I would assume UTC receives public funding. Doesn't supporting or rallying against people in a run for public office with an organization that receives public funding violate election laws?
Laws are violated only if the people in charge of the laws say it is the case. Until then, this cancer will keep spreading...
Law school professors say posting ‘All Lives Matter’ flier was an ‘incident of intolerance’Earlier this month, someone left a hand-written flier on the door of a faculty member’s office at American University’s Washington College of Law that read, “All Lives Matter.”
It didn’t go unnoticed.
That phrase — to some, code language for a racist rejection of an important cultural wake-up call, for others, an idealistic appeal for a simple, more universal truth — set off a series of reactions.
A large group of faculty were offended, saying the phrase was used by white supremacists. Students held a community forum.
And a couple of professors on a national civil-rights commission asked the dean, incredulously, “What is wrong with your faculty and staff members?”
The variety of responses, and their intensity, illustrated how fraught the topic of race is on campuses across the country, how divisive, and how alert people are to differences.
Last year, the slogan “Black Lives Matter” spread nationally after several black men were killed by police in circumstances that touched off controversy and protests; the phrase became for many a symbol of a nascent and powerful civil-rights movement.
After spring break, Washington College of Law Dean Claudio Grossman wrote to the law school community to tell them of the “very disturbing incident.”
The flier was left anonymously on the door of the office of a faculty member “with a national reputation for doing important work on issues of racial justice in the criminal justice system.”
Grossman wrote that, “Although the phrase ‘All Lives Matter’ may sound benign, it sometimes has been used as a rallying cry by some groups who oppose the Black Lives Matter Movement and seek to silence it.”
Scores of faculty signed a letter decrying the flier, writing, in part, “… the message appears intended by the messenger to be an attempt to silence and intimidate an opposing viewpoint, not an effort to communicate a different perspective.
“… The ‘All Lives Matter’ sign might seem to be a benign message with no ill intent, but it has become a rallying cry for many who espouse ideas of white supremacy and overt racism, as well as those who do not believe the laws should equally protect those who have a different skin color or religion.”
Then two members of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights — speaking as individuals, not for the commission — wrote to the dean.
“The response of American University faculty and staff was nothing short of Orwellian,” Gail Heriot and Peter Kirsanow wrote, in part. They also wrote:
“Nearly sixty members of the law faculty and staff signed a letter calling this an ‘act of intolerance,’ because it refers to ‘all lives’ rather than only ‘black lives.’
“This makes American University look foolish.
“Even sillier, the letter calls this obviously true statement — that the lives of all members of the human species are valuable — ‘a rallying cry for many who espouse ideas of white supremacy.’
“While we know that President Obama has stated that ‘all lives matter,’ we are not personally aware of any cases in which white supremacists (a rare species these days) have made that statement.
“Equating a student making a legitimate and utterly unobjectionable point with a white supremacist is nonsensical.”
(Obama, in explaining why he does not think the phrase “Black Lives Matter” is offensive and that he does not think the protesters are suggesting other people’s lives don’t matter, said in October, “I think everybody understands all lives matter.”)
By phone, Heriot, a professor of law at the University of San Diego, said that when she saw the letter from the professors, “My reaction was that this was — quite outrageous. I just wish that people in positions of authority, like members of a law-school faculty, would try not to make things worse by engaging in name-calling of this kind.
“I thought this was an occasion upon which I really needed to say something. If nobody talks back — things just spiral out of control.
“Lawyers need to be trained to deal with situations with sympathy for both sides, understanding the argument on both sides. And to accuse someone of making such an unobjectionable statement as being allied with white supremacists is over the top.”
It’s a sign of the times, she said. “I don’t think this would have happened 30 years ago, or five years ago. The world is getting more politically tribal. It worries me a lot. I’m not just seeing it in this instance but in many situations,” she said.
A spokeswoman for the law school said in an emailed statement: “Our response to this letter is everyone is entitled to his or her view, including two of the eight members of the Commission. The school has already expressed its view.”
Last week, students held an event promoted as a “WCL Community Town Hall Meeting addressing ‘All Lives Matter.’ ” Students from the group that organized it and from the Black Law Students Association did not respond to requests for comment.
“The letter sent to our community following the original event was overwhelmingly well received here, and students sympathetic to the letter organized an open forum in March that went very well,” the school spokeswoman wrote. “There has been no other issue on this topic inside the law school during the last month.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/04/04/law-school-professors-say-posting-all-lives-matter-flier-was-an-incident-of-intolerance/
