Chez Chesler

The Volokh Conspiracy - One More Oral Argument Meltdown: On The Volokh ConspiracyTodd Zywicki reports of an oral argument break down:

JUDGE: Counsel, you say that your failure to meet the deadline was an act of civil disobedience, designed to demonstrate the injustice of the court's approach in this case? And that as a result, we should reverse the trial court's dismissal of the case and remand? COUNSEL: Yes, your honor. JUDGE: Now counsel, you do understand how "civil disobedience" works, don't you? COUNSEL: I don't understand the question, your honor. JUDGE: Well, the way that civil disobedience works is that you believe the law to be unjust, and so you are willing to be punished for violating it in order to demonstrate the injustice of the law. For this to be a true act of civil disobedience, therefore, you would have to be willing to accept the punishment, and through that willingness to accept the punishment, you demonstrate the injustice of the law. So, for instance, Martin Luther King's act of civil disobedience was his willingness to be arrested and go to jail in order to demonstrate the injustice of the laws. So, if this was a true act of civil disobedience on your part, aren't we obliged to affirm the ruling of the district court dismissing the case? COUNSEL (after long pause): Um, your honor, I would like to amend my argument...

Dilan Esper comments:

Funny story, but it raises a serious issue-- I don't think a lot of people understand how civil disobedience works.

On the other hand, sometimes a protest is simply a protest. My freshman year in high school (which means you should probably stop reading here) just as NYC was going into its financial crisis, the Bd of Ed dumped a teacher from HQ onto Bronx Science, causing us to lose the most junior faculty member. A bunch of us protested. The Times picked up the story (Dec. 4, 1975, IIRC). We assembled outside the school for a few periods after lunch. The next day our social studies teacher said "I am allowed to deduct 5 points from your final grade for cutting a class, but I will not do so, but I expect a 10,000 word essay tomorrow on why you (who were not here) were cutting class." We groaned. He said "Those of you who groaned have just demonstrated that you were not out there in principle, you were out there to skip class. When I marched across the Brooklyn Bridge in 1968 to Jay Street, I knew that I could lose my job, but I was willing to do that, because that was the price of civil disobedience. Blah, blah, blah." (He ultimately told us we didn't have to write the essays.) A few months later he was "excessed" as the budget crisis deepened. I saw him leaving the school. I thought but didn't ask him if he was glad he had lost his livelihood, and if he wasn't, did it prove that he was a hypocrite for telling the students that were not sincere for demonstrating against budget cuts and reassignments.