wouldn't it be cool if the staircase had gay paraphernalia on it every day?

The military recruited on campus the other day so NYU unfurled rainbow flags in strategic locations. The protest irritated me in a vague way, as if in addition to being futile NYU was missing a point. But what point?

This one, as articulated by the Berkeley town council:

"Military recruiters are salespeople known to lie to and seduce minors and young adults into contracting themselves into military service with false promises regarding jobs, job training, education and other benefits."

Hey, why didn't we think of that?

they must think he is bluffing

Law is the most adversarial profession in America. Even the military has to pretend it only does "defense." The strife is worth it, lawyers say, and good, because it shakes out the truth or the best possible solution.

So why does everyone at NYU Law support Obama? You guys if Obama unites the country then you will be out of business!

Most NYU profs are Obamaniacs. But was Hillary Clinton dressed by Amy Adler's brother tonight?

(Please, please note not only the design but the name of the pillow.)

access

Most of NYU's website is open to the public--calendars, course descriptions, faculty bios. Some of it is password protected, including grade distributions and employer critiques.

I understand why NYU protects the critiques. That way students can be honest and include their contact info for prospective applicants. (Though this is flawed--someone I know got ratted out to her summer firm by a 1L.)

Anyway, why is the curve password protected? Is grade inflation a secret?

"Text should appear on one side of a page ONLY."

--Instructions to my copyright exam, which is to be submitted electronically.

NYU should charge me double

"You're going to have to decide which is more important to you: not practicing law or being employed."

--Office of Career Services for the Downwardly Mobile (aka PILC)

Take that, non-lawyers. America has finally reached the point where all people do is sue each other. Office buildings have shriveled up and every potential employer is camped outside of a courthouse. Anyway, I think that might be funnier than what the Office of Career Services for the Upwardly Mobile (aka OCS) said to me last summer, regarding my fear that young lawyer jobs were miserable:

"It's called a job, you know. They pay you."

Besides the dialogue, the most depressing part about these meetings is when they edit my resume. They always make me delete the parts of which I'm most proud and elaborate on the stupid parts. Now if anyone asks, fighting an honor system is not the best (judging by resume space) professional experience of my life. I did not theorize about supreme court justices' personalities or defend undergraduates against charges of sexual misconduct. I did, however, call ex-cons at their homes to find out whether they enjoyed their custodial jobs.

Guess which one I should submit as a writing sample:

• The first sensical theory of Everson v. Board of Education since it was decided in 1947, as part of an argument that the supreme court ended segregation because they hated catholics.
• An essay against rational argument in favor of emotionalism.
• Research about the difference between legal and illegal touching of genitals, in New York County.

Voices of Reason

New York has a story on Obama and Clinton's "inner law students." It didn't give me any insight at all into whether they're going to send half of my generation to Iran, but I did figure out which law student archetypes they were. They were both Voices of Reason.

Each large law school course contains one Voice of Reason. He or she is a student who resents that law school is a circus. You know how penicillin was discovered by accident, so universities should explore all kinds of inquiries, even ones that don't seem practical at first? The Voice of Reason does not know that. The Voice of Reason wishes to rescue the class, which overlooks Washington Square Park and is led by an amateur comedian, from wasting time. He or she also wishes to appear more reasonable than everyone else, possibly following the realization that he or she will never be as amusing as the professor anyway.

"Ms. [Left Wing Zealot] makes an interesting point that the National Labor Relations Act doesn't distinguish between employed and unemployed workers," says the Voice of Reason. "And I appreciate where Mr. [Right Wing Zealot] is coming from when he says that voluntary unemployment unfairly disrupts the free market. I think I see a compromise. Let's raise income taxes, but only on the unemployed."

No, Voice of Reason, let's not compromise! We aren't amending legislation up here above Washington Square Park, Voice of Reason. We are saying exactly what we believe should be said. Soon Left Wing Zealot will build her textualist arguments on behalf of white collar criminals; soon Right Wing Zealot will be dampened by workplace sexual harrassment policies. But today, Voice of Reason, we're being ourselves for the last time ever. Why do you always try to be reasonable instead?

So that thirty-five years from now witnesses will tell New York Magazine,

“[The Voice of Reason] was a little bit above the conversation. [The Voice of Reason] had a synthetic mind and a capacity to summarize what people said so that they would come out feeling like, Yeah, I was fairly treated.”

“It was almost like [The Voice of Reason was] being a translator... [The Voice of Reason] did what nowadays would be called international summitry—flying back and forth between both sides … [The Voice of Reason]’s always been one who sees the need for balance.”

Translators for President!

what if a smart person talked about law

Famous NYU legal philosopher Ronald Dworkin writes that the majority of the majority of the Supreme Court "seems guided by no judicial or political principle at all, but only by partisan, cultural, and perhaps religious allegiance." It's a classy analysis of the 2006 term, comprehensive, nuanced, and with an interesting conclusion: that Roberts is warping the logic of old cases in order to seem justified when he throws them out later.

Except everyone knows all that. It's nice to have the entire 06 term proved stupid line by line, but couldn't a 1L have done it? I don't like seeing someone so famous for being smart descend to the Court's level. It's probably part of Bush's plan to make all the smartest liberals in America waste time pulling their hair. Philosophers shouldn't be debating whether John Roberts is impure, they should be figuring out where the world came from already!

One unclassy thing: He refers to legal doctrine he doesn't like as "slogans" and "rhetoric." For example, "the distinction between taking race to be decisive and counting it as one factor among many has figured prominently in Supreme Court rhetoric since the earliest affirmative action cases." I agree that legal doctrine that benefits conservative causes is more accurately classified as wordplay than wisdom/logic/truth. But I feel that way about legal doctrine that doesn't benefit conservatives, too. The length of this essay and Dworkin's career suggest that he respects law more than I do. So quit the "rhetoric" rhetoric and just call it all doctrine!

I just caught myself thinking, "why did he bother? Is he getting paid by the word or something?" Uh yeah! It's this guy's job to bother! Ew, jobs really make fools out of everyone huh...

Why did I bother writing this? Because Dworkin rejected me from his colloquium.

a class I dropped

I signed up for a class taught by David Richards and Carol Gilligan because David Richards and Carol Gilligan were teaching it. Gilligan is a famous feminist psychologist; Richards was my crim prof who acted like a cartoon character, screaming, jumping, and teaching in a falsetto.

For the first class we were assigned one book each of theirs. For the second class, Gilligan's husband's book. Later on, two other of Richards' books. And for each class of the semester, a chapter of their joint unpublished manuscript, on which they encouraged us to give feedback.

Richards spoke the majority of the time and interrupted Gilligan most of the times she spoke. He was not a cartoon character, perhaps because this class was more serious than criminal law. A student mentioned he'd enjoyed Richards' teaching style in crim and Richards replied, "oh, you wanted more of that... Theatrics."

We were encouraged to find our voice, especially via the weekly writing assignments. For the next class the readings were a chapter of the professors' about Roman patriarchy and Gilligan's husband's book, Violence: Reflections on a National Epidemic. The writing assignment was: is Roman patriarchy alive in Violence? I feared that if I answered the question I might accidentally speak in someone else's voice. Like the professors'.

Gilligan is a straight woman and mother of three sons; Richards is a gay man. Although they agreed that masculinity was--to some extent-- artificially constructed, they also romanticized masculinity. Gilligan told us that it's more difficult for men to live in a patriarchy. Not "also difficult." More. As in higher quantity of bad feelings? Richards told us that all of the five great men he wrote about in an assigned book Disarming Manhood had strong, independent mothers. Strength and independence... with which gender are those traits associated? These were bold generalizations (aka "stereotypes") and I couldn't help but feel they'd be more credible coming from a neutral party, someone neither manly nor predisposed toward orgasming nearby manliness. I call not it.

The Gilligan book assigned for the first class was The Birth of Pleasure. Five minutes before the end of class Gilligan asked us to free write. The prompt: "While reading The Birth of Pleasure I..."

Never take a class because the professor is famous unless you go to Harvard.

rich people are more polite

One of my fall classes is taught by two professors, and they assigned their own books for the first class. I checked them out of the library and was pleased with myself for saving money. But now I'm worried: is that rude? It looks like I don't love my professors' books enough to spend money on them. I do not expect to re-read them during bouts of insomnia or pass them onto my children.

Should I leave the tacky books at home on the first day of class?

somewhat respectable

This weekend my friend Richard was in town from Chapel Hill. On Saturday we went to Bar Reis in Park Slope and took up about four seats in its colorful garden. That was possible because Park Slope is cool/uncool like that. As Richard's tourguide I taught him things.

Glenna: First of all, everyone is a lawyer.
Richard: Ha, ha. Sometimes I feel like everyone I meet is a doctor.
Girl 10 feet away: Blah BLAH blah law firm blah blah motherfuckers...

She had been heckling us periodically. For example as I'd walked between the table and the bathroom, she suggested to Richard that he break up with me.

Glenna: Hey, what law firm?
New Friend: White and Case. You're a 2L summer? What school?
Glenna: NYU. You?
New Friend: Penn. What law firm?
Glenna: None. I'm just working for a professor.
New Friend: OoooOOOH NYU over here is going to help people! Everyone look at NYU here, she's better than us. She's going to help people!

The people in her party didn't look. I denied that I would ever help anyone and then we played the name game. She invited us to her table and we dragged our chairs over happily.

NF: [places hand in my lap] You're really skinny. You must be the type who doesn't eat when she does coke. [I nod.] Fuck you. [To Richard] You have jagged teeth.
R: Really?

Our new friend pulled a black high heeled flip flop from her bag and replaced her right shoe (a silvery high heeled flip flop) with it.

NF: [to me] This one is not so quick. You are. You're NYU, okay? But like what's this guy, Binghamton?
G: Worse. He doesn't even go to law school.

Her upper lip jerked and the lower one stayed relaxed. By this point New Friend's friends had evaporated. We were finally alone. The waitress moseyed by and New Friend ordered a line of coke.

Waitress: Cooooke
NF: Um HELLO, cocaine, BLOW, fucking, lines, rails, hello anybody home?
W: We don't sell... coke...
NF: What the FUCK, fuck you.
W: A drink...?

I interrupted to ask for a seabreeze. Richard ordered some kind of beer for himself and New Friend settled for the same.

NF: Why are there TV shows about black people? Like, I'm sorry, I'm sick of people being so fucking PC. I am not PC.
Her hand was in my lap again. I moved some hair behind her ear.
R: That's kind of...
NF: What, oh, I'm sorry, you're black aren't you. Yeah you're black, or Jewish, because you have curly hair.
R: No...
NF: It's okay, it means you're good at cunnilingus.
Etc.

New Friend pretended not to hear several invitations back to my apartment, which pissed me off. She was all talk. Talk and touching, anyway. New Friend was not an exciting discovery. She was the same type of person I meet a dozen times a day during the school year: verbally aggressive, worldly, and risk-averse. The only difference was, I happened to meet her at a Brooklyn bar instead of in the vicinity of authority figures.

The next day I shared the story with a friend and classmate of mine.
Old Friend: It's because she goes to Penn. Those second and third tier schools have trouble weeding people out.
G: But Penn is only two spots below NYU.
OF: Doesn't matter. Like there's this guy at my firm who always says weird homophobic stuff to me when no one else is around. And guess where he goes? Duke.
G: Oh, actually you might be right. Duke really sucks.

It's always surprised me how frequently I come across nastified toilets on campus. (No need to go into detail.) But why am I surprised? Public toilets are at least as nasty as NYU Law toilets.

So as much as I disdain law students, I expect them to be tidier than the general population. I'm classist.

The other day our property professor said we shouldn't work at a major law firm just to maintain our privilege. Maintain?! Oh right, he knows we're rich because if we were poor we'd be in Iraq.

Just came from a protest-planning meeting. We have to protest army/navy JAG coming to campus because they discriminate against gay people.

Some people want to sign up for interviews and berate their interviewers. Some want to share with the interviewers what it feels like to be denied a job they don't want on the basis of who they love. Some want to play it straight, blue ball them for 20 minutes, then reject their job offer. Then the navy will know what they're missing! They'll be able to put a face to our lack of excellence in Iraq.

Most of the group is in favor of distributing pins to NYU law students who like tomatoes that say "I really like tomatoes." Has something to do with awareness.

I want to actually harm recruiting efforts-- personally antagonize students who interview on campus, and then harrass the ones who interview off campus too (which takes place in NJ). Maybe we'll scare off one person who's on the fence anyway, or make two interviews start 5 minutes late. That'll be ten times the impact of "educating" lawyers about a pathetic proxy for all the things in our gay lives we're really pissed about.

"But what will that really accomplish," Mr. Tomato asks. "Where will we be 5 years from now?"
Disdained by everyone who's ever interviewed with JAG. Better than pitied for being dorks.

Professors are the worst kind of authority figure because they're impotent and their uniforms are boring and they know it. Let's talk about my property professor. He's not evil except insofar as he is absolutely unselfaware, and tries to infect future lawyers with absolute unselfawareness of the type that will enable us all to pity poor people while buying and selling them.

First of all, know that he is a friend of the common man. You can tell because he voted for Kerry, went to college in the 60's, and lives in New York. Plus he tells us several times per class that he is an "unreconstructed new dealer" and declared the property rights movement "racist."

He's also a friend of his students. You can tell because he doesn't cold call us, doesn't make us buy a textbook, and says things like "of course everyone here agrees with... [insert friend-of-the-common-man boilerplate]." He cannot imagine that we are not friends of the common man. Because we are his friends.

He has told us that the party with the better, higher-priced lawyer always wins in litigation. Presumably he's sorry for this, since he is a friend of the common man. But he jokes constantly about us, his friends, all joining major law firms. The kind that win all the time.

He does not believe that his students are common men. He contrasts us with the poor destitute kids who join the military because they have no choice and get blown up in Iraq. He called us the winners and soldiers, losers.

The economic class you're born into matters. But there are non-luck factors at play too. The people I know who joined the military aren't the poorest people I know. And you can join a branch of the military that's not headed to Iraq. There are choices every step of the way. A young adult can make a living as a waiter or a fisherman or a mechanic in my hometown. People blow that off for Iraq because they want respect.

Meanwhile, an NYU law student could make a living at any of a hundred other occupations-- teaching, social work, owning a business. It's not a secret that we're on the road to unhappiness here, and possibly to hell too if you're into that kind of thing. But we choose law over those hundred other occupations. Why? Because law is more interesting.

Oops, I meant to say because we want respect. Way more than our share. Paid in the form of envy, resentment, and sexual favors from economic "losers."

So my prof seems to think people go to NYU Law and Iraq for exact opposite reasons: because they either have status or they don't. I think we're all doing it for the same reason: we need status. We're all losers.

He's the most status-whoring of all. He wants the status of subscribing to a retro ideology, the status of being friends with 25-year olds, and the status of being down with the common man. Good thing you don't need mental coherency to get the status of tenure.

I was just in the hall near my locker trying to read property. Would've been the perfect setting except for a 2L reeling off advice to a 1L right near me. All the usual inanity: don't give a fuck about what your classmates think of you! Don't give a fuck about the people who type a lot of notes, the professor actually hates them! Don't give a fuck about what the professor thinks of you! If I'd stuck around longer I probably would've heard that all the gunners shut up after they get their first semester grades (not true, but everyone always says that) and maybe "be yourself" for good measure.

Why do we always have that vindictive attitude about gunners/nerds/etc.? They're annoying sometimes, but we don't need to act so angry at them. For example, crazy typists are typing like crazy because they're crazy, not in order to hurt your grade. Other people's intensity isn't personal.

As for "not giving a fuck" about what your fellow human beings think of you-- that's sociopathic!

The last weekend of summer this year is all wet and desperate. If I concentrate I can find omens!

Today my NYU buddy list was heavier than it had been in months. So many people online, not idle, screening each other through dummy away messages. It only took me a minute to realize they were all back at school studying.

Luckily not everyone is in lower Manhattan, in the library. My roommate, a close friend and classmate, is watching a spelling bee movie on her brand new aerobed. THIS is civilization! So is lying prone on my own bed for a half hour or so, face in the wet window, listening to a bongo drummer across the backyards.

So I gave myself the day. I finished a decent book and walked to the nearest two used bookstores to find more by the same author. No luck. There was a ranking of 100 books hanging up, and the first four sucked (Joyce, Nabokov, Joyce, Fitzgerald). I was tempted to look for the fifth on the shelves, since it was ranked so high. I resisted.

It was raining so I ran home, nearly sideswiping some strollers. Here's a secret: most of the time, I don't mind sharing my neighborhood with kids. I can't begrudge them Park Slope because I imagine they're so much happier than kids who grow up in the woods.

Dogs don't chase them. When they do, the rumors that the dogs are actually coyotes are less credible. Roads and restaurants surround the trees, instead of vice versa, so kids have no reason to believe that nature is a threat to civilization. That probably makes summer camp less stressful. And they don't have to drive a half hour just to glimpse a brand name, meaning their carsick little brothers throw up on them less often.

Best of all, their moms have jobs! (I know this because the only young white women in the park on weekdays are dirty grad students like me.) Employed moms are great. I imagine you don't get sick of them around age 19, they don't yell at you for bringing down the win ratio on solitaire, and they have more money.

Anyway, so off-campus life is all heartwarming. But how about this day... I'm going to cap it off with a "mixer" at school. A luscious 25 minutes away. People I don't like will be there. I've convinced myself it's not worth it to crack a book. By the time I check the syllabus and pick out a highlighter, it will be almost time to shower because checking the syllabus takes 2 hours because it hurts so much.

Hey, classes will be better than researching mo-peds for Legal Aid though!

Just came from some firm receptions. The first was on campus, a friend had organized it; second one was at a club on Broadway with pool and view of lower Manhattan. (Corollary: I am drunk! Nothing I type right now counts!)

I was thinking about crashing EIW and signing up for some interviews for the hell of it. No one would catch me for skipping the prereqs. However! Looks so boring. Still thinking of it. Still bored. Would rather go running and shopping tomorrow but my knees and my bank account are dissolving as we speak so maybe not.

I overheard one lawyer/interviewer at the second reception complaining about all the "scripted" replies she'd heard to her questions. She wants students to be "sincere" about this decision "about the rest of their lives." Well lady! Your questions are not a well-kept secret! I have seen my friends' printouts of your questions. They are written in helvectica 12-point. You pick about five out of 30. Law students are trained to study many more than thirty sentences at a time. And they are not professional actors. Because they are professional lawyers. So... how could their answers not sound scripted? Fuck you!

I liked the view. I liked running into classmates and talking to a good friend of mine for a while, while dressed up (he more than I; I had a skank dress over a conservative/dykey shirt). But nothing tempted me. I'd wanted to be tempted. I've been nosing around for a while now for someone to tempt me into the legal profession. The most tempting thing tonight was a waitress. She noted that I don't like ketchup. I was not cool enough to initiate more conversation. Maybe I would be cool enough if I had a hilariously large salary?

Judging by everyone I've met so far-- nope! They are exactly as ironic as their salary/age ratio suggests. How to not be a joke?

Yesterday at my very nice public interest internship some of the lawyers were talking about the World Cup. First, about how cute Portugal was because they were underdogs; then, about how bad they felt for Germany when they lost. The players looked so sad! Losers, losers, losers, that's all that office is about. Can't they turn it off just to enjoy a soccer game?

I had an appointment at career services to explore nonlegal careers for people with bad grades and no money. I assumed the counselor would suggest consulting, business, or giving law firms a chance for 2L summer. After all, just because you don't love your job doesn't mean you can't get addicted to it. I was looking forward to these suggestions. If I picked one of those options, I wouldn't have to deal with the fallout-- boredom, whoredom-- for another year at least.

But the career counselor suggested I be a bartender. So now I have to find a bartending school and, apparently, practice telling a joke while mixing a drink. It's so much easier just to skim cases all day!

Or, read cases and blog about them. The NY anti-marriage decision is here. The Times coverage is here. The article bothers me because it says Kaye's dissent is "often stirring" and "a departure from the dry legal language of the main decision." It doesn't mention that the dissent is a departure from the dishonesty of the main decision. The lay reader probably gets the impression that the pro-gay side just didn't have logic on their side, only tearjerker rhetoric. Actually, the dissent is a lot more intelligent than the court's opinion, in addition to stirring more.

In law, style is bad, unless you count wearing the most expensive uniform possible as "style." Basically, lawyers run around in buildings that are creepy as hell, fighting like dogs, and trying not to scare anyone with their outfits.

It bothers me that "logic" and even "dry legal language" aren't seen as a style in themselves. Using logic in an argument is like using rhyme in a poem. It's one way to sound good. But the real point is to say something true and persuade someone else that it's true. A good free verse poem is obviously more effective than a limerick. But sometimes rhyme jolts a reader into faith because it's clever, surprising, or just clicks so well you suspect God planted both the words in the dictionary as a code for his favorite people to discover. Logic is just that-- a jolt towards one truth or another.

Lawyers should decide what's true and persuade judges, and judges should write opinions that persuade citizens. The problem with this case isn't logic-related. The problem is the gay rights lawyers didn't make any judges cry, and the majority's opinion didn't help me or any other self-respecting gay person to make peace with discrimination. Law fails again.