Columbia University allows what?

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2014/12/08/...

Postpone exams because you're upset with grand jury decisions and they're providing counseling? What the f*ck is going on here? What happens if they lose a case and have to go to court the next day? "Sorry your honor, I'm traumatized by a recent loss of a case.' This seems a bit ridiculous.

Perhaps it has to do with trying to let them maintain/regain hope in the system they're studying to serve prior to exams? Even with that mindset it seems rather odd though.

Well, dedicating years of your life and tens of thousands of dollars to learning to meaningfully participate in a system that just made it exceedingly clear that the application of law and justice, the thing you're laboring over, doesn't actually mean sh*t when it's boots on the ground...

Also, if any students are involved in law clinic or interning with public defense they've probably been busy standing as public observers or pitching in for arrested protestors this past week.

There's a suggestion it was requested by the Black Law Students Alliance at Columbia, because some of their members are seriously questioning their career choice after the events of the last few weeks. And I find it plausible that a black law student today might have serious angst about the potential effectiveness of both the law and his/her role in it... Not to mention sleep lost protesting and the attendant emotional stress.

Not so much of a much, to me. I never knew professors to give the same exam twice, and the make-up exam was usually harder, just to make a point.

Robear wrote:

There's a suggestion it was requested by the Black Law Students Alliance at Columbia, because some of their members are seriously questioning their career choice after the events of the last few weeks. And I find it plausible that a black law student today might have serious angst about the potential effectiveness of both the law and his/her role in it... Not to mention sleep lost protesting and the attendant emotional stress.

Not so much of a much, to me. I never knew professors to give the same exam twice, and the make-up exam was usually harder, just to make a point.

The punative style of education is mostly going away.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/p...

“Despite the genuine trauma that law students may honestly feel about the Ferguson and Garner decisions, as lawyers, they are going to be dealing with tragedies many times worse,” defense lawyer Benjamin Brafman told the New York Times. “If law students cannot function with difficult issues like these, maybe they should not try and become lawyers.”

Columbia Lets Law Students Delay Exams After Garner and Brown Decisions (NY Times)

David Rudenstine, a constitutional law professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law and a former dean there, said he entered law school at N.Y.U. in 1967, the year before the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Senator Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated. “I don’t remember there being anything like this done then,” he said.

He said he could see how young, idealistic law students might be profoundly affected. “It may well be that people feel as if something important was just stolen from them, and it undermines some commitment that they have to this endeavor they’ve embarked upon,” he said.

Still, Mr. Rudenstine said: “Law schools also have a tradition of being very tough-minded about these things. If you have an exam, it happens. That’s the schedule.”

I'm really still figuring out my own reaction. Having been in higher ed for some time now, I'm also somewhat cynical. Not only due to the protests, but a recent art display on campus responding to them, we've been instructed to be sensitive to students who request make-up exams because they claim they are traumatized. I hope the faculty who grant these requests are just as sensitive to students who have more mundane reasons in asking for a make-up, such as serious illness.

One of my husband's students requested an early grade (that's possible under extraordinary circumstances if 70% of the coursework is complete) because his father needed to have surgery for a brain tumor that might be malignant. It was malignant, and now the father is expected to die within a few months. The father's cognitive abilities are also affected by the size of the tumor, and he no longer recognizes his son. One professor procrastinated and never gave a clear answer, and another said, "Oh, I see. [pause] So when will you be able to take the final?"

And I agree with Robear - many times the make-up exam is harder than the original.

I'll tell you that my wife had a case continued because of the wake of the Grand Jury decisions, so I don't think postponing a law exam is all that out of character. I also know that some of the lawyers when was working with treated the upcoming GJ decision like school kids anticipating snow to get out of school.