Here is a new course that will be offered to Suffolk Law School:
Dear Students,
A new course offering has been added to the Spring 2012 schedule. Professor Marc Rodwin will be teaching Civil Disobedience on Mondays and Wednesdays 4:00-5:15pm. If you would like to register for this course selection you may go on to Campus Cruiser until midnight, November 23, 2011 or please visit the Registrar’s Office after the Thanksgiving Break.
Sincerely,
Lorraine D. Cove
Assistant Dean and Registrar
Suffolk University Law School
Looking at the course catalog's description, this doesn't seem overly objectionable. I don't see anything flagrantly liberal in the professor's biographical sketch (even though I admit that I might not be the best judge of that matter).
Am I missing something, or is the entire concept of civil disobedience off-limits because groups with whom we disagree employ aspects of it in a distasteful manner?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI don't see the problem either. It'd be different if the students were assigned (thus ordered) to go out and engage in an act of civil disobedience, but they're not. It's a law school elective on an interesting topic. Would the students have better job prospects if they took a course on, say, tax law? Maybe, but that's their decision.
I remember covering civil disobedience in an undergraduate course on law, and it was one of the most fascinating parts of the course, largely because it raised so many fundamental issues: What is the difference between law and ethics? When is it acceptable to break the law? What is an unjust law, and how do you identify one? Was Thoreau right? Was Gandhi? Was Martin Luther King? Okay, what if George Wallace had refused to move out of the schoolhouse door?
Those questions are important enough, but behind them are absolutely vital questions about the unreliability of law and the fallibility of human reason. I don't see why it's a bad idea for a future lawyer to give that some thought.
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