Flame War At UChicago Law School

Law school fighting takes to Twitter.

You know the old adage, where there’s smoke there’s fire? That saying can be modified for the new media era, where there’re a bunch of tips there’s a story. And so we bring you a tale of infighting at the University of Chicago Law School that has gone public.

It all started innocently enough, the Law Students For Reproductive Justice invited a speaker to give a lunchtime talk and they’d even provide food (from the Curry House, which gets pretty good Yelp reviews). The invited guest was Dr. Willie J. Parker, who is on the faculty of Northwestern Medical School and a noted pro-choice advocate. The event was publicized as follows:

“I do abortions because I am a Christian,” Dr. Willie Parker stated in a 2014 interview with Esquire magazine. Join Law Students for Reproductive Justice for a lunch talk with Dr. Parker, one of the two doctors who travel to Jackson, Mississippi, to provide abortion services at the Pink House, the last remaining clinic in the state. Dr. Parker will discuss his work as a reproductive justice advocate, as well as his ability to reconcile this work with his Christian faith.

Certainly the potential for controversy exists, but that (plus offering lunch) is how you get butts in seats. And the controversy? Well, that followed.

There were reportedly some pointed questions during the allocated Q&A time, which given the topic seems fair enough. Then after the talk, one student, who we’ll call Pro-life Petey (who rumor has may or may not have tried to protest the event), went up to the speaker to continue with some questions. After they were done speaking, Dr. Parker offered his hand to Pro-Life Petey. And Pro-Life Petey refused to shake the speaker’s hand.

Burn.

But wait! There’s more. The kerfuffle spilled over to Twitter, because well, everything does these days. Pro-Life Petey tweeted:

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(1/2) I asked Miss. late-term abortionist Willie Parker how his reliance on his faith to justify killing innocents is any different than…

(2/2) …Islamic jihad. He got very defensive, as you might expect.

Awww Petey, nuance — it really isn’t your forte, now is it?

Then an attendee, let’s call her Lana Liberal, jumps into the fray.

Total mischaracterization. You disrespected the speaker & your fellow students. Please aim for productive discourse next time.

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Don’t worry though, Petey is ready with a bon mot.

hi [Lana Liberal]. I’m not going to shake hands with a mass murderer. Wouldn’t shake Osama or Saddam’s hand, either. Love, [Pro-Life Petey].

Too bad those dead men Petey cited can no longer be offended by that grievous insult. But Petey wasn’t done making moral platitudes.

this world is replete with evil. And I will not be complicit or make peace with it.

So that’s the line in the sand Petey simply will not cross. Shaking hands. Um, okay then?

From there the conversation largely moves to Facebook, where Petey claims privacy settings prevent him from seeing/responding to the discussion. That’s a fair enough point, but there is one comment too good not to post (and has the benefit of being true).

I can’t help but question the sincerity of someone who professes to believe that abortion is a “Holocaust” but who nevertheless spends substantial tuition $ subsidizing a university that provides abortions on-demand, for free, to students. If I believed that UChicago was subsidizing the murder of children, I would take the “prestige” hit and attend Georgetown or Notre Dame instead — but maybe that’s just me.

So maybe we’ve hit a snag in Pro-Life Petey’s moral hierarchy — law school rankings are just a smidge higher than the “evil” of abortion.

UPDATE (5/18/2015, 5:35 p.m.): An earlier version of this post redacted the names of the participants, but left their photo thumbnails visible. Even removing the names and using aliases was being kind on our part given that placing these stupid messages on a public forum made the whole Tweet ripe for publication AS IS. But… being nice never gets you very far in this world. Petey here is feeling rather sensitive about the picture he uses on a public profile. Out of a sense of benevolence, we’ve edited the tweets to remove images — but let this be a warning to always be conscious of what you put out there.

After Roe, UCMC gives choice [The Chicago Maroon]