Gunning down my classmates

When I first started this blog, I mentioned that I'm the gunner your mother warned you about. A gunner, for those not in Law or Med school, is the student who always has his/her hand in the ready with ready comment that goes on and on (and on and on).
I don't really like being a gunner. I hate the idea that half my classmates are rolling their eyes whenever my hand goes up. It's not that I feel that what I have to say is earthshatteringly important. I'm not trying to make brownie points in classes where the professor hasn't said that class participation affects the grade (unlike those in which participation is 30-50% of the grade, hello ethics!). It's just that I'd like some frigging dialogue in the classroom. I have some very smart classmates. I'd love to hear what they have to say on the matters at hand, this isn't just about black letter law, nor what our increasingly conservative Supreme Court is going to say about any given matter.

Example: Last night our Remedies class sat stonefaced as the professor droned on about cases related to issues of desegregation and constitutional rights in the prison setting. I had to speak up, in part because she was lauding Justice Thomas's dissent in the Jenkins v. Missouri desegregation cases (Jenkins III) and in part were talking about gender based Separate but Equal (Desegregation of VA Military Institute). I couldn't sit still, in part because I was personally embarrassed by the Thomas dissent, but also because of the deafening silence flowing from my classmates. I get that most of my classmates are young enough that the challenges of the black v. white Civil rights era are captial H History. I also get that a quick look around any of my classrooms reveals a makeup in which as a white and a woman I hover at demographic equality. That notwithstanding, desegregation cases are still being heard, and last I checked, inequality amongst races and sexes has not been wiped out.


*Jenkins III was a case where the Kansas City Municipal School District created magnet schools to comply with Brown v. KS Bd Edu by combatting white flight. Justice Thomas argued against desegregation arguing that just as there is merit to Historically Black Colleges, the mere presence of white students does not make a public school better; Black students are not inferior. I take issue with his dissent not because I think Black students are inferior, but because I think he was hauling out a "whitey tryin' to keep the black man down" argument, and because I think that the intent of desegregation is to enlarge the opportunities of all students by increasing exposure to one and other, as well as to increase opportunities for minority (not just Blacks) students by giving them access to relationships that tend to be concentrated among wealthy whites.