Yale and BYU in the News

It is not often that two of my alma maters appear prominently in the same piece of legal analysis. Eugene Volokh uses both in his argument against secondary boycotts.

A secondary boycott is one where rather than boycott an individual or organization whom one sees as a problem, one boycotts an individual or group associated with the individual or organization whom one sees as a problem. I suppose that one can also boycott both. 

In this case, the problem is Yale's Law School's policies and their implementation go against the free speech rights of certain students but not others. (Institutionally Yale has been leaning this direction for a long time and I noticed earlier stages when I was a student there thirty years ago.) Earlier this year, Yale law students disrupted the presentation of a speaker with whom they disagreed. Yale excused the law students' bad behavior. Recently several judges have called for a boycott of hiring clerks who have graduated from Yale Law School. For a law school that has prided itself on being the number one law school in the country, having your students ineligible from receiving a clerkship based solely on attending your school is a severe blow, at least to one's pride.

As Volokh points out, this is a secondary boycott. It cannot possibly punish the perpetrators of bad policy. Instead it punishes those who are guilty of association with the perpetrators, and may be involuntary associates. I wonder how many law students decide which law school to attend based on who the dean is.

Yale's policies, however, seem to work against the preparation of effective lawyers. Law, by its nature, is an adversarial occupation. A lawyer may have to work for clients who hold opinions he or she personally is opposed to. He or she will certainly have to face legal opponents with whom he or she disagrees. Many lawyers laudably pursue conciliatory courses designed to minimize disagreements, but such a course of action may not be available in every case. Usually suppression of one's legal opponent and their right to present their case is not an option. Law schools do their students a disservice if they allow them options in law school that they are not allowed in court.

Yale Law School has since claimed to have made changes in the direction of free speech. Whether they actually have remains to be seen.

Even if Professor Volokh's understanding of the situation at BYU does not match facts on the ground (and to be fair, he proposes it as a hypothetical), his points about the problems of secondary boycotts remain.

A Plug for BYU?

Brigham Young University gets a plug from an unlikely source on its diversity, of all things. (I do not endorse the crudeness in the title; the article itself I did not find crude.)

Sacred vs. Secular at BYU

Greg Smith has another thoughtful and very much on-target post on the difference between BYU and a secular university. He begins by quoting Elder Neal A. Maxwell on the difference between the two and how

This may seem a small point, but in fact the opportunity for the infusion of gospel concepts confers a major advantage.

Having taught the same class at both a secular university and at BYU, I can appreciate the difference. The secular subject is the same but the slight difference in approach makes a big difference in outcome. BYU simply provides more academic freedom to discuss what really matters, to integrate the gospel into one's subject, and to make one's subject interesting and relevant. Secular approaches are so much more stifling. Having experienced both, I pity those small-minded souls who abandon the "large and spacious field, as if it had been a world" (1 Nephi 8:9, 20) for the confines of the "great and spacious building" (1 Nephi 8:26, 31). Those who want to make BYU into merely another secular university are misguided.

Today's Maxwell Quote

From this talk:

A real university does not oscillate in response to all the political, social, and educational trends and fashions of a particular time. Six decades ago, thought there were a few notable exceptions, German universities failed as providers of perspective. They were too concerned with becoming “politically correct.” Just after World War II, one commentator wrote of Hitler’s rise and of the decline of Germany’s universities, bemoaning that

Nothing occurred in 1933 in the way of spiritual upheaval, and examples of weakness and corruption were abundant. . . . The invention of “German” mathematics and other forms of intellectual prostitution, as well as the numerous “somersaults” of scholars and writers, one can only recall with shame. It is also undoubtedly true that many trends in German academic life had paved the way for an excessive nationalism and an “anarchy of values” upon which the brutality of Nazi dictatorship . . . could thrive. [Hans Rothfels, The German Opposition to Hitler (Hinsdale, Illinois: Henry Regnery Company, 1948), pp. 34-35]

In our period of human history, traditional values are being challenged, and some are even being inverted.

Today's Maxwell Quote

From this talk:

Only an excellent university can really help the Church much. Mediocrity won’t do either academically or spiritually. A unique Church deserves a unique university!

Today's Maxwell Quote

From this talk:

There is not reason for the tithe payers of the Church to fund another secular university since, as taxpayers, they are already helping to fund useful systems of public higher education.

Today's Maxwell Quote

From this talk:

To remind of the linkage between the Church and this university is unnecessary for almost all. It is why most of you came here in the first place! To remind, as well, of the need for the enlivening of personal scholarship is unneeded by most. Likewise, to remind of how many other worthy projects could use the millions and millions of dollars of tithing that support BYU would be redundant for the truly appreciative, who make up nearly all of this audience.