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-Oregon Daily Emerald
Commentary
Editor in Chief:
Michael J. Kleckner
Managing Editor:
Jessica Richelderfer
Editorial Page Assistant
Salena De La Cruz
1 uesday, May 13,2003
Soul practice
“So, when does the soul leave the body?”
The question caught my friend Rachel by sur
prise. Then she laughed. Rachel had just told her
college friends that she was going to law school.
Years later, I’m graduating from one.
Introduce yourself as a law student, and people
will conjure images of greedy, unethical lawyers.
The high-powered criminal defense attorneys who
get their clients off “scot-free.” The big firm
lawyers who help their bosses hide the facts about
tobacco or stock options. The lawmakers and
judges who shred our Bill of Rights.
How about the divorce lawyer? Or that old stand
by, the ambulance chaser. And the man who fa
mously demurred, “I did not have sexual relations
with that woman” — didn’t he study law, too?
Hold on a minute, I could respond. Lawyers are
not unethical. On the contrary, lawyers obey a very
intricate system of ethical
rules. They are extensions of
their clients. You wouldn’t
want your lawyer to divulge
your secrets, would you?
And don’t these images
contradict each other? After
all, who hates the personal in
jury attorney more than big
business? Don’t we depend on
those folks to hold responsible
negligent drug makers, defec
tive auto manufacturers,
stingy insurance companies?
On the other side, we need
zealous corporate counsel to minimize liability and
keep consumer costs down, right? The two sides
fight, and the better side wins.
The trouble with this kind of response? It’s as
stereotypical as the lawyer caricatures. To a non
lawyer, the answer is the problem. No amount of
rationalizing can relieve the disgust many Ameri
cans feel toward a legal system that treats ordinary
people badly. If winning a case requires well-paid
advocates, then people who lack wealth and so
phistication will lose more often than they should.
Truth is, many law students feel the same way
about the world they’ll enter. We were undergrad
uates, once. We wanted to change the world. Civil
rights, environmental protection and social justice
Philip
Huang
A different light
were — and still are — the beacons that guide us.
So what happened?
Law school costs money. Lots. So penniless young
lawyers knock on the doors of those with money: big
law firms, multinationals, the federal government. {
Armed with our legal ethics, we become an exten
sion of the system we wanted to change.
In “Civil Disobedience,” Henry David Thoreau
wrote that “legislators, politicians, lawyers, minis
ters, and office-holders, serve the state chiefly with ’
their heads; and, as they rarely make any moral
distinctions, they are as likely to serve the devil, (
without intending it, as God.” But, he added, a
very few “serve the state with their consciences
also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part.”
To serve clients with our legal skills and our con
sciences is not impossible. Lincoln was a lawyer.
So was Gandhi. Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s
color barrier with the help of Branch Rickey, the
general manager of the Dodgers — and a lawyer.
Resisting the state or large corporations (which
did not exist in Thoreau’s day) is a high calling in
deed. Our democracy encourages lawyers with a
social conscience by funding legal aid programs,
paying civil rights attorney’s fees, and funding law
school clinics. More important, these programs
help poor and middle-class people who otherwise
cannot afford to hire an attorney.
But these hardy souls face more than long hours
and meager salaries. Their adversaries, rather
than offer better arguments, often try to wipe out
their funding! A familiar example is the Oregon
logging companies who lost the “spotted owl” cas
es in court. In response, they tried to shut down
the University’s Environmental Law Clinic. Legal
ethics professor David Luban calls such tactics
“dirty law.” Those who practice “dirty law” are the
reason so many lawyer jokes exist.
Rachel’s soul never left her body. Instead, she
left law school and now works as a freelance
writer. Me? Along with 150 other law students, I
graduate on Sunday. Wish us well, if you can.
And pray, if you must.
Contact the columnist
at philiphuang@dailyemerald.com. His opinions do not
necessarily represent those of the Emerald.
Steve Baggs Emerald
Letters to the editor
Reproductive rights
must be defended
Thanks to Salena Da La Cruz for her column (“Anti-abor
tion group distorts message with photographs,” ODE, May 1)
expressing her opinion on the anti-choice group Survivors.
I’d like to point out that though De La Cruz does not personal
ly believe in abortion, the fact that she does believe it should
be an option available to women makes her pro-choice.
Being pro-choice does not mean that abortion is what you
choose. It’s just recognizing the fact that every woman has
control over her body and should be able to do what is in her
best interest.
It should also be pointed out that groups such as Survivors
often rely on scare tactics and misinformation to confuse
people. When Roe v. Wade passed in 1973, it did not make it
legal for a woman to have an abortion through the ninth
month, as some material handed out on April 30 stated.
Late-term abortions are extremely rare. Of all abortions,
98.6 percent occur during the first half of pregnancy, and 88
percent within the first 12 weeks, according to
www.choiceusa.org. Only a handful of doctors in the country
are able and willing to perform late-term abortions, and it is
only utilized when the fetus or the mother has serious health
problems. Right now, legislators are working hard to take
away a woman’s right to choose.
It is important for women and men to educate themselves
about their reproductive rights and defend them for the future.
Amanda Mabry
sophomore
Students for Choice
Anti-gay opinion
should not have been printed
I am outraged that the Emerald provided Vincent Martorano the
opportunity to indulge his own squeamishness and in the process
launch an attack against the LGBT community (“Homosexual
men should hide their disgusting acts,” ODE, May 9). His com
mentary is not informative, educational or persuasive about any
thing other than his personal homophobic feelings.
Martorano says he longs for the days when homosexuality was
seen as an illness and gays stayed in the closet; I cannot imagine
the Emerald publishing an essay wherein the author expressed
longing for the days of Jim Grow. Such blatant racism would be
deemed inappropriate for a school newspaper, and such blatant
homophobia should be proscribed as well. I wish that the Emerald
had not allowed Martorano this forum. It is disgraceful.
In addition to being extremely offensive, Martorano’s piece
is confused and hypocritical. He doesn’t believe that anyone
has the right to tell him what should and should not be accept
ed in society, yet he feels entitled to discourage readers from
accepting ordinary expressions of affection between gays. His
anti-gay rhetoric contradicts his own logic.
Martorano is ignorant even of the meaning of the word “ho
mophobe.” Anticipating that some readers will think him a ho
mophobe, he responds “but I personally am completely com
fortable with my sexuality.” Though he doesn’t know that the
word means “one who hates or fears gays,” I suggest that his
piece illustrates a homophobe completely.
Elizabeth Reis
assistant professor
women's and gender studies
Debates should focus
on fact, not fiction
It seems disingenuous to call the May 6 forum, “The Economics
of War,” a “debate,” as all three speakers represented similar view
points. In unanimity, one usually finds uncritical thinking.
According to the article “Faculty debate Iraq war’s effects,”
(ODE, May 7), University Labor Education and Research Center
Assistant Professor Gordon Lafer argued that politically connected
military defense contractors “are making out like bandits.” This
does not withstand scrutiny, as defense sector stocks have been
underperforming: The Philadelphia Stock Exchange’s 15-stock
Defense Sector Index has fallen more than 7 percent this year,
compared with a 5.6 percent rise for the Standard & Poor’s 500.
The article said Women’s and Gender Studies Visiting
Associate Professor Gwyn Kirk lectured on how militarism
is the central organizing principle of the U.S. economy. In
truth, defense spending amounts to only 3.5 percent of
GDP. And Bush’s $74.7 billion budget request to fund the
war is well under 1 percent of GDP — piddly-dunk com
pared with other wars. World War II cost taxpayers 130
percent of GDP, the Korean War required 15 percent, and
Vietnam 12 percent.
Hosting a forum on “The Economics of War” is a good idea, pro
vided the speakers actually specialize in economics instead of fic
tion. The forum should have asked: What are we willing to invest
to reduce the threat from terrorism and terror-supporting states,
and achieve peace and stability in the Middle East? At 1 percent of
GDP, the war looks like a bargain.
Sean Walston
graduate student
physics
Soldiers’ letters
display lack of scope
The letter “Bush was right in freeing Iraqis” (ODE, May
5), the most recent in an embarrassingly long line of hollow
patriotic letters to the editor from soldiers abroad, empha
sizes several key issues: the quality and diversity of news
sources available to the armed forces (although it is their
choice to read them), their amusingly childish braggadocio,
the pre-maturity of their victory grunts (look at Afghanistan
now; it is quickly reverting back to pre-Sept. 11, 2001,
times), the simplicity of their binary world view (“’60s hip
pies”), and most of all their lack of scope and history (“Let
the Iraqi people have freedom” — see: Kosovo, Afghanistan,
Nicaragua for examples of the United States’ other demo
cratic success stories).
I support our troops as humans and not as fodder for the
likes of Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz and others to
have their martial way with our world. Please do your part
to send them as great a breadth of information as you can
because I believe they have the right to know what the im
plications of their actions may be.
Nick Esmonde
junior
biology