Li-ann Thio

Earlier this week, we discussed the discovery of potentially anti-Semitic graffiti in Vanderbilt Hall, the home of NYU Law School. Yesterday Dean Richard Revesz issued a forceful response to the law school community via email, condemning the graffiti as “highly offensive and hurtful” and declaring that “[s]uch hateful conduct is deplorable and has no place […]

Yesterday we posted a letter from the NYU Law School chapter of the ACLU to Dean Richard Revesz. In its letter, the ACLU requested that a “town hall” meeting to discuss the controversial visiting professorship of Dr. Li-Ann Thio go forward as planned, even though Dr. Thio has canceled her visit to NYU. We’ve learned […]

Jeez. Even we are sick of this story — and that’s saying a lot. But apparently some folks think, despite the endless navel-gazing and handwringing over the (canceled) visit of Dr. Li-ann Thio to NYU Law School, that there is more to be said here.

Above the Law’s commitment to bring you all of the latest details about the crazy saga of Dr. Li-ann Thio is unmatched. On Wednesday night, we broke the news that Dr. Thio decided against teaching at NYU Law School this fall. Now we have Dr. Thio’s official statement explaining her decision to withdraw as a […]

Details are still sketchy, but word on the street is that Dr. Li-ann Thio will not be coming to NYU Law School this fall. It appears that Dr. Thio has voluntarily decided not to serve as a visiting professor. As many of you know, Dr. Thio has been heavily criticized by some in the NYU […]

There’s a minor new development in the saga of Dr. Li-ann Thio, the NYU visiting law professor whose views on homosexuality have made her the legal academic everyone loves to hate. It’s an online petition, addressed to the NYU law school and university administration, expressing “deep dissatisfaction with New York University School of Law’s appointment […]

We sometimes like to think of the figures we write about in these pages as characters in a novel. Viewed in this way, Dr. Li-ann Thio, the visiting NYU law professor who apparently isn’t a fan of gay rights, is one of the most compelling we’ve come across recently. We have a weakness for strong, […]

Or close to nothing. That’s the likely enrollment in Human Rights Law in Asia, the course that Dr. Li-ann Thio, the visiting professor from Singapore with controversial views on gay rights, is scheduled to teach at NYU Law School this fall. An NYU law student reports: I think there’s a point everyone is missing about […]

When last we checked in on the saga of Dr. Li-ann Thio, the incoming NYU Law visiting professor who equated anal sex to drinking by shoving a straw up your nose, Dean Richard Revesz was defending the invitation extended to her. But over the weekend, an information technology professional who works for NYU law (and […]

NYU Law gays, consider yourselves warned: Dr. Li-ann Thio is not afraid of you. The outspoken professor, who vehemently opposed decriminalizing gay sex as a member of the Singapore parliament, is ready to rumble: We can be united in commitment to this principle [of academic freedom], without slavishly bowing to a demanded uniformity or dogma […]

Time for a quick follow-up on Monday’s post about NYU Law School’s controversial decision to invite Dr. Li-ann Thio, an outspoken proponent of criminalizing gay sex, to teach a course on human rights in the fall. The post generated almost 300 comments, many of them quite thoughtful — like this one: I am a gay […]

Academic freedom is a beautiful thing, essential to our nation’s celebrated system of higher education. And, to borrow the words of Dick Cheney on gay marriage, “freedom means freedom for everyone” — including people whose ideas we might not like, or even find repugnant. How far should academic freedom extend? That’s an issue being faced […]