December 6, 1970 University of Michigan Law School
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University of Michigan Law School University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository Res Gestae Law School History and Publications 1970 December 6, 1970 University of Michigan Law School Follow this and additional works at: http://repository.law.umich.edu/res_gestae Part of the Legal Education Commons Recommended Citation University of Michigan Law School, "December 6, 1970" (1970). Res Gestae. Paper 751. http://repository.law.umich.edu/res_gestae/751 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law School History and Publications at University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Res Gestae by an authorized administrator of University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Volume 4, Number 2 5 "Exhaust all legal remedies" December 6, 1970 NEW StlffiDlJJ. E drugs NEXT YEAR? HERE? YES! FACULTY TO ACT ON SCHEDULE CHANGES If the law students 0 f today are indeed This Friday the faculty will vote on an the lawmakers of tomorrow, it appears Administrative Committee recommendation J,i~~J.y_J~h~_J'-;r;qhi_b_ttiQT_!_s ag!:Ji~l:>~ .rnil!.i~ . that the fall term be shortened by one juana will be removed in the f9rseQ week; i.e. next year's first day of able future. In a d_n1g 1!§1e -~l1:ryey .c_Qn classes would be September 2 (versus ·ducte·d·in t:he ·freshman l~li .~l(l~s, s7% August 26) and the last day would of the clas·s ·appears to favor legal remain December 11. The proposal ization of the drug. also recommends that individual faculty members be authorized to The survey was taken in two criminal law hold special sessions, as regular sections, and since the sections and_the parts of the course, to compensate for students in them were randomly chosen, the deleted week. Michigan Law School it seems fair to extrapolate the results now has five more days of classes than at least to the rest of the class. most major iaw schools -and is far :i.~ - in excess of bar requirements. The results of the survey were almost identical in both sections. These re The Committee did not recommend that sults indicate that 63% of the freshman finals be held after Christmas recess, class have used marijuana at least once, although the faculty favored such a and 25 % of the total number responding proposal. The Committee explained that have smoked marijuana over 25 times. "a preliminary student reaction revealed While a systematic search was not conducted, a great dislike for the postponement." at least two members of the class expressed a preference for eating the plant over Wednesday night the Board of Directors smoking it. met on these recommendations and voted in favor of the recommendations Current smoking/eating habits of the class to shorten the semester to fourteen suggest that the drug is not used with a weeks--and to keep the exam period very great degree of frequency (in excess before the Christmas break. The of 25% of the users indulge once a month Board rejected the proposal which or less), but this may be attributable to would allow instructors to schedule the survey being taken in the middle of sufficient extra classes to make up the school year. It is at least possible the deleted week. that habits might change over vacations. Cof\iiftllf'J OY\ f'~~ S. DEAN ALLEN LASHES of the faculty and administration of the AT NEWSPAPER school. It was pointed out that in the preceding week, the faculty had met to gether on Tuesday instead of its regular meeting day, Friday. This circumstance Dean Allen, in remarks to the Law Review was viewed as darkly suspicious and as Banquet on November 14, 1970, has criti evidence that the faculty was pursuing cized Res Gestae for alleged inaccuracies an improper and conspiratorial course. in reporting. The speech began with re I was intrigued by this use of evidence; marks about new avenues to self-knowledge and morbid curiosity led me to the minutes and understanding the times in which we of faculty meetings for the University live. The Dean advanced the theory that year, 1969-70. My discovery was that in catch phrases, slang, and nonsense speech fhis twelve-months period the faculty had probably contain a message about the met twenty-seven times (a horrendous people who use such language and the times statistic and if the students had pro in which they live. tested that, I'd join them on the picket line). Over one-third of these meetings, The Dean then examined one phrase "in eleven out of twenty-seven, were held popular usage", the assertion "you'd on special call and on days other than better believe it". The Dean's re Friday. Thus, one might mildly object marks stated that this phrase captures that the circumstances of a Tuesday a mode of thought or mental operation meeting hardly, in itself, constitutes all too typical of these times, and a ~ ipsa loquitur case of faculty suggests some possibilities for its conspiracy. origin. "I shall not burden you with a recital of "I do not know whether any of these the other factual allegations advanced suggestions has any basis in fact. In in the issue. It is both accurate and all seriousness, however, I find no sufficient to say that most were wholly, reason to be surprised that this hopelessly, and helplessly in error. phrase has flourished and burgeoned in But this is not all. In almost every the year 1970. This is true, in my instance the error was avoidable. All opinion, because the phrase captures that was required of the writers to a mode of thought or a mental oper avoid error was to ask questions of ation all too typical of these times. those who might be expected to have answers. to make this point will require an The questions were not asked; at least illustration or two. Probably the best they were not asked of me. place to turn for examples of the kind of thinking I have in mind is to the "Having been in or at the fringes of public campus newspapers. Three weeks ago, life for a good many years, I can hardly on October 23, our own contribution to be unaware that journalistic error is campus journalism, Res Gestae, published always with us, so much so that the Book an issue which, despite stiff competition of Common Prayer might well be revised to from other campus journals and even from add newspaper inaccuracies to the ills its own earlier issues, distinguished of the human condition listed for recital itself as an exemplar of the galloping in the Litany. And yet, one might hope paranoia of these times. The theme of for better from young people aspiring to the issue appeared to be the desirability careers in the law. After all, concern of the alumni Committee of Visitors, then for the accuracy of facutal assertions meeting in the Quadrangle, joining hands might be thought to be of special concern with the student writers to extirpate the to law students. sins of the Law School. There followed various assertions of the venality of the "I bt:;lieve, ho\>lever, that one would be ~- mistaken if he dismissed incidents of this he had thought to be revealed truth. When sort as involving simply carelessness and that happens, the fat is in the fire. The ineptness, although both are often present. infallible dogma may turn out to be fallible, After observing the proliferation of sim the unchallengeable truth to be subject ilar occurrences on and off the campus to fundamental challenge. All those in recent years, I have come to believe things upon which one has based his thought, that what is involved is nothing less his action, and his life style may have than the basic question of how truth is to be reexamined from time to time. There to be determined. It hardly needs to be are few experiences more painful than said that the statements published in this. If this sort of pain is to be that notable October 23 issue were not avoided, you' s better believe it!" factual propositions as that phrase has generally been understood for the past three and one-half centuries. These were not statements based on systematic or (The Dean's remarks have been edited even casual investigation. They were because of space limitations, but the not validated by any operations in- deletions made were as limited as possible volving sensory perceptions. Then so as to maintain the full impact of the where did these propositions come from? Dean's remarks.) I believe it would miss the point to describe the statements as intentionally deceptive. I am prepared to concede REVIEW REVIEW that the writers believed what was written; and this, of course, makes Prospectus and Law Review have announced the matter all the more serious. State plans for a joint writing competition. ments of this kind are believed by The competition will be held next semester. their authors, for they are conceived From it Prospectus will pick an undeter by them to be infallible deductions mined number of its staff and Law Review from a body of unchallengeable and un will Pick 5 of its 35 candidates. {See questioned truth. This body of dogma l?~rn \C>O for the full text of the onrtounce contaips the premise that the Law School, ment.) its faculty and administration, are integral parts of a corrupt establishment. Alan Loeb, Editor of the Law Review, said The deduction is that the faculty is this year's competition will be a pilot engaged in conspiracy and skull-duggery project to test the feasibility of open --why? because (as everyone knows) that's ing up more places on Law Review to a how members of a corrupt establishment writing competition.