Students at the University of New Hampshire Franklin Pierce School of Law walked out of their classes on March 29, to protest an email sent by a religious student society containing anti-trans messages and what they believe to be a “lacking” response from administrators.
More than 100 students were organized outside the grounds of UNH Law with signs and flags, chanting, “UNH! Stand against hate!”
AhLana Ames, a law student at the school, helped organize and spoke at the event. She said students from different affinity groups — Diversity Coalition, Lambda, Mental Health Alliance, If When How, Asian Pacific American Law Student Association, Black Law Students Association, and more — met in a Zoom call and decided to organize the walkout.
“We’ve been shown over and over again that just talking to admin, being polite, doing everything by the book, doesn’t work anymore,” Ames said. “We wanted to take proactive action to show admin that enough is enough. I had sent an email to the Deans Tuesday evening and was discouraged by the response. So, protest it was.”
An email from the school’s Christian Legal Society to all students sparked the protest. The email invited students, faculty and student groups to join them for a candlelight vigil in remembrance of the victims of the Nashville school shooting. The controversial part of the email referenced the shooter’s gender identification.
“Nashville school shooter Audrey Hale identified as transgender and had a detailed manifesto to attack the Christian academy … By all accounts, this terrorist attack on a Christian school was motivated by anti-Christian hate,” the email states following information on the vigil and images of the victims.
There is no evidence or official account that shows the shooter was motivated by anti-Christian hate.
The email goes on to say that the shooting comes after “a barrage of rhetoric demonizing Christians and anyone perceived to oppose the ontological premises of transgenderism.” It also adds that activists and actors in the media have “fueled this hate and paranoia” against “anyone who opposes the trans agenda.”
Ames said the email played into anti-trans stereotypes.
“[It] reduced trans folks and their struggles to this strawman concept of ‘transgenderism,’” Ames said.
She explained that the email is what “broke the camel’s back,” in regard to the Christian Legal Society and the Free Exercise Coalition student groups. The society charters include language that Ames describes as anti-queer, anti-trans and anti-abortion.
Both student groups were approved in the last year. The Free Exercise Coalition was recognized a few months ago, shortly after a legal group in Texas threatened litigation if the chapter was not approved by UNH Law, reported New Hampshire Public Radio.
Megan Carpenter, dean of the law school, addressed the email sent by the society on Wednesday morning in an email to students and faculty.
“As a guiding principle as an institution of higher education, we are committed to the free and open exchange of ideas, active discourse, and critical debate,” Carpenter wrote. “All members of our community have the right to hold and vigorously defend and promote their opinions. The exercise of this right may result in members of the community being exposed to ideas that they consider unorthodox, controversial, or even repugnant.”
Carpenter went on to address the administration’s decision to affiliate certain student religious organizations as an official student group at the law school. She explained that the affiliation was required by law, UNH’s non-discrimination policy and the principles of free speech, freedom of expression and freedom of religion.
Some students believed the email may have violated the school’s email communication policy. Carpenter sent a follow-up email on Friday, March 31 explaining that after review the administration determined the email does not violate the UNH Discrimination and Discriminatory Harassment Policy.
“Our nation has experienced a tragic shooting and the incomprehensible loss of innocent life,” Carpenter wrote in the email. “There were three children and three caregivers killed. This is a heartbreaking, unimaginable, senseless loss. The thousand-year flood, the once-in-a-lifetime anomaly, the glitch in a universe, which happens impossibly regularly. And this tragedy should not be used as an opportunity for anyone to malign members of our community or to impart fear. Maligning the trans community is wrong and it was wrong for CLS to do so in its email this week.”
“I encourage each of you to contemplate this issue through the lens of the lawyers you are training to become, with the opportunities we are given as people who have the immense privilege of legal training and advocacy,” she continued. “We have a shared purpose in our community: to develop the skills to right the wrongs of civil injustice through law. This is why we are here. I’m inspired by the opportunity each of you has to navigate the space where the important issues of our day reside, including critical and complex First Amendment, civil rights, and constitutional issues. It is a challenge but one that you have a unique toolset for. If it were easy, the project of our country would not be an experiment.”
The National Jurist reached out for a statement from UNH Law and has not received a response.
Ames said the school agreed to help students who are organizing a Trans Day of Visibility on Friday. A member of the Office of Community, Equity and Diversity is intended to come and facilitate a conversation afterward.
