It was a GOOD week for…
DEANS WITH GUTS, after George Mason University School of Law’s Daniel Polsby stood up for free speech. He defended the invitation from the Arlington, Va. school’s Federalist Society to let activist Nonie Darwish speak, despite her controversial reputation for erupting into anti-Islamic rants. The Council on American-Islamic Relations insisted that the school revoke her invite, but Polsby didn’t budge.
“Just as speakers are free to speak, protesters are free to protest,” he wrote to students and faculty, in response to the complaints. “…The law school will not exercise editorial control over the words of speakers invited by student organizations, nor will we take responsibility for them, nor will we endorse or condemn them.”
Maybe he’s learned a thing or two from the University of Wyoming, which cancelled a speech in April 2010 by education professor and Weather Underground co-founder Bill Ayers after the community, local politicians and alumni complained. The school was left with angry students and faculty over freedom of speech rights — and a lawsuit from Ayers.
It was a BAD week for…
PROFESSORS AND PROSTITUTES, after University of Miami School of Law’s Marvin Jones got slammed with a misdemeanor charge in late September for soliciting a street walker.
The Coral Gables school he’s worked at since 1988 sits a stone’s throw from the bikini-clad and promiscuous hot bed known as Miami Beach.
Lawyers-in-training attending UM flooded Above the Law with their own take on the public filing. “UM law prof popped for hookers a second time? The rumors are flying on campus,” said one tipster, with another sarcastically commenting, “I guess we should have put in a provision into our Student Bill of Rights that prevented a professor from picking up call-girls.”
It’s all deja vu for the Baltimore native, who got a similar charge back in 2007 (which was later expunged).
The latest prostitution charge further tarnishes the reputation of what sounds like a stellar professor (who ironically specializes in criminal procedure law); the New York University School of Law graduate is a sought-after speaker at universities, with numerous articles on the civil and political rights of minorities published in top legal journals.
Both UM Law and Jones did not respond to a request for comment.
