At a lawschool a professor came into class one day wearing a #blacklivesmatter t-shirt. In response to wearing the t-shirt he received an open letter from a 1L student (this is a first year student). The open letter in relevant parts state:
Quote:
We believe this [wearing the BLM t-shirt] is an inappropriate and unnecessary statement that has no legitimate place within our institution of higher learning. The statement you represented and endorsed is also highly offensive and extremely inflammatory.
Your view represents that some of those demographics matter more than others. That alienates and isolates all non-black groups.
As someone who is charged to teach criminal law, it should be abundantly clear to you and beyond any question that ALL lives matter, as it is expressed unequivocally in the law. Furthermore, the "Black Lives Matter" statement is racist and anti-law enforcement and has been known to incite violence in this country. As someone who is paid to teach the law, you should be ashamed of yourself.
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The law professor responded, with the relevant part (there are 2 main parts) quoted, stating:
Quote:
Critique: You are not paying me to pretend I don't have [an opinion]
Critique: There is a difference between focus and exclusion. If something matter, this does not imply that nothing else does. If I say "Law Students Matter" it does not impy that my colleagues, friends, and family do not. [Context matters.] The Black Lives Matter movement arose in a context of evidence that they don't.
There are some implicit words the precede "Black Lives Matter" and they go something like this:
Because of the brutalizing and killing of black people at the hands of the police and the indifference of society in general and the criminal justice system in particular, it is important that we say that...
Critique: Black Lives Matter is not a statement about white people, [but about those who perpetrate, endorse, or ignores violence against black people].
Critique: To assert that the Black Lives Matter movement is about violence against the police is to ignore 9and invert0 the causal reality the the movement arose as an effect of police violence.
Critique: We are all entitled to ... discern meaning. There can be reasonable differences of opinion about what something means.
Unless you speak for the Black Lives Matter movement you have no authority to say what those words mean to the people in it. ... Your interpretation of something and your reaction to it based on that interpretation are not the same as what something actually means. Things in the world have meaning that exist outside of you.
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There is some more arguments on both sides and grammar critiquing from the law professor. You can read it all at
http://imgur.com/a/YkDVQ.
But which argument do you think is correct. Is the law professor missing something that the student should have argued. Was the student correct. The Law professor correct?