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U of F Law School Should Lose Accreditation.

S

superrific

Legend of ZZL
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"Preston Damsky is a law student at the University of Florida. He is also a white nationalist and antisemite. Last fall, he took a seminar taught by a federal judge on “originalism,” the legal theory favored by many conservatives that seeks to interpret the Constitution based on its meaning when it was adopted.

In his capstone paper for the class, Mr. Damsky argued that the framers had intended for the phrase “We the People,” in the Constitution’s preamble, to refer exclusively to white people. From there, he argued for the removal of voting rights protections for nonwhites, and for the issuance of shoot-to-kill orders against “criminal infiltrators at the border.”

Turning over the country to “a nonwhite majority,” Mr. Damsky wrote, would constitute a “terrible crime.” White people, he warned, “cannot be expected to meekly swallow this demographic assault on their sovereignty.”

At the end of the semester, Mr. Damsky, 29, was given the “book award,” which designated him as the best student in the class. According to the syllabus, the capstone counted the most toward final grades.

The Trump-nominated judge who taught the class, John L. Badalamenti, declined to comment for this article, and does not appear to have publicly discussed why he chose Mr. Damsky for the award. That left some students and faculty members at the law school, considered Florida’s most prestigious, to wonder, and to worry: What merit could the judge have seen in it?
But the question of how officials should respond to Mr. Damsky — who, in an interview, said that referring to him as a Nazi “would not be manifestly wrong” — is not merely academic."
The law school chose institutional neutrality. “It’s just that — neutrality,” she added. “The government — in this case, our public university — stays out of picking sides, so that, through the marketplace of ideas, you can debate and arrive at truth for yourself and for the community.”

Some at the law school agree with her stance. In an interview, John F. Stinneford, a professor at the university, said that it would be “academic misconduct” for a law professor who opposed abortion to give a lower grade to a well-argued paper advocating abortion rights."

I agree that the school should be neutral as to viewpoint. I have given grades to student work with which I disagreed. I had one student who basically wrote an entire term paper about how to launder money legally after the promulgation of new AML rules by the Treasury department. I disagreed with it, but it was impressive work without question.

The problem, of course -- as every person here knows, regardless of legal training -- is that it is impossible to craft a good argument that the constitution applies only to white people. It is impossible to craft a not-horrible argument. It's not horrible just because of its implications (which are horrible) but because it's transparent nonsense.

How the fuck did anyone at U of F defend this shit? Someone gave him an A grade. The Dean, almost certainly empowered to override the grade, decided to be "neutral."

Lawyers take note: U of F law school is not weeding out their idiots. Do not hire from there.
 
I actually agree with the law school here. While I find the argument he makes abhorrent, it should be judged within a law school class by how well it makes a legal argument. (I will say here that I am in no way, shape, or form qualified to make that determination.)

But I think you can make a fairly obvious argument that the "We The People" in the Constitution doesn't include everyone who lived in the US at the time. African-Americans were routinely slaves (~89% of AAs were slaves, IIRC) and AAs were not routinely recognized as citizens. Add in Indian Americans and you can see that not everybody in the US, even those born here, were considered citizens of the country. Of course, we live in a post-14th Amendment US, so the phrase "We The People" is not the operative part of the Constitution in such matters (and it probably never was).

I won't say that the UF Law School is right here, but also not inherently wrong.

One follow up, though, is that it is absolutely insane that the school would employ anyone who describes themself with the phrase "that referring to [me] as a Nazi 'would not be manifestly wrong'." I know we need to be open to various viewpoints in academia, but self-identifying as a Nazi should be fairly certainly disqualifying.
 
I simply refuse to believe there isn’t something else to this story. If it’s as it reads, it’s incredibly offensive and Florida should be reprimanded.
 
SnoopRob said:
I actually agree with the law school here. While I find the argument he makes abhorrent, it should be judged within a law school class by how well it makes a legal argument. (I will say here that I am in no way, shape, or form qualified to make that determination.)

But I think you can make a fairly obvious argument that the "We The People" in the Constitution doesn't include everyone who lived in the US at the time. African-Americans were routinely slaves (~89% of AAs were slaves, IIRC) and AAs were not routinely recognized as citizens. Add in Indian Americans and you can see that not everybody in the US, even those born here, were considered citizens of the country. Of course, we live in a post-14th Amendment US, so the phrase "We The People" is not the operative part of the Constitution in such matters (and it probably never was).

I won't say that the UF Law School is right here, but also not inherently wrong.

One follow up, though, is that it is absolutely insane that the school would employ anyone who describes themself with the phrase "that referring to [me] as a Nazi 'would not be manifestly wrong'." I know we need to be open to various viewpoints in academia, but self-identifying as a Nazi should be fairly certainly disqualifying.
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UF doesn't employ the nazi, damsky. he is the law student.
 
more info: Trump Judge Gave Jew-Hating Neo-Nazi Coveted Academic Prize

The University of Florida has suspended one of its students over racist social media posts—but not before he won an award for a paper arguing the Constitution only protects non-whites.

The college placed Preston Damsky, a 29-year-old law student, on leave earlier after he posted a series of racist messages to his X account that included suggesting Jewish people should be “abolished by any means necessary,” The New York Times reports.

John L. Badalamenti, a sitting federal judge appointed by President Donald Trump, taught the class for which Damsky wrote that report. Badalamenti granted Damsky a “book award,” reserved for the seminar’s top student.
 
4thgenheel said:
more info: Trump Judge Gave Jew-Hating Neo-Nazi Coveted Academic Prize

The University of Florida has suspended one of its students over racist social media posts—but not before he won an award for a paper arguing the Constitution only protects non-whites.

The college placed Preston Damsky, a 29-year-old law student, on leave earlier after he posted a series of racist messages to his X account that included suggesting Jewish people should be “abolished by any means necessary,” The New York Times reports.

John L. Badalamenti, a sitting federal judge appointed by President Donald Trump, taught the class for which Damsky wrote that report. Badalamenti granted Damsky a “book award,” reserved for the seminar’s top student.
Click to expand...
I guess UF’s free speech beliefs don’t apply to social media posts.
 
I don't mind so much but , against the backdrop of the current whitewashing of American history, I get a niggling feeling we're in a game with loaded dice.
 
superrific said:

"Preston Damsky is a law student at the University of Florida. He is also a white nationalist and antisemite. Last fall, he took a seminar taught by a federal judge on “originalism,” the legal theory favored by many conservatives that seeks to interpret the Constitution based on its meaning when it was adopted.

In his capstone paper for the class, Mr. Damsky argued that the framers had intended for the phrase “We the People,” in the Constitution’s preamble, to refer exclusively to white people. From there, he argued for the removal of voting rights protections for nonwhites, and for the issuance of shoot-to-kill orders against “criminal infiltrators at the border.”

Turning over the country to “a nonwhite majority,” Mr. Damsky wrote, would constitute a “terrible crime.” White people, he warned, “cannot be expected to meekly swallow this demographic assault on their sovereignty.”

At the end of the semester, Mr. Damsky, 29, was given the “book award,” which designated him as the best student in the class. According to the syllabus, the capstone counted the most toward final grades.

The Trump-nominated judge who taught the class, John L. Badalamenti, declined to comment for this article, and does not appear to have publicly discussed why he chose Mr. Damsky for the award. That left some students and faculty members at the law school, considered Florida’s most prestigious, to wonder, and to worry: What merit could the judge have seen in it?
But the question of how officials should respond to Mr. Damsky — who, in an interview, said that referring to him as a Nazi “would not be manifestly wrong” — is not merely academic."
The law school chose institutional neutrality. “It’s just that — neutrality,” she added. “The government — in this case, our public university — stays out of picking sides, so that, through the marketplace of ideas, you can debate and arrive at truth for yourself and for the community.”

Some at the law school agree with her stance. In an interview, John F. Stinneford, a professor at the university, said that it would be “academic misconduct” for a law professor who opposed abortion to give a lower grade to a well-argued paper advocating abortion rights."

I agree that the school should be neutral as to viewpoint. I have given grades to student work with which I disagreed. I had one student who basically wrote an entire term paper about how to launder money legally after the promulgation of new AML rules by the Treasury department. I disagreed with it, but it was impressive work without question.

The problem, of course -- as every person here knows, regardless of legal training -- is that it is impossible to craft a good argument that the constitution applies only to white people. It is impossible to craft a not-horrible argument. It's not horrible just because of its implications (which are horrible) but because it's transparent nonsense.

How the fuck did anyone at U of F defend this shit? Someone gave him an A grade. The Dean, almost certainly empowered to override the grade, decided to be "neutral."

Lawyers take note: U of F law school is not weeding out their idiots. Do not hire from there.
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If we’re going to use “originalism” as a standard as this UF law student proposes, shouldn’t “We the People” in the Preamble mean just property owning white men?

“We the People” certainly didn’t apply to women 225-240 years ago.
 
4thgenheel said:
furthermore, this is why everyone else laughs their asses off at the right pretending to give a shit about jewish people or antisemitism while you welcome and dote on people like this damsky shitbird.
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This Damsky guy hates Trump. He sides with Iran and thinks Trump is way too in bed with Israel (“the Jews”)
 
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it is not clear to me if Damsky is arguing that the Pre-Reconstruction Constitution made these assertions or our present Constitution (13,14, & 15 Amendments) does?
 
As an otherwise proud graduate of the University of Florida College of Law 25 years ago, this disgusts me. While I can see how a legally defensible argument can be made to support his premise, his calls to action extrapolated from that premise seem to be so beyond the pale as not to be academically or lawfully justified.

Given the professor’s political proclivities, it would also seem that the professor knew and embraced the outrage that granting him the book award would cause. As such, I wonder about the political message he decided to send, as opposed to the claims of being politically neutral.
 
I’m not a lawyer and don’t know anything about firm politics- this was the wildest part of the article to me:

One former student, who graduated in May, had his post-graduation job offer rescinded by a large law firm when he told them he had spoken to The New York Times for this article, criticizing Mr. Damsky’s paper and Judge Badalamenti for granting him the award. The student asked not to be identified for fear of jeopardizing other job offers.
 
The constitution is a living document. We idolize the founding fathers for what they have done for this country. But that does not mean they were right or perfect.

Originalism is another example of conservatism. It shows that changes that affect the status quo (i.e. those who lose out on these changes) are against the intentions of the founding fathers. In truth, originalism has nothing to do with the founding fathers. It is an attempt to keep the nation as it is or take it back to a time where certain groups are more powerful and/or prosperous. It's an excuse. It's a joke. We do jot know the intentions of the founding fathers. Only that they created this document. That they were against the monarchy. Hmmm. I'm pretty sure there were compromises.

At the end of the day, originalism is an oxymoron. You can't believe in originalism and at the same time is for women's rights, ending slavery, etc. You would be saying "but..." a lot and that takes away from your standing.

This idiot that wrote his paper may well earn the grade because he was not trying to say racism is wrong, and despite what was at the time legal, should not be legal now. He is saying what was legal then should still be legal now which is white rule.

So don't go after the idiot. Go after originalism. IMO it's unconstitutional.

Just my 2 cents.
 
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