We Should Not be Surprised about What Goes on Now in Law Schools! By James Reed
I don't think too many people really know the present state of woke and political correctness in law schools. Below is some must-read material to hopefully enlighten good folk. The situation is that law schools are full of mainly Leftist people, just like the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences. This has been a trend that began in the 1970s and now is the status quo. Hence lawyers who become judges will carry Left biases with them. The story below, and we need not name names, since this is common throughout the country, involves a law lecturer who was giving an Indigenous perspective on some aspect of law. Her race and ethnicity are not specified in reports, but there are photos in the linked articles if one is curious, but that is beside the point. A group of presumably conservative students got up and walked out as a protest. The lecturer caused a medias controversy by warning; "those students that she remembered their faces and that they should "watch out what you say and what you do" if they wanted to do well in their law degree."
Is that shocking? Sure, from a conservative point of view that has a misty-eyed view of law. But it is a reality. I have heard worst stories. At one university, a rabid feminist lecturer would go into her opening class for her topic and say that so many males would fail regardless of what work they produced. Fortunately, it was an elective, and males just got up and walked out as well. She got away with it.
The problem, I have shouted from the roof tops, is the modern university itself, now totally dominated by woke and Leftism, in a globalist mass immigration pro-China culture, the worse of all worlds. Only by closing them down can we start to sort out this mess, but even leaders from the freedom movement don't tackle this one, probably being afraid to go up against the academics. As shown by the universities serving as magnets for mass immigration, something must be done before the country falls away into communist China.
"A University of Queensland law lecturer berated first year, first semester law students for "protesting against my inclusion of Indigenous perspectives" in a lecture, warning those students that she remembered their faces and that they should "watch out what you say and what you do" if they wanted to do well in their law degree.
During a Foundations of Law lecture in March 2024, senior lecturer Dani Linder claimed "tens of" students had walked out of a previous lecture when her lecture turned to Indigenous Australian legal history.
"There were tens of you that got up and decided that wasn't important, and instead you were pretty unprofessional and walked out," Dr Linder told the lecture, according to audio shared with The Australian.
"Now, since then I've been made aware of certain racist comments that have been made about myself and the way in which I teach this course, which prioritises and – of course – includes Indigenous perspectives.
"I'm the course co-ordinator with authority to run this subject the way in which I see fit, and the way in which I see fit is in alignment with the Council of Australian Law Deans and their approach to indigenising and their commitment to indigenising the curriculum."
The UQ incident comes amid a series revelations and accusations of politically biased teaching at universities – especially law schools – around the country.
The Australian in recent months has revealed that a Macquarie University law course marked students on their delivery of an acknowledgement of country and were made to go through a "privilege walk" activity in class, and that Monash University PhD law students were made to critique their thesis based on Marxist, feminist, critical race and queer theory.
In her UQ lecture last year, Dr Linder went on to warn those students: "Watch what you say and what you do if you want to do well in your law degree, because being politically active in a way that's protesting against my inclusion of Indigenous perspectives and up and leaving … that is really inappropriate and I won't be tolerating it.
"I remember the faces that got up and walked out.
"I can tell you now if you want to get involved in any work while you're doing your law degree, you're not going to get hired and you're not going to last if this is the type of behaviour that you're engaging with.
"There's been barristers that have become aware of this this week that frequently try and engage UQ law students that are like, we're sick of it, we want students to be likeable, you don't even need to have necessarily the top marks."
One student, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal, said they felt Dr Linder's comments were a "direct threat".
"Basically – toe the line, otherwise I know who you are and there will be consequences," the student said.
They suggested Dr Linder "undermined the academic code of conduct". The student said they initially intended to write an essay for a course that argued against a First Nations treaty "but after all of this happened, because I was initially planning on arguing against it (treaty), but then when all of this happened, I decided, you know what? It is not worth putting my head on the chopping block for this".
When contacted for comment, the University of Queensland stood by Dr Linder's comments and said it had previously conducted a review that found no issue.
"In relation to this matter, a review by a senior law academic was immediately undertaken after a concern was raised informally by a person external to the university," a university spokeswoman said.
"The review found that both the lecture delivery and course content were appropriate and balanced, and that no changes to the course content or its delivery were recommended. No student complaints or concerns were formally received."
She said the university's law program was "comprehensive to ensure that students have versatile skills and foundational knowledge, and is taught by highly respected academics who hold a broad range of perspectives".
The university did not provide examples of the "racist comments" Dr Linder had claimed, and did not say on what basis she thought students left the lecture to protest her inclusion of Indigenous Australian legal history in the lecture.
The student who was in the 2024 class said no more than eight students left the lecture early that day, and people left lectures "from time to time".
"The thing is with lecture recordings, you can always just catch up on the rest," they said.
More broadly, the student said they thought Dr Linder's warnings about doing "well in your law degree" and about barristers in the workforce being concerned amounted to Dr Linder telling the class that "I control your futures".
"It felt like a direct threat, kind of like saying, 'look, I control your futures, I can decide what's good and what isn't. And if you don't comply with that, I can get any one of you taken down'," the student said.
"And I think because they're all first years – we have the least power out of everyone at the university.
"You're just going to be like, oh my god, I've just gotten out of school and if no one wants to hire me, what am I going to do?"
Maybe become a political activist, on the dole and help change the system!
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