OPINION: Boston College professor says lawyers must step up to fight Trump, much like the ‘experts’ who saved the world from COVID
Law students and lawyers must save the country from President Donald Trump, according to Boston College law Professor Kent Greenfield.
Normally his last lecture during a semester is “upbeat” according to an editor’s note that precedes his article at WBUR.
The taxpayer-funded radio station reprinted a modified version of Greenfield’s final screed of the semester. If the name sounds familiar, it’s because in between teaching, Greenfield (pictured) regularly pushes anti-Trump talking points.
For example, he helped organize the letter from law professors declaring the country was in a “constitutional crisis.”
Months later, the “crisis” has not subsided, and we are still in a “dangerous moment,” according to Greenfield – but thankfully there are law professors and lawyers like him to fight Trump.
In his “message” to “my law students,” Greenfield says “it has been a difficult time to teach constitutional law, and it must have been a difficult time to learn it. We are in a dangerous moment.”
Incidentally, “our democracy” was not under threat when the Supreme Court invented a “right” to gay “marriage.” Instead, Greenfield praised the decision and said it should open the door to polygamous and incestuous marriages. He also thinks government agents should force Christian web designers and bakers to cater to these weddings, according to amicus briefs he filed with the Supreme Court in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, and 303 Creative v Elenis.
Greenfield’s defense of the Constitution is “meh” at best – he said the First Amendment should not protect University of Oklahoma university students who sang a racist chant in 2015. As he said at the time, the First Amendment’s broad interpretation, “forces the most marginalized among us to bear the costs of the bigots’ speech.”
Nevertheless, in his last lecture this semester the law professor then went on to compare himself to a professor who also served as a Union officer, and how he bravely took on the Confederates. “His men charged down the slope and turned the tide. They saved the country,” Greenfield wrote of Joshua Chamberlain. “There are turning points in history. And in those moments, individuals with the knowledge of what to do and the courage to do it can make the difference.”
In case you haven’t caught on yet, Greenfield is very much like that Union professor/officer (in his mind). Without him, his students would not know they must charge to defend democracy and “fix [their] bayonets” (metaphorically, of course).
“Our democracy relies more on the good faith and integrity of our leaders than you might have realized before you came to this class,” Greenfield says.
Officer/Professor Greenfield then rallies the troops to step up and save the country, much like the “experts” who, allegedly, saved us from coronavirus.
He writes:
In early 2020, for example, medical professionals began warning the world about the dangers of a possible coronavirus pandemic. Most of us did not have the expertise to discern the risks. They were the experts and the rest of us had to decide whether to trust their expertise or not.
Now, ours is the profession charged with sounding the warning. We are the ones with the knowledge and expertise to recognize the dangers.
This one is an apt comparison, since both Greenfield and the health “experts” were overly worried about a minor problem.
“Ours is the most crucial profession in America today,” Officer Greenfield says. “Whether we be lawyers, law professors, or students, we have the power to capitulate or to fight.”
Wise people back in 2020 ignored the health “experts.” Similarly wise people would ignore Greenfield and his call to (metaphorical) arms.
MORE: Two more Yale professors flee for Canada
IMAGE CAPTION AND CREDIT: Professor Kent Greenfield smiling; Kent Greenfield/LinkedIn
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