Georgetown Law Profs Wimp Out, Set Bad Example

WASHINGTON - Nov. 27, 2024 - PRLog -- When Georgetown University Law School turned down requests for a reasonable accommodation for a pregnant student due to give birth just around exam time - an accommodation requested by the school's own Title IX coordinator - the faculty seemingly did nothing, even though both Title IX and the D.C. Human Rights Act clearly protected the student's right to require such reasonable accommodations.

She reportedly struggled with the school's administration for months, while trying to juggle classes and manage her pregnancy, but it appears that none of the well over 100 full time faculty members of this highly rated law school stepped forward to bring a simple legal action on her behalf.  It took a petition with over 7000 signatures to get the student what the law entitles her to.

Where are the feminists, male and female, as well as those law professors who teach and preach using law and legal actions to protect important rights when they are being violated - especially when the violations are occurring right under their very noses, and by students for whom they are responsible and for whom they are supposed to set an example - asks public interest law professor John Banzhaf.

He explains that he did not hesitate to take legal action against his own law school, although he is known to be so litigious that usually simply the threat of legal action is sufficient.  He notes that his threats to take legal action forced his George Washington University [GWU] to ban smoking first in individual professorial offices, and then everywhere on campus.

I've also visited a jail, a hospital emergency room, and even a mental institution to protect the rights of students, he says, so why can't some Georgetown law professors bring a simple legal action - or possibly just threaten to bring a simple legal action - when the clearly established legal rights of one of their students is being violated and her career possibly ruined, he says.

This refusal to use the law when it is most needed sets a very bad example for Georgetown's law students who should be trained and encouraged to stand up to large corporations, powerful interest groups, and even government officials.

If their own teachers - most of whom are protected by tenure, and who have plenty of time to write largely-unread law review articles - wimp out, we can hardly expect their graduates to be courageous or public spirited when they become virtually indentured to large law firms known neither for courage nor for using their legal skills to protect the public interest, he says.

http://banzhaf.net/   jbanzhaf3ATgmail.com   @profbanzhaf