The misguided attack on Sandra Fluke continues, displaying irritating ignorance about women law students.

Robert Stacy McCain, I'm looking at you. Rush Limbaugh has apologized, but McCain bullies on:

Rather belatedly, we are becoming aware that this supposedly typical Georgetown coed is not very typical at all...

McCain links to a blog post from The College Politico, which begins:

Sandra Fluke is being sold by the left as something she’s not. Namely a random co-ed from Georgetown law who found herself mixed up in the latest front of the culture war who was simply looking to make sure needy women had access to birth control. That, of course, is not the case.

As many have already uncovered Sandra Fluke she is, in reality, a 30 year old long time liberal activist who enrolled at Georgetown with the express purpose of fighting for the school to pay for students’ birth control. She has been pushing for mandated coverage of contraceptives at Georgetown for at least three years...

Random co-ed?! She's a law student! I've been in law schools since 1978, and I've never heard female law students called "co-eds." What the hell is a co-ed? Even as a word for female undergraduates, it's like you're from 1931. Here's the original teenage heartthrob, Rudy Vallée, singing his great old college song, "Betty Co-ed":

Betty Co-ed has lips of red for Harvard,
Betty Co-ed has eyes of Yale's deep blue,
Betty Co-ed's a golden head for Princeton,
Her dress I guess is black for old Purdue!

I first learned the names of famous universities hearing that song on an LP of college songs that my parents had. The cover photo had rows of pretty girls each holding up a pennant with the name of a college on it.

Betty Co-ed's a smile for Pennsylvania,
Her heart is Dartmouth's treasure, so 'tis said,
Betty Co-ed is loved by every college boy,
But I'm the one who's loved by Betty Co-ed!

Here's the 1931 Max Fleischer film, featuring a Betty Boop prototype and Rudy Vallée saying "hi ho!" and starting a bouncing-ball singalong:



Now, Betty has a lot of boyfriends. Some may even call her a "slut." That was back in the day when a girl on campus caused quite a hubbub. Did Betty put out? What birth-control did Betty use? How much did it cost? Who paid? I don't know, but how many voters of today remember what college was like back when Rudy Vallée was making women swoon?

Now, Vallée's a fascinating character in the history of pop culture:

Vallée... was perhaps the first complete example of the 20th century mass media pop star. Flappers mobbed him wherever he went. His live appearances were usually sold out, and even if his singing could hardly be heard in those venues not yet equipped with the new electronic microphones, his screaming female fans went home happy if they had caught sight of his lips through the opening of the trademark megaphone he sang through.

Vallee had a gentle voice:

Vallée became the most prominent and, arguably, the first of a new style of popular singer, the crooner. Previously, popular singers needed strong projecting voices to fill theaters in the days before the electric microphone. Crooners had soft voices that were well suited to the intimacy of the new medium of the radio.

Ah, the radio! You can't sound too harsh on the radio, especially when you're pouring your sounds into the ears of women. I know one older woman who, finding Rush too harsh, has moved on Bill Bennett, who seems caring.

But back to my point: co-ed.  This is an old-fashioned label to stick on a woman, and it shouldn't be used anymore even to apply to undergraduates. But you just sound ignorant to call a female law student a "co-ed." And that ignorance continues with this talk of Sandra Fluke not being "a random co-ed." None of the students at an elite law school like Georgetown are "random." There's an elaborate, multi-factored admissions process, and it specifically looks for applicants who aren't coming straight from college but have taken time and shown engagement with social and political issues.

A "30 year old long time liberal activist" sounds exactly like the kind of person who would apply to law school and get accepted with enthusiasm, because the schools want students who will contribute to the classroom discussions about the things we talk about in law school, like sex discrimination. This is what classroom diversity means. And we want students who will take their law school education and use it different ways, especially in political activism. So what if Fluke "enrolled at Georgetown with the express purpose of fighting for the school to pay for students’ birth control"? I have no idea if that's why she selected Georgetown, but it's not a bad thing, it's not something law schools don't like, and it's not an unusual orientation for a law student to have.

McCain also tells us that Fluke has argued that it's sex discrimination for insurance not to cover "gender-reassignment" surgery. Sorry, this is typical law-journal material. Of course, an advocate in the category she belongs to would make arguments like this. Argue with these arguments all you want. But it doesn't make Sandra Fluke some nefarious pseudo law student. She sounds like a typical excellent law student at an elite law school.

Which is to say: the personal put-downs sound old-fashioned and sexist.

The right wing stepped in it with Fluke. Having stepped in it, they keep smushing around in it.

As a woman, as a law professor, as a woman law professor, I don't want to be seen anywhere near these guys. Could you start acting normal about women participating in public debate?

Now let's have a serious debate about insurance. Yeah. It's not much fun at all. But you've got to quit having your fun with women and sex — in this context! — or you are going to alienate more and more women voters — and men voters — every day. Good lord! It's super Tuesday. We should be talking about Mitt Romney, not Sandra Fluke. Yeah: Mitt Romney and insurance. Boring. Too bad.

The lawsuit against the University of Iowa College of Law for rejecting a conservative applicant for a lawprof job.

The applicant, Teresa R. Wagner, was active in the Right to Life cause, and the associate law school dean is caught in writing saying "Frankly, one thing that worries me is that some people may be opposed to Teresa serving in any role in part at least because they so despise her politics (and especially her activism about it)."

In the NYT, Adam Liptak calls attention to the dissonance conservatives ought to feel about litigation:

“I have serious misgivings about asking the courts to fix this through lawsuits,” [Walter Olson, a fellow at the Cato Institute, said]. “It threatens to intrude on collegiality, empower some with sharp elbows to sue their way into faculty jobs, invite judges into making subjective calls of their own which may reflect their assumptions and biases, all while costing a lot of money and grief.”

“At the same time,” he added, “there’s a karma factor here. Law faculties at Iowa and elsewhere have been enthusiastic advocates of wider liability for other employers that get sued. They’re not really going to ask for an exemption for themselves, are they?”

"Did UW-Madison's diversity chief incite students?"

Deborah Ziff asks:

Talk show host Bill O'Reilly called him "a loon." The head of a conservative think tank said he fed students propaganda and egged on a student "mob."

The comments were directed at UW-Madison's chief diversity officer, Damon Williams, who has been at the center of an admissions maelstrom ever since the Virginia-based Center for Equal Opportunity alleged in a report this month that the university gives preferential treatment to black and Hispanic students.

Learning a day early that the center planned to release its findings at a Madison news conference, Williams and Dean of Students Lori Berquam convened a meeting of students to discuss "a threat to our diversity efforts." The next day, a group of students disrupted the news conference, forcing the center's president and a former UW-Madison professor to leave the room.

Read the whole thing. Who knows the causal connection between the meeting one day and the disruption the next? My point — and I'm quoted toward the end of this piece — is that the University should not act scared about this. It should not concede that the CEO's activity is a threat. Presumably, the admissions policies are aligned with the case law and within the range permitted under the Equal Protection Clause. Why stir up negative emotion and anxiety?

The appropriate attitude is confidence and pride, demonstrating a belief in the chosen policy. The organization that has attacked us is serious and hardworking. It's not a random swipe at us that deserves no attention. We should respond in a way that suits a public university and have a reasonable, vigorous debate, including a conversation with the people of the state. The people have the power to trump the University's policy choice by legislation, so simple political sense ought to make us want to make a good argument aimed at them. But quite apart from political pragmatism, we should, as a matter of principle, show that we care about the citizens of Wisconsin who were excluded in the admissions process. As a university, we should take advantage of what is an opportunity to teach and to demonstrate a love for debate and weighing diverse viewpoints.

I mean, diversity is supposed to be the central value. And — here's a lesson in what the Supreme Court has said the Equal Protection Clause means — the diversity that justifies the use of racial classification "is defined by reference to the educational benefits that diversity is designed to produce."

The reason the Court has allowed some flexibility to use race in admissions is that it supposedly connects to the University's educational mission. If that connection is real, it ought to show.

How foolish do these Miss USA contestants sound responding to the question whether evolution should be taught in schools?

This video clip is making the rounds on some lefty blogs:



These women don't seem to realize how well-established the theory of evolution is and how central it is to the study of science. Of course, it should be taught in school. The more lively present-day issue is whether intelligent design may also be taught alongside evolution, but that isn't what the women were asked. The question prompts them to think of evolution as something that perhaps ought not to be taught in schools. From the bizarre similarity of the answers, I would extrapolate standard beauty-contest advice: Look for the prompt in the question and echo it back with some embellishment that makes you sound thoughtful, caring, and respectful of diversity.

But maybe, as Nicolle Belle at Crooks and Liars says:

The way that the majority of these women express their view that there are multiple and equally scientifically valid arguments truly shows the success of the religious right to muddy the waters and dumb down the populace by introducing skepticism over scientific theory.

By the same token, these answers may show how fundamental it is in America to believe in gathering information, listening to the argument about what might be true, and developing your powers of judgment. So, to some extent, what these women are saying aligns with the scientific method.

More than anything else, however, what I hear in these answers is a deep instinct toward freedom of choice. I felt moved to transcribe Miss New Jersey's remark because it was so perfectly typical of what they all seemed to be saying:

"I think everything should be taught in schools, every single aspect of evolution and anything you can think of. I think they should have the option of learning everything that there is to learn and then kind of choose what they like to believe."

Now, there is something absurd about that.  You don't want to teach kids everything you can think of, and they shouldn't be choosing what to believe based on what they like, but there's something beautiful and quintessentially American about that commitment to the free flow of information and the freedom of belief. It's not that far from the statement on the "sifting and winnowing" plaque here at the University of Wisconsin... about which I once said:

I would like to see some "continual and fearless" judgment about who should be given the opportunity to amass the pile of material that students are assigned to sift and winnow.

That is, you don't just throw anything you can think of at the students and leave it to them to find the truth. And some things are so well-established that it's a good idea to teach them quickly and simply as facts and save the "sifting and winnowing" activity for some other set of material. That brings us back to evolution: Should schools teach it as a fact — this is the theory — or use this subject as an occasion for teaching students how to look at evidence and judge it critically? I think that is the interesting question, and it is not at all obvious which approach is more supportive of science/religion.

"The campaign for 'intellectual diversity' legislation is a neoconservative ploy to secure the teaching of right-wing propaganda in the classroom, plain and simple."

"The authors of the campaign hide behind the mask of educational reformer, but what they seek is nothing short of educational control."

That's what I read when I followed the link at the end of this comment of Irene's:

Using the phrase "intellectual diversity" is itself an act of courage in the academic arena.

I once uttered "intellectual diversity" in a debate with a leftie (I use that term endearingly, of course).

The "discussion" ended with a link to an explanation that the phrase is code for a neoconservative plot.

Later, in that comments thread, there's this:

Scott M said... If "intellectual diversity" and "personal responsibility" have been deemed as code words of right-wing oppression, just what the hell words or phrases do they use when they are trying to talk about intellectual diversity or personal responsibility?...

Irene said... @Scott M, "Social Justice."

"But yeah, smart administrators understand that intellectual diversity on the faculty is a good thing, for purely self-interested reasons alone."

"Back in the 1990s when I was writing a lot of second amendment stuff, somebody tried to get my dean to fire me, saying that I was fomenting domestic terrorism. But my dean told me that he was glad to have me writing that stuff, because when alumni or legislators talked about ivory-tower liberal faculties, he could just send 'em a copy of my 'Critical Guide To The Second Amendment.'"

Heh. Yeah. Think about it. Let's say you have a state law school the legislators and alums imagine must be about 95% left-wing. Get one conservative lawprof out there in the public eye — maybe with a blog that's supposedly right-wing — and that vague mental percentage might readjust to 80% or so. That's value! Treasure your house conservative, oh lefty law school!