From the Chicago Trib:
… Even a [University of Chicago] colleague, former law school Dean Geoffrey Stone, had something pointed to say. [About this.]
“People are reasonably focused on the view that this is absurd for somebody who lives a relatively privileged life to define himself as not rich because there are people who are richer,” Stone said. “The way he wrote it opened himself up to that. If Todd had shown me a draft of it, I would have told him that this is going to call for scorn or derision, and that is not what you are trying to achieve here. You better think of another way to make the point.”
Scathing Online Schoolmarm says: He could have made the point. But the only way he could have made it was through humor, and the guy does not strike SOS as a natural comedian. Self-deprecation would probably be the best subcategory of humor with which to make the point, and here again the guy does not strike me as having the gift of self-deprecation.
Even Stone, I’m afraid, ain’t quite there when he calls Henderson’s life “relatively privileged.” SOS grasps the point that Americans more privileged than Henderson exist. This does not make his life relatively privileged. It is absolutely privileged.
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Add the recent focus on legacy admissions to the Henderson mess, and America’s privileged will need to look sharp for awhile. Incoming.
September 24th, 2010 at 1:58PM
The guy has deleted the post, because of the extremely hostile comments (and even threats) that he says he received.
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2010/09/uc-law-prof.html
Whatever your feeling about the merits or lack thereof of his arguments and his writing style, surely this level of invective directed at him should be of concern.
More here:
http://legalinsurrection.blogspot.com/2010/09/will-law-professors-rally-around.html
September 25th, 2010 at 7:25AM
Whatever your feeling about the merits or lack thereof of his arguments and his writing style, surely this level of invective directed at him should be of concern.
Welcome to the internet, where invective resembles high-altitude bombing with its benefit of anonymity. Incoming indeed.
September 25th, 2010 at 12:25PM
Michael..I’ve been on the Internet for a while now, and have a pretty thick skin..not sure how this guy’s Internet experience and thickness-of-skin rates. But if anyone makes physical threats against a blogger or his family, that person should be prosecuted. And if someone attempts to interfere with someone else’s employment on grounds of his opinions (except for a small number of cases where the opinion is actually directly relevant to that employment), then that’s pretty despicable. Not sure if the abusive comments in this case reached these levels, but it sounds like they might have.
There are also way too many cases of attempted intimidation going on in the physical world, with no direct connection the Internet: note for instance the thuggish and apparently illegal behavior of an SEIU mob at an executive’s home in Chevy Chase, MD, and the voter intimidation apparently conducted by the New Black Panther Party, which the Obama administration has tried to cover up.