Posted on 08/01/2007 2:15:42 PM PDT by blam
Law professor claims improper punishment
CHICAGO, Aug. 1 (UPI) -- A law school professor in Chicago is suing for $1 million over what he calls an improper punishment over comments he made comparing black and Jewish students.
John Gorby, who is neither Jewish nor African-American, opined to a Jewish student after a class at John Marshall Law School that religious training may help explain why Jews pass the bar exam at higher rates than blacks, who tend to come from religions that "emphasize an emotional and spiritual religious experience rather than discussion and debate about the meaning of scriptural language," the Chicago Sun-Times reported Wednesday.
Gorby successfully appealed to the school's appellate board to have an official reprimand stricken from his record but he failed to regain a five percent raise that was canceled by the dean. He also complains that the incident cost him $25,000 in attorney's fees.
Gorby, who argues that his statements were an exercise in academic freedom and that professors should be allowed to spark provocative discussions about raising the bar graduation rates, is seeking $1 million in the suit.
If, in fact, there is a difference in pass rates between Blacks and Jews wouldn't it make sense that it could have much more to do with affirmative action programs than different religious practices?
He wasn’t teaching. It was said to a student after class!
Heck, it’s just a straight freedom of speach thing. He did nothing wrong.
I think anytime a teacher is talking to one of his students, it's teaching. Anyway, I wasn't commenting on the merits of this case, but was instead commenting on the belief by some teachers that they can say virtually anything in the name of academic freedom.
Doesn’t that law school allow for students to graduate in TWO years vs the usual THREE years?
John Gorby should have stuck with teaching Law and left eugenics theories to Planned Parenthood.
Studying the “Law” trains one to study the “law.”
Sounds correct to me; shame common sense is illegal nowadays.
Eugenics?
Race and genetics has nothing to do with it; he was discussing culture.
A black kid adopted into a Jewish family at birth would have the same benefit (of essentially legal training from birth), I would suspect.
Could the answer be that simple?
I'm straight off the Bill O'Reilly threads from last night, so in the interest of not giving BOR any more ammunition with which to assert that FR is a bigoted hate site, I wouldn't have espoused that theory without posting reliable statistics supporting it.
actually Bar exams have been pretty strict about all pass on equal footing. The only concession has been “grants” to have bar prep courses paid for the students.
The sentiment is that all students are tested on the identical three years worth of law school materials. Since law school courses are fairly standardized there is no variace for bias. (the bill of rights is the bill of rights)
The reason for low bar pass rates is the fact admissions are jury rigged for affirmative action.
And why is this worse than what Ward Churchill said . . . ?
exactly,
ANY CHILD OF ANY ETHNIC OR CULTURAL GROUP WHO IS TRAINED AND TAUTH TO HAVE GOOD STUDY HABITS WILL -—SURPRISE-— have good study habits.
Why do home school children outperform public school children? training.
Any comment that suggests that there are differences between ethnic groups is hazardous these days, unless of course, the comment clearly and unambiguously disparages the white race. The truth is not only no longer a defense; it’s damn risky.
Yes, that's the point I was making in post 2. I've taken (and passed) two bar exams and agree totally that everyone takes the same exam and is graded equally.
The answer is even simpler: affirmative action results in more low-qualified blacks entering law school (and eventually trying to pass the bar) than whites, I would guess that if you controlled for IQ, students of identical IQ would have similar pass rates
I went to a law school that was required to admit blacks at the rate of 20%. The average LSAT score to be admitted to the school at the time was about 650. I remember overhearing one of the black students telling a friend that he got 450 on the LSAT. I don't know whether he passed the bar, but I could hazard a guess.
Huh? This has nothing to do with eugenics. His speculation was about the effects of different life experiences, not different genetics. Visit the services of any random synagogue and then the services of any random black Protestant church, and you’ll immediately see what he’s getting at. This doesn’t mean black religions are inferior, just that they would generally tend to influence thinking processes in a different way.
Ummm, the guy is right. Jews have long had a scholarly approach to their faith, and it undoubtedly helps them in other areas of intellectual inquiry.
I know quite a few asians who would disagree with jews having the highest IQ scores.
Also, if you check SAT scores, not all blacks test the same, students who are african american test lower then their immigrant african counterparts and often fail to do as well in school.
Eugenics doen’t come into play here. He was making a statement about the cultural practices.
I agree.
But, the studies I've seen show them about half-way between the Jews and 'other' Europeans. Essentially in 2nd place behind (specifically) the Ashkenazi Jews but ahead of Europeans.
The Sephardic Jews apparently fall within the same range as all 'other Europeans.'
FYI, 90% of Jewish immigrants to the US are Ashkenazi Jews.
This is not even similar to the assertions made by Ward Churchill that those who died in the World Trade Towers were “little Eichmanns”.
This professor is just stating that one of the reasons religious Jewish students have an easier time passing the bar is their religion debates/studies their teachings, rather than those of Blacks. It was not disparaging, nor offensive. Just a clinical statement.
I am a former Democrat, and can tell you that the more you learn to critically think (which happens the farther you are away from the Dems) you will be able to pick up the difference. I’m still detoxing. Good luck! Keep working at it! Welcome to the right side!
I have taken and passed three bar exams. On the first day of the first one (known around my house as Tulane’s worst day in life) I sat next to two AA bar candidates. They could not complete a sentence without completely mangling their grammar. Mind you, I am nothing special in terms of writing/ grammar...but there is no way either one of these kids passed, given that the exam was all essay (that fact should give the state away, for anyone familiar with how bar exams are administered). AA’s in that state had an absolutely horrific pass rate...
Glutton for punishment, eh?
Lol...you might be right, though it was all down hill after the first (though the first, Louisiana, didn’t allow me to waive-in in Virginia...tears were shed when I figured there was no reciprocity with VA).
It is not mere opinion but a matter of fact that the study of the Jewish Talmud over the ages has given Jews a distinct advantage when it comes to the profession of law.
It makes sense to me, too, although the religious aspect is only a small part of the larger differences between the general intellectual formation of Jewish and black people.
Well done. I'm pretty much posted out for today, but that's exactly what I would have posted if I had had the energy to do so.
Are you a tax attorney?
No, “State and Municipal Premium Tax and Regulatory Compliance Specialist” for a large insurance company, in my employed years. Now I’m a Domestic Goddess, but I still keep up with tax and legal news; I wouldn’t have worked in the field if I didn’t find it interesting.
The reason for low bar pass rates is the fact admissions are jury rigged for affirmative action.
Of course.
In fact, the explanation ("affirmative action") is so obvious, this professor should be reprimanded for being too stupid to know it.
Wow, that sounds important! LOL. I've got a pretty significant tax background as well and people are always amazed that I find it interesting.
Perhaps he was an affirmative action professor?
I got my job because, of all the people who wanted to be hired for the job, I was the only one who actually wanted to do the same thing, month after month, quarter after quarter, year after year ... two separately incorporated companies, fifty states and the District of Columbia ...
My mom's a tax accountant, too, specializing (these days) in multi-state and Federal returns for retirees in Florida :-).
I would not think of Jews as being affirmative action beneficiaries, but there are certainly groups other than African-Americans who are beneficiaries.
Yes, taking words for their precise meaning, and nothing else, is key for any kind of legal work, including taxes. It frustrates me sometimes on FR, because people go ballistic over inferences and imaginings that aren’t in the text or post!
I said what I meant to say, exactly! You get that way after years with the Revenue Code of 50 states :-).
Unless you're a Supreme Court justice. LOL!
I have to wonder how much time the typical Jewish law student has spent debating the Talmud. Reform Jews pay little attention to it, and many Conservative Jewish children don't participate much in formal religious education after their bar mitvahs. In the years leading up to that event, few kids are up to scholarly debate.
Certainly there are Jews who engage in something akin to pilpul but if my experience is any guide, they aren't the norm.
----------------
* Pilpul = old form of Jewish religious scholarship characterized by hair-splitting debate over Talmudic minutiae
Boy, that’s the truth! Of course, regular people have to *follow* the law. Judges and legislators get to write their own ticket.
I'd have to see the census on that, thats seems a little high, but then again, I live in NYC, and no one can agree on anything.
It also explains why one might see a jewish person accusing another one of anti-semitism.
I'd have to see the IQ studies though to verify anything, I am pretty sure, in the book the "bell curve" (which was one of the books we used for referance in studying IQ's) , asians were scoring higher then everyone else, I had to cover it briefly in a socialology class in college, where the date was all over the place (IQ's scored varied by geography, along with race, along with all sorts of other stuff). The one thing no one could wrap their heads around (including some of the liberal kids) was why african americans scored lower then people of color from other regions (blacks in europe, immigrants from africa, etc), and also the wide variations one got with people of latino decent.
Also, the data you have, is it comparable to the book , the "bell curve"?
FReeper Alouette just posted this to me on another thread:
"The earliest Jewish settlers to America were Sephardim from Spain and Portugal. They were the aristocrats."
"The Ashkenazi immigrants did not outnumber them until the mass migrations from Germany and central Europe in the 1840’s."
I don't know the source. It was posted here on FR some time ago and I can't locate it now.
I believe I read that in this book: Origins Of The British
An excellent book BTW.
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