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| Empty chairs, as seen on a screen outside Hill Auditorium |
I graduated law school yesterday, but I only attended a portion of my commencement. Over 100 graduates and guests walked out of the ceremony before our guest speaker and homophobe, Senator Rob Portman, gave his speech. I will always remember this day.
A few weeks ago, I wrote about Michigan Law's selection of Senator Rob Portman as graduation speaker. He has an extreme anti-gay voting record as a Congressman. The fact that he was given the honor of speaking to us at our celebratory event has understandably caused a great deal of controversy, which I won't completely rehash here, since it is the subject of my earlier post. Earlier, I wrote:
I will not stand to listen to a homophobe tell me at my graduation that I have the whole world at my disposal, my whole life ahead of me, when he would deny access to a basic part of that world and a basic part of that life to a large portion of my class, my family, and my friends. I will not hear Senator Portman's speech because I will not sit for it. Nor will I be shaking his hand at graduation. I would rather walk out of my own graduation ceremony for which I have waited three long, hard years. I do not yet know how many of my classmates will join me. I can only hope that it doesn't come to that, and either Senator Portman or Dean Caminker manages to rectify the situation so that we can all enjoy what should be a celebratory day.Well, it turns out that my classmates did join me, and I've never been prouder to be a Michigan Law graduate. Quite a feat for a day that had promised to make me ashamed of my school.
Over the last few weeks, the school administration actually has taken steps that make it seem that they realize they made a mistake, even though they felt they could not undo it. We've had two letters from Dean Evan Caminker, the second one a lot more conciliatory than the first, which I called a "predictable fuck you to our class." Caminker decided that the tradition of the dean alone inviting speakers is over, and that there will be student involvement in the future. I could see personally that he was struggling to change his thinking on whether gay rights were something we can all just disagree on, or whether they were simply basic human rights. After some sneaky maneuvering to try and shut down the protest, they then realized it was going happen and tried to make it easier on us, by changing the seating and adding another introduction to the program for us to walk back in over. They also set up a small forum for Portman to speak with a few of the grads, which I did not attend. By the time of graduation, though, I was convinced we had made an impact already on the administration, and from what I hear, even Senator Portman has had to think hard about these things. (Though as a Republican, I won't hold my breath waiting for him to declare his support for gay rights.)
So, if we won what we were going to win, why still walk out? Here is a quote from an email I sent to the entire school:
I want to make clear that there are many different reasons people are going to walk out on Saturday. Some people are walking out because they do not want sit and listen to someone talk at them from a place of honor when he denies their existence as full citizens. People are also walking out in solidarity with their LBGT friends, families and classmates. Others yet are indeed walking out out of anger.So for one, people, myself included, were walking out for reasons other than "protest." But even for those for whom it was purely a demonstration, the targeted audience was no longer the administration.
The walkout was a statement to a broader audience - America. I think this whole episode fits within the thesis of Minnesota Law Professor Dale Carpenter's recent New York Times Op-Ed about King & Spaulding's withdrawal from defending DOMA: The legal profession has simply moved past the point where LGBT rights are just another political issue, instead recognizing that discriminating against any group of people based on who they are is simply unacceptable in today's society. This walkout, like the Op-Ed, like the Justice Department's refusal to defend DOMA, is another data point for this observation. Here, even more specifically, we were saying that for the next generation of lawyers, this is not even a debatable issue.
The demonstration itself was amazing. At I looked at my classmates stand, all I could see was a rising wall of black robes. Dean Caminker paused in his introduction from pure shock that it could possibly be this many people walking out. No one hooted, no one hollered, no one jeered, we just silently and powerfully declared that we are not going to remain there for this man's honor. I nearly cried when a couple people in the audience started to applaud before catching themselves. One of my friends told me she had never felt so obviously supported in her life. Outside, it was clear this was a celebration of our LGBT friends, family, classmates, and loved ones. Check out the attitude in the room in this video (in which I am also interviewed - note that the "he" giving the introduction refers to Caminker):
It was a fun time out in the hall as we looked around and it sank it how many people joined us. I put my conservative estimate beforehand at 40 people - it was more like 140. All in all, I've never been prouder to be at Michigan Law than that moment yesterday. It was truly fantastic.
So to all my favorite new lawyers, I say congratulations, and thank you for making me proud.
UPDATE: We've gotten a lot of coverage on this, and I couldn't be happier. The walkout was all about making that broader statement. Thanks to all who have written about it.
Between the Lines' PrideSource
ThinkProgress
Perez Hilton
Above the Law
The Last Word Blog
UPDATE 2: A friend just pointed out to me that I'm being billed as the leader in the entire opposition to Portman. That's not true - I just organized the walkout. Without identifying anyone that may not want to be identified, there was a letter from the 3Ls to Dean Caminker, written and organized by one person. We also had a letter from the 1Ls and 2Ls, and another from alumni. Someone else drafted a press release in the early going, and yet another person created our listerv. We had many people making ribbons, and getting buttons and tassels for people to wear, and many more distributing them. Others still pitched in with advice here and there. All in all, it was definitely a grassroots opposition, though the walkout was guaranteed to get the most coverage.
Also, the headline going around says that 100+ graduates walked out. I had already sent in a correction to the original article, but I suppose it's too late to get to the source. I never personally claimed 100+ people. My estimate, with which a couple others agreed, has always been 65-70 graduates, and probably at least 140 total people, including the balcony upstairs. The latter number is also explicitly what I claimed above, but I figured I'd clarify.
