Law Schools

UChicago Student President's Letter Eviscerates Administration Over Repeated Failures

Chicago Law's controversial event is canceled for now, but the student body president has some harsh words for school leadership.

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February 5, 2018, 1:21 PM CST

Dean Miles and Dean Bartlett:

By this time, the LSA Community Town Hall should have finished or be wrapping up. As my time and attention since last Wednesday has been dedicated to ensuring that the Town Hall was an unbiased, civil, and respectful event, I have not had the opportunity to share my personal opinions as student-body president. This letter is, finally, my opportunity to share.[1]

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.[2] 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.

It should not be LSA deciding the Law School’s official response to the Edmund Burke Society. On this point, the LSA Board is unanimous. And I think our position is more than reasonable. We do not think that students should be in the role of disciplining other students or sanctioning student groups. 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. Several substantial and concrete options have already been outlined by many concerned students, and I personally support all of them.[3]

The LSA Board is, however, prepared to act if the administration continues to fail to do so. If nothing is done beforehand, I plan to submit a resolution to the Board at LSA’s next meeting this Thursday to defund and deactivate the Edmund Burke Society based on its repeated and documented misconduct. To this end, I electronically polled the LSA Board over the weekend regarding sanctions. On the dual assumptions that (i) the administration does not act and (ii) the authority exists for LSA to sanction LSSOs at all, a substantial majority supports sanctioning the Edmund Burke Society.

The administration’s failure to act thus far compels me to search for authority on the limits of LSA’s capacity to sanction, and I believe some limited authority exists. As far as I can tell, LSA has discretionary authority to activate, deactivate, and determine the funding allocations for Law School Student Organizations (LSSOs).

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Regarding funding decisions, the 2017-2018 Student Organization Handbook (the “Student Handbook”) states “[f]unding for LSSOs is determined exclusively by the Law Students Association.”[4] This language is consistent with the direction given to me by Dean Bartlett over the summer—that discretion regarding LSSO funding is “given directly to LSA to utilize as it sees fit.”[5]

Regarding deactivation, the Student Handbook continues, “[s]tudents can apply to start a new LSSO or reactivate a previously inactive organization by emailing the request to the Law Students Association at [email protected].”[6] I infer from this language that LSA is the gatekeeper for activating new or previously-inactive LSSOs. And, if LSA is the gatekeeper for LSSO activation, it follows that it is also the gatekeeper for deactivation, even if that is not explicitly contemplated in the Student Handbook.

Based on this interpretation, the threshold questions of LSA’s “jurisdiction” and “authority” are both satisfied. Come Thursday, that is the interpretation for which I will advocate.

Any LSA action, however, will fail to sufficiently respond to the Edmund Burke Society’s misconduct. In practical terms, even if LSA claws back the $600 allocated to the Edmund Burke Society and formally deactivates it, these moves will be largely symbolic. But symbols, like language, are important. While it may not be a simple matter to determine where “the line” is, it has most certainly been crossed now as it has repeatedly been crossed by this organization during my tenure at the law school.

I am sensitive to this University’s commitment to freedom of expression, “the principle that debate or deliberation may not be suppressed because the ideas put forth are thought by some or even by most members of the University community to be offensive, unwise, immoral or wrong-headed.”[7] By no means do I believe that I have the authority to stop the members of the Edmund Burke Society from behaving so shamefully. I hope they will recognize the collateral damage of their rhetoric; I hope they will apologize for it; and, I hope they will choose to proactively work with the wider Law School community to repair it.

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However, with the modicum of authority my peers have afforded me, I believe the symbolic actions I propose are the right ones to take in light of the derogatory language used that denigrated a substantial part of our community. I am certain you agree that you—the administration—have the power and the responsibility to do much more.

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.[8]

In the meantime, LSA and I will continue to do the best we can. But, we will no longer remain silently complicit by doing nothing.

Sincerely,

Sean Planchard
Law Students Association President
JD Candidate, 2018
The University of Chicago Law School

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[1] I should state at the outset that this letter expresses only my views and not those of the LSA Board in its entirety.
[2] See Dean Miles’ Email “A Message from the Dean” from February 2nd, 2018.
[3] See Nabihah Maqbool’s Email “Access to collection of Edmund Burke Statements, and next steps”, Item (3).
[4] See UChicago Law 2017-2018 Student Organization Handbook, at 17.
[5] See Dean Bartlett’s Email “Student Fee Information” from July 18, 2017.
[6] See Student Handbook, at 5.
[7] Final Report of the Committee on Freedom of Expression, at 2.
[8] See Dean Miles’ Email “A Message from the Dean” from February 2nd, 2018.

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