As all of you know I am an avid reader of www.abovethelaw.com and a big fan of Elie Mystal.  Rarely however do I cover the exact same material 1) because Elie does it better and 2) because if you read this site there’s a 99.9% chance you also go to Above the Law so it would be needlessly repetitive.  This post is going to be an exception.  Here’s Elie’s post:

http://abovethelaw.com/2010/06/law-professors-part-of-the-problem/#comments

If you’re still here read-on for my two cents.

So basically a law professor writes an open letter telling his colleagues to come to sites like this one (though our site was noticeably absent from the posting) to discover and empathize with the plight of in this case law students but similar logic could be applied to undergraduates or other graduate/professional schools.  The letter reads very much like the letter Jerry Maguire wrote before he got canned by his agency.

And that, my dear readers, is why Professor Tamanaha deserves to be comended, because he didn’t commit the following rationalization which is the root of the vast majority of evil in this world- “If I take a stand and do the right thing it will only result in the loss of my job or livelihood and the person who replaces me or a competitor is just going to step in and commit the wrong anyway, so I might as well do it and avoid being destitute.” Show me an egregious act and I’ll show you the rationalization.

“If I don’t own slaves I can’t clear my land so I’ll lose it and the guy who buys it will own slaves so I might as well…”

“If I don’t tell the SS where the Jews are, my neighbor will and they’ll be gassed anyway and I’ll be hanged…”

“If I don’t laugh at the racist joke the next junior associate will…”

“If I don’t overlook the safety violations my replacement will…”

Hopefully more Professors will go down this path.  It’s even possible since academics are somewhat shielded from the normal market forces that would immediately eliminate any dissenters who threaten the bottom line.  I mean if a Professor can’t say it who can? Professor Tamanaha doesn’t seem to aim his attack at specifically his University so he should be safe.

Elie’s last point was a bit disheartening, saying we need real voices and that ” The charge cannot be led by angry, unemployed graduates and bloggers trying to write their way out of debtor’s prison.” Ouch.  Benito would probably cry if he read that.  This blog is the only reason he and Icarus 30 didn’t enter into some kind of suicide pact.  Elie’s choice of words, while I am sure are coincidental really would have driven him over the edge.

The way I see it, if we the collective of angry, unemployed graduates and bloggers…ants who scream in unison just loud enough for the smallest giant to hear and hence spread our message, then we’ve done our job.  Now if you’ll excuse me, my sleeping bag and I need to find a pick-up truck.  I love summer!