Obnoxious Law Student Columnist

Eric Wang, a first year at UVa Law School has been stirring up controversy all year (archives of the Law Weekly can be found here). He began his tenure with several columns deriding the self-segregation of ethnic groups and the creation of divisive student organizations (like the Black Law Students Association). Provocative arguments are always welcome in my book, but let me give you a flavor of the tripe that this kid thinks passes for intelligent discourse. Before we get started, let me point out right now that one of Wang's favorite techniques is to cite the names of certain legal doctrines and apply them far out of their context. Watch for this, for your own amusement.

In his first column (September 19, 2003), titled Breaking the Bonds of Self-Segregation, Wang opined that:

[T]oday’s bankrupt culture of multiculturalism and yesterday’s murderous ideologies of slavery, segregation, and racial supremacism are merely two sides of the same coin.

Student organizations (like the Asian-Pacific American Law Students Association) came under particularly amusing attack for their efforts to further what Wang calls "racial separatism":

If racial stereotyping is a nuisance, then those who perpetuate these stereotypes by acquiescing to them are “coming to the nuisance.”

And in a theme that will return in a few moments, Wang points to the great evil behind all this: collectivism:

Instead of feeding stereotypes, we must smash them by forsaking the comfort zones of collectivism that we use to conceal our own individuality.

Ah yes, collectivism. We'll get back to that one. For now, let me confirm your suspicion that the vast majority of the school responded to this column with "what a f--kwit" and there were several letters to the editor to this effect. Mr. Wang responded to this criticism by further cementing his position as village jackass with a column (October 10, 2003) entitled "Diversity” and its Discontents. Lest we forget that this IS an Eric Wang column after all, the second paragraph makes sure to use lots of Latin:

To say that diversity exists where there is really de facto self-segregation is only slightly more accurate than saying diversity existed under de jure segregation.

Before the end of the next paragraph we've been treated to "a priori" and "fait accompli," and we soon learn that "[i]t was not out of some rational basis that African Americans were banished to the back of the bus, the “colored section” at restaurants, or to separate and unequal schools." Ah yes, rational basis... we'll hear that one again in his latest column, which I'll get to in a moment.

One might think that, since Wang is not paid for his columns, he might have been able to expend this hot-aired buffoonery in just two columns. Yet he returned to us just three weeks later (November 7, 2003) with a column titled U.Va.’s New Racial Regressivism. In an incomprehensible bout of internal inconsistency that would make a more rational mind repulsed by itself, Wang complains that not enough minority students attended the Federalist Society barbecue despite it being hosted by a black professor. Oh horror of horrors, the black students didn't automatically attend a barbecue hosted by a black professor?!? And this is the primary basis for Wang's claim that those advocating the hiring of more minority professors are really only interested in hiring liberal professors. Somehow, without providing any futher evidence, Wang gets from A) few minority students at a conservative event hosted by a conservative minority professor to B) diversity is a code word for only hiring liberal minority professors, since they are the only ones who will attract minority students to the school.

Leaving aside the fact that one half of Wang's brain is apparently eating the other, let's take a look at the substance of his complaint. It turns out that the reason there was a low turn out is because minorities are brain-washed:

Because of a concerted conspiracy by a political elite to correlate skin color with perceived interests, the label of “color” is much more than skin deep; the elites are not satisfied until race suffuses every aspect of one’s identity.

This coming from a kid who spent the first two months of law school ranting about how much he hates all the focus on race. If that weren't enough, apparently the failure of the law school to recruit sufficient conservative minority students also shows the failure of affirmative action:

Yet, the fact that so few, if any, “students of color” attended Professor Smith’s event exposes the Law School’s affirmative action agenda as a cognitively careless canard at best.

If you're having trouble connecting Point A with Point B, it might be because they exist in different dimensions within Eric Wang's mind. Never fear, he is not finished. To prove his point, he offers this:

[H]ad the American Constitutional Society held a reception with Cornel West, who is infamous for leftist politics and making a fuss about race, it is safe to say there would have been much greater “minority” attendance, even though Professor Smith has arguably superior scholarly credentials.

Just to be entirely clear, Professor Smith, while brilliant and well-respected, graduated law school in 1992 and became a professor in 2000. Even he had to laugh at Wang's claim (giving it the appropriate level of respect it deserved):

I gladly take a backseat to Professor West in this respect, although I will say that West made it a closer question than it should’ve been by choosing to do his undergraduate work at Harvard. I went to Harvard only once (to paint the John Harvard statue green — as in “Dartmouth (Indian) green”), but my co-conspirators and I were deterred by the police posted to keep Mr. Harvard his original color.

Mr. Wang [predicts] that “there would have been much greater ‘minority attendance’” at a reception featuring Professor West than there was at my barbecue last month. Maybe so, but there’s a more likely explanation than ideology: it may simply be because West is so much hipper than me... If I had the choice, I’d hang with West too.

God Bless Professor Smith.

Unfortunately, we didn't hear from Eric Wang again until today, when he was finally able to break the mold of his punditry and move beyond race. The great enemy he targeted today: the first-year section.

Oh yes, the first-year section. That bastion of evil, harbinger of doom, and oppressor of freedom. Before we get to the "substance' of Wang's column, let's at least acknowledge that yes, Eric Wang, you are a law student. You proved it in your first paragraph:

Under the veil of a Hotmail account created expressly for the abortive attempt, a would-be usurper urged his peers to recall one of their first-year section representatives. The jury is still out on whether this was merely a negligent stab at humor or the evincing of some graver mens rea.

SHUT THE F--K UP YOU F--KWIT! Sorry, sorry, don't know where that came from. Maybe because this f--king f--kwit (sorry, sorry) just started his column with a single sentence using the words "jury is still out," "negligent" and "mens rea," in a context totally unrelated to a legal case.

Anyhow, the point of this column (if "point" is not too charitable a word) is that we should not be so dependent on our sections to provide an outlet for our social activities (what this kid could possibly know about social activity is beyond me). After all, Wang notes:

It is irrational to expect sections to function as an effective basis for social activities when they are foudned on no rational basis other than a shared curriculum.

Is it more or less reprehensible that he use the term "rational basis" in this context now that he is in Constitutional Law, or is that just further evidence that he is, in fact, a f--king f--kwit? And before you think he could deride this problem without reverting to sweeping, silly social commentary, let's see what the root of the problem really is, in the world according to Wang:

Such an absolutist and illiberal mindset arises from viewing the Law School through a collectivist and organizational lens, and it is the fountain of many of our discontents.

That's right kids, people who depend too much on their section for fun, or who complain about it, are suffering from an absolutist and illiberal mindset. And the problem? Collectivism! As always. F--kwit.

There's really no point to my criticism of this person. He may well be a very nice guy who doesn't deserve all of this hyperbolic venom. Sometimes, though, I just have to get something off my chest. Isn't that what blogs are for?