDNEY!
16 is funny...
BITCH SPREAD DEM BUTTCHEEKS SO I CAN LISTSERV THOSE JUICY INSIDES!
Watch this CBS news video to see the nature of Jews http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev6ojm62qwA
The Pope calls Gaza a concentration camp. http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSL8378047
Jews have a reputation which precedes them, one established through thousands of years of such despicable behavior. This despicable behavior exists not just in Gaza, but in your dealings with them at your law firm.
16 - Back when I went to AU the bathroom on the first floor was always out of paper towels, it was no big deal.
who cares? some boring memo. so what?!
#29:
See all of human history for the incredibly violent, facist, and animalistic nature of Islam.
32, you should fight back against 29 by posting your own youtubes and articles.
29,
In my mind, I am pissing on your mother's uncovered face while she clutches a Koran that I am shitting on. How does that make you feel?
Lamest post ever. NEXT!!
29, how about you read the articles you are posting. The Pope didn't call Gaza a concentration camp. Some Cardinal made an off-the-cuff comparison. I really doubt that this comment was in any way sanctioned by the Pope himself.
34,
that is kind of hot, actually.
Don't feed the trolls!!! Even if you are Jewish and highly pissed off at their antics.
The Pope posted a racist comment on U Chicago's listserv? I am confused.
Organized religion is for the mentally challenged.
Everyone stop responding to 29. If we let him hijack this thread he will just keep doing it. He has done this several times over the last few days. How about we just don't give him the satisfaction? Agreed?
The Pope is Jewish now?
Way to let AQ win 41.
#40 is ,oc, tcr.
I want a friendly hand release from my secretary.
Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one
John Lennon = Homo Hamas poet-warrior terrorist
Elie - Judging by the comments, not just on this story but in everything you've posted over the past few weeks, you've succeeded in finding a readership in your own image, short, fat, slow, inarticulate and not too bright. You have a real sense for the non-story, the garbled story, and the bad joke. Advertisers must love you. I thought it couldn't get worse than Lat, but then I also thought the Cowboys would make the playoffs. Strange times.
The Pope is a Beatle?
this is news? please?
Elie is the pope?
Elie ate the Pope b/c he is racist?
It would serve the schmuck well to remember where the tuition money comes from.
It would serve the schmuck well to remember where the tuition money comes from.
@18. But see Dandelion; Foxfields.
I'm NOT first!!!
If only Optimus Prime regulated the comments . . . If only.
w w w . h a a r e t z . c o m
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Last update - 02:21 08/01/2009
Israel's PR war
By Gideon Lichfield
It had to happen at some point. The army attacks a civilian building identified as a source of fire; dozens of civilians are killed, and what little sympathy Israel enjoyed in whatever war it's currently fighting evaporates. It happened in Qana during the Second Lebanon War, and yesterday a school in the Jabalya refugee camp became a global symbol of indiscriminate Israeli aggression.
When these things happen, Israel is quick to respond on the public-relations front. It didn't take long before we foreign correspondents started getting text messages from the Israel Defense Forces on our cell phones. One said that the school was targeted because it was "a source of mortar fire." Another informed us that video footage was available of rockets being fired from another UNRWA school several months earlier. A third told us the names of the Hamas operatives who were killed along with the children and mothers cowering nearby.
I frequently get asked by Israelis, "why aren't we winning the PR war? Why don't people understand that this is what we have to do?" Many are convinced that there is something wrong with Israeli hasbara (public advocacy), that the spokespeople aren't effective enough, or that the Palestinians have a huge and demonically efficient propaganda machine.
When I hear this I have to explain that Israeli hasbara is so sophisticated that there is still no adequate word for it in English; that some of Israel's spokespeople could talk the hind legs off a donkey and then persuade the donkey to dance the hora, and that the Palestinians barely even know what a spokesman is, let alone be able to provide one who is available when he needs to be and knows anything about what is actually going on. So why isn't Israel winning the PR war?
Partly, of course, it's because the numbers are against it. Six hundred Palestinians dead versus nine Israelis, as of today's figures: There's just no way to make that proportion look pretty. Retired generals can drone on all they like about what "proportionality" really means in the laws of war, ambassadors can helpfully point out that many more Germans were killed than British in the Second World War, but these are theoretical notions; on television, what looks bad looks bad. (Nor do I really buy the argument that if Israel's casualties were more visibly bloody - if, say, the media showed the gory pictures of the few people who have been hit by Qassams instead of holding them back to keep the home front from getting agitated - then you could counter the stream of barbaric images from Gaza. There's just no competition.)
But the deeper reason is this: Israeli hasbara is perpetually trying to answer the wrong question: "Why is this justified?" Of course, it's natural for either side in a conflict to try to explain why it, and not the other side, has the moral high ground. But, especially in a conflict where both sides have been claiming the moral high ground for decades, nobody in the outside world is all that interested. From a foreign correspondent's point of view, it makes for boring journalism: "The Israelis said this, but the Palestinians said that." And since we're all studiously trying to be "neutral," we'll always balance your view against theirs; so the fact that you make more of an effort to explain than they do doesn't really matter.
The question the foreign media really wants answered is invariably not "who's in the right?" but "how will this round of fighting improve the overall situation?" And on that point, Israel never has a convincing argument. Given the country's long history of engaging in wars that kill many more of its enemies than its own citizens but only buy a few months or years of calm, it's a tough call to explain how this latest escapade will change the strategic balance, bring peace and prevent the need for another such bloodbath further down the line. Often that's because there is in fact no good reason: Wars are fought for short-term gains. And it doesn't help that with the constant competition for power within Israeli coalitions, it's easy to interpret this war, like many others, as a political imperative, not a strategic one.
And so when the question the world is asking is not "who's right?" but "what works?" the consistent impression Israel leaves is that it kills people because, at best, it simply doesn't have any better ideas, and at worst, because some Israeli leader is trying to get the upper hand on one of his or her rivals. And no amount of hasbara can make that look good.
Gideon Lichfield, until recently The Economist's Jerusalem correspondent, will be moving to the weekly's New York bureau.
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Funny how the U-C BLSA never got punished for excluding white students from their events. I bet they can still use the listserv to advertise future activities, despite violating U-C policy. The double standard must be nice.
Also, 58, please try to make the "close window" text more function in your comments so I can ignore them with greater ease in the future.
Girls in my sorority used the listserv all the time and it was no big deal.
--FlawLESS
seriously? this is what you think the story is out of the ridiculous listserv thread that this email responded to? did someone not forward you the email posted to the listserv that let informed the lawschool community that asians cant be jewish?
59,
Good point, but why would any self-respecting white or asian person want to go to an NLSA event anyway?
I watched "The Gang Bang Girls of CWT NY '05" on my laptop during class all the time and nobody ever complained so why get bent ouf of shape about some dude fighting off the zombie apocalypse during some boring LS lecture?
11,
You are both disgusting and stupid.
Dean Richardson is female.
This post is dumb. Every law school with a listserve probably has a similar policy in place. It would be awesome if ATL had the power to stir up more drama at U of C, but so far it seems not to be working. Get back to harassing the firms.
Please take down the anti-semitic comments on this blog and ban 29's IP address. His or her commentst has nothing to do with law and is just bigoted.
I AM A 1L AND DONT GIVE A SHIT! TEACH ME SOMETHING NEW TEACH ME SOMETHING NEWWWW