The Cruel and Unusual Punishment Of Prof. Jason Kilborn by U. Illinois-Chicago John Marshall Law School
UIC has imposed a reeducation and supervision program to publicly humiliate and demean a professor that would make the Maoist Red Guards blush. It is psychologically torturing a professor just because it thinks it can.
Not all of academia is mean-spirited, vindictive, and vicious. But enough of it is that the term “cancel culture” — a concept most associated with campuses — has penetrated the broader culture. The University of Illinois-Chicago John Marshall School of Law is a prime example of all of the above pathologies, an institution that is psychologically torturing a professor just because it thinks it can.
We have covered so many of these attacks on professors, and there is a pattern – much like in the Maoist Cultural Revolution, students frequently are the aggressors who consider it their right to end a career as “accountability” for perceived offense. The difference in campus culture is not so much student activists, that’s a given almost everywhere, it’s whether the administration becomes a party to the cancel culture.
Which brings me to the case of Prof. Jason Kilborn of the third-tier U. Illinois-Chicago Marshall Law School (not to be confused with the University of Chicago Law School, a top 10 school). At UIC, the administration seems to be enjoying being tormentor-in-chief.
Prof. Kilborn’s offense was using the “n” and “b” words on an exam. Not the words themselves, but literally the letters “n” and “b” in a question about employment discrimination.
(added) As reported by the Chicago Crusader, here is the full exam fact pattern and question:
The question included the following: Employer’s lawyer traveled to meet the manager, who stated that she quit her job at Employer after she attended a meeting in which other managers expressed their anger at Plaintiff, calling her a ‘n____’ and ‘b____’ (profane expressions for African Americans and women) and vowed to get rid of her. Later, Plaintiff’s lawyer served an interrogatory demanding the identity and location of any person with any information related to the termination of Plaintiff’s employment at Employer or potential discrimination against Plaintiff by Employer or any agent of Employer. Can Employer identify the former manager but properly withhold her location, as this is the product of a significant amount of work and expense by Employer’s attorney?
Aren’t we supposed to use letters instead of words, isn’t that the “correct” way to do it? Nope, not to some students.
The student coalition, which BLSA is apart of, wrote a statement and sent it to Dean Dickerson and Chancellor Amiridis on Wednesday, December 24,2020. Please reach out with any review, thoughts, concerns, and suggestions. We hope you are having a safe and fun holiday break! pic.twitter.com/FEAX7M31oc
— UIC JMLS Black Law Student Association (@uic_jmls_blsa) December 30, 2020
A student Change.org Petition asserted:
The slur shocked students created a momentous distraction and caused unnecessary distress and anxiety for those taking the exam. Considering the subject matter, and the call of the question, the use of the “n____” and “b____” was certainly unwarranted as it did not serve any educational purpose. The question was culturally insensitive and tone-deaf. It lacked basic civility and respect for the student body, especially considering our social justice efforts this year.
The integration of this dark and vile verbiage on a Civil Procedure II exam was inexcusable and appropriate measures of accountability must be executed by the UIC administration.
Columbia University Prof. John McWorter, author of Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America, termed this student reaction Black Fragility:
No, this is not an SNL parody or a heightened storyline on a show like The Good Wife or Law and Order. This has actually happened, to and with and by real human beings here and now.
The administrators who did this to Kilborn think they are being “allies” of black people. They have actually revealed themselves as neoracists.
* * *
A tragic thing about our times is that episodes like this are coming to seem almost normal. We shake our heads at the “excess” involved. Possibly we walk by with a quick glance, as on a highway passing a nasty car wreck. We mutter in a conversation about it that the issues are “complex.”
But let’s pull the camera back, take a deep breath, and look at something like this pillorying of Kilborn with clear eyes. If a black student is traumatized to such a degree by seeing “n*****” on a piece of paper, then that student needs psychological counseling. We all understand the history and power of the N-word, but we all also understand the simple issue of degree. That student who got heart palpitations needs help, and what the suits at the University of Illinois in Chicago should have done as gently direct this student to the proper services, which the school surely provides, for people who have fallen away from the ability to cope with normal life.
A column in The Chronicle of Higher Ed by Andrew Koppelman, a professor at Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law, argued that Prof. Kilborn did nothing wrong:
Kilborn has used the same question for years, but this time it provoked an uproar. One student declared that on seeing the sentence, she became “incredibly upset” and experienced “heart palpitations.” The Black Law Students Association went to the law-school dean and to the central administration, demanding that Kilborn be stripped of his committee assignments. It denounced him on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter, and filed a complaint with UIC’s Office for Access and Equity.
This is the sort of overreaction that calls for firmness on the part of the administration. John Marshall Law School, which was founded in 1899 and recently merged with UIC, is the only public law school in Chicago. If lawyers are going to be competent to do their jobs, they must be able to cope with the fact that humans sometimes do and say very bad things. Discrimination is among those bad things.
Students must thus be able to see the facts of discrimination lawsuits, and be able to perform legal analysis in the face of those facts. In the real world, racist slurs are not bowdlerized as they were on Kilborn’s exam. He did nothing inappropriate. A sensible and responsible administration would have told the students that.
You know who agreed with the students? Jesse Jackson, who joined them in street protests.
Prof. Kilborn provided this apology statement to the Above the Law website:
I am fully prepared to accept responsibility for using a context and first-letter abbreviated reference that caused anyone to feel distressed—I absolutely did not and do not want this, I’ve expressed regret for it, and I’ve learned something valuable here. But the right way for BLSA and others to react here is anything other than what they’ve done, and I hope you don’t further this unnecessary, unwarranted, and unconstructive attack on me. If someone inadvertently bumps into you on the street and says “hey, sorry about that” quickly, I hope none of us believes the appropriate response is to pounce on that person, beat them mercilessly, and disseminate all manner of invective about them to their employer and all over the internet. BLSA has actively pursued a campaign against me by contacting (1) central UIC administration, (2) my dean, (3) Instagram, (4) LinkedIn, (5) Channel 2 news, and perhaps to other news outlets, too, and (6) formally filing a complaint with the Office of Access and Equity. This is the office at UIC that deals with instances of alleged discrimination and harassment. When my dean mentioned to me that there was some issue with my question, I suggested the notion of my expressing regret for distressing anyone, and the dean put me in touch with the OAE for their view. A representative from that office was provided the question and the context, and we had a Zoom call that very evening, in which the rep assured me I had done nothing at all wrong, but she supported my idea to express regret if I my re-use of that question made anyone feel uncomfortable. I did that, and here we still are …
I love my students—EACH AND EVERY ONE of them, and I’ve gone out of my way to be supportive of the careers of women of color and others. I’ve done my best to use the same first-letter reference to that word that I see all over the internet, including in the commentary of people explaining that it is entirely inappropriate to use the word—and they reference it as “the n-word”—again, which is exactly what I did. For me to be cast as some sort of insensitive bigot because I used the very same first-letter reference to a horrible word that Civil Procedure is designed to root out and address is … a disservice to the role that law plays in our troubled society and the role that we lawyers have to play in rooting it out and eradicating it.
This is my “shocked” face – apologizing didn’t work!
The students have only escalated their demands that Prof. Kilborn be fired, and as is common, have expanded the range of accusations:
Now that he’s back on the teaching schedule for this spring, some students say he shouldn’t be allowed back at all. The Black Law Students Association, in particular, is demanding that the professor, Jason Kilborn, be fired….
Ashley Shannon, president of the campus BLSA chapter, who is not a student of Kilborn’s, said during her own speech last week, “We do not feel safe. Students have come together to write demands for the law school, starting with the termination of his tenured professor, stating that tenure is not immunity for discriminatory practices.” ….
In addition to who’s at fault, many of the facts of the case are in dispute. The university has accused Kilborn of calling minorities “cockroaches,” based on unnamed student reports, and of “diminishing” an unnamed student’s accent, for instance. Kilborn, meanwhile, says he’s never done any of that.
That’s how it works in so many of these cases. When the original accusation is shown to be garbage, they drum up new complaints.
If you were affected by Professor Kilborn past or present please share your experience so the student coalition can share these stories on Monday! #StrongerTogether https://t.co/ET9vmbAoB8 https://t.co/YXia5HKHNp
— UIC JMLS Black Law Student Association (@uic_jmls_blsa) January 7, 2021
I thought we had reported on this situation previously, but I can’t find the links. I did find that twice I had started a draft post but never finished it, first in January 2021, then again in September 2021. I deeply regret not following through, it’s just that the volume of these situations makes it hard to cover every case.
Also, Prof. Kilborm was represented by the Foundation For Individual Rights In Education (FIRE), which announced in September 2021 that it was case closed:
“Undergrad teaches students to think, but law schools, medical schools — they have to teach students how to do,” said Kilborn, who has taught law for 21 years.
Graduate programs in law and medicine, for example, can’t be taught with memorization or a series of lectures. He said they require difficult, hands-on training in the messy parts of their disciplines. Would you trust a surgeon who sat through a series of lectures, but never cut open a patient? In law school, Kilborn said, that level of experience comes from engaging with real-world examples involving complicated, difficult legal cases.
“In virtually every one of my law classes, I try to put that scalpel in my students’ hands and ask them: What do you do?”
“These hypotheticals,” he explained, “really force students, future lawyers, to be confronted with the messy reality they’ll be faced with in the outside world.”
But after this hypothetical, with no warning or attempt at communication to discuss the issue, the Black Law Students Association denounced Kilborn to the dean, the administration, and the media for the single expurgated exam question. The association called his use of the redacted slurs “inexcusable.”
In January, just before the first class on the first day of spring semester, UIC’s administration abruptly suspended him. He said they refused to explain the basis for the indefinite suspension, despite being asked.
“This hits you like a ton of bricks,” said Kilborn. “It was totally unexpected. You’re totally isolated.”
* * *
On Jan. 19, FIRE called on UIC Chancellor Michael D. Amiridis to reject “any intent to punish Kilborn over his protected expression.” FIRE gave UIC a good-faith opportunity to back off Kilborn and to reaffirm his academic freedom rights.
UIC responded to confirm that it was, in fact, conducting an investigation into Kilborn’s exam and rejecting our concerns about his academic freedom rights. The move earned UIC a spot on FIRE’s annual list of the 10 Worst Colleges for Free Speech, as well as pointed criticism from outlets and commentators across the country.
* * *
FIRE connected Kilborn with a local attorney, Wayne Giampietro. With help from the FLDF team at FIRE, the pair reached a resolution with UIC. Kilborn agreed to alert the dean before responding to student complaints about racial issues, and the audio of his classes would be recorded — both stipulations Kilborn welcomed in order to protect himself against spurious complaints, and one he’d already decided to take independently.
Kilborn strongly objected to mandatory sensitivity training or signing a non-disclosure agreement that would have barred him from publicly commenting about the ordeal. He said it’s thanks to the credible threat of action by an FLDF attorney that the administration’s final resolution did not contain these elements.
“The resolution in my case was like most good compromises — it pleased no one, so it must have been the right one,” he said. “The average person doesn’t enjoy fighting. If I enjoyed fighting I would’ve remained a lawyer. I was tired of it, emotionally tired of it. I’m grateful for FIRE’s backing, both moral and financial, without which I don’t know how I would have made it through the hell of these last six months.”
Case close, right? No, it’s never case closed.
Despite the apparent agreement, UIC is now demanding that Prof. Kilborn go through re-education on “inclusion” including by taking a course taught at …. you’ll never guess where … seriously, you’ll never guess.
University of Chicago Law School Law Professor Brian Leiter reports (h/t TaxProf), Univ of Illinois-Chicago has gone crazy: the latest on the Kilborn case:
Last Friday, the university informed Professor Kilborn’s lawyer that Professor Kilborn would be suspended from teaching this Spring at UIC’s John Marshall Law School (although still paid, and still required to perform administrative duties) so that he can participate in rather time-intensive “re-education” programs: Download 21; 12.16 from Alsterda
Professor Kilborn will be subjected to an 8-week indoctrination course–20 hours of coursework, required “self-reflection” (self-criticism?) papers for each of 5 modules, plus weekly 90-minute sessions with a trainer followed by three more weeks of vaguely described supplemental meetings with this trainer. Since the trainer will provide “feedback regarding Professor Kilborn’s engagement and commitment to the goals of the program,” disagreement or skepticism about the content of the program is presumably not welcome.
This is simply chilling.
(Prior coverage, including the debunking of the allegations of racial harassment against Kilborn.)
Here is some of the text of the letter delivered December 16 to Kilborn’s lawyer Wayne Giampietro from John B. Alsterda, UIC Legal Counsel (emphasis added)
…. I would like to take this opportunity to set forth in writing the individualized training and coaching for Professor Kilborn to facilitate his return to the classroom, as well as additional important developments for the Law School community. I am providing this information to you outside of the Rule 408 communications we have had to date.
• Professor Kilborn will be enrolled in Cornell University Center for Teaching Innovation, “Teaching and Learning in the Diverse Classroom Online Course.” Information about the course can be found here: https://teaching.cornell.edu/programs/faculty-instructors/workshops-and-other-opportunities/teaching-learning-diverse-classroom. The course consists of 5 modules spanning 5 weeks. Each module requires an approximate time commitment of 2-4 hours.
• The modules will also be supplemented by readings, podcasts, and/or videos.
• After completion of each module, Professor Kilborn will be asked to prepare a written self-reflection paper in response to specific prompts.
• In conjunction with his Cornell coursework, the Law School is retaining an instructional advisor to work with Professor Kilborn one-on-one. The advisor is a practicing attorney with significant experience in employment law and diversity and inclusion consulting and has a sub-specialty in higher education matters. In furtherance of her work in this area , the advisor has taken a similar Cornell course in diversity and inclusion and has earned a certificate in Diversity and Inclusion from Cornell similar to the one Professor Kilborn will earn. The instructional advisor will connect with Professor Kilborn weekly, preferably via zoom, although they may decide in-person meetings are more effective (taking COVID-safety protocols into account). These meetings will consist of 60 to 90-minute sessions to discuss the Cornell modules and supplementary assignments, to provide feedback on reflection papers, and to discuss the assignments, answer his questions and offer insights. In addition, the advisor will assess whether Professor Kilborn is gaining insight, learning, and competencies in the subject matter presented, with a particular focus on applying the course content to his work responsibilities as a faculty member.
• Following the 5-week Cornell course, Professor Kilborn will be provided with additional supplementary material and will meet with the instructional advisor weekly to discuss the material. During the course of the program, the instructional advisor will also provide feedback regarding Professor Kilborn’s engagement and commitment to the goals of the program. The common goal is to return Professor Kilborn to the classroom. The Law School is committed to ensuring that the entire Law School community benefits from a diverse, equitable and inclusive environment.
The letter then says this is not “punitive” but that Prof. Kilborn would not be allowed to teach his classes while he underwent the training:
In creating this program, we again want to stress that it is not punitive. However, we believe Professor Kilborn will benefit from this type of one-on-one training and coaching, particularly in working with a practicing attorney along the way. We note that faculty, administrators, and executives routinely engage in these programs as a means of continuing their education and broadening their skillset.
The program can start in January 2022 and will run approximately 8 weeks in total. Therefore, Professor Kilborn’s classes this Spring will be taught by other faculty, and he will continue his scholarship work, and substantive academic service work important to the Law School….
And last not but not least, the letter let Prof. Kilborn know that if he sued, the university (funded by taxpayers) would fight him to the death (my characterization):
As I am sure you can appreciate, litigation is time consuming, expensive, and cedes authority for resolution to a third party; whereas following the above approach allows the parties to maintain control of the outcome in what is hopefully a cooperative process. We are not asking that Professor Kilborn waive, relinquish, or release any claims that he may believe he has; but should Professor Kilborn decide to pursue those claims in court, the University will vigorously defend against them.
This is nothing short of an attempt to humiliate Prof. Kilborn through a reeducation and supervisory program that would make Maoist Red Guards blush.
This is repressive and abusive. UIC John Marshall Law School is a disgrace. Prof. Brian Leiter was too kind in saying UIC Law School “has gone crazy” and its conduct is “chilling.”
I reached out to Prof. Kilborn’s counsel to see if there had been any change in the last few days, but as of this writing, have not heard back. We will continue to follow the case.
———-
Additional links:
Pepperdine Law School Dean Paul Caron, author of TaxProf Blog, has done yeoman’s work documenting Prof. Kilborn’s saga. Here are TaxProf’s links:
- Controversy At UIC Law School Over Use Of ‘N And B (Profane Expressions For African Americans And Women)’ On Fall Civ Pro Exam (Jan. 16, 2021)
- Is This Law Professor Really A Homicidal Threat? (Jan. 20, 2021)
- Jason Kilborn, UI-Chicago Law School Settle Controversy Over December 2020 Civ Pro Final Exam Question (Sept. 13, 2021)
- When Suspending A Law Professor Isn’t Enough (Nov. 11, 2021)
- Koppelman: This Is A Witch-Hunt Against A Tenured Law Professor (Nov. 18, 2021)
- Koppelman On The Yale And UIC Law School Controversies (Nov. 29, 2021)
- Academic Freedom Alliance And Brian Leiter Weigh In On How The University Of Illinois-Chicago Has Handled Student Complaints Against A Tenured Law Professor (Dec. 7, 2021)
- ABA Journal, UIC Law Prof Must Receive Online Diversity Training, Coaching Before Classroom Return, Letter Says
- Legal Skills Prof Blog, The Gulag University of Illinois-Chicago
- Keith Whittington (Princeton), Things Get Worse at the University of Illinois at Chicago
- University Of Illinois-Chicago Law School Reassigns Jason Kilborn’s Spring Classes While He Undergoes Mandatory Diversity Training (December 20, 2021)
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Comments
We’re better off without a law and order that entirely favors the systematic oppression of us, by far-left sociopaths, in the media, in our schools, and in employment. They use words like racism as a cudgel, in vicious assaults against ourselves and our children, to cancel, humiliate, and indoctrinate us. Our laws are complicit in this vicious assault on us. We are better off without laws, to allow us to deal with the barbarians that have tore apart our once great nation.
“we again want to stress that it is not punitive.”
Of course, some actions are more “not punitive” than others.
So essentially these clowns hold that writing or saying “the N word” or “the F word “ is the same thing as saying the actual words. No, you ninnies!
Actually, they might have a point there. All that is happening here is moving the boundary of permitted expression one step at a time. Any euphemism will eventually fall afoul of this process. Law professors should be able to use the same unexpurgated, undisguised expressions students may deal with in practice.
(Does anyone still remember a few years back when progressives tried to prevent the teaching the laws governing sexual assault on the grounds that it might harm students who had been victimized?)
Well then, if it is, I may as well get my money’s worth and just use the whole words.
After reading this I feel unsafe and traumatized.
truth is; if you’re in any working environment dealing with the ‘SILLY’S’ you’re in Jeopardy for the same treatment this Professor is getting. We’ve been BULLIED and now we are strangers in our own land.
I didn’t need convincing–I’ve made several contributions to LI in the past–but this illustrates why it’s important to support LI financially.
UIC and its John Marshall Law School are state institutions, and thus subject to the first amendment.
I think the Law School is patterning its response after the “struggle sessions” dictated by Mao’s Red Guards. I’ll bet the “diversity” indoctrination they are demanding comes right out of Mao’s Little Red Book.
It’s time for him to take them to court.
The way they’re trying to humiliate him for nothing just reminded me that it’s time to send my yearly donations to Legal Insurrection and to the FIRE. I could easily be the next one targeted by the woke police.
“We are not asking that Professor Kilborn waive, relinquish, or release any claims that he may believe he has; but should Professor Kilborn decide to pursue those claims in court, the University will vigorously defend against them.”
Translation: Do what you’re told OR ELSE.
The lesson here is that the professor should have sued immediately. The “investigation,” the apologies, the negotiations, and all of the administrative foot-dragging are meant to create a moral cloud on his name and fix in in the public consciousness. The process is the punishment, and it only gets worse.
Because our silly little BULLY’S KNOW WHAT SHARPTON, BEN CRUMP, JESSE JACKSON HAS TAUGHT THEM, PAYBACK IS A BITCH!
Talk about snow flakes. Our school systems are breeding deep-seated mental illness from K onward. These are the people who will be badgering the sane everywhere after graduation too. And they have been empowered by….. ?
Common sense itself has been cancelled. We are being turned into a society of empowered, perverted zombies. This isn’t going to just blow over and run its course. We need to do whatever it takes to stop this. Starts at home. Stop being “sensitive” and “tolerant” and “understanding”. These people are so far beyond the pale to as to be considered an evil disease.
“That student who got heart palpitations needs help, and what the suits at the University of Illinois in Chicago should have done as gently direct this student to the proper services, which the school surely provides, for people who have fallen away from the ability to cope with normal life.”
Life doesn’t have to be this complicated. It is the most stupid among us who are pushing this into our faces and forcing us to explain ourselves to stupid people who are not listening. We have allowed it to take root and spread because we are “sensitive”, “tolerant” and “understanding”. Stop it! Just. Stop. It.
Common sense and committing to our most cherished values is how we get back to simplicity. Stop being sensitive to stupid people. Stop tolerating insanity. Stop trying to explain yourselves to people who just aren’t listening.
Best response of the year, Pasadena Phil! You nailed it.
I don’t think any reputable firm is going to hire the graduates of a TTT like UIC-John Marshall.
There are still disreputable ones, though. Perhaps they will find the unscrupulous and predatory tendencies of these crybullies to be promising, say, for an aggressive plaintiff’s-side tort practice?
They may not but local, state and federal government agencies will and where can these woke fascists do more damage?
This is a very bad lesson that academia as whole is teaching. Resolutions of minor disputes shouldn’t be elevated to the level of a feud. That’s the inevitable outcome for this. Surrender unconditionally and accept the punishment decided upon and meted out by another group which has all the characteristics of a tribe or engage in a long and costly conflict while rallying support and assistance from your tribe.
Hopefully sanity can ultimately prevail and the elevation of perceived slights into an unjustified legal conflict will be pushed back and eliminated. If not then the current arena; legal action, will eventually be abandoned by one or another and the dispute will erupt in the streets. That is a horrible but inevitable consequence in our current climate.
Same advice as John McWhorter gives in his new book: do not attempt to argue with CRT advocates, the woke, or as McWhorter calls them, the Elect. They are impervious to reason. They may even dismiss appeals to evidence or logic as white supremacist.
Common sense is NOT so common.
The students are ” distraught, mentally exhausted, and overwhelmed.” Victimhood is a form of currency with these idiots.
Indeed. Their actual emotions are irrelevant to the claims.
It starts by allowing your children to be “educated” by the state. Stop saying you just can’t do it. This is what you get when you relinquish your responsibilities to the state!
I will posit the theory that the students initially made an issue of this as a very attractive and easy to use excuse for otherwise poor test performance.
Never have students had so much control on campus, and never have so many weak administrators allowed/enabled them.
I don’t think the 60’s even compared to today.
Back in the ’60s student weren’t the ones on the hook for most of the cost of their education. Campus administrators cater to the every whim of these delicate little snowflakes, because clueless young people’s willingness to take out student loans is what keeps the school in business. The customer is always right.
You hit the key word Dennis – customer. This entire woke/cancel culture on campus really started to snowball when colleges began viewing their students as “customers.”
I don’t know when this happened or perhaps it was a process but I know for sure that when I was in undergrad and grad school for engineering I was never treated like a customer and never expected to be treated that way.
Yeah, woke nonsense goes on in high schools to, but there it’s pushed by the teachers, it’s not like colleges where the lunatics have taken over the asylum.
Because the US Taxpayer is bankrolling the ‘customer’ by guaranteeing the loans. Congress could stop the gravy train at any time.
black aa students are not on the hook for their education. They are academically unqualified, morally unfit, and get a free ride in all matters.
for us who lived in those time zones ‘ the 50s-’60s we did dialogue, protest, dialogue. We had demands of policy but did not attack the person with trivia they were hard-fought and won due to logic, reason, and eventually respect. They are BRATS! BULLIES! God help our future it will be run by people who’s brains are a mental goulash.
Raymond Shaw is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life.
Let’s face it. Coddling pampering parents are the cause of the last two generations becoming such pussies. Then the coddling pampering school systems continued this lunacy.
Michael Savage is right, liberalism is a mental disorder
The only way this goes away is if the school is punished. One method might be a 7-figure damages award to the professor. Another might be for sane employers to refuse to hire any of the graduates until the administration is fired and replaced, except that that is not much of a threat to a school whose employment statistics are already poor (in 2020 apparently 44% employed at graduation & 72% ten months later).
“Prof. Kilborn provided this apology statement…”
And so I lose all interest and sympathy.
That was his first (and biggest) mistake. The nutty Left would see an apology (even one couched as “I’m sorry you’re offended”) as weakness, and redouble the attacks.
And a bit of contrarianism here, too. The professor learned a valuable lesson, as have all of us — that if you write a letter and follow it with blanks or asterisks, it is intended to be read as the full word and will in fact be read as such, and some people (who may be unfit to function in the real world where unfortunately one still encounters these words, but that is a separate issue) will be triggered. That has apparently also happened when a word that sounds very much like a particular slur but has no relationship to it and means “miserly” has been used. I doubt that the exam question would have suffered had it merely referred to “profane slurs” without specification, and while that might have spurred some protests, even a loony left administration might have rebuffed them.
Don’t bet on it. Elsewhere, a law professor was pilloried just for discussing rape law, because the very idea of rape triggered some of his snowflakes, who apparently were planning on making a career out of exclusively prosecuting slip-and-fall suits.
His first mistake was crafting an exam question with an unlikely fact pattern that he thought would cater to hostile workplace discrimination claims of blacks and women.
His second mistake was in equating “bitch” — a perfectly acceptable word for a female canine — with the far more offensive Southern dialect pronunciation of “negro”, derived from the Latin word meaning “black”, because of the connotations it now carries.
His third mistake was in using words he delicately did not just spell out. I get that this is done all over the place on the internet to avoid automatic post censoring, but little dashes or astericks don’t change anything. Written speech uses symbols and that’s what the alphabet is.
His fourth mistake was, of course, apologizing, and not immediately taking an aggressive pro-free-speech litigation stance.
Bullies look for those who signal that they already are vulnerable victims.
Totalitarianism isn’t implemented all at once. It is implemented by a series of little encroachments on liberty interspersed with pauses to get you used to each one. If you wait too long to “draw the line” and resist, at a point it will be fruitless.
BRAVO! Excellent assessment. And, you’re right as well!
Why don’t they just shoot him? They’re already in Chicago.
I am a graduate of this school.
This year, the school eliminated John Marshall from its name because John Marshall was deemed to be evil.
It is impossible to redeem this communist institution.!
Black Law Student Association?
Sounds like they need a Black Letter Law Student Association.
who else would it be? Who else would benefit?
The process is the punishment. And this is an intentionally intimidating example of that concept.
It’s unbelievable the lengths the university has gone to in order to prevent the possibility of having all its buildings burned to the ground. Better safe than sorry.
Yep, that’s the method; first, you BULLY, then if not satisfied THEN YOU BURN IT DOWN. so far it’s working for them.
His apology included an analogy of bumping into a stranger on the street and immediately apologizing. And how normal people say “excuse me” which is responded to by “no problem” and all continue.on their way, but how this resembles the bump being greeted with a severe physical beating.
This is an all to frequent event on the streets of many of our big cities: the bump is greeted by violence which includes all too often gunfire. Prof. Kilborn’s exam question is the “bump” and the students’ response is the beat-down, shooting, that often occurs. Make your own judgement as to who engages in both styles of “bump” responses.
we’re witnessing Revenge as a method of getting even for past sins, believed to be justified because we’re BENDING OVER FOR THE SCREWING and this is how they like to see it, PAYBACK IS A BITCH motto on the streets
Another crock of crap! How many times have black students used n+++++ and b++++ on themselves?? And, this caused anxiety and distress on those taking the exam? Grow up!
Some group(s) have waited 200 years for this payback. revenge is a strong motivator. Not so? As Benjamin Crump wins, he’s the go-to fat cat attorney advising how you do it for the payout.
I wonder if the black female attorney that stormed out of the Smollet trial with her mommy after accusing the judge of lunging at her went to UIC?
Is the snowflake the a “N” word or the “B” word?, If jesse steps IN, he certainly is BOTH!..IMO. All I can say is blacks AND their culture uses these words as much or more than anyone. The only thing I can think of is WAH,WAH & WAH! suck it up buttercup…sticks and stones, snowflake.
well, with words they will defeat you. We’re the snowflakes we’re the society willing to make amends for years of wrongs and they will be requited for past wrongs done to them, a price will be paid and it will be a handsome price, the payout will come in many forms!
janitor wrote “His fourth mistake was, of course, apologizing, and not immediately taking an aggressive pro-free-speech litigation stance.”
Yes!
Also, Black Supremacy is perhaps the greatest threat to our Republic today.
I have been a lawyer for 52 years. Law school, at least when I attended, was designed to strip away common sensibilities and replace them with rational thought patterns useful in the practice of law. I have often told (warned) those seeking to get under my skin with personal attacks that as Seasoned attorney I simply cannot be offended…and that is true. That capacity is a valuable characteristic when dealing with the vagaries of life. I suggest these young and green students be introduced to what it means to be a lawyer confronted in everyday life with a plethora of what makes the world go around.
Amen, good suggestion.
“Graduate programs in law and medicine, for example, can’t be taught with memorization or a series of lectures. He said they require difficult, hands-on training in the messy parts of their disciplines. Would you trust a surgeon who sat through a series of lectures, but never cut open a patient? In law school, Kilborn said, that level of experience comes from engaging with real-world examples involving complicated, difficult legal cases.”
Except that is exactly what law school does not do. In a real case a lawyers would be reading the real words. That’s a small point besides how taking an exam is nothing like representing a client.
Just to remind everyone, Cornell students are too uninformed to know what the “N-word” is. For example, in 2019 at the Cornell Alumni Leadership Conference, the Development Office staff made the mistake of inviting some undergraduates to travel to Boston to participate as the guests of the Alumni Association. The highpoint of the conference was an awards banquet where Cornell presented the William Vaneman ’31 Award, for life-long outstand alumni service. The recipient is expected to give a thank you speech. He referenced the great Negro League pitcher Satchel Paige. The undergraduates in the audience went crazy over “his use of the N word.” Of course, the word Negro appeared in the official name of the league as it is also in the name of the United Negro College Fund, the National Council of Negro Women, etc. The Administration crafted a note of apology which was read to the audience the next morning. https://cornellsun.com/2019/02/20/guest-room-being-a-cornell-alumnus-is-harder-than-being-a-student/
Given Cornell’s racial climate and academic freedom climate, I don’t believe they are in a position to teach Prof. Kilborn anything of value.
this entire episode is shitty, just stupidly shitty. These are BRATS AND BULLIES. Someday the shit will hit them right in the face, then they will understand sometimes life is NOT FAIR!
No one was triggered. They are simply drunk on black privilege.
Wilborn should have started off with the Jabotinsky Maneuver: “Go to hell!”
Since he didn’t, Wilborn must now sue for:
An injunction against the school’s racist, sexist hate campaign against him;
The end of all such practices against other members of non-affirmative action groups;
Millions of dollars in punitive damages; and
The dismissal of the administrators, professors, and staffers, and expulsion of the students who led this hate campaign, for violating his civil liberties.
Enter from stage left: Benjamin Crump! if the payout is big enough.
Based on this, I would not think, even for a moment, of hiring an attorney from U.Illinois-Chicago.
I also think we should all consider some questions we might ask of someone we’re thinking of engaging as an attorney. If they have the vapors over stuff like this, then they don’t have the intestinal fortitude necessary to be attorneys.
Another example of why you never bend the knee to these fanatics; and I question what kind of law school does not prepare its attorneys for the rough and tumble world that is out there once they graduate