Students Pressure Seattle University Law School Into Cutting Ties With ICE
“condemns administration policies that have led to the unjust and inhumane treatment of asylum seekers and migrant families”
In the first two years of the Trump presidency, no federal agency has been targeted by the left more than ICE. Just last week, 2020 hopeful Kamala Harris tried to draw a comparison between ICE and the KKK.
Campus progressives have also singled out ICE for unfair criticism. In February, students at Rutgers successfully campaigned to have the agency removed from a government jobs fair.
Now the law school at Seattle University has severed ties with ICE.
Asia Fields reports at the Seattle Times:
Seattle University Law School suspends externship with ICE
After pressure from students, Seattle University School of Law administrators suspended its externship with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
An externship provides students with legal work experience for school credit. Externs for ICE work in its legal office, which represents the government in deportation proceedings and provides legal advice and training.
Alex Romero, a third-year law student who wants to be an immigration lawyer, noticed representatives from ICE at a table at a law-school externship fair in late September. Romero met with administrators and told them this could be frightening for undocumented students and went against the school’s mission.
In other words, students at this school will no longer be able to take advantage of this valuable educational experience so that social justice warriors can feel better about themselves.
A legal adviser for ICE named Tracy Short offered a statement:
“It’s disheartening that an institution dedicated to teaching the laws of this country and whose core values include justice and diversity would prevent its students from gaining valuable professional experience in the fields of immigration and customs law,” Short said, also pointing out that the university receives some federal funding.
Kenneth Nelson of Campus Reform has a statement from the law school’s dean:
Annette Clark, the school’s Dean of Law, claimed in an email that Seattle University is a signatory of a policy “which condemns administration policies that have led to the unjust and inhumane treatment of asylum seekers and migrant families, practices that continue today and that directly affect members of our community,” according to The Spectator.
The school newspaper, The Spectator, has more on the student who led this effort:
Law School Suspends Controversial ICE Externship
In September, many Seattle University law students attended an externship fair where organizations advertised the externships they offer to Seattle U students in exchange for course credit. Among the hundreds of programs that Seattle U offers was one that caught the attention of law student Alex Romero: a table with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) representatives advertising their own program.
Given that ICE is currently under fire for its treatment of undocumented immigrants, Romero believed that this externship ran contrary to Seattle U’s mission. He brought these concerns to the externship program office’s attention in hopes to end this partnership, and after pressure from students and community members, law school Dean Annette Clark announced in an email on Oct. 31 that the school would suspend this partnership…
At first, according to Romero, the law school was hesitant to suspend the program, and it wasn’t until more community members applied pressure that they took action.
“I prepared arguments on why this is inappropriate at our school and contrary to our mission and a list of other arguments,” Romero said. “The law school weighed the argument [that] the school has an ample responsibility to provide different options for different students and weighed it heavier than my arguments.”
Romero said he then made a petition and contacted community members for support. With that pressure, he said, the university suspended the program.
Take note of this particular line from the report:
“Students raised concerns after ICE presence at our annual Externship Fair caused them to feel unsafe,” Jill Dutton, director of the externship program, said in an email statement.
This absurd claim has been used by campus progressives repeatedly in recent years. Campus police, regular police, conservative student groups and invited speakers have all been subjected to the argument that their mere presence makes some students feel unsafe.
In the case of ICE at Seattle University, it was a precursor to the virtue-signaling moral argument which finally succeeded.
In the months before the 2018 midterms, the abolishment of ICE was a common talking point among Democrats, many of whom have become indistinguishable from campus social justice warriors.
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Comments
I’d comment on Seattle University’s shift from teaching law to political indoctrination, but I’ve already written off the entire American “education” system.
“Students demand” this, and “students demand” that. Whatever happened to the concept of those in charge saying “no”?
If the students don’t like this or that, they are free to take their tuition dollars elsewhere.
Universities these days seem to have people with no backbone who run them.
I work at a University and the culture seems to be such that everyone is stabbing others in the back, while students run the asylum. It has been working it’s way to this nasty culture for a while now. It is common at a lot of places where worker’s morale is so low. They treat the people who make the places run like crap while glorifying the students no matter how they behave.
The systems are crumbling. It’s what leftists do.
Those in charge agree with them; they just won’t say so.
a 3rd/4th tier law school like SU is likely happy to have any students at all, so bending over for ridiculous demands is to be expected. And the school is Jesuit anyway so leftist attitudes are more welcome there. Recall that Gonzaga, another Jesuit university, invited the wanna-be censorious goon Melissa Click of University of Missouri infamy to join the GU faculty.
Seattle University School of Law is a private, Jesuit school, so that explain their devoid of Christian doctrine ‘men without chests’ administration.
https://law.seattleu.edu/
So let’s all agree that the Jesuits are not really Christians, in any true sense, but anti-constitutional marxists. That will simplify any further discussions…
The current Pope is a Jesuit, and he certainly looks, acts, walks, and quacks like a Marxist.
Q: What’s the difference between a Muslim and a Jesuit?
A: The Muslim is more apt to believe in the Holy Trinity.
“Romero met with administrators and told them this could be frightening for undocumented students…”
You mean law students who are breaking the law? Yeah, I could understand how that might be disturbing. I suppose we should get rid of the FBI recruiters in case any of the students are former bank robbers, and get rid of the IRS recruiters in case any of the students have cheated on their taxes.
After all, law *enforcement* makes criminals afraid.
“… law *enforcement* makes criminals afraid.”
As t should, just like the US military works to keep hostile despots awake at night.
In a correct world, all federal agencies who are involved with this school in its extern program will withdraw from it, and all federal funding going to the school ends immediately, including GI Bill-type funds. VA to facilitate transfer of students to a real school.
Actions have consequences.
… and any student loan that has any type of government backing
We have a massive bubble of student loan debt, and the first chance they get the Dims will “forgive” this debt, forcing it down on all of us. Remember that when you read all these stories about the excesses and the nonsense coming out of academia.
Wonder how many of these students have been wearing Che Guevara shirts? What unjust and inhumane treatment? Illegal Aliens aren’t being lined up against the wall and shot, like Che did with Cuban dissidents.
Time to start defunding seditious colleges and universities.
So, who cares? The students are obviously happy with the decision. The administration is obviously happy with the decision. And, secretly, ICE is probably happy with the decision. Personally, I would be thrilled with a generation of liberal/progressive lawyers who DO NOT know the intricacies of how federal law enforcement agencies work. It stymies them in their attempts to obstruct those agencies in their assigned mission. Have you ever noticed how many members of the legal staffs of prosecutorial offices and LEAs routinely end up as criminal defense attorneys?
Nah… this is all good.
At the risk of humble bragging, I care. I care a lot. Every time I flew into to Travis I looked at my nieces and nephews and knew what I was doing was worth it.
Now people are ruining it.
Every fighting man cares. Just give me a reason to fight and I’ll do it.
So, what the heck does this mean?
If you are speaking of Travis Air Force base, it is California, not Seattle, and is not affiliated with the Seattle University Law School in any way that IO can see.
If your point is that you served in the military to deny people choice, then you served for the wrong reason. It should have been for the FREEDOM to choose.
The decision to “sever ties” with ICE does not affect ICE, and its mission, in the slightest.
So, it might be helpful of you clarified your point.
Yes, meant Travis AFB.
If I were going to paint my house blue, and I didn’t have the option of painting it Navy blue, I’d paint it Air Force blue.
Can you explain yourself to me? Not like you have to.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=25&v=L7-N_5JcvdE
I believe, sir, you misunderstand me. I did not join the Navy to deny anyone anything.
Except to deny people the right to invade the country. I did join the Navy to deny people that. Which, I believe, is why people join ICE. Which makes them my partners in defense of the country.
Seriously, what does this mean? How do you get here? I have as all American fighting men always stood for freedom.
Prove me wrong.
Wow. This has got to be the most nonsensical response that I have even seen on this site. And, that is saying something.
What does an Air Force base in California and the fact that you were in the military have to do with the decision of a private law school to not invite a federal law enforcement agency to career day or to engage in an externship program with them?
What the school did was to exercise its right to choose. Whether that choice is good or bad is largely dependent upon what the people involved want. And, by protecting our system of government, one thing that the military does is to protect our freedom of choice.
Now, in my opinion, this decision is not only NOT a negative for ICE, it is largely a positive. As to it being a negative for some of the students, well they can change schools, if they CHOOSE.
Can anyone tell me how to support ICE? I’m a member of Navy and Marine Corps Relief.
http://www.nmcrs.org/
I would like to support these good people who are under attack as well. Thanks for any help.
Maybe, just maybe, I’m not entitled to feel free to believe.
They are a private school, but if they are receiving one dime of federal money or tax breaks, cut them immediately.
I graduated from the U of W law school, class of 88. Back in the days where you still learned law from books, and computers, though present, did not rule the world.
Seattle U’s law school has always been the UW Law school’s poor disreputable little sister. Although these days, the U of W’s law school is undoubtedly as screwed up by the leftist mind set as Seattle U’s law school clearly is.
I have attended a number of Continuing Legal Education classes put on by Seattle U. No more! And I will be letting them know why, too!
Forget it Jake. It’s Seattle—the slovenly political sister to Portland.
The DOj and all other government agencies should stop seeking to give job seekers from that schools any interviews or hiring.
Obama’s cages, separation, refugee crises, social justice adventurism, and trail of tears?
Immigration reform has been used as a cover-up for collateral damage at both ends of the bridge and throughout.
Is anyone other than ICE bothered by this?
If they feel so strongly about it, they should help house migrants in their dorms.
I want to know, was I not clear?
Did anyone think this was about an Air Force Base?
Mac aske, “Who cares?” I answered, a lot of people.
Ok, let’s make it about an Air Force Base. The Air Mobility Command flew me home countless times. I am eternally grateful. I continue to wonder just what Mac is confused about. The answer to his question about who cares is everybody who serves.
“So, who cares?… ”
Asked and answered.