Law Students Wussified By Rape, Other “Disturbing” Topics

WASHINGTON - Dec. 31, 2014 - PRLog -- WASHINGTON, DC, December 31, 2014 -  Law schools are raising a generation of wuss lawyers, unable to stand up to judges on behalf of clients, by agreeing to demands not to teach rape or other topics the students might find “disturbing,” and the many consequences for society could be very serious, says public interest law professor John Banzhaf, who has twice been called a "radical feminist."
       This "perverse and unintended side effect of the intense public attention given to sexual violence in recent years" is a "tremendous loss - above all to victims of sexual assault," says Harvard Law Professor Jeannie Suk.  She says law students complain even about the classroom use of the word "violate" as in "does this violate the law?"
       Banzhaf notes that he has received similar complaints even though he teaches civil Torts law where the topic is peripheral, but students still complain that he is not sensitive enough to rape victims, even after he proposes ways to make the campus safer, and an app he his designing with female law students.
       Law students who complain they are too traumatized to study - or, in another manifestation, to even take exams because of police killings - have no idea of what real trauma is, said Banzhaf, who notes that judges have threatened him with arrest as well as huge fines - “that’s real trauma,” he argues.
       "Trauma" is what happens when your client is sentenced to death, or a widow who should have recovered from his husband's death at the hands of a drug or auto company is condemned to a life of poverty - not when sitting in the sterile setting of a classroom you hear words like "rape," "violated,” etc.
       If law professors cannot teach controversial topics like rape, affirmative action, police shootings, etc because students find it disturbing, they logically will cease studying them, and society will be denied a major source of information, policy analysis, and ideas from independent experts, says Banzhaf.
       “If the law – and the related facts, arguments, etc. – cannot be taught or otherwise even discussed in the one place in society where freedom of speech and debate are supposed to be bedrock principles, how likely is it that the problems can be addressed in a meaningful way?” Banzhaf argues.
       Also, if lawyers don't understand the law of rape, they may be ill equipped as legislators, legislative aides, agency attorneys, etc. to propose effective changes.  "Most of my students think that a man who has sex with a woman who has clearly said "no" is guilty of rape, but that is not true in most states.
       Perhaps we should be fixing that important problem, rather than legislating that “yes means yes” and that neither side in a rape accusation proceeding should be able to get documents, cross examine, etc.  Legislating in ignorance benefits no one, he says.