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There’s an effort to get me fired at Cornell for criticizing the Black Lives Matter Movement

There’s an effort to get me fired at Cornell for criticizing the Black Lives Matter Movement

Or if not fired, at least publicly denounced by the law school. Student groups plan to demand the law school “critically examine the views of the people they employ as professors of the law.”

There is an effort underway to get me fired at Cornell Law School, where I’ve worked since November 2007, or if not fired, at least denounced publicly by the school.

Ever since I started Legal Insurrection in October 2008, it’s been an awkward relationship given the overwhelmingly liberal faculty and atmosphere. Living as a conservative on a liberal campus is like being the mouse waiting for the cat to pounce.

For over 12 years, the Cornell cat did not pounce. Though there were frequent and aggressive attempts by outsiders to get me fired, including threats and harassment, it always came from off campus.

I made great efforts to keep this website separate from my work. I did not write about Cornell that frequently, and rarely about the law school itself. Nonetheless, the website and my political views were the elephant in every room, because the website is widely read, particularly by non-liberal students.Over the years, many students approached me privately and behind closed doors to express gratitude that someone was able to speak up, because they remained politically silent out of fear of social ostracization with the related possible career damage from falsely being accused of one of the “-ists” or “-isms.”

Not until now, to the best of my knowledge, has there been an effort from inside the Cornell community to get me fired.

The impetus for the effort was two posts I wrote at Legal Insurrection regarding the history and tactics of the Black Lives Matter Movement:

Those posts accurately detail the history of how the Black Lives Matters Movement started, and the agenda of the founders which is playing out in the cultural purge and rioting taking place now.

From Saturday, June 6, through Monday, June 8, over 15 emails from CLS alumni were received by the Dean of the law school, demanding that action be taken against me ranging from an institutional statement denouncing me to firing. I don’t know whether and to what extent that number has increased since Monday. The Dean properly has defended my writings as protected within my academic freedom, although he strongly disagrees with my views.

The effort appears coordinated, as some of the emails were in a template form. All of the emails as of Monday were from graduates within the past 10 years.

Only one of the emails was shared with me, with names removed, on the condition that I not post it or quote from it. I am permitted to characterize the complaint: My views are not consistent with the law school Dean’s public statement on police violence and my writings were hurtful and divisive, and the person could not understand why I am still on the faculty. [As an aside, my writings are consistent with the Dean’s statement, but that’s another matter.]

My clinical faculty colleagues, apparently in consultation with the Black Law Students Association, drafted and then published in the Cornell Sun on June 9 a letter denouncing “commentators, some of them attached to Ivy League Institutions, who are leading a smear campaign against Black Lives Matter.” While I am not mentioned by name, based on what I’ve seen BLSA and possibly others were told it was about me. The letter is absurd name-calling, distorting and even misquoting my writings, to the extent it purports to be about me. According to a document I’ve seen, the letter was shared with these students before it was published in the Cornell Sun.

None of the 21 signatories, some of whom I’d worked closely with for over a decade and who I considered friends, had the common decency to approach me with any concerns. Instead they ran to the Cornell Sun while virtue signaling to students behind the scenes that this was a denunciation of me. Such is the political environment we live in now at CLS.

BLSA and other groups are working on their own effort against me. Based on documents I’ve seen, there was consideration of demanding my firing, but it appears to have moved away from that not because they don’t want me fired, but “because calling for his firing would only draw more attention to his blog and bolster his platform, and we do not want to give him that satisfaction.” The plan is to call for “the law school to unequivocally denounce his rhetoric, acknowledge the harm caused by subjecting students to his racist pedagogy, and critically examine the views of the people they employ as professors of the law.” They plan to circulate the petition to the law school community and to “inform incoming students” of the situation.

I have little doubt that many students will sign because there is no choice in this environment. BLSA has announced on its Facebook page that “Silence Is Violence.” Who would refuse to sign when failure to sign would be deemed an act of violence?

I thank people who have voluntarily shared information with me, and if there are students, faculty or staff reading this, please feel free to forward information to me at [email protected]. This is not just about me. It’s about the intellectual freedom and vibrancy of Cornell and other higher education institutions, and the society at large.

Open inquiry and debate are core features of a vibrant intellectual community. This has been the way Cornell Law School operated for the 12 years I’ve been here, until now. In this toxic political environment in which intellectual diversity and differences of opinion are not tolerated, trying to shut down debate through false accusations of racism seems to be the preferred tactic.

I challenge a representative of those student groups and a faculty member of their choosing to a public debate at the law school regarding the Black Lives Matter Movement, so that I can present my argument and confront the false allegations in real time rather than having to respond to baseless community email blasts. I ask the law school to arrange an in-person live-streamed debate during fall term, or if for some reason the law school does not have in-person instruction, to arrange a ‘virtual’ format.

Throughout my legal and academic career spanning over three decades, there has never been a single instance in which I have been accused of discrimination toward any student, client or colleague. I have always treated my students as individuals, without regard to race, ethnicity or other such factors. I condemn in the strongest terms any insinuation that I am racist, and I greatly resent any attempt to leverage meritless accusations in hopes of causing me reputational harm. While such efforts might succeed in scaring others in a similiar position, I will not be intimidated.

We are living in extraordinarily dangerous times, reminiscent of the Chinese Communist Cultural Revolution, in which professors guilty of wrongthink were publicy denounced and fired at the behest of students who insisted on absolute ideological orthodoxy. It’s a way of instilling terror in other students, faculty, staff, and society, so that others shut up and don’t voice dissenting views. We are seeing monuments destroyed in Taliban-fashion because they represent an uncomfortable history, movies and TV shows cancelled, and individuals disappeared from employment due to even the slightest deviation from the prevailing political culture.

This is not going to end well unless people of good conscience, who support black lives but not the Black Lives Movement as it was founded and currently operates, to speak up and refuse to cower in fear.

UPDATE (4:45 p.m.):

The law school Dean, in response to media inquiries and emails, has released a statement that takes a shot at my posts but promises no discipline:

…. In light of this deep and rich tradition of walking the walk of racial justice, in no uncertain terms, recent blog posts of Professor William Jacobson, casting broad and categorical aspersions on the goals of those protesting for justice for Black Americans, do not reflect the values of Cornell Law School as I have articulated them. I found his recent posts to be both offensive and poorly reasoned…. But to take disciplinary action against him for the views he has expressed would fatally pit our values against one another in ways that would corrode our ability to operate as an academic institution.”

Of course, I did not criticize “those protesting for justice for Black Americans,” I criticized the Black Lives Matters Movement and the rioting and looting and cultural purge. But that’s how it goes. (added) And of course, you don’t see these sort of statements issued for far-left professors. We have one (who I happen to like) who was with Occupy Wall Street and is an advisor to AOC on the Green New Deal, but the school never publicly criticizes his “reasoning” — it’s a one way street and it’s just as much a part of the cancel culture as firing someone.

MY APPEARANCE ON LAURA INGRAHAM SHOW TONIGHT

MORE UPDATES

Cornell campus climate “so far beyond political correctness”

Jonathan Turley rips Cornell Law faculty letter against me: “It is the antipathy of the intellectual foundations for higher education”

[Featured Image: Me standing at Cornell ‘Take a Knee’ protest 2017]

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Comments


If you want to know what is really going on “under the hood” of the woke mobs, please watch this 3 part series, which looks deeply at the intellectual history of Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality. Critical Race Theory is ultimately not interested in dialogue or debate – it only understands the logic of identity and positionality. It’s ultimate aim is revolution and complete dismantling of Western Civilization.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDFL3xwEEG8

This is a rare example of courage in institutional cultures where cowardice is the default reaction of academics everywhere to the crybullies demanding silence and thought control. Spineless administrators are the worst of this lot. I sent the professor 25 bucks and I urge others to do likewise. His fight is our fight.

The only possible response is to talk back, and you will do a calm and elegant job.

I had already made my year 2020 donation to LIF. This incident calls for more and I just donated again.

Professor–and the rest of the LI crew–please keep up the good fight. PLEASE!

Professor Jacobson wants a free and fair debate, but what he’ll get is a cultural revolution struggle meeting. The neo-Maoists will disrupt the debate, they will rain abuse, shout slogans and disconnect the mic.

His regularly scheduled law lectures will be disrupted. His students will be denounced and struggled.

Nien Cheng “maintain your fighting spirit.”

    Yes, this is true.

    But by maintaining his passions – if not a sense of humor – he’ll become rather well-known and heroic.

    Listen, people are fed-up with this lunacy: they’re just keeping quiet about it.

    Meantime, there is a contest between Sessions and AG Barr as to who can do the least damage to the swamp.

No one is surprised by Cornell, although admitting defeat by posing inaction inside of their own obvious bias is interesting. As big a notion as such universities are in society, the bias makes them very small in stature and very small in true professional ethics. While such administrations claim to welcome all ideas, then aggressively shun those who disagree with their “one view, one set of rule” authoritarian saturation, demonstrates only that they are NOT so “woke” or progressive after all. Universities are being exposed. Truth rises. Light removes darkness. Those who stand, must stand firm in faith, truth and righteous anger to speak out against the strongholds that have existed for so long.

1Cor15:58
1Cor16:13-14
Ecc.7:25

    notamemberofanyorganizedpolicital in reply to bruceb7. | June 11, 2020 at 10:31 pm

    A recent study found that 93% of college personnel voted Democrat.

    Can you say “union” busting time?

I think you’re a great candidate for a professorship at the University of Chicago, my alma mater, which has a stellar reputation for not putting up with McCarthyism of any kind, unlike Harvard and Stanford kowtowers.

    healthguyfsu in reply to Jimbino. | June 11, 2020 at 8:05 pm

    While such a scenario would be ideal, there are several problems:

    -They have to have an opening

    -While they have done better with FIRE backed stands of currently employed individuals, most institutions aren’t willing to take on additional risks that aren’t already on campus (especially in light of COVID budget constraints)

Richard Aubrey | June 11, 2020 at 7:48 pm

Wait until Inside higher Ed hears about this. Maybe somebody should tell them. They don’t listen to me.

I’m so sorry to read about your troubles Professor. We are looking on in horror and appalled amazement from Israel at what is going on in America. To me it seems clear that this violence has been orchestrated from afar (yeah, I know that I sound like a conspiracy theorist but it’s all been too well-coordinated to be coincidence).

I’m scared that it will hit us too at some point because what happens in America eventually finds its way over the ocean to Israel. there have already been some protests here but the authorities clamped down quickly and thankfully without injuries. But it is not over yet.

I wish you lots of strength to keep on holding on. I admire your courage and determination.

And most of all I hope you are keeping safe.

You should point out that it’s always better to examine what you can do to change your problems then blame others. Those blacks who are upset about unfortunate encounters with the police should start a movement to reject the ghetto gangster culture. Value and work for an education because it’s better than being ignorant. Take care of your wife and children. Seek honest work instead of a life of crime. Stop blaming others for your failures. These changes will greatly reduce the chances of bad encounters with the police.

    JusticeDelivered in reply to ConradCA. | June 11, 2020 at 9:14 pm

    Good advice, the only problem being a crap culture where none of the things you suggest are valued. I really wish there was a solution for this.

LukeHandCool | June 11, 2020 at 8:12 pm

I haven’t been checking the news at all the past few days because it’s just too depressing.

I just found out about this from the LI email that went out.

This is an outrage. Things are out of control.

And I just told my wife about what’s going on.

That’s about as mad as you’ll ever see a Japanese woman. She thinks the world of Professor Jacobson.

Give ’em hell, Bill!!!

Dear Professor Jacobson, you hang in there as there are LOTS of folks who support you. It’s amazing – you are the furthest thing from racist but because you out facts that don’t support their ideology, they will now attempt to quash you. The fact that their hypocrisy escapes them is just another stunning, yet not surprising revelation of folks that possess a different opinion. Rather than engage in tried and true civil discourse, their solution is to kill your voice! Keep up the good fight!!

I went back last year for my 35th reunion. I made the mistake of making a contribution. I got an email today from Cornell asking for more. Yeah – don’t think so. Not if they are acting like fascists. I will press that donate button on the top of this page.

At the end of the day? This is the best thing ever to happen to Prof. Jacobson: he is perfectly positioned to be a cause celebre, and just might become rather famous as a man to rally around.

Humphrey's Executor | June 11, 2020 at 8:57 pm

I support Prof. Jacobson, academic freedom, and freedom of speech.

filiusdextris | June 11, 2020 at 9:31 pm

Your posts on this blog are always noteworthy, informative, and well reasoned. Still, this was your best post ever. Thank you for all you do in fighting the good fight!

LukeHandCool | June 11, 2020 at 9:42 pm

When they reach a certain size, many “movements” become nothing more than a grift and/or a power grab.

In the center of a Venn Diagram of #Black Lives Matter, #Me Too, Grift, and Power Grab … you’ll find Professor Jacobson and Brett Kavanaugh.

Somewhere out on the periphery, now little noticed, you’ll find Harvey Weinstein and “Officer” Chauvin.

Today, I sent my letters to the following: I urge you to do the same, respectfully of course.

Martha E. Pollack
President, Cornell University
[email protected]

Eduardo M. Peñalver
Dean, Cornell School of Law
[email protected]

Double Secret Probation with the SJW mob? Report to re-education camp at once.

Great job on the interview, you needed at least one more segment

We have your back Professor

notamemberofanyorganizedpolicital | June 11, 2020 at 11:10 pm

Send this to the un-educated Cornell Admin and their Wage Slaves.

Watch: Black Lady Goes Off On Liberals,

‘If You Care About Black Lives, Stop Voting For F**king Democrats’

Warning for loud and bad language. Also, absolutely right on target.

Amy
@MaybeAmes
Black lady screams at white liberals blocking the street

“You racist white liberals do this sh*t every f****** four years. We’re tired of it…F*** you, you dumb b*tch. You’re not here for me. You’re here because you’re dumb as f***”

Embedded video

Weazil Zippers

Great point. What is the line for the leftist professors? Is there even a line?

notamemberofanyorganizedpolicital | June 11, 2020 at 11:16 pm

WongWeason
@weason_wong

I think the majority of the black communities realize that almost all the BLM and ANTIFA are young white anarchist destroying their neighborhoods with pallets of bricks,torches,loud speakers signs,chants,someone’s getting the big bucks cordinating this nationwide riots

notamemberofanyorganizedpolicital | June 11, 2020 at 11:21 pm

Donald Trump Jr.
@
Crazy Nancy just said “long lines for voting” in Georgia were “shameful” and a “disgrace.” This is how she responds when Americans are engaged and excited to exercise their most sacred right as a citizen! But when it comes to the looting and rioting, nothing? Now THAT’S shameful.

    Karl Rove made a great point today, the operation of conducting an election is done at the local level. Why aren’t those who are tasked with conducting the elections taking the heat?
    Polling stations were understaffed and untrained.

    All the areas with problems are the dems’ turf. Atlanta, Decatur, Gwinnett county…….

    Gwinnett had some GOP office holders, but they’re being whittled down as foreigners galore populate the place.

    Oh, oh, GOPe,,,,,,, how you love your own demise…..

notamemberofanyorganizedpolicital | June 11, 2020 at 11:27 pm

Send this to all those Cornell Admin Bigots.

You put them first,” said Malcolm X, “and they put you last. ‘Cause you’re a chump. A political chump! … Any time you throw your weight behind a political party that controls two-thirds of the government, and that party can’t keep the promise that it made to you during election time, and you are dumb enough to walk around continuing to identify yourself with that party — you’re not only a chump but you’re a traitor to your race.”

https://thehayride.com/2018/10/this-is-what-malcolm-x-had-to-say-about-negroes-and-democrats-audio/

    Malcolm ought to preach this to American gun owners, who were promised universal interstate carry by a party who owned the entire government for two whole years and got diddly-squat. And don’t get me started on the wall.

(From the letter to the editor)
–These commentators express rage over the sporadic looting that has taken place amidst the largely peaceful protests

“sporadic looting” and “largely peaceful protests” don’t go together. I’ll admit I’m from Kansas, but I’ve seen several BLM protests with my family in them, and they all were universally peaceful, with no looting and no ‘largely’ involved. Likewise, there were no police in riot gear, merely a few officers to control traffic. I suspect if the BLM protests in other cities exhibited the same degree of social restraint, they would have exactly the same degree of peace and non-violence. But they did not, and so…

–We are outraged by the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, and by the killings of countless other Black people who have lost their lives as a result of racialized violence.

Are they as upset from the police officers who have lost their lives due to these ‘largely’ peaceful protests, such as David Dorn in St. Louis or other officers? Or the officers injured by rocks and other objects thrown during the ‘largely’ peaceful protest at the White House? I suspect not. Their silence is violence, as they put it.

I saw your appearance, Professor, on Laura Ingraham’s show this evening. EXCELLENT presentation of the despicable treatment Cornell is applying to you.

Am I the only one that sees the hypocrisy in BLM and Antifa both attempting to establish a totalitarian (facist) state?!

Anacleto Mitraglia | June 12, 2020 at 3:07 am

In my country, and I have no reason to believe America is any different, Medicina Legale is the only course that Medical School and Law School have in common, it’s mandatory for both, and with the same professor. I also remember it as one of most amazing subjects, except for the part about insurance that was frankly boring.
I wonder if the Med Schools are a little less crazy than Legal ones. I know it’s not STEM but it’s still somehow bolted to reality.

The election of HRC would have led to the complete surrender of the USA to the UN (or whatever global central committee).

The left must stop Trump from making the Supreme Court conservative by stopping the November election.

The insurrection has moved from cold to hot as the left is desperate.

The defund the police BS is simply about disarming the opposition army.

The riots are in Democrat cities in Democrat states as the Democrats plan is to preemptively surrender. How else do you explain the police stand-downs? The election must not happen in November. Mail in ballots are the same as no election.

By any means necessary. They mean it. Open insurrection. The Dems are allies until they balk in any way at which time they move from useful idiots to just idiots (e.g. Mpls Mayor)

The only questions appear to be whether the non-Democrat government stops the insurrection or the citizens stop it and when.

This is what is known as an inflection point.

The Dean’s accusation is outrageous. I doubt his reading comprehension.

    notamemberofanyorganizedpolicital in reply to Gersh204. | June 12, 2020 at 3:01 pm

    I doubt the dean can read.

    It is more than making sounds mouthing words
    but also knowing what they deeply mean……

    You really think he was hired for his brains rather than his ethnicity and willingness to tow the leftist line?

    There is a word for people like that: douchebag.

Terence G. Gain | June 12, 2020 at 6:40 am

It is great to see someone at an Ivy League university with the courage to speak out against fascism.

The media refuses to tell the truth about the justified, self-defense, killings of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown.

Trayvon Martin caught the attention of Community watch volunteer George Zimmerman because he was walking through the housing complex close to the units rather than on the sidewalk. Martin did not like being watched and so he attacked and overpowered the shorter and less fit Zimmerman. As Martin sat on Zimmerman’s chest MMA style, Zimmerman called for help for 40 seconds. (Remarkably Martin’s mother claimed that it was her son, the person on top, who called for help). Zimmerman had the choice of allowing Martin to continue pounding his head into the sidewalk or shooting him. It was an obvious case of self-defense and the police department decision not to charge Zimmerman was correct. Zimmerman however was subjected to a political trial orchestrated by Barack Obama and Democrats. .

Michael Brown punched Officer Wilson as he sat in his vehicle and then attempted to grab his gun causing it to go off. Michael Brown then walked away. Officer Wilson got out of his car and commanded Brown to stop. Instead of stopping, Brown turned and charged towards Wilson. With the 6 foot 4 inch and 290 pound man charging towards him, Wilson defended himself and shot Brown . The last bullet entered the top of Brown’s head as he was charging towards Wilson, not standing there with his hands up. Eyewitnesses confirmed that the “hands up don’t shoot” accusation advanced by Brown’s friend was completely false.

Barack Obama, who would not have been twice elected if the United States was systemically racist, could have told the truth about both killings and have calmed the fears of the black community. Instead he ginned up racial grievances. The current chaos is his legacy.

“In this toxic political environment in which intellectual diversity and differences of opinion are not tolerated…”

This goes beyond ‘differences of opinion’. You’re being denounced for uttering the truth, and not their white-washed version of the truth. 2+2=5 indeed! Just keep your little red book on you at all times, comrade.

    TX-rifraph in reply to rdmdawg. | June 12, 2020 at 7:25 am

    Yes. This is all political, comrade (Should I practice saying/writing that to make it a habit so I do not get labeled as a counterrevolutionary as has happened to Professor Jacobson?)

Dilbert Deplorable | June 12, 2020 at 8:58 am

The only good news is that the Woke Taliban running these Colleges and Univerisites are heading for massive financial ruin as folks realize that online colleges are cheaper, better, and more efficient.

My son will not be attending ANY of these socialist indoctrination camps. My hope is that the Wuhan lockdown has formally acquainted parents with the practicability of online courses and home schooling. These snowflake factories should all be in the dustbin of history.

Dear Professor, I hope you own a gun for your own protection. They’ll get your address and go after you and your friends and family. Thanks for standing up but I really fear for your safety.

    notamemberofanyorganizedpolicital in reply to stc. | June 12, 2020 at 2:58 pm

    Several……maybe even a his and hers Sherman tank set…….

    A used nuclear submarine wouldn’t be a bad investment. Fire a Trident missle or two, if they mess with you.

    If they mess with you, they mess with US.

It is amazing that institutions have degenerated to activities that are reminiscent of Maoism. Denouncing and public shaming of people that the thought leaders disagree with. With a intellectually corrupt media, this is an uphill battle. You are fighting the good fight. That is why I have contributed to your website

BLM = Baseless Lies Materialized

McCarthyism 2.0!

[The law school should] critically examine the views of the people they employ as professors of the law.

YES!!!! We should cut off from all avenues of life those who don’t share our views. Sure, we can’t directly refuse to allow them into grocery stores when they’re wearing shoes, slacks and shirts, but we can refuse to allow them to earn a living. That way we can indirectly starve them to death. We should, of course, give them an opportunity to attend re-education camps.

Why cant people understand BLM is not exactly the Salvation Army?
Haven’t they seen the video’s of them denouncing the police, defacing St Pat’s church, and their role in taking over parts of Seattle?
Your detractors should be the ones to explain their reasons for supporting this organization.
And if they suffer from liberal white guilt, there are many other worth organizations to help AA’s.

    Black lives matters is a lot like the Salvation Army: they take donations, and distribute them.

    Though the donations are not voluntary and the distribute the donations to themselves.

    They have hillary clinton as a role model.

We support you Professor Jacobson. We need you there to make liberal heads explode.

Excellent job on Mark Levin’s radio show minutes ago Professor! This is now becoming a nationalized struggle that affects EVERYONE! People need to stop cowering and speak up! All of us are feeling alone due to the oppression and suppression. This could be the beginning of a breakthrough. Now on to Tucker Carlson!!

    Amen!
    We must speak now while we still can!
    We must get on our Republican Congress critters to uphold and promote free speech!

If the law school at Cornell has any legitimacy, it will allow you to make your case publicly regarding the Black Lives Matter organization. They seem to be a violent, leftist organization that has successfully intimidated several academic, business, and political organizations. It has been reported that they are a front group for Democratic party funding. If they collect international donations, that is in violation of campaign laws. Since their name has been painted on many civic venues in what could be construed as prejudiced by civic authorities, that also appears to possibly violate the law for in kind contributions to the Democratic party.

    “If the law school at Cornell has any legitimacy…”

    That ship sailed.

    Every instuttion in our country was corrupted in full over the eight years of the sewer-spill that was the obama presidency.

    In many ways, we have to completely start over.

HenryMiller | June 12, 2020 at 8:15 pm

I graduated from Cornell in 1975–and, more and more, I’m ashamed to admit it. Not, I suspect, that Cornell cares, but all three of my kids, after doing a little research, declined even to apply there as undergrads.

Is there a corresponding WLSA or would that be racist also?

I stand with you, Professor. I admire your fortitude.

These bullies won’t give up, but they might let up a tiny bit, for a little while, if you publicly bend the knee. I, for one, would never kowtow to them. BLM is a hate group. Everyone should take the time to read their core beliefs, which is on their “What We Believe” page on their website.

    A_Cornell_Alumnus in reply to hbrown906. | June 14, 2020 at 3:36 pm

    https://blacklivesmatter.com/what-we-believe/

    “We see ourselves as part of the global Black family, and we are aware of the different ways we are impacted or privileged as Black people who exist in different parts of the world.”

    “Global Black family???” That is as racist as it comes. It is every bit as racist as “White Pride World Wide,” i.e. touting a “Global White Family” over what should be the American family.

    I think Chief Dan George told a story about how Native Americans grew up together not in individual houses or teepees, but in big lodges with multigenerational families. The United States is a huge “lodge” for people of all races and ethnic origins, but BLM (and white supremacists) seem to believe they are instead part of a different, race-based family, which is the very definition of racism.

    “We are unapologetically Black in our positioning. In affirming that Black Lives Matter, we need not qualify our position. To love and desire freedom and justice for ourselves is a prerequisite for wanting the same for others.” If somebody said “We are unapologetially White in our positioning” we would expect a sheet and a hood, and we would probably find them.

I have to question just what kind of lawyers Cornell is churning out if graduates from the last ten years were willing (if not eager) to organize against a critique of BLM. I thought attorneys were trained to argue any position, at the discretion of their clients, and that they were expected to analyze issues. In the past, attorneys were frequently at the vanguard of social movements. One really couldn’t expect that from lawyers conditioned to group think.

You have a lot of support in these corrupt times. It must be difficult to have been betrayed by colleagues and friends of up to 30 years. Obviously, many if not most were afraid to refuse to conform. You are almost unique within academia in your willingness to stand up for your values. However this turns out, you can be confident that you will always be able to look yourself in the eye. I’m afraid that can’t be said for some of your colleagues.

Irishcurmudgeon | June 12, 2020 at 11:57 pm

Just donated, albeit small, to support the work you and your team do. Can’t imagine how alienating the faculty lounge must be for you. But I know you have the courage of your well- reasoned convictions and stand firm in those convictions. That is what scares them the most, because it exposes the absence of reason and fact in almost all of what their cult.

Carry on, Carry on Professor and if your tours ever bring you to Colorado, I will be there

Eh tu, Peñalver?

What did Marx say? “When the ‘socialist man’ speaks man is to be silent.’ That is a foundational tactic of the left. Silence or destroy the opponent by any means necessary: the playbook of Comte, Marx, Hitler, Stalin, Mao and today’s Progressives — by blackmail, thuggery, violence, genocide.

I’m glad to see some pushback here and especially the names of these back stabbers being published. From Jonathan Turley: Cornell Professors Declare “Informed Commentary” Critizing the Protests as Rascism

The letter is signed by a huge number of clinicians (Professors Zohra Ahmed, Sandra Babcock, Briana Beltran, Celia Bigoness, John Blume, Elizabeth Brundige, Angela Cornell, Sujata Gibson, Mark H. Jackson, Sheri Lynn Johnson, Jaclyn Kelley-Widmer, Cortelyou Kenney, Sital Kalantry, Ian M. Kysel, Mallory J. Livingston, Delphine Lourtau, Beth Lyon, Estelle McKee, Keir Weyble, Carlton E. Williams, and Stephen Yale-Loehr).

Not a word about academic freedom or free of speech; not a suggestion that critics of these protests could have anything other than racist motivations. It is the antipathy of the intellectual foundations for higher education. Rather than address the merits of arguments, you attack those with opposing views personally and viciously. That has become a standard approach to critics on our campuses…

Fight back!

Scholars for Peace in the Middle East Stands By Professor William Jacobson

To perform its mission in the society, a university must sustain an extraordinary environment of freedom of inquiry, and maintain an independence from political fashions, passions, and pressures. A university, if it is to be true to its faith in intellectual inquiry, must embrace, be hospitable to, and encourage the widest diversity of views within its own community…
First Amendment Scholar Harry Klein in a report to University of Chicago in 1967

You are in good company, Prof. Jacobson, with pioneers like Henry O. Flipper who was the first black officer graduated by West Point (Class of 1877) after 4 years of harassment and isolation. As for Cornell, it has only become worse over the years and I am amazed that they even hired you in the first place. As an undergrad at CU I experienced an administration that pandered to the SDS and BSU to the detriment of education, going so far as to waive final exams for any student who was working to “end the war” as opposed to studying. I have been generally offended by CU’s relentless requests for money, but now I can contribute to Legal Insurrection to encourage your voice in support of the truth.

A_Cornell_Alumnus | June 14, 2020 at 3:15 pm

Noting how the “woke” Left is trying to destroy other people’s careers for disagreeing with them, maybe the same thing should be done to them. A strong argument can be made that anybody who supports Black Lives Matter (as opposed to other civil rights organizations that are just as appalled as the rest of us about what happened to George Floyd) also supports the destruction of Israel and maybe even Antisemitism in general.

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/jewish-allies-condemn-black-lives-matters-apartheid-platform-1.5421194 “Jewish Groups Condemn Black Lives Matter Platform for Accusing ‘Apartheid’ Israel of ‘Genocide'”

I think the social justice warriors who are trying to get other people fired, and get shows cancelled ranging from “Cops” to “Paw Patrol” should remember what happened to Robespierre during the Terror of the French Revolution. People who have seen Game of Thrones remember how useful Cersei Lannister found the religious fanatics called The Sparrows until they turned on her. I’ll be very blunt; if the SJWs can do it to others, it can and should be done to them, subject only to the need to not violate any laws including those against libel and slander.

The talking points are simply (1) they are trying to damage other people’s lives for disagreeing with them, which is intolerable in a civilized nation and (2) they are expressing support for an organization with more than a hint of Antisemitism and also promotion of hatred and disrespect for all police as opposed to the bad apples for whom the police themselves have no use.

As but one example, I am encouraging people to boycott Starbucks for allowing its employees to wear BLM items (but presumably not MAGA hats, not that I think those should be worn in the workplace either). Starbucks cannot be BLM’s friend and my friend at the same time.

A_Cornell_Alumnus | June 14, 2020 at 3:26 pm

My response to Eduardo M. Peñalver ’94 https://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/spotlights/Statement-on-Prof-William-Jacobson-and-Academic-Freedom.cfm

” In light of this deep and rich tradition of walking the walk of racial justice, in no uncertain terms, recent blog posts of Professor William Jacobson, casting broad and categorical aspersions on the goals of those protesting for justice for Black Americans, do not reflect the values of Cornell Law School as I have articulated them. I found his recent posts to be both offensive and poorly reasoned.”

Mr. Peñalver; you are WAY out of line, to the extent that I will not, as a Cornell alumnus, recommend the Cornell Law School to anybody. Professor Jacobson raised very real issues about Black Lives Matter and its agenda, and I doubt you would encourage any attorney on either side of an actual case to overlook or ignore evidence that an online mob happens to find politically incorrect. ““Hands up, don’t shoot” is a fabricated narrative from the Michael Brown case (June 4, 2020)” is a FACT. Michael Brown was not a “gentle giant,” there is more than ample evidence that he attacked the cop who shot him, to the extent of trying to take the cop’s weapon and possibly turn it on him, thus putting the officer in reasonable fear for his life.

“As an administrator, I do not share my views on a faculty member’s speech lightly, but it is important to make clear that the Law School’s commitment to academic freedom does not constitute endorsement or approval of individual faculty speech.” That is 100 percent correct, and you yourself should have published your opinion of Professor Jacobson’s material as an individual (which you have a right to do) rather than on behalf of the Law School.

I wondered how it would be before they came after Professor Jacobson. The left will not tolerate dissent. He is now a target. BLM will not stop and the left will oblige this fascism.

America may not survive as we knew it. The left is poison.

I sent in a small donation. I am irritated.