Food, Law Schools

FedSoc v. ACS, Round 2704: In Re Diners & Dashers

Do we need to engage in rulemaking to stop people who dine and dash from law school events?

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One of the best things about my job is when I get to speak to law students on campus. I like talking to people, and I like dodging bullets from law school deans — it’s really the only exercise I get.

If you are kind of enough to pay for my travel and invite me to speak to your student group, I really don’t care if people leave in the middle of my talk. I know that sometimes students come to these things to grab a free lunch and then cut out, but even if you come to hear me for five minutes, I’m appreciative. The way I see it:

  • A. If I’m not an entertaining enough person to hold people’s attention for an hour, that’s on me. That’s my fault. It’s not like people walk out of a Louis C.K. performance five minutes in. I’m not as good as he is, but again, that’s my problem, not yours.
  • B. Five minutes is a REALLY LONG TIME. That’s as long as a Saturday Night Live monologue. It’s longer than the iconic Simpsons opening. You can attempt three forward passes and a punt in five minutes. You can kill a man with your bare hands in five minutes. I would love to be able to give everybody a free lunch who spent five minutes with one of my articles. My traffic would instantly quadruple and I’d be a rich man (mainly from the replication and teleportation technologies, but still). If you are willing to listen to me for even five minutes, thank you.

Of course, not everybody thinks like me. Speaking in front of people is a fundamentally egotistical adventure, and egomaniacs are liable to become butthurt when you get up and walk out in the middle of one of their sentences. They expect you to stay and hear all the details about how they sat with Arthur Miller masturbating to Nancy Grace reading the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

And so one law school student organization is trying to do something about these diners and dashers, while another one thinks people should chill out with the rule making. See if you can guess which ones…

At Yale, the Federalist Society is trying to “change the culture” around student organized lunchtime events. They want to make people stay for the duration of the event. Here’s the memo they posted on the Yale Wall:

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Dear Friends,

Over the past two years, FedSoc has received periodic complaints from the speakers we invite–some less subtle than others–about the number of people who come to our events, eat, and then ghost after 10-30 minutes. As you might imagine, this kind of thing tends to hurt their feelings. I don’t think this is a problem unique to FedSoc, so I am sure that those of you who run other organizations have had these uncomfortable conversations as well. This behavior also requires us to order more food than necessary to feed our actual attendees, drawing the (understandable) ire of Sachi, who cannot understand why we are spending so much on food….

We’re hoping to keep this up, starting events on time, and ending them before the next class period starts. So at least the next few FedSoc events, we ask that if you come, you stay until it is finished. In return, we promise to do everything we can to make sure you’re on time for class.

I’m really not trying to guilt trip here, as I myself have done some scavenging in my day. Haven’t we all? But I do think this is one of the more unfortunate norms at the law school, and we’re long overdue for a change. We hope that other organizations (in particular ACS) will join us in this effort, but given the quantity of food FedSoc currently provides the law school, we also think we’re in the best position to make the first move. Unilateral action is, after all, our way.

If this new system doesn’t work, I’ll follow the lead of my brothers in congress, throw in the towel, and we’ll go back to the old regime. But we’d at least like to give this one a go. We appreciate your help in making this (albeit small) change that we think will make the law school a better, more civilized, place.

Your caterer-in-chief,

[Fed Socking Stuffer]

As I’ve said, I think that whatever Nick-Saban-facist level speakers are bitching to FedSoc have their own problems. BE MORE INTERESTING, and people will stay after they’ve finished eating.

That said… FedSoc does have a point insofar as FedSoc lunches are the best lunches in the free lunch game. They have money, because conservative lawyers donate back to FedSoc in their devious and wildly successful plan to poison the minds of young lawyers with conservative ideals by giving them free lunches. Wealthy liberal lawyers give free lunches to actual hungry people. But it’s entirely reasonable for FedSoc to not want to feed half the law school community if they are not even going to stay for the event. It’s like what the Catholic Church does in third-world countries. Do you want food, maybe some medicine? Come over here, we have plenty! Now let me tell you a little something about a nice man named Jesus.

Other student organizations at Yale quickly agreed with the Federalist Society and joined their cause. But the American Constitution Society, God love ’em, just couldn’t quite bring itself to say, “Yeah, good idea conservatives.” Here’s their email:

ACS, concurring in part, dissenting in part.

If you leave an event early, that’s on you. It’s rude to the speaker, it disrespects their time, and you look like a jerk. That said, I’m troubled by the notion that student groups “gift” programming and food to students, only to have the covenant rudely torn asunder by early departures.

The money that pays for these lunches comes from the students in the first place (check your tuition bill). YLS in turn allocates this money to student groups to put on programming. It’s not student groups’ money, it’s your money.* See generally redistribution. If you want to leave early, your innate sense of shame and decency should stop you, but ACS certainly won’t.

ACS will continue to prioritize public, high-quality events for the entire YLS student body. While we of course would love for you to stay for the whole event, and while we always endeavor to start on time and end early, we don’t see the need for an arbitrary and capricious rule to keep you in your seat. We won’t shame you, nor will we ever condition our food programming on your capacity for stillness.

*Unless you have secret conservative benefactors.

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Let me translate that into more common lib-speak, in case all of that Yale-ness obscured the point they were making:

Dear Jackboots,

We are not surprised that the Federalist Society moves to destroy individual freedoms the moment those liberties become inconvenient for the rich and powerful. However, the so-called “takers” in this society still have a right to eat without being patronized.

Our food sucks anyway, but all are welcome to share in our stale bounty. We do not believe in making hungry people: submit to drug testing, pledge oaths, or comport themselves according to anachronistic strictures that make false distinctions between “subsidies” and “handouts.” Isn’t it a much bigger problem that, in the richest country on Earth, at the greatest law school in that country, there are people who are mildly peckish at lunchtime? Instead of obsessing over who might be getting an undeserved free lunch, we instead want to empower all lunchers to make their own decisions about what to do with their time, whether they are desperate for food, or lucky enough (through accidents of birth) to be able to afford any lunch they desire.

The struggle continues,
ACS

Man, that felt good. I’m going to go donate to a soup kitchen today… s**t, I mean ACS. I’m going to give money to a law school organization instead of directly trying to help poor people. Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Give a man a lawyer, and one day we might have an environment where fish are plentiful and don’t give you mercury poisoning.

Ah, good times. All joking aside though, FedSoc is clearly right. Here’s how one Wall poster put it:

Once again, the right and the left have all but agreed, and yet have found a way to fight about it. God bless America.

ACS: Quit splitting hairs. You are saying the same thing that FedSoc is.

FedSoc: Stop trying to trick us all into agreeing with you. Originalism is still stupid.

Everyone else: Dining-and-dashing makes you a schmuck. Don’t be a schmuck.

Sincerely,
Canada

I think the best way to solve this is for the FedSoc and ACS to come together and invite Lat and I up to Yale to give a talk about the effects of free pizza on law school applications. Lat can greedily share his delicious FedSoc pulled pork sandwiches only with those who agree with him, while I’ll give out my ACS-provided saltine crackers and Easy Cheese to all who ask.

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