Duke Law Students Freak Out Over Heretical Law Review Article
Duke Law School, Left-wing Intolerance, Transgender Issues
An article in the latest Duke Law Review by a Philosophy professor dissenting from the Progressive party line on Gender has provoked the inevitable conniption fit and a rash of resignations on the part of proper-thinking members of the Millennial generation.
Kathleen Stock’s essay in the latest issue of Law and Contemporary Problems was controversial before she even wrote it. Last summer eight student editors resigned from the journal, which is published by Duke University’s law school, rather than be associated with the essay. The remaining student editors elected not to work on the issue in protest, and they voiced their objections in a note appended to the journal’s masthead. The proposed topic, along with Stock’s reputation, was enough to prompt a staff revolt.
The essay, titled “The Importance of Referring to Human Sex in Language,” is part of the journal’s “Sex in Law” special issue, which is dedicated to the “high-stakes, highly polarized” debate surrounding how sex is defined by courts and legislatures. In it, Stock, who until last fall was a professor of philosophy at the University of Sussex, in England, argues against what she calls “sex-denialism.” The core of her case is the following: “Though it is normally polite and desirable to observe the preferred descriptors and pronouns of trans people in interpersonal contexts, there are times when literal and accurate reference to actual sex is important.” Among the times she cites: medical settings, sports teams, and prisons. Stock insists that “the concept woman does vital cognitive work that simply could not be done were the concept changed to refer to gender identity or social role.”
HT: William Laffer.