Law Professors, Law Schools, Racism

That One Op-Ed By Those Two Law Professors

What, exactly, were these law professors really trying to say? LawProfBlawg has an idea...

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I read the recent op-ed by Professor Amy Wax of Penn Law and Professor Larry Alexander of USD Law. I read it more than once.  Then I vomited, and tried to translate what it really said…

Paying the Price of the Breakdown of Our Frontal Lobes

By Two Law Professors Who Want to Be Popular for Writing an Op-Ed

Too few Americans are qualified for the jobs that are available. Look at us, we have tenure and we’re writing this. Beyond that example, male labor force participation rates are really low. We won’t give you female labor force participation rates because then we’d have to admit we’re not labor economists. Just remember, correlation means causation. And we mentioned them in relation to our central point, which we’ll get to in two more paragraphs!

Opioid use is widespread. You’ve probably had some just trying to follow the train of thought we’re laying here, derailed so many times like Amtrak. Oh, and homicidal violence (distinguished from nonhomicidal violence and homicidal nonviolence) is high. Children are being born out of wedlock! Can you imagine? Of course, we’ll ignore the prior cultural norm of shotgun weddings. We don’t need history. Also, college students lack basic skills, such as structuring paragraphs that make sense. Some of their paragraphs seem just like ours.

Now, rather than actually go and develop expertise in any of these topics, we’d rather just say bourgeois culture’s demise caused it.

While we’re too busy to define what bourgeois culture is (although it sounds really neat, doesn’t it?), it told us what we were expected to do. Get married before having children! Work hard! Don’t be idle! Work for free to suck up to your employer. Be blindly patriotic. Don’t think. Be obedient to authority, just like Milgram taught us.  If we just did these things, life would be so much better (if we just ignore basic labor economics, psychology, laws such as the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and perhaps anything complex). Just hop on our DeLorean and let’s go back in time.

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We could all do it. If we all just bought in. We’d know our place. Our precepts “could be followed by people of all backgrounds and abilities, especially when backed up by almost universal endorsement.” Yes. You can follow the basic cultural precepts that helped maintain racism, sexism, and homophobia! Why, just know your place! (Law students: We aren’t talking to you. We’re very open-minded people! You’ll love our classes!)

Now, not everyone abided by these norms. There were rebels and hypocrites.  We’ll just lump those distinct types of people together so you understand that we think rebels are hypocrites. Even deviants rarely disavowed the cultural norm we’re seeking to return to from the safety of our ivory-padded tower.  Try not to think of any historically relevant advancement made, say, during the late 1960s. Also, don’t think about any major civil rights leaders. You might think we’re implying that they were rebels and hypocrites. But please take our classes, law students! We’re simply delightful!

We’re not saying everything was perfect. The very norm we advocate was based upon racism. But here we’ll say: We hate racism and sexism (although see our “discussion” of the Pill and how we list it as an evil all the while listing children born out of wedlock as an evil, too)! Here’s our gentle pivot in case we’re accused of embracing racism: “However, steady improvements for women and minorities were underway even when bourgeois norms reigned [we say in a completely deluded and ahistorical fashion that undermines the power and force of the civil rights movement]. Banishing discrimination and expanding opportunity does not require the demise of bourgeois culture. Quite the opposite: The loss of bourgeois habits seriously impeded the progress of disadvantaged groups.” Except for the Pill: We’ve already mentioned that helped cause the horrible mess we’re in. Wait. We’re confused. Regardless, we don’t need to provide any evidence of this in an op-ed. We’ll use words like “of course” to demonstrate how it is obvious as you put on your skis to follow us down this slippery slope!

Oh, where were we? Yes, back to the cultural script we should be following, the very script that would have removed one of us as coauthor to this piece because labor markets were different. What made things bad? Vietnam. The Pill.  Higher education. It just created a bunch of juvenile delinquents! Sure, one is a war, the other is birth control (and much more), and one pays for our jobs, but you get our gist. If only the Pill and education hadn’t caused all this ruckus! Law students: We really value your education!

Here, we’ll pause again to mention Dr. Martin Luther King and simplify his teachings to a point where you’ll just cringe. Remember, we’re not being racist here, law students!  And please take our classes! We’re all just SO obsessed with race. We wonder if it has anything to do with all those people being killed by police? Or any of those basic statistics about labor markets we’ve failed to read. Better not mention those here!  Too complicated, and we want to return to a simpler time where everyone knows their place. Nothing inherently wrong, racist, or sexist about that!

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People who have influence over culture just abandoned the good norms of good ol’ fashioned 1950s culture. Respect. Civility. Adult values. By adult we mean the values of people you would respect in the 1940s and 1950s. Wink.  Rebelling against those giants were academics (and we certainly aren’t that!), writers (also not that), and the lamestream media. Oh, and oppressed people. But we don’t need to mention that.

You have to know bourgeois culture is the best! Let us show you once again how we aren’t insinuating anything racist by mentioning the primitive culture of the Plains Indians. They just don’t fit in to today’s needs!  Neither do single-parent households (even the ones escaping domestic violence — stand by your man). And we’re not fans of rap either.  We’re not sure the difference between that and hip-hop either. Regardless, let us just pile on that some Hispanic immigrants don’t fit in, either. You know the ones. By the way, remember, law students: take our classes! We’ll “educate” you.

These groups are simply incompatible with free market economies!  Sure, we didn’t do any research here. A labor economist might tell us something about the interrelationship between racial discrimination and wages and how that distorts the free market, but nah. We’re on a roll of slogans here! If the upper-middle (and mostly white) class doesn’t take over soon, things are going to get worse for everyone. In a way we just feel deep down. Hey law students: Take our classes!

Should we start yet another paragraph like 1Ls who were never taught how to write a final exam answer? Yes! Of course! People who follow the old precepts never use opioids, and regardless of education or affluence, aren’t poor. If we did all that we’re saying, assuming you could follow through the ahistorical, afactual jingoism that is our op-ed, we would be a better country. We’d all know our places. And that would be better for us law professors screaming for attention.

And restoring the bourgeois culture to its rightful seat of power will require that those culture fascists (and we’re talking to you academics who insist on facts and historical accuracy) stop their whining. Leave that to us as we write this op-ed.

Hey law students: Don’t forget! Take our classes! Also, you’ll love our singing, to be found here.

Earlier: Law Students Seek To Ban Professor From Teaching 1Ls
Dog Whistling ‘Bourgeois Values’ Op-Ed Gets Thorough Takedown From Other Law Professors
Law Professors Say White ’50s Culture Is Superior, Other Racist Stuff

LawProfBlawg is an anonymous professor at a top 100 law school. You can see more of his musings here.  He is way funnier on social media, he claims.  Please follow him on Twitter (@lawprofblawg) or Facebook. Email him at lawprofblawg@gmail.com.

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