Law Schools

Law School Snowflakes Demand Safe Space Over Jeff Sessions Talk

Obviously we're talking about the conservative law professor here.

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AG Jeff Sessions (Photo by Zach Gibson/Getty Images)

There was no small amount of excitement as word started getting around Georgetown Law that Attorney General Jeff Sessions would be visiting campus today to give a little talk and even take some questions from inquisitive law students. This kind of direct access to high-profile legal policymakers is precisely why a prospective lawyer chooses to attend Georgetown — no matter what the rankings say!

But several tipsters pointed out to Above the Law that there was something fishy about this Sessions talk from the get go. Despite a drop-in from the nation’s top lawyer, the school hadn’t done any advanced publicity and most folks were entirely in the dark about the speech until a quick press release less than a day before the event:

There was a press release this morning (http://www.law.georgetown.edu/news/press-releases/attorney-general-jeff-sessions-at-georgetown-law.cfm), and there was a lottery for student attendance which wasn’t publicized at all – the sign-up was only open for a couple of hours…

That’s certainly a little weird. Also a little awkward was the announcement that all questions of the man in charge of the federal justice system would be pre-screened by Professor Randy Barnett, seemingly to shield the Attorney General of the United States from all but the most forgiving of softballs. Maybe there are some half-hearted defenses of “protecting the Attorney General’s time,” an excuse easily solved by putting a hard cap on the question-and-answer period. Whatever the party line, this reads like they’re setting up an antiseptic propaganda set piece.

However, a covertly organized event with pre-screened questions wasn’t nearly enough for the snowflakes on the right. Hours after a number of our tipsters secured seats for the event, they were purged from the guest list to guarantee an even more intellectually cloistered audience. An email sent by Georgetown this evening revoked the RSVPs handed out that morning:

You RSVP’d earlier today to an invitation to hear Attorney General Jeff Sessions, sponsored by the Center for the Constitution. Regrettably, the email you subsequently received indicating you have a seat for the event was in error. Our records indicate that you were not part of the Center’s student invitation list, which includes student fellows of the Center (students who signed up to attend events sponsored by the Center) and students enrolled in the classes taught this semester by the Center’s Director, Professor Randy Barnett. As stated in the initial invitation email, the invitation was non-transferable and intended only for the individual to whom it was sent. Unfortunately, we will not be able to offer you a seat for the event.

We regret any inconvenience.

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Professor Barnett has famously shown his snowflake colors before, when he reacted to an admittedly harsh colleague’s take on Justice Scalia by scurrying to every “trigger warning” stereotype that pampered millennials supposedly invoke. Now he’s dragged Jeff Sessions into the safe space with him. Today, the two only have to deal with Center for the Constitution regulars — the functional Praetorian Guard of the Federalist Society — and students enrolled in his classes, which aren’t necessarily ideologically cabined, but there’s not much reason for a student to seek out one of his seminars (or choose his section of Con Law II) unless they want to hear his specific spin.

And now Barnett’s admitting as much, taking to Twitter to explain that the event was “invitation only,” which misses the point. He wanted to set up a closed, softball discussion because he didn’t want Sessions to have to face anything remotely resembling a challenge. Nothing but self-congratulation circles for these guys!

[UPDATE: By the way, the subject of the Jeff Sessions talk? Quoting a Georgetown press release, “Attorney General Jeff Sessions will be speaking on campus today about free speech on university campuses.” You really cannot make this stuff up.]

This whole affair reinforces how conservatives really feel about free speech. Just about every week, some right-wing provocateur descends on a college to deliver a “speech” about whatever crypto-fascist talking points will inspire the most pointed criticism on campus. Faced with actual free speech, they’ll whine up and down on the cable talk shows about how “crazy” college students aren’t letting them talk, in hopes that a well-meaning liberal authority figure will speak up to chill student speech in the name of freedom. These right-wingers don’t care about freedom of speech. They spent decades trying to squelch campus speech and they’ve certainly not developed a begrudging respect for hippies. No, what they want is nothing less than an officially sanctioned perversion of the First Amendment. A twisted interpretation that hyperprivileges speech from behind a podium over speech from an audience. They want institutional protections — or at least official pressure — to silence and shame dissenters while rewarding whomever holds the biggest microphone because over a long enough timeline, that’s going to be their buddies.

Here, this pattern reaches its apotheosis. Only the right-minded chosen may attend. Only the acceptable questions deserve answers. The (probable) dissenters who tried to get in are already impliedly deemed the undesirable rabble-rousers by the administration edict. Only one side gets an official blessing and the inevitable protesters are cast as the bad eggs that really need to learn to keep their mouths properly shut in the face of power.

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Frankly, it’s a goddamned brilliant strategy.

UPDATE 9:45 a.m.: The latest from the school is that they’re setting up “Free Speech Zones,” a concept that honestly should have died once Arrested Development handled it.

UPDATE 12:25 p.m.: We learned the talk was about campus free speech and Jeff Sessions didn’t disappoint:

As I outlined above… “free speech” to these people means stifling dissent, plain and simple.

HeadshotJoe Patrice is an editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.

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