While browsing Above the Law in class the other day, I came across another gem of an article by Elie Mystal. Apparently, some 1L at U-Miami was whining about her horrible law school experience. The remedy? Someone drew up a student bill of rights.
No. Seriously.
And now it’s being voted on by election at U-Miami Law. It’s seriously the saddest, whiny, unrealistic thing I’ve ever seen. Way to go U-Miami Law.
The following are the proposed rights and critiques of them. Initially, I thought I was just embittered because I went to a boot camp law school and was the only one (other than my classmates) who thought this was stupid. But no, the amount of mockery aimed at this atrocity on the internet has convinced me otherwise.
1) The right of the students to be given an unbiased legal education shall not be infringed.
It’s the first right in this U-Miami brain child and I already want to take an overpriced flight and punch this person in this face. An unbiased legal education? Seriously? When is education ever unbiased? For anyone that’s even been through grade-school (even a fancy private one) it is blatantly apparent to them that inevitably their educator’s biases and prejudices leak into their education. It’s part of what can make some educators so great and some educators so crappy. If you just shove the material down your student’s throats, it doesn’t go well. Teaching, be it good or bad, requires giving part of yourself to your students. It can inspire them. Or it can inspire them to hate you. Until we have robots spitting out statutes and precedent, legal education will never be unbiased. So unless U-Miami has a bunch of money to drop on said robots—and maybe they do with how out of control law school tuition is these days—this isn’t happening. Congratulations, U-Miami. Your list is already stupid.
2) No student shall be required to purchase course materials whose content does not appear on any graded assignment.
Look, we all hate how much textbooks cost, especially legal ones. But the fact is that most of the stuff assigned (at least in my experience) inevitably shows up on a graded assignment—namely your final exam. Of course, this might be because the school I went to is far superior to U-Miami or whatever. Who knows? But if your professor says buy it, you buy. They’re like drill sergeants people. You don’t argue with them; you follow their command. If you were looking for a learning environment that fosters equality between professors and students and cooperative learning, you should have gone to grad school for Peace Studies. You are in the wrong place and might want to consider dropping out. Now. Before you owe some ungodly amount of money and realize you hate the future you’re racing towards.
3) The right of students to take exams that proportionally cover the material discussed in class and presented in the required reading shall not be contravened.
“Proportionally cover the material discussed in class and presented in the reading?” Look, once it’s assigned or covered in class, its fair game. Who cares what the proportions are? You’re responsible for all of it! And this isn’t just a law school thing—this happens in college and even in high school. I don’t think it’s asking too much to ask a student to recall something they were assigned in the reading. Or in class. What if the test is mostly what was in the reading and not what the professor talked about in class? Rule 13. Get over it, counselor.
4) The rights of students to review any exam within a reasonable amount of time after the grade of the exam is released shall not be violated; nor shall the right to review the exam with the professor in person be violated, as long as a meeting with the professor is reasonably feasible.
This is probably the “right” I have the least beef with. Why? Because it is reasonable. Although, let’s be honest, this might cause a multitude of students to seek to review their exams. And for some professors and adjuncts, they don’t have time to break down an exam for 100+ students. Also, there’s a lot of “reasonably feasible” and “reasonable attempts.” Oh, legalese. You make me a sad law student.
5) Students shall not have to wait an unreasonable amount of time to receive their grade on any graded assignment.
Professors are busy. Classes are big (or so I hear; my school is pretty small). Things get backed up. Even so, I get the frustration at not having your grades. One quarter my professor who went on sabbatical still got his grades in later than every other professor. But it’s a fact of law school life. Sucks to be us. Go to a different grad program.
6) The right of a student to receive a clear explanation from the professor as to how the student received their grade on any graded assignment and the right of students to submit all graded assignments anonymously shall not be infringed.
Anonymous grading is great in theory. But does it work in practice? I’m sure at every school there is some professor who everyone knows doesn’t anonymously grade. There’s at least one at my school. And I kind of get where that prof is coming from—I think how much you try in class and who attentive you are should factor into your grades, at least a bit. As for a clear explanation from the professor as to your grade, good luck. Some professors are really straight forward about the way they grade, others are vague and ambiguous. Maybe they didn’t like your word choice. Maybe they didn’t think you got the concept across. Asking for precision and clarity in a vague and highly subjective practice is asking for a slight miracle.
7) Students shall not have their legitimate questions about course content and course management ignored by the professor unless it is unreasonable for the professor to answer the student's questions and/or the student failed to make a reasonable attempt to answer the questions before asking the professor.
Okay, I admit, it sucks when you’re confused about some principle of law and the prof won’t help you. But it’s so rare that this situation arises. Most professors are ready and willing to help—as long as you don’t have a question after every single class period. However, I did have one professor whose reply to my question was, “We’re you not in class that day?” He did this to pretty much everyone. And it is frustrating. But did my classmates and I whine about it? No. Instead we found an attorney and some upper quarter students and asked them our questions.
8) In class, students shall not be expected to know material that was not covered in the assigned reading for that day's class, nor covered in any of the lectures and/or assigned readings prior to that day's class.
Stop whining. I go to a boot camp Socratic method law school and you know what? During our trial boot camp class I got stood up, along with some of my other classmates, and inevitably we got asked about things that we hadn’t read yet. You know what we did? We tried our best. It happens. Get over it. Basically allowing this amendment would allow someone not to be asked a basic property principle while in Trusts and Estates. And that is just stupid. Like this list, U-Miami.
9) The right of student to not have the composition of their grade changed from what appears on the syllabus during the semester, given that the professor does not notify the class of the change and the majority of the students do not support the measure, shall not be violated.
LAW SCHOOL IS NOT A DEMOCRACY. IT IS A DICTATORSHIP. BOW TO THE WILL OF THE ADMINISTRATION AND PROFESSORS! Allowing the students to have a say in how their grade is composed sounds stupid, even being a fellow student myself. I am getting increasingly frustrated as I read these.
10) No student shall be responsible for, in any graded assignments, material covered during a make-up class that is not recorded and whose recording is not made easily accessible for all students.
I’m about ready to punch my computer in frustration. You know what U-Miami? This is not kindergarten and your law school professors shouldn’t have to hold your hand. I’ve had to miss make-up classes for various reasons—I have a job, another scheduled class, etc. Did any of my professors record it? No. Did any of us ask them too? No. We didn’t want to get laughed out of their office. You’re responsible for the material, regardless. This is why you make friends in your classes and you borrow notes from them. Seriously, U-Miami? Seriously?
11) No student shall be responsible for, in any graded assignment, material covered before or after the class's scheduled meeting time unless a majority of the students agree to elongate the class.
You only want to elongate class if a majority of the students agree to it? Do you? Law school is not a democracy. Once again, if that’s the type of education you wanted, you should have gone to some artsy-fartsy grad program where the tuition was lower and mental torture was less. Didn’t know what you were getting into? Not even law schools presented in the media seem fun or models of egalitarian society. And if you still managed to be ignorant of that and went anyway, as soon as you found this out, you should have gone running to an MBA program. Elongated classes are just a fact of life, as much as we all wish they weren’t. Sometimes the professors do drag their feet and sometimes there’s just way too much material to cover before an exam. This is just a fact of life. Yes, it sucks to sit through marathon sessions that weren’t even scheduled on the syllabus. But you don’t want an incomplete picture of the law. Also, the professor is pretty much king of his classroom realm, unless their behavior is extremely abhorrent. They’re like federal judges in that way—absent some really scandalous behavior, the administration is likely to pat you on your head and send you on you merry way. Oh, and while I’m typing this, my professor just scheduled a class outside of the allotted hour. Did anyone complain? No. Someone did try to get him to bring us pizza, but that’s just great negotiating skills at work.
And perhaps, my most scathing critique of all—the likeliness of this getting enforced. As in, it’s probably somewhere near zero. Even if the U-Miami SBA gets this passed by vote, who is to say the administration is going to follow it? This is not the Magna Carta, as much as they’d like it to be. There is literally no interest for the administration to adopt this document. Why? This isn’t Egypt and the U-Miami law kids are not demonstrating for democracy and change. This is a situation where the students can complain all they like, but it won’t make a difference (maybe a Communist China analogy is appropriate here? I’m not sure) because in this economy, there are many recent college graduates who would gladly take your place—even with that place being the underling in the law school hierarchy, subject to the whims of the administration.
I’m glad things like this don’t happen at my school. As one of my classmates said when we found the article on Above the Law, “The first thing _____ Law School taught me was that I didn’t have any rights. And I did that to myself.”
Another classmate of mine had the following opinion after reading the bill of rights:
This is what I gathered. "We are in law school, but...we have reverted to a time when we were three and had no argument skills other than 'but that's not fair!' We live in Miami and think school should be easy so we can lie on the beach and do no work to earn our J.D. We will also probably be held in contempt every day for bitching when a judge schedules something not originally on our calendars. But at least we will be tan."
It doesn’t get any truer than that. I think the U-Miami kids need to stay out of the sun—that could be the only reasonable explanation for this tomfoolery.
As my favorite professor said in response to a student's assertion that a case result was unfair:
"Fair is something that happens in Dallas in October. It ain't October and this ain't Dallas, counselor."
Word.
