WTW10: Law Professor BANNED from Campus for Exam Question

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:42 Thomas: And welcome to Where There's Woke. This is episode 10. Thomas Smith. That over there is my official hot co-host. It's Lydia Smith, my amazing wife. How are you doing? Is that how you want to start your, no.

0:00:56 Lydia: I don't know. Yeah. Am I out of here?

0:00:58 Thomas: You're just doing the Heath. Heath will be really happy that you did that.

0:01:01 Lydia: Okay. Well, good.

0:01:03 Thomas: I'm so excited to be doing this series. So, look, a Patreon thing where I kind of talked about the process of the last major undertaking. And, learning as we go here a little bit, because this is definitely a newer type of podcast for me, newer format. Are a patron, you heard me emphasize how many different ways it's impossible for me to record with another person when I do these.

0:01:24 Lydia: Aw.

0:01:25 Thomas: But I love Lydia that much. And so do you all. So many requests to keep Lydia on. It's very difficult with my extremely ADHD approach, which, like, if you watched an animated film, then you're like, "Yeah, just have Lydia on for that. That's fine." It's like, no, I'm sitting there drawing every frame of my thing like- she would just be sitting there while I'm drawing every single animated frame of my show. But I've- I'm gonna try to make it work, because it's definitely worth it to have Lydia on, and it, you know, probably makes me get my shit together more. Although I just- I don't know if I can, but I'm going to try.

I'm aspiring to do that. And what better way to do with- with a that, is finally episode 10. In, let's start the show. Let's start- Where There's Woke, because this is what I had in mind when I thought of starting the show. Um, already covered many elements of what I've wanted to do on here, you know, a lot of the themes were in the You Webb episodes, a lot the tactics of, of this anti-woke propaganda movement, it's, I guess I would call it, a lotta the tactics, I covered a lotta them, so it's no like I've- I've been doing stuff that's entirely unrelated or something. But this is like just the prototypical story that I had in mind.

And I've been wanting to get to it, wanting to get to it. I had to first- I had pick one, because how do you pick just one? There's so many. And then why did I start with that one or that one? And that was like, "Finally, fuck it. No, no, don't. Got to stop doing battle with myself. I picked a good one." Perfect. Spoiler, it's going to come from, uh, source of information Bill Maher. Just the god's honest with Bill Mahr, he definitely just reports it as, he's Walter Cronkite over there, tells it like he sees-

0:01:44 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. Back to basics.

0:03:05 Lydia: Yeah.

0:03:05 Thomas: It. We're going to say a lot about Bill Mahar later, because if I start talking about all that, if we start talking about all that I'll never get to the actual story. It's already hard enough as it is to get to the actual story, let alone if I have to start talking about that fucking guy. But just to tell the tiny version of the story, I saw this video floating around, I don't- could have been Facebook or Red, or some shit, you know, it's one of those things where it's just like, "Hey, you probably like this," because we of our algorithms are completely ruined at this point. So, yeah.

0:03:33 Lydia: So bad.

0:03:34 Thomas: And I even thought ahead, I was like, you know, I'll make sure I do separate accounts for everything, you Know, I do, but like, You just forget, you can't be perfect at that. There's no way. And so before long, now I have separate accounts, but they're all half and half. So instead of like having done a good job of like, okay, this is my normal stuff. Like my algorithm is not fucked. Nothing's fucked.

0:03:38 Lydia: Yeah.

0:03:54 Lydia: You've like half ruined both of them.

0:03:55 Thomas: Yep. So I go on the history. I'm like, oh, oh shit, my YouTube history, that's on the other account. No. So now they're both suggesting me. And because the algorithm's just biased toward this exact bullshit anyway, they're just, now they are both anti-woke. So I'm fucked. But anyway, so I saw this Bill Maher thing. I watched it and and without looking it up at all, do and I was like, oh, that sounds like complete bullshit.

I But was like cover I'll that at some point lost track of it and then I I didn't know how to find it, that was the worst part, you, I don't know when it was, I don't know what the title of it is, and so then I'm looking through fucking Bill Maer videos, which which is the, God, I cannot recommend anything less than looking through Bill Maher videos. I would rather, I think I would rather watch Ben Shapiro. Think, yeah, it's that bad.

Like, I'm not saying, don't know what I'm saying, actually. I'm not sure. I don't know what I'm sure. Because there's... Maher is more smug than Ben Shapiro. That's how smug his fucking face is. And he has the fake, like I'm actually still on the left thing. Which just,

0:03:56 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah.

0:04:50 Thomas: At least Ben Shapiro is like, no, no, I'm just fucking Nazi. Hi, I am a Nazi, Ben Shapiro, coming at you. He's somehow a Jewish Nazi, which is weird, but he has Nazi-esque views. Makes it worse when it's somebody doing that fake left routine. And so it just absolutely hurt me to my core to try to find, to act on purpose, click on Bill Maher videos. It was, God, it was hell, but I did it for everybody. Did it for you guys. Hope you appreciate it. And I eventually tracked it down. It was one of those like, I'll never gonna find it.

I'm never gonna to find it, I will kill myself first because I can't handle watching this guy. But then I found it and I was like, perfect. So here we go. I'm going to bring you this clip from Bill Maher. And again, I am going to just play select parts because if I play any more than the very select part I need to play, I cannot go on because it is so dumb. I have to yell at it for an hour.

So I will not do that. I will say, just to tease this series, this story launched a thousand ships or whatever the fuck. This story not was going to debunk, this one obviously, but this came with not one bonus debunk but two bonus debunks, at least led to just a chain reaction of debunks. And so this series, by the time it's all said and done, folks, it's going to be three or four parts.

We will have debunk not only the main story, but but we've taken a real real side quest stop, that's not just a minor side quest, like a pretty significant side quest, to do a major debunk, and then like a bonus junior Big Mac debunk alongside that. And it's a wild ride. I can't wait to do it. We've we've done a lot of work to try to figure out how to structure these things a little better, so I I hope you like what we're gonna do. Really excited. With that said, I'm gonna, okay.

0:04:56 Lydia: Yeah, no get into it.

0:06:23 Thomas: Was playing a Bill Maher video, okay.

0:06:24 Lydia: It.

0:06:27 Clip: Listen to this story. There's a law professor at the University of Illinois Chicago named Jason Kilborn whose crime was that on one of his exams he used a hypothetical case where a black female worker sued her employer for race and gender discrimination, alleging that managers had called her two slur words, the type of real-world case these students might one day confront. And knowing the extreme sensitivity of today's students, he didn't write the two taboo words on the test, just the first letter of each. He was teaching his students how to fight racism in the place where it matters most, the criminal justice system. But because he merely alluded to those words, again, in the service of a good cause, he was banned from campus, placed on indefinite leave, and made to wear the dunce cap.

0:07:20 Clip: No, not really the dunce cap part, but but our American version of that, eight weeks of sensitivity training, weekly 90-minute sessions with a diversity trainer, and having to write five self-reflection papers, a grown-ass man, a liberal law professor. If you can't see the similarities between that and this, the person who needs re-education is you. Reflection.

0:07:45 Thomas: So, alright, much as I'm gonna play my cards a little close to the to the vest or the chest, never know, I'll never know which one it is, never, will say that, obviously there's no fucking way that's exactly how it happened. The story I was presented is he used N space and then B space in his exam and therefore was banned from campus. Let's make sure we get the claim straight here. They're going to be important.

0:07:53 Lydia: Not me neither.

0:08:13 Thomas: Here we go.

0:08:12 Clip: He merely alluded to those words again, in the service

0:08:15 Thomas: Merely alluded.

0:08:15 Clip: Of a good cause, he was banned from campus, placed on indefinite leave and made to wear the dunce cap. No, not really the duns cap part, but but our American version of that, eight weeks of sensitivity training, weekly 90 -minute sessions with a diversity trainer, and having to write five self -reflection papers, a grown -ass man, a

0:08:18 Thomas: Banned from campus, placed on indefinite leave. Sorry, So merely alluding to the words, eight weeks of... Banned, banned from campus, indefinite leave, banned from campus. Like when I heard that, I'm like, okay, there's no fucking way. There's absolutely no way. The only way you would believe that story at face value is if your mind has been turned into jello like Bill Maher has with all of these stories, like hearing over and over the woke left campus crazy, woke left camp is crazy. Because there's because I live on this planet of information, I hear he merely put the blank, B blank on a test, banned from campus, there's absolutely no chance that that's what happened. But in fairness, I don't know what happened, so I wanted to look it up.

I want to go through this. Minor note, but it just occurred to me, I just noticed on watch number 5 ,000, they said, oh, and the place where it matters most, the criminal justice system. It's it's employment law, so it's not whatever, but it's just funny. Anyway, I so go to look it up, and this is a major reason I've mentioned before, a major reason we need to do this show and all of you need to share it, please, as much as you can, because if you just Google this, what you'll find is every single source in the entire universe, in the metaverse and the Google verse is all pro this guy, this professor whose name is Jason Kilborn. That's the power of this anti anti woke ecosystem.

You can just type in professor law question and then you, it's it's already there, like it's that good of SEO. It does not even, like, oh, what are you talking, professor law, that's not close to that, it's like, yeah, no, we know exactly what you mean, because every single source published the same thing on this, because that's what they do, and obviously Bill Maher's can't be exactly correct, but what's going on there, like, let's go through it. Start the Google process.

You figure out who it is. Jason Kilborn, UIC, let's get the real story. And you got know, a lot of sources, and I have 97 browser tabs. I first thing I find in date order is the, so that's the law school. And at this time, by the way, might be interesting to note, it was called the John Marshall Law School, and renamed. Do you want

0:08:59 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, Cancel.

0:10:43 Thomas: To guess why, hun? Any, any, any idea? Yeah.

0:10:45 Lydia: Culture? Uh...

0:10:47 Thomas: There any, you that John Marshall might have been that would maybe make them want to rename their thing? Any guesses? Is not slave owner. Yeah. Not, not just a slave owner too, At because, the time of this controversy, it was still named John Marshall law school. The time of the the controversy, by the way, to let you all know, is December 30th, 2020 is like kind of around the time where the Black Law Student Association complained. The exam itself was like, I think, before Christmas, probably. And that's what it was. The name was changed six months after that. So at the time, it's still John Marshall. And they They had been doing an investigation for

0:10:55 Lydia: Uh, slave owner, yeah.

0:11:21 Lydia: Okay. Yeah.

0:11:27 Thomas: The name change for a while, I think because, and this is another important context for the backdrop of all this, George Floyd was roughly of the year 2020, happened pretty recently as our timeline is going, and I think that is what kind of spurred the look into the new name, but of course they have to take 40 years to do it, they gotta meet about it, meet about it, and here's the only reason I want to mention this, I think it's a funny that this controversy is like, yeah, of course it would be at a school that's named after a slaveholder, like, obviously, and that's not even, by the way, not even part of the controversy, like, that was something I didn't, even I've been reading about this and reading about this.

And I stumble across one, one of the people mentioned like, oh yeah, and obviously it's also named after John Marshall. I was like, oh yeah, it's just the background racism that's everywhere in our entire country that was not even worthy of a mention in this story. Like the, the thing is taking place at John Marshall law school named after a slave holder. And I, didn't find that until like, you fucking clicks in. So it's pretty funny.

0:11:33 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Oh.

0:12:26 Thomas: I love about this is they tried to make it, like, new information. So, a quote from their announcement. The vote comes after months of review by a task force that gathered input from students, faculty, staff, and alumni, conducted research, and proposed principles to guide the institution in evaluating a potential name change. The task force report noted that despite Chief Justice Marshall's legacy, of one of the nation's most significant U.S. Supreme Court justices, the newly discovered research regarding his role as a slave trader, slave owner of hundreds of slaves, pro -slavery jurisprudence and racist views render him a highly inappropriate namesake for the law school. Sorry, new re - Pro - okay, pro -Slavery Jurisprudance? Was that discovered in a chest? In a vault? Like, it's jurisprrudence that, like, in the name, that means it's in the fucking record, right? Like, yeah,

0:12:59 Lydia: My God. Oh. My God, yeah. So, And If he was such justice than in reading decisions in cases that would have come forward, right? I mean, you're entirely right. That's not new information.

0:13:25 Thomas: Unless new research is like, oh, he actually was, it was like a Mr. like a Dr. Jeko and Mr.

0:13:35 Thomas: Slaveholder or something, or the other way around. Like, not only was he, back then, there's no Facebook. You couldn't keep anybody straight. So he was Chief Justice John Marshall, but he also like was Chief Schmush Marshall that would come in and be like, Oh yeah, hi, I'm here to argue in favor of slavery. Every, unless you discovered a persona that he had, I'm pretty sure this isn't newly discovered. You know, like this is just how it is. I love that. Like, yeah, new, new research. We, we actually didn't even know who he was before. It was just, we thought the name sounded good. Like John Marshall just sounds cool, but yeah. New research. So that's funny. Very minor part, but I just wanted to talk about it. So the, was reading through the story, I'm keeping an open mind. I want to make sure we're a hundred percent accurate.

There is something to be said for the fact that I think part of of the fallout could be that because he used the N underscore underscore, you know, like kind of blank and B blank blank blank, because of that everywhere where people talked about it, it actually kind of made you think he used real words, because it's like, oh, he used the derogatory terms ends by blank B blank on the test.

And will say again, to make the best case for Professor Kilborn here, first, I do think that was a part of the ingredient here. Now, there's a lot to the story, but I do think some of them, like public complaints, like when people saw the story, I do think they thought he used the real world. Then I think people, if I'm making the best case for him, maybe this is a big misunderstanding. It got reported. They think he used those real words, they get really mad, and then humans being humans, they're not going to back down, you

0:13:42 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah.

0:14:03 Lydia: Strong yeah,

0:15:08 Thomas: Know, like when they find out like, oh, he used it well, still, still, it's not good. So like, that would be like the best Jason Kilbourne version of the story. That's a big misunderstanding and can definitely tell there's some people who thought he did use the real words, you, in, in stuff. That's part of it. So again, I want to keep like best, uh, of the story in mind. First thing that I see is on Twitter, and it's the Black Law Student Association. They've written a letter.

There's some signatories. This is just students, though. This is just a group of students writing a letter, being upset about this. Some of them seem to be under the mistaken impression that he said that the actual words, but that's, that's the complaint. 12 30 I see that Black Law Students Association tweet thing, and put, uh, it mildly, this is a very small reach. Like, nobody is seeing this. This thing has no followers.

At next thing we see is the first coverage this gets, like actual media coverage I can find anywhere, I've done numerous searches. The first one I can finde is January 13th. There is the bit you heard Fuckface McGee say about him getting banned from school campus instantly, blah, blah. That did

0:15:08 Lydia: Yeah. Oh,

0:16:09 Thomas: Kind of happen. That happened on the 12th, to the best I can tell this is released on the 13th and it doesn't talk about that at all, so I think maybe this was written, kind of, you know, it's not like an instant, like, you know, this is an article someone took a minute to write. I feel like this was written before that because it just very much doesn't mention that, so just giving you the context, this, this article is written without that piece of it.

I want to read you some of this because it's pretty, pretty telling, it's very funny. First off, it has a really good start, which I think is important to say. So this is Catherine Rubino from abovethelaw.com. Spend an unfortunate amount of time writing about law school professors' use of the N-word. That's hyperlinked. And I was like, oh my God, okay. You click on the hyperlink and it's just above the law with the tag N -Word. And she's not, So she's, she's now making that up. Just this is like an index of everything with N-word tied for Above the Law. So I see a picture, the title, and then that one and then the byline.

Most of these are Catherine Rubino, the same person. "My dead husband's black, not an excuse to drop the N-word in court," that's the headline, let's see another headline, "Judge being investigated over use of the N word," and the, and then just the one sentence summary is, "Why can't people stop saying the N words?" So she's not wrong, she's, she's the truth there, uh, another one, uh, "Professors saying the N-word is like a damn epidemic at Emory Law School," was the title. And then the one, again, the little one sentence summary, "How hard is it to not use a slur in class?"

0:16:45 Lydia: My God. Oh my gosh. Oh my god.

0:17:38 Thomas: Judges out of a job after admitting to using the N word in conversation with court employees. And that wasn't the judge's only misconduct. General counsel uses the N word during lecture, uses her job. "Can professors please stop already," is the one sentence there. Yeah.

0:17:42 Lydia: Yikes. Like she's like being punished.

0:17:55 Thomas: It does read like, I hope I'm trapped in a computer, I'm only allowed to type stuff about professors use the N-word. Yeah, it doesn't read like that, you're totally right. Oh, here's another one, oh man, I want to, I want a click on this one but I won't. I won' get us two-sided. Drag professor at top law school uses N-words and won't apologize for it, and then the one-sentence summary updated with a response from the professor. Oh, I'm not going to click on it. I'm not going click on. Oh Okay. Here's Last one. God, it really just keeps going and going. This is, this is wow. Okay, professor professor suspended for using the n - word in class. Now says he was discriminated against for being white.

0:18:16 Lydia: Oh, man.

0:18:32 Lydia: Okay.

0:18:33 Thomas: The prof is fighting over the right to use the n word without consequence.

0:18:36 Lydia: Oh, my God. What a mess.

0:18:39 Thomas: Check this out, hon. I can tell this is about the sameperson because it has the same picture. Case you were worried, world you know, is a good place or anything. N -Word using law professor gets to keep his job. The sentence is, resolution isn't always satisfactory. Catherine Rubio, you know, like I, I was a little suspicious, like, okay, you is very early for someone to be reporting on this story. Like this Is not a major issue. You know, like this is just one student association. They're they're causing, causing a ruckus. They got a change .org petition. I think they've, maybe they've tried to talk to news outlets. Like possibly they talked to channel two news, but I can't, I can'T find any video dated. It's at least not showing up in a Google, Google, any kind of Google search for the dates. So, so far I was wondering, okay, did Jason Kilbourne, you know, call Catherine Rubino and be like, Hey, you gotta, you this reads like a bit of an advocacy piece.

0:18:43 Lydia: Yeah. Oh yeah, of course.

0:19:26 Lydia: I know. I was like, did they go to law school together? Like conspiracy theory kind

0:19:28 Thomas: Yeah. Who knows? Don't know, having written, read through all those, like actually I, believe her when she says this next part, you so when Above the Law received word, don't know from who, but received word about UIC John Marshall Law professor, Jason Kilborn's "dark and vile verbiage" in quotes on a civil procedure two exam. And that question at issue contained a racial pejorative summarized as followed, N blank and B blank. Fired up my keyboard and got ready to go after the prof. But as I dug into to the issue it became become clear there was a lot more going on so so I almost believe her that you part of her is doing the like I used to be an evolutionist until I you Jesus and I sometimes I'm skeptical of those like oh I was ready to get mad at him, believe you me, but I kind of believe it given that she writes 800 apparent stories about professors and judges using the N-word.

So maybe we'll take her at her word for now. But this read like an advocacy piece. So I'm a little suspicious. But anyway, she writes about the petition. It's a call to action. She says, I initially read the petition, my impression was that the professor had used the full slur on the exam. And I bet of other people that read and potentially signed the petition. By the way, even today, the petition, if you click on it, it's still at 430 of its 500 signatures. And this is two

0:20:44 Lydia: Wow.

0:20:45 Thomas: And a half years later. So again, put stuff in context how big of a fucking thing this even is. They never even hit their goal of signatures. But no matter, petition does summarize the exam as it purports to do. It provides the the direct quote.

And by that, I mean the exam did not use the full N -word or the B -word for that matter, opting instead for the euphemism, which is the exact sort of adaptation, awareness of potentially traumatic racial issues that folks have historically asked for when professors claim the right to drop the full n -word just because it's an academic setting. One wants to be in a place where discussing the way racism, the legal system is off limits.

Turn on the news and it's very clear that white supremacy is far from behind us and continues to impact the law. Legal needs to have these admittedly difficult discussions, but finding the right balance is essential. So she, she does have a quote, you, she clearly talked to Kilborn, which again, like he kind of called this in and he, you know, he tells his like sob story of like, fairness at this stage, like, he was saying some good things.

He was saying like, "I didn't, didn't mean that. I think this is a misunderstanding. I never was trying to," blah, blah, blah. And at this stage, this is where I'm thinking like, "Oh yeah, yeah, okay, maybe this is kind of a misunderstanding." I still haven't, at this point, I haven't heard anything about being banned from campus or any of that stuff.

But like, at THIS point, I'm wondering, is this a case of people legitimately thinking he used the real word, being angry about it, and then not wanting to kind of back down when they find out he didn't, you know? Because I could totally see that dynamic being part of it. She didn't talk to anyone from BLSA, which again, she did link their statement, the one I already talked about that was on Twitter, but she didn't talk to them, but she does say this.

Here's an interesting one. "Unlike other professors who have been confronted with inappropriate language, Kilborn did not trot out the academic freedom trope or insist he knew what's best for students or sue the law school." Oh God. Okay, pin

0:20:49 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, yeah,

0:22:33 Thomas: And all those, by the way, for reverse discrimination and actual reactions from professors. "Seems genuinely distressed about the entire affair and has apologized for using the abbreviated form of the word on the test, something else law professors aren't known for," told Above the Law.

So the privilege and the, of these things, often, we've got a Black Law Student Association that has like two fucking followers posted a thing, and then he gets to to possibly get a full puff piece and Above the Law and be interviewed and quoted at length, you know, and get his side of the story out there. Um, I, I think that's a key component of all this. It's a theme I come back to often. He gives a good statement.

"I'm fully prepared to accept the responsibility for using a context and first letter abbreviated reference that caused anyone to feel distressed. I did not, do not want this. I've expressed regret for it. I've learned something valuable here." Is When first read this, it's like, okay, yeah, maybe not so bad. They also get a statement from the law school. Again, they have not quoted anyone specifically from the class or from the student association.

Maybe they couldn't get to them, but usually they'll say that like no one agreed. They didn't say that. She says, here's what the school said. "The law school recognizes the impact of the issue. Before winter break, Dean Dickerson apologized to the students who expressed hurt and distress over the examination question. The Law School acknowledges that the racial and gender references on the exam were deeply offensive. Faculty should avoid language that could cause hurt and stress to students.

Those in academic freedom should always remember their position of power in our system of legal education. Law School is working with UIC's Office for Access and Equity to conduct a thorough review of this matter, and Dean Dickerson and other law school and university leaders have scheduled a meeting with student leaders.

We remain committed to ensuring that all our students have a safe and supportive environment and that all members of the law school community live up to our shared values." Rubino concludes the article by saying, "It seems like an honest and opened," I think she means "and and open," "conversation is exactly what's needed.

Whether you think Kilbourne should have included that particular detail tail in the exam is a fair question, but at least he tried to be aware of the sensitive nature of the topic and seems committed to doing better." So, case closed? We done? Is

0:24:37 Lydia: Yeah.

0:24:38 Thomas: That, I mean, this isn't the end because we heard Bill Maher talk about what happened or whatever, but I mean from everything we know, it's like, all right, there's definitely some tension, but it seems like he was pretty apologetic and, you know, that should kind of of, uh, over, right? Well, the reason that wasn't it is actually the day before that article. But again, I think that article just was published as is otherwise they definitely would have mentioned this.

Kilborn was banned from campus and was told just don't come to campus. With pay, obviously, just matter of campus safety. That happened, I believe that Kilborn probably lost his fucking mind and did a campaign of contact everyone in the world. Because once again, he is a privileged white guy with connections in the legal profession. And all this stuff. And so that's when you see a real blitz of articles. We've all from the perspective that that's happened to him is because of this exam question.

And that takes it down the path of how can these crazy fucking kids cancel guy because of the the exam question. How can they do it? Now we got Reason, the Volokh conspiracy or whatever. Eugene Volok, I I want to read this Volok one. So this is January 15th. So on the 15th, you see a slew of articles where clearly he's kind people, you know, two 15th, on the 15th one on the 19th. I don't even know if I've gotten all of them, but you've got fires involved

0:25:55 Thomas: On the 19th, of mere days later, we'll talk about Fire. Oh, we will talk about Fire. .org. Um, I got to read this Volokh Conspiracy one because this is just so fucking typical. This, this is so illustrative of what happens, the anti-woke panic that describes a bunch of the stuff and blah, blah, blah.

And then, then he says, "This makes me wonder, and I imagine it makes other faculty members wonder, the Dean's statement that faculty should avoid language that could cause hurt and distress to students by its term isn't limited to exams. Isn't an echo of the student's general demand, but not limited to exam, that the school must implement an unambiguous policy with guidelines prohibiting offensive and culturally insensitive in the classroom by professors?

Will there likewise be thorough review by the Office of Academic Equity whenever it's alleged that a professor's hypotheticals are, quote, offensive and culturally insensitive, in the petition's words, or, quote, could cause hurt and distress, even with expurgation, to students, or perhaps just some group of students?

If, quote, the racial and gender references on the examination were deeply offensive, unquote, it seems likely that they would be offensive off the examination too." And if this slope is a little slippery, I bet it's a bunch slippery too, is basically what's happening here. "What exactly will the rule be when teachers want to talk about racial or sexual harassment or other mistreatment of people based on race, sex, religion, sexual orientation, and the like?

Have we reached a point that one can't even quote epithets in expurgated form? Or deeply offensive conduct by defendants is itself deeply offensive, regardless, regardless of the words or letters or underlines that one uses." The Volokھ Conspiracy, by the way, is, this is on reason .com. And it says, "mostly law professors, sometimes contrarian, often libertarian, always independent," so yeah, you see where they're coming from.

Um, pretty soon you won't even be able to mention race at all, know, or it's just that slippery slope to like you can't do anything, so it's very quickly panicking that way. Then we get Andrew Koppelman for the chronicle .com who, this one develops the facts a little further.

January 19, so days later after that last article, we're seeing the epicentre of this, where this spreads to, where this is the whole internet, if you search this topic, of course, is just all of these assholes like quoting each other, linking each other, creating this entire of anti-woke takes on it, and so it's interesting, I thought a fun, fun part of this is kind of seeing that process. You, we're on the 19th, and here's, here's some of the critical parts of this one. Koppelman is a Professor at Northwestern University's Pritzker School of Law. So again, it does feel like circling the wagons, white dude, probably law professors, are, you

0:25:55 Lydia: Oh Yeah.

0:28:25 Thomas: Either because he called them or not, or because they're just worried about they'll they'll be next, you You know, they're circling the wagons. Every one of them who has a bullshit blog or writes for papers basically starts writing all these takes. A relevant section, maybe. "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, 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," which I guess is just a synonym, "expurgated," which is whatever, whatever, okay, "bowdlerized, as they were on Kilbourne's exam.

He did nothing inappropriate. A sensible and responsible administration would have told the students that. Here's what it did instead, according to Kilborn." And this is a quote: "A two -minute Zoom meeting at 8 .30 a .m. Tuesday, my dean placed me on indefinite administrative leave and all my my classes were canceled. Hours before one was set to meet for the first time with 70 students, curtly told to find another course, I'm told.

My committee memberships were canceled, university promotion and tenure, to which I was unanimously elected by my faculty peers. And I'm barred form campus and from all faculty communications." "Was given no explanation for these sanctions." This is very, very misleading. The law school told Above the Law that it acknowledges that the racial and gender references on the examination were deeply offensive. Faculty should avoid language that could cause hurt and distress to students, So, quote. So notice what happened there.

I told you that Above the Law article, it not reference this being banned from campus thing at all. And now what this asshole has done has written about the banning and said, oh, he was an indefinite leave, classes were canceled, I'm barred from campus, and then paired that with the quote from the article that was essentially written before that happened,

0:28:30 Lydia: I've Yeah,

0:30:23 Thomas: Where, I'll read that again, the law school told above the law that it that the racial and gender references on the examination were deeply offensive. Faculty should avoid language that distress to students, unquote. So that strongly would lead you to the impression that that quote quote was like in response. By putting those one right after the other, a not careful reader or not insane person like me who's had to open 47 million tabs and read every single thing about this, a casual reader would think, okay, so they barred him from campus, canceled his classes, and then the statement they said about it was you you should avoid language that causes her distress, right? Absolutely would think that if you didn't know anything about this. Then Koppelman goes on, but Kilborn did avoid the language that could cause hurt and distress to students. He censored the words. He did conceitfully allude to the words in a way that made it easy to know what they were. But if that is deeply offensive, punishable behavior, how is it ever permissible for a professor, now here, let's all get on our slippery slopes, everybody. Start your engines, start

0:30:46 Lydia: Yeah, yeah.

0:31:23 Thomas: Your ice skates. How is it every permissible? For a professor to take note of the fact that racial slurs exist? Exist, how is one to teach a course in anti -discrimination law? Oh, funny then is that this article now, what kind of spills the beans on what really happened on the suspension, know, being barred from campus, and it starts with then a twist when I asked Dean Darby Dickerson, okay, that's great, that's fantastic. I If were a dean, I would want to be Dean Darby Dixerson. Comment, she wrote, the university will be issuing a response. You may want to check with Professor Kilborn tomorrow afternoon near your deadline. And he says, evidently, she thought that the forthcoming clarification would put the law school in a better light.

It doesn't. The next day, Kilborn reported this. Language continues, it turns out I was I was actively misled into believing my suspension Was related to that language. Oh, there's the, hey, everybody, there it is. The suspension, surprise, surprise, was not related to the fucking exam question. Obviously, the thing I knew the millisecond I watched that fucking Bill Maher video before I knew anything about any of this, that obviously he was not barred from campus for doing that on an exam. Any person again whose mind isn't fucking jello would know that, but love that he has to put in, well, the real, this is his quote, by the way, quoting Kilbourne, who again, you could tell these reporters, these people, I say reporters, these other fucking professors

0:31:41 Lydia: Yeah professors.

0:32:49 Lydia: Yeah

0:32:50 Thomas: With publications they write for are, he's in their ears, he's on the phone with them, this is an asymmetrical thing, he's got all the privilege in the world, he's, and it's so funny, because, because obviously wasn't about that exam, but he says, "Turns out I was actively misled into believing my suspension was related to that language." Be the motivation for, quote, "actively misleading him to thinking the suspension was related to that language." Do you really, is it possible that, I don't know, Kilborn just fucking overreacted and assumed that?

Seems way more likely to me. Going to let Kilborn tell it in his own words, rather than you hear me reading forever, because he actually did an interview that is, well, so much I wanna play from it, but to you bits and pieces for the time being, otherwise I'll just start yelling. The article goes on to say, Kilborn says the dean placed him on administrative leave, but refused to reveal the reason why.

I can't believe how long I've already gone on because we've barely scratched the surface of all the advocacy Pieces for, of the most frustrating people in the entire earth, John McWhorter, wrote one on January 27th called "Black Fragility?" Question mark On John McWhorter, he's the worst, "The the neo -racism and the Suspension of a Law Professor for Nothing Whatsoever at the University of Illinois in Chicago." Professor Jason Kilborn cited the N word and the B word on an exam, thusly, N.B.: it wasn't a question about an employment discrimination case.

He done so for years previously to no comment, as all reading this, but a sliver would suspect. Like what, what is that? Man, whatever. He is a linguistics guy, so I think, I feel like he has to play that character or something.

It's just a fucking weird way to write it, and there's a bunch of, that's the whole blog, is that he, let, goes on and on, and we are, and then we get to this, "We've, a modern anti -racism is neither a philosophy nor a political program. It is a religious creed, complete with priests, original sin, heresy," love, same fucking boring take, "evangelism and millennialism," I don't know what that's, but it

0:33:46 Lydia: I think

0:34:47 Thomas: Hasn't quite gotten to forgiveness yet. "Jason Kilborn is not being disciplined, he's being stoned." This is a quote, this is real quotes. "His accusers and sanctioners are modern equivalents of the the prelates," prelates, which is a word I had to look up, so I don't pretend to be smart, smarter than I am, uh, that's uh, just another word for like a fucking bishop or whatever, somebody, some religious.

He think "The prelets who condemn Galileo to home arrest," yes, that's the equivalent, not, not using a racial slur on an exam is the same as Galileo, is where we've gotten. To See, is so long and over fucking written. Uh, much else from there, then caused Jerry Coin, fucking evolutionist, true guy, who's, God, he's been a persistent piece of shit forever on this, he does a write up of that.

I'm not going to go through these, we get more from FIRE again, they're writing letters to the university, Jonathan Turley, an article about it on JonathanTurley .org got the College Fix now we're into we're getting into February by the way. So, so we're about a month out. We've many sources. Pieces. Is important to note that this entire controversy began with an exam question on an employment discrimination case that censored terms to avoid discomfort or insult. As academics, and particularly professors, we have to address difficult and discomforting issues in our society. Our students have to be prepared to work in a world that is filled with such offensive terms and discrimination.

Instead, the university and the law school showed little concern for the impact on these actions, on not just Professor Kilbourne, but other professors. Few would want to risk such public humiliation and suspension. The result is, they are likely to simply sanitize exam questions. Imagine, exam questions without racial slurs. What will happen now? The world will crumble. Sorry, that was me adding. The results is, they're likely to, back to the quote, simply sanitize exam questions to avoid anything that might triple wire or cause a complaint. The loss is not just felt in eroding academic freedom values, but in abridging academic training for our students. They, they get more and more fucking until

0:35:47 Lydia: Yeah out Yeah I

0:36:52 Thomas: We get, uh, this is not the end, but maybe this will, I'll have to let it suffice till we get to, guess, New York Times. New York Times op-ed. Bret Stephens.

0:36:52 Lydia: Don't

0:37:02 Thomas: Of course. Yeah, now it is just an opinion piece. So it hasn't, you know, it didn't make it, I don't think, to Michael Powell that we know of. We'll see. This But is, now we're still in February. Now we get, he's writing a piece that's just like, in general, fucking fuck the woke people. And this is one of the references he does. Is so good. His is short, so we can read quite a bit of it, because it's again, it's part two or three stories he did. Jason Kilbourne was placed on indefinite administrative leave, barred from campus, and kicked off his committee assignments after students protested. They included N and B as part of his semester exam on civil procedure. No, he didn't use the slurs themselves, he just wrote the first letter followed by a line. It still didn't spare him. They're so fucking dramatic, they're more dramatic than Phoebe. Like, this is just crazy.

0:36:59 Lydia: Gosh. Oh yeah. Oh I know. But by a ton.

0:37:50 Thomas: The visual of the n-word on Professor Kilbourne's exam was mental terrorism, claimed a from petition the Black Law Students Association. Whatever happens to Kilbourne, every professor in America has now been put on notice. In the, how many professors do you think need to write a question that has the n word in it, is that like 80% or is it like 0%? Anyway, whatever happens to GoPoint, every professor in America has now been put on notice. In the game of woke, the goalposts can be moved at any moment. The penalties will apply retroactively, and claims of fairness will always lose out to the perpetual right to claim offense.

0:38:08 Lydia: Yeah wow. Wow.

0:38:29 Thomas: Boy. May, UIC removed the John Marshall name, like I referenced and by August 31st, FIRE.org has a new defense fund for college professors. The headline is, FIRE's new defense fund is here to save college faculty jobs, and we just closed our first case. With faculty rights increasingly under threat, professors need effective, experienced legal advocates to come to their defense. And this hilarious picture of Kilbourne standing heroically in front of UIC, I just, I love this pose, it's fantastic, and it tells the story. And so now, now this August 31st, an entire fucking organization has promised money to him to sue the school. Like this is, this is the amount of privilege this guy has over and above Black the Students Association that had three followers.

And legal case is actually ongoing, so I did a double take when it said, we just closed our first case, and it's, it's because they thought they, like, bullied the school or something, by threatening a lawsuit, and they came to an agreement. But at this point, he thought it was basically settled, because he's quoted toward the bottom is saying, 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 have 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.

0:38:35 Lydia: That Oh, yeah. Oh, wow.

0:39:56 Thomas: Kilbourne lamented that he didn't get his day in court to fully vindicate his rights, but he wanted to get back to the classroom and move on to training the next generation of lawyers. The fund puts faculty in the driver's seat. If they and their counsel find a settlement that works, they never even have to go to court. What FIRE and the Legal Defense Fund gave me is the ability and the credibility to go to the administration and defend my rights, he said. I had a lawyer standing beside me ready to act even if we decided to take no action. And that means a lot.

0:40:27 Lydia: Guess who's on the advisory council for FIRE?

0:40:29 Thomas: Who's that?

0:40:30 Lydia: John McWhorter.

0:40:30 Thomas: Oh, my God. Do you know?

0:40:33 Lydia: Also, David Latt, who founded Above the Law.

0:40:37 Thomas: That's interesting. Thing. It's all, they're all fucking, it's all one goddamn group of like five white people. And I guess John McWhorter.

0:40:38 Lydia: Yep. Well, David Lat's Asian, but yeah.

0:40:46 Thomas: Oh, Okay. Oh, in May 2021, the investigation concludes. They do a report. July 2nd, they have a resolution letter. Uh, so that must be why they had that August 31st fire piece where they quote-unquote close their first case, but they're still complaining about it and there's... there's still just a series of articles written because now it's like, oh, they got the report FOIA. And so they read that.

And now they think there's more stuff in that to, again, cause another round of, like, they just can't let it die. Issue the could have been over forever ago, but they're still doing it, still doing it. The sort sort of arrangement they came to falls through. And that's when Professor Kilbourne starts his lawsuit, which tell by the wording of that article that he wanted to do anyway, it seems like. But that's where we get this interview with Campus Reform. I could just play this whole thing.

It's magical. We can at least hear Professor Kilbourn tell his story, to be fair, uh, this is his story over a year later, and we know how human memory is, so, but this is kind of his his version of his facts over a year later.

0:41:54 Clip: Was about three days before Christmas in 2020. Dean sent me this message. I vaguely recall it was fairly early in the morning. And she said something to the effect of, "You know, the vice dean and I need to talk to you about some concerns relating to your classes this past fall." And I'm thinking to myself, "Oh, my God, concerns about my classes.

What in the world could this be about?" I was quite nervous, as you can imagine, but I responded right away, "Yes, yes, let's jump on a Zoom call, you know, whatever, whatever we need." So several days later, maybe it was the next event, it was either a day or two after that, we get in this Zoom call, and she reveals to me, she says, "You know, a number of people," or something effective "it's been suggested that you used a racial slur on your exam." I mean, let that sink in because this is important.

"It seems to me you used a racial slur on your exam." I mean, so my immediate reaction, of course, is to point out I did not use a racial sleur on my exam. And I don't think that that's being a cheeky law professor to make that observation. Any reasonable person, when confronted with "you used aracial slur," has in mind my screaming at a student who belongs to that racial group an epithet. That's clearly not, not what happened here.

And not only that, the entire word wasn't spelled out, because I wasn't born under a rock. I understand full well the very deep and very painful and horrific history of that word, which is why, of course, I put it on my exam, right?

I wanted explosive evidence that was in the employer's possession, that the employer desperately wanted to keep from the other side, and so I wanted to really push my students to resist their natural inclination to tell the client what the client wants to hear. Oh, yeah, we can bury that evidence, you know, we don't have to reveal it. The fact of the matter is the question was designed to say, to get the student to go, "Look, I have to turn this over.

The United States legal system is, is, you know, immensely powerful, uniquely powerful in the world, in forcing people like employer to turn over explosive, explosive evidence like this." And so I explained this a bit, and I said, "Look, I didn't use a racial slur on the exam at all, Dean.

What I had written was N space, and then B space, for, you know, this gender slur, which you can say on TV, even according to the FCC." And she says, "Okay, well, like any rational person," oh, she says, "I thought that you would use the entire word. What should we do about this?" And I'm like, listen, spontaneously I say to her, "Look, I don't want to just be be gratuitously challenging to people. I'm not, you know, I understand how stressful an exam is.

I understand how stressful it has been over this past sort of COVID year for folks to be dealing with this, the racial reckoning that we've been dealing with on TV, et cetera. So listen, let me send a message to the class and say, you know, hey, if my indirect reference to these slurs, you know, made anybody feel bad, I regret that.

And if you want to talk to me about that, or to anybody else at the school, you know, Dean, the vice dean, we have a dean for students, you know, then by all means, you know, please reach out, we're here to support you." So

0:45:07 Thomas: How does he come across to you on that?

0:45:09 Lydia: Very reasoned, calm, you like a really good story.

0:45:09 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad you said that. I wasn't, I was just checking, I wasn't sure, because, yeah, at this point, you kind of thinking like, man, yeah, is this, did this guy just kind of get screwed over by people thinking he used the actual word, you mind you, this is over a year later, but he does speak as though he's very sensitive to what happened. He, he willing to talk. So what went wrong here now? Up until now, I've don't know how good of a job I've done, but, but I've tried to present like, him in his best light, roughly. That was four minutes in a 24 minute interview. That was the high point for him, for his credibility.

0:45:39 Lydia: Hmm. Uh oh.

0:45:50 Thomas: Though, this is going to be a teaser. I'm not going to go through all that now, got something fun planned, which is, among the many, the litany of things that then sort of reduce this guy's credibility in my mind before I then, you know, fully research the story, knew everything there, he decided to reference some other stories, we'd check that out real quick.

0:46:09 Clip: Other examples that are out there, what my favorite one is, there's a professor at Yale who has something to do with medical something, or like maybe it's psychology or any, or something. But she was doing a field study. And I can't exactly recall what the subject of her study was, but she made a comment at some point in a paper about this study in which she expressed surprise that residents of rural Ohio might have a taste for artisanal coffee. She wouldn't have expected that. Before very long, there was an enormous firestorm from these crazy extreme leftist Yale students who characterized that comment of hers about rural Ohioans as being, quote, "dehumanizing." It was dehumanising for her to suggest that these rural Ohioans probably wouldn't have a taste for artisanal coffee. And And you just have to read it two or three times to go, "Am I getting this right?" I mean, you, you can't believe that this is how normal people, well educated people, at the absolute flagship of the of the higher education industry in the United States, Yale University, they're behaving this way, university.

0:47:11 Thomas: Correct, Bill Kilbourne, I would not believe that, because, because there's obviously, once again, there's no fucking way that someone said a thing about coffee and then blah, blah, blah, all this reaction, and they were murdered or whatever. And so we're going to do something a little fun, which is, I'm going to leave people in suspense. We're not going to get the full Kilborn debunk, because we've got to stop along the way. We've got a do a side quest. Sorry, everybody. There is a Yale professor who's surprised that rural Ohioans might drink artisanal coffee with a mark over her head, and we've got to follow that side quest.

Lydia's watched me play almost enough video games to maybe understand what I'm saying. I got to kill that notification. I gotta do that side quest first. So, what this also allows me to do is allow Lydia to have a turn. So we don't have to listen to me anymore. So I will give you a little, maybe slight teaser. Slight hint. I want to ask you this question. What class do you think he was teaching and what is the area of law that that question was related to?

0:47:48 Lydia: Yeah, it was Civ Pro, right? Civ Pro class, and it was regarding employment discrimination. Okay.

0:48:11 Thomas: Right. So kind of. You're my amazing, talented wife, smarter than everybody listening. So, I bet you there's a lot of people who would have assumed he was was teaching an employment law class. But CivPro, for those, the uninitiated, is just civil procedure. It's just another word, fucking phrase, lawyer phrase for like, it's just kind of the rules of stuff, you know, like how stuff gets almost like kind of meta law in a way, you know, it is like rules of evidence, stuff like that. I am not, this now, an expert. But like, the point is, for all of the framings, You heard me read all of the framings that were like, he's teaching about employment law and you have to be able to hear that there are these things. You're going, he is Bill Maher. Actually, just for fun, let me flash back to that quote real quick.

0:48:39 Lydia: Yeah.

0:49:03 Thomas: Sorry,

0:49:03 Clip: Was teaching his students how to fight racism in the place where it matters most, the criminal justice system.

0:49:09 Lydia: It's conflated. Everything there.

0:49:12 Thomas: Again, yeah, yeah. He was teaching, this is, again, I'm just giving a little teaser for the debunk, just to whet the appetite. Tight. I bet you because of Bill Maher and a lot of the other people and just the human mind, you would have thought that. Oh yeah, he was teaching about employment law. He was truly a hero, as Bill Maher is saying. He was teaching them how to fight the racism in the criminal justice system.

0:49:13 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. Oh. Yeah.

0:49:36 Thomas: He is a question and evidence, attorney work product and whether or not you have to turn it over, that's all the question is about. It's fair to use employment law, you're going to use other cases, obviously, like you're going to give him his say, to hear, like, yeah, he wanted something that's explosive, that you're, you're going to feel like you shouldn't have to turn over as the lawyer or whatever, but you actually do. Okay.

0:50:03 Lydia: You're Compelled to.

0:50:04 Thomas: Okay. But to pretend that this is some noble thing that you have to do this exact, it could be fucking anything. It could have been, for one, you could have just kept things kind of neutral and had a quote that's like, ah, I hate people like of their kind. Like who can't, You know, just keep, don't even use any specific. So, uh, that's my little teaser. That's just a mild component, component. This is a fucking civil procedure class, and the question is about attorney work product and whether or not you have to turn that over, so you can use any case you want, and so you, that he is actually, he's a fucking hero, Bill Maher took it to an extreme, he is, first of all, he's literally Martin Luther King Jr.

0:50:04 Lydia: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

0:50:46 Thomas: And he is leading a, he's leading a million man march to the criminal justice system of civil law, and and and he is helping them fight. It's like, no, dude, it's civil procedure and an attorney work product question. So that's my, just a little glimpse of some of the debunking we'll be doing, that's in part three. In part two, which is going to bring us the debunk over the fucking rural Ohio coffee.

0:50:50 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah.

0:51:15 Thomas: Uh, and I can't wait for that. So you better tune in for that and it'll be early for patrons, patreon.com/wherethereswoke. be a fun little side quest. We're going to hope no major characters die. You know, maybe, maybe a smaller character might die in the side quest, but nobody important. Obviously Lydia and I will be fine, but our sidekick, uh, no, we don't have a name. Um, that'll be a lot of fun. That is a great debunk. And, if we have time, there's a bonus debunk that I will not even tease, in case we don't have time. But, there may be two debunks for the price of one in that episode. So, thanks so much for listening everybody. I hope we've properly teased you. I feel teased and wait to switch roles for part two see you then

0:51:53 Lydia: Yeah, you