The University of Chicago’s upcoming Edmund Burke Society event about whether or not America needs to “raise the bar” to keep out immigrants is, alas, canceled. Karen Sloan reports that the Edmund Burke Society, the sponsors of the event, shelved the event due to an “unacceptably high risk of serious disturbance.” Even in defeat, they’ve managed another rhetorical jab to cast themselves as victims of a dangerous if purely hypothetical mob.
Not content to leave it at that, professor M. Todd Henderson, who was set to participate in the debate on the pro-immigration side, invoked the defense we’d all expected from the outset… “hey guys, can’t you take a joke?”
Henderson also emphasized that students unfamiliar with whip sheets may have misunderstood the hyperbolic style particular to the whip sheet form. “They’re designed to be funny, they’re designed to be provocative, to whip people, and their audience is members of the debating society, not people of the general public,” he said.
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Satire, the last refuge of a scoundrel. It’s the imagined “get out of jail free” card of everyone caught publicly airing their most offensive thoughts. At worst, the speaker gets points for the self-deprecating admission that they aren’t nearly as funny or clever as an actual satirist and at best, the listener shoulders the blame for “not getting it.” And yet, Professor Henderson blows up his own excuse in the span of a sentence. If whip sheets deserve a pass because they’re crafted to be funny to the exclusive audience of Edmund Burke Society members, it forces us to ask, “Why exactly do this organization’s students get their jollies from racist commentary?”
Because this isn’t the first incident where this organization has run to the “it’s just satire” well to justify their shenanigans. And while the administration continues its weak-willed dithering about how there are very fine people in the Burke Society, Chicago LSA president Sean Planchard has had enough of the cycle of “disrespect-satire!-inaction” and leveled a devastating critique of the administration that repeatedly enables it in a letter obtained by Above the Law (available in full here).
It should not have been LSA that played the organizing role for today’s Town Hall. The “responsibility to make the Law School a welcoming place for all members of our community[]” starts with you—its full-time leadership. And while I am glad to share in that responsibility as LSA President, I am afraid that the abdication of leadership from the administration in response to the vile rhetoric of the Edmund Burke Society has, by extension, made me complicit in the culture of willful blindness that has tolerated, if not encouraged, such divisive language.
“Abdication” captures the administration’s actions precisely. When Dean Miles writes, as he did regarding this incident, that the school’s mission is “best advanced in an environment of inclusion” then it should have an obligation to promote an environment of inclusion. Not only should the administration farm this responsibility out to the student body, as Planchard points out, the student body isn’t particularly well-equipped to deal with it:
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At a minimum, any action that the LSA Board does take will inevitably be on an insufficient scale, unsatisfactorily temporary, and unfairly open to claims of bias. What is more, LSA’s lack of institutional knowledge severely undercuts its ability to affect meaningful change. The metaphorical ball should be in your court.
Again, no one is faulting this group for holding “debates” on immigration policy or even espousing a “build the wall” mentality in those debates. They’re being faulted for whipping up interest by denigrating immigrants. That’s not academic freedom, that’s not tough policy inquiry, that’s just demagoguery.
Perhaps the most damning lines in Planchard’s letter comes at the end, when he cites the statement Dean Miles released about this incident back to him:
In conclusion, I will end where I began: I implore you both to take a stand for the community you ostensibly serve. One way or another, at least we will know what you think “the core values that are fundamental to our excellence” truly are.
That’s some serious “I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed” language. The sort of language that parents use to truly pierce kids to the core.
Unfortunately, in this case, it’s coming from a student to the professionals running the school.
(Planchard’s full letter reproduced on the next page…)
After Student Outcry, Chicago Law School Immigration Debate Is Spiked [Law.com]
Immigration Debate Postponed After Student Criticism, Claimed “Risk of Serious Disturbance” [Chicago Maroon]
Earlier: UChicago Law Responds To Race-Baiting Student Event With ‘Fine People On Both Sides’ Schtick
You Should Absolutely Read This Insane Law School Event Promo Calling Immigrants Toilet People
Joe Patrice is an editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.