Michael Schwartz, dean of the law school at the University
of Arkansas at Little Rock announced in November, 2016 that he would resign the
following summer. His accomplishments included a lawyer-student mentoring
program, live-client learning sessions, and a low-income clinic in the Arkansas
Delta.[1]
The trigger for his resignation was a school-wide email he had sent to students
just days earlier in which he announced that he was making counseling available
to any student who was upset by the election of Donald Trump as U.S. President.
Besides effectively normalizing over-reactions and failing to recognize normal
venting, the dean’s email interjected partisan politics, albeit tacitly, into
higher education. Rather than turn the popularized context into a teachable
moment for assumption-analysis, the dean modeled what happens when unsupported
assumptions run unchecked. In the end, the legal reasoning of students could
suffer.
“For those of you who feel upset,” the dean wrote, “we have
arranged extra on-campus counseling services today.”[2]
Ironically, the dean who was taken up by the politics of the day instructed his
law students (who in America are older as they already have one undergraduate
college degree), “No matter how you are feeling, the most important thing for
you is to focus on your studies.”[3]
The dean’s assumption was that the outcome of the 2016 presidential election
was unique in this regard, for another professor at the school, Robert
Steinbuch, noted at the time that he could not recall the dean’s office
offering grief counseling after Barack Obama won in 2008 and 2012. “I knew
plenty of people who were disappointed,” Steinbuch observed, “but I didn’t know
anybody [who] needed grief counseling. I think when we tell people that they
need some form of grief counseling we are normalizing hysteria and suggesting
there’s something immoral or wrong about our democratic process.”[4]
I suspect that the normalization of the hysteria was aided by the intolerant
political-correctness movement (i.e., how
dare you accuse me of hysteria!). The dean was unwittingly facilitating the
tacit demand for the normalization by normalizing the hysteria himself. Even
the venting, which in itself is quite normal, can succumb to the demand that it
be treated as something else, as if each of the vented grievances is valid
rather than an over-reaction based on overblown assumptions.
The dean could have turned the attention on the election
into a teachable moment by conveying to students how valuable critiquing
assumptions can be when they are based on heightened emotions. Legal reasoning
is presumably better when it is not at the mercy of high-charged emotions.
Instead, the dean himself overextended his own assumptions—namely, that
minorities would be attacked and not valued simply because Donald Trump won the
election. “Our diversity is a strength and a goal that we need to cultivate in
every way we can,” he wrote as if that needed all of a sudden to be said.[5]
“Everyone deserves a safe, supportive, collegial learning environment,” he
insisted.[6]
Had reports indicated that the safety of the school would be compromised? “Please
reach out to your peers and let them know they are valued.”[7]
Did this include Republican peers?
Furthermore, if some students were
not feeling valued, maybe what they really needed to hear—for their own good—is
that their inner feelings of value should not depend on external circumstances.
Lastly, presumably without any evidence—a
legal term—of any student being mistreated, the dean added, “And, if you
witness someone being mistreated because of his or her politics, religious
beliefs, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or gender, please do not sit silently
by.”[8]
It is odd that after the campaign
season the dean would assume that
political mistreatment would be an issue. Even if Donald Trump has personal
views on particular religions, races, ethnic groups, and homosexuality, to
assume that students would begin mistreating each other is a stretch, to say
the least, and that presumes that the dean knew
Trump’s personal views. I submit that the dean was simply laying out the
laundry list of partisan causes—going well beyond even the issues then at hand.
In other words, the dean was representing a partisan position whose Democratic candidate(s)
had lost.
Even in ideologically overextending his reach by “warning”
his students, the power-seeking dean modelled how unchecked assumptions can
result in muddled reasoning. That he presented such “reasoning” as sound and
valid meant that the students’ own cognitive lapses were enabled. He did
nothing to improve the students’ legal reasoning, but maybe the underlying
problem is that he was not oriented to legal education as per the contents of
his email. I submit that a dean has an obligation in leading a school to stay on
point in the sense of focusing on the dissemination of knowledge, which
includes sharpening reasoning abilities. Put another way, good reasoning and a
value on higher education should be major factors going into the hiring of
deans.
[1] Emily
Walkenhorst, “UALR
Law School Dean to Exit Post,” Arkansas
Democrat-Gazette, November 19, 2016.
[2]
Eric Owens, “Public
Law School Dean Resigns After Offering Counseling to Students Sad About Trump’s
Victory,” The Daily Caller, November 23, 2016.
[3]
Ibid.
[4]
Ibid.
[5]
Ibid.
[6]
Ibid.
[7]
Ibid.
[8]
Ibid.
