GWU Law Student Gov't Directs People to Stop Saying/Writing "Illegal," "Alien," and "Assimilation" re: Immigration

It's the "Immigration - Written and Oral Reform Declaration (I-WORD) Joint Resolution" from 2021.

As you might gather, I don't think serious law schools—including student government groups at such law schools—should be "direct[ing]" faculty, staff, and students not to use certain legal terms, especially when they are parts of statutes, statutory titles current (the Alien Tort Statute) and past (the Alien Act), court opinions, and more. But here I just wanted to present the text of the GW Law Student Bar Association resolution, so readers can decide on it for themselves.

Purpose: To call upon members of The George Washington University and The George Washington University Law School to abstain from using the terms "illegal," "alien," and "assimilation" in internal communications and external correspondence regarding immigration.

WHEREAS: Since 1948, the right to a nationality, the right to change one's nationality, and the right not to be deprived of one's nationality are all universally recognized under international law¹;

WHEREAS: The term "alien" has historically been used throughout U.S. immigration law to refer to individuals who do not have U.S. citizenship and are not a US national²;

WHEREAS: Immigration advocates have long argued that the term "alien" dehumanizes migrants and commonly conjures up images of Martians or Mandalorians that readily lend itself to xenophobic rhetoric³;

WHEREAS: State and municipal governments such as California and New York City have taken steps to remove and replace the word "alien" in long standing legal codes⁴;

WHEREAS: The phrase "illegal alien" has historically been used in US immigration discourse to describe an individual, who is not a US citizen or a US national, and is present within the sovereign territory of the United States in a manner that is not in accordance with the law⁵;

WHEREAS: The phrase "illegal alien" is often strategically weaponized to evoke prejudice against undocumented immigrants both within and outside of the courtroom, as in the case of the DOJ instructing all prosecuters to adopt the phrase "illegal alien" instead of "undocumented immigrants" under the guidance of former Attorney General Jeff Sessions⁶;

WHEREAS: The phrase "assimilate" has historically been used throughout US immigration to describe the purpose of the process of naturalization, which seeks to incorporate and, in many instances, indoctrinate non-citizens and non-nationals into American culture⁷;

WHEREAS: The policy of "assimilation" has historically been used to control, reshape, and eradicate traditional cultural identities that differed from the contemporaneous American cultural norms, such as in the case of Native Americans⁸;

WHEREAS: In January 2021, The Biden Administration issued guidance memos through the Customs & Border Patrol (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agencies instructing all officials to adopt "more inclusive" language by replacing terms such as "illegal," "alien," and "assimilation" with "noncitizen," "undocumented individual," and "integration"⁹;

WHEREAS: The U.S. Citizenship Act, H.R. 1177 and S. 348, introduced in February of 2021, replaces every use of the word alien with noncitizen in all of its singular, plural, and possessive forms throughout the immigration laws of the United States¹⁰;

WHEREAS: The George Washington University is officially chartered by Congress and many members of the GW Law community have served, currently serve, or will serve in all three branches of the United States Federal Government¹¹;

WHEREAS: The Student Bar Association Senate Academic Policy Committee has unanimously approved the joint resolution draft with regards to content, grammar, and Bylaw compliance …; now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED: That The George Washington University Law School Student Bar Association as a whole—

1. Condemns the use of the words "alien," "illegal alien," "illegal immigration," "assimilation," or any other dehumanizing and offensive rhetoric surrounding immigration discourse in all modes of communication by members of the GW Law community—including faculty, students, administrators, and staff;

2. Also condemns the use of the words "alien," "illegal alien," "assimilation," or any other dehumanizing and offensive rhetoric surrounding immigration discourse in all modes of communication by members of the GW University community—including faculty, students, administrators, and staff;

3. Recognizes the impact diction can have on framing solutions to an issue as complex as immigration and the potential for inclusive word choice to be utilized as a bridge to forming specific, tangible, humane policy changes;

4. Directs all members of the GW Law community to bring internal and external communications in congruence with the most recent guidance from the executive branch by adopting more inclusive language—such as "noncitizen," "foreign nationals," "undocumented individual," and "integration"—for the purposes of encouraging more humane and secure immigration policies, while avoiding any confusion as to proper terminology post-guidance; ….

¹ See, e.g., Universal Declaration of Human Rights, art. XV "Everyone has the right to a nationality. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality."

² Immigration and Nationality Act, 9 U.S.C. §1101(a)(3).

³ LA Times, From 'Alien' to 'Noncitizen': Why the Biden Word Change Matters in the Immigration Debate, L.A. Times, (Feb. 18, 2021, 4:50 PM), https://www.latimes.com/entertainment–arts/story/2021–02–18/immigration–alien–noncitizen–language–politi cs-undocumented(last visited Oct. 23, 2021).

⁴ Beam, Adam, California to replace the word 'alien' from its laws, Associated Press News, (Sep. 24, 2021), https://apnews.com/article/immigration–california-race-and-ethnicity-racial-injustice-gavin-newsom(last visited Oct. 23, 2021).

⁵ United States v. Texas, 809 F.3d 134, 148 (5th Cir. 2015).

⁶ Kopan, Tal, Justice Department: Use 'illegal aliens,' not 'undocumented', CNN, (Jul. 24, 2018, 8:12 PM), https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/24/politics/justice–department–illegal–aliens–undocumented/index.html(last visited Oct. 23, 2021).

⁷ See Alejandro Portes & Alejandro Rivas, The Adaptation of Migrant Children, Future Child., Spring 2011, at 219, 221–22.

⁸ United States v. Clapox, 13 Sawy. 349, 35 F. 575 (D. Ore. 1888).

⁹ Rose, Joel, Immigration Agencies Ordered Not To Use Term 'Illegal Alien' Under New Biden Policy_, NPR, (Apr. 19, 2021, 2:51 PM), https://www.npr.org/2021/04/19/988789487/immigration–agencies–ordered–not–to–use–term–illegal–alien–un der-new-biden-polic(last visited Oct. 23, 2021).

¹⁰ See U.S. Citizenship Act, H.R. 1177, 117th Cong. (2021); see also U.S. Citizenship Act, S. 348, 117th Cong. (2021).

¹¹ An Act to incorporate the Columbia College in the District of Columbia, 6 Stat. 255, 16th Congress (1821).

Comments

[Brett Bellmore]

Be it resolved that,

Whereas the terms “alien”, “illegal”, and “assimilation” accurately describe the people and things they’re being applied to,

Bugger off.

[apedad]

Brett, you (maybe more than many people), know that language and word usage CONSTANTLY changes.

Here’s a group that want to change usage.

Yet you and Prof. Volokh poo-poo the idea because. . . well I don’t know why.

‘Get off my lawn’ mentality perhaps.

[TwelveInchPianist]

apedad, why do you poo-poo the idea that language ought not to change at the mere direction of a small group of law students?

[apedad]

Because that would go against the ENTIRE NATURE of civilized human communications.

Change always starts small.

[Michael P]

Most changes are stupid. Especially when pushed by students. This one more than most.

[Mr. Bumble]

This isn’t the organic way that language changes but a demand that language be changed by a group of self important, privileged twits.

[TwelveInchPianist]

This is correct. Contra apedad, the ENTIRE NATURE of language evolution does not involve language change that is demanded by small groups of narcissists, but organically by linguistic and phonetic phenomena.

But language change “directed” by small groups does have a prominent part in language development, usually when religious officials invent rules like “don’t use double negatives” or “don’t end your sentence with a preposition” because it make the language more similar to Latin and thus more pleasing to God.

The demands by these groups are the modern incarnation of such rules, and there’s no reason not to poo-poo these demands, whether made by Bishops or law students.

[apedad]

The ‘demand’ part is immaterial.

Whether a group agrees to start using a ‘widget’ as a term or demands that ‘widget’ be used, the ONLY thing that matters is whether ‘widget’ becomes the accepted usage.

Your arguments simply come down to, “WAAAAAHHHH, I don’t like it.”

GTFO

[Mr. Bumble]

Beside having a problem understanding how language evolves you seem to have a reading comprehension problem as well.

They aren’t claiming a right to use their choice of words but are demanding that no one use the words they find offensive.

[TwelveInchPianist]

“Your arguments simply come down to, “WAAAAAHHHH, I don’t like it.””

Sigh. The arguments are that they’re replacing perfectly accurate terminology with terms designed to further their political goals.

But you knew that.

[Nige]

They’re replacing accurate terminology with other, also accurate terminology, and they’re not forcing anyone else to, they’re just calling on others to change too, or challenging them to. I realise that calling on people to change something is seen as monstrous authoritarianism by the right nowadays, but it really ain’t.

[CJColucci]

Free speech is a bitch.

[Nige]

Yes, they’re exercising theirs.

[CJColucci]

Exactly my point.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

The ‘demand’ part is immaterial.

This seems like it would be a good time to go over the evolution of the word “retard” as commonly used.

[Lee Moore]

One of the Whereases states that a recent law has scrubbed out “alien” from all US immigration law and replaced it with “noncitizen.”
So aren’t they technically in the right? Or are they fibbing ?

[Lee Moore]

Sorry that was supposed to be a reply to Brett’s original comment

[mse326]

Lie? Not quite, but incredibly misleading in a way that I think goes beyond even advocacy. A judge could rightly rip them a new if used in a brief. The were bills that were merely introduced, they were never even voted on, let alone passed both houses, let alone become law through Presidential assent. They use the ver introduce correctly, but by saying it “replaces” rather than said they “would replace” they give the false impression that it became law.

In short there has been no change to the language in the immigration statutes, or any statutes for that matter.

[Lee Moore]

Thanks.
I thought that in normal usage proposed and introduced legislation is called a Bill, until it actually passes into law, at which point it becomes an Act.
They describe it as an Act. That sounds like a bit of a fib to me.

[Carl_N_Brown]

Language evolves naturally through decrees by privileged authoritarian groups?

[Lee Moore]

Change might start small but by the same token it finishes small too. Thus if a small group starts a new usage that doesn’t make their new usage THE canonical usage. And even if their reform takes hold and the vast majority of English languages users choose to adopt it, that doesn’t make the old usage obsolete if even a small group insist on continuing to use it.

[Brett Bellmore]

I will always fight efforts to replace accurate terminology with terminology specifically intended to obscure. The terms “alien”, “illegal”, and ‘assimilation” are accurate, this is WHY the student bar wants people to stop using them!

[Sarcastr0]

Incredible fighting effort you show.

Really incisive arguments.

[MaddogEngineer]

As is your reply to it.

[Sarcastr0]

Brett claims to be fighting against inaccuracy. And yet isn’t really.

Pointing out that his argument is just yelling ‘get off my lawn’ seems pretty incisive in comparison.

[TwelveInchPianist]

“Brett claims to be fighting against inaccuracy.”

No he doesn’t.

But I’m fighting against inaccuracy with this comment. Feel free to resume your poo-flinging.

[Brett Bellmore]

I am.

The terms are accurate. In the context of a law school education, they’re the terms actually used in statutes, too. This group wants them replaces with less accurate terms that obscure what is going on, both in terms of actual events, and legally.

NOBODY thinks that if you call somebody from another country an “alien”, you’re suggesting that they’re a Grey or a Vulcan. Flatly nobody. (Nobody who isn’t clinically insane, at any rate.)

“Illegal” aliens are aliens whose presence in the country is illegal. Nothing complicated about that, and it has nothing to do with lacking documents.

And “assimilation” is, formally, a goal of our immigration policies, even if they’d rather it didn’t happen.

[Sarcastr0]

They disagree with you on the terms.

I myself don’t much care, but I note that your objection is still just ipse dixit you like it this way, and that way is inaccurate because you say so.

I also like your citation to statute. As though you wouldn’t squall to high even if anyone tried and change that. That’s immaterial to your position, and it’s quite rich to use it as otherwise.

[Brett Bellmore]

They don’t like the terms. The terms are still the ones used in the statutes, so they can go on not liking the terms.

[Lee Moore]

I also like your citation to statute. As though you wouldn’t squall to high even if anyone tried and change that. That’s immaterial to your position, and it’s quite rich to use it as otherwise.

Are not the statutory terms of some relevance to the professors and students at the George Washington University Law School ?

One might understand a group of students urging the avoidance of terms like “bomb”, “ammunition”, “air strike”, and “missile” out of concern that such terms might encourage violence and mayhem. But I feel that we would be permitted to raise an eyebrow if these were cadets at West Point.

PS “squall to high even” – your autocorrect needs a good slapping. Apologies for the violence of my language.

[MaddogEngineer]

How is he not fighting against inaccuracy? What he said had both a factual component (the terms are correct), and an opinion (they shouldn’t change, because they are correct). That’s more than yelling ‘get off my lawn’. Isn’t that just the same as what you do here?

That the terms are legally correction is important because one of the whereas-es claim justification for the change to be bills not yet passed into law. Talk about misrepresention. And an administration issuing an executive order not to use the current language in law is not any better.

[TwelveInchPianist]

[Sarcastr0]

When making an argument, you should bring an argument.

[MaddogEngineer]

Just because you disagree with someone’s point doesn’t mean they haven’t presented one.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

I will always fight efforts to replace accurate terminology with terminology specifically intended to obscure.

Any progress to report in your struggle to enable me to resume using the term “sl_ck-j_awed” to describe poorly educated, backward, gullible, roundly bigoted people at the Volokh Conspiracy? (The Volokh Conspiracy has censored that term when used to describe conservatives.)

Are you close to arranging the end of Artie Ray Lee Wayne Jim-Bob Kirkland’s banishment by the Volokh Conspiracy’s Board of Censors?

Or are you just mumbling more partisan bullshit?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

More partisan bullshit. Prof. Volokh thanks you for disregarding his hypocrisy.

[MaddogEngineer]

False choices remain false. As does stating that someone who lacks authority should do something that requires it.

I wish you had the decency to spare us your mean-spirited sanctimonious partisan bullshit.

[Sigivald]

I propose we refer to bacon as “murdermeat oinkslices”.

Do you agree?

Why not? Why do you hate the normal change of language?!

The natural evolution of language over time is distinct from people stomping their feet and demanding, especially when the motivation is obviously and blatantly to support their political positions – at least my proposal is merely obviously silly.

“Wanting to change usage” does not suggest I must agree because “change is natural”.

[phoqueue]

Brett, you (maybe more than many people), know that language and word usage CONSTANTLY changes.

And the new terms will take on the connotations of the old terms.

[hoppy025]

That’s the appropriate response. Don’t humor them. Just tell them to go f*** themselves, you evil traitors.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Don’t humor them. Just tell them to go f*** themselves,

When did this exchange turn toward a discussion of whether strong, mainstream law schools should offer faculty positions to movement conservatives (for example, disgraced insurrectionist John Eastman and the right-wing clowns who support him) and other Federalist Society members?

[Krayt]

I don’t know why assimilation (and melting pot) are Bad Words now.

No matter the race, country of origin, culture of origin, their kids are obese assholes who play video games all day.

Assimilation!

[Krayt]

“I am Locutus of United States. Your children will be assimilated. Your cultural and waistline disinctiveness will be overridden.

“Resistance is futile.”

[Krayt]

“But my culture!” Yeah, you can put that over there in the corner of the closet, right next to the lederhosen my gramma bought for me.

[Brett Bellmore]

Culture is my wife cooking stinky fish in the fireplace so that it doesn’t stink up the house, and then eating them with fermented shrimp paste. The INS didn’t demand that she stop doing that. Heck, I didn’t, either, and I live in the same house.

OTOH, it’s also a part of Philippine culture to treat traffic laws as amusing suggestions. THAT, they demanded a bit of assimilation concerning.

[Darth Buckeye]

Be it resolved that the term “alien” will be replaced with the word “xenomorph.”

[Lee Moore]

One of the Whereases states that a recent law has scrubbed out “alien” from all US immigration law and replaced it with “noncitizen.”
So aren’t they technically in the right? Or are they fibbing ?

[mse326]

I replied to your post above about that. In short there is no such law that was passed

[Lee Moore]

Yes. thank you. I think we have a case here of the Reason comments system deciding to park the same comment in two different places.

[DaveM]

Reason #1,488,208 not to send your bright young minds to institutions of higher learning just to be turned into idiots by the left.

You would be literally better off working on a trash truck for 4 years. That would teach you more.

[John F. Carr]

How influential is this student group I can’t recall hearing about before?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Roughly as influential as movement conservatism has been in the shaping of modern America during the most recent six or seven decades of liberal-libertarian national progress?

[MaddogEngineer]

Apparently unbeknownst to the GWL students, some of their earlier whereas-es contradict the latter ones and their subsequent resolves.

There is absolutely no reason why the use of “assimilation” should be discontinued. That is, after all, what the citizenship test is testing for. Their demanding is another form of the heckler’s veto. Just because someone is offended doesn’t mean we can’t use still appropriate words. But that is the instinct of the totalitarian left. Don’t say “gay”, don’t say “assimilation”. Tomato, tomahto…

[Dr. Ed 2]

Student Government was a good idea 50 years ago when the voting age was 21 and they were trying to lower it to 18.

But now it is nothing more than the hand-selected puppets of mid-level administrators, and this manifesto needs to be seen in that light.

[Dr. Ed 2]

OK, I’ll use other words — racial slurs.

Satisfied?

[Kleppe]

Here’s the leftist agit-prop playbook:

1) invent term
2) induce everyone to begin using term
3) suddenly declare term problematic
4) relentlessly heckle everyone until they give in and switch to newer term
5) repeat until society is fully down the drain

Please stop letting mentally ill people dictate how you speak.

[Longtobefree]

They do not dictate how I speak.
Behold:
Men are men,
Women are women,
That doesn’t change.
Science.

[apedad]

So you came up with that “Behold” usage all by yourself!

Your mother must be sooooooo proud of you.

[Mike Hansberry]

define “mother”

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Your mother

That’s “birthing person”, you transphobic bigot!

[Sarcastr0]

You’re one to complain, calling people you don’t like mentally ill.

[hoppy025]

Liberals are in fact mentally ill. As is anyone who thinks he’s a woman stuck in a woman’s body.

[Krayt]

Morty: “That sounds like the euphemism treadmill with extra steps.”

[Jerry B.]

But never fear. You can call people racists, MAGAs, Deplorables, Rednecks, etc. without fear of censure (even when they’re not).

[Ed Grinberg]

GWU Law Student Gov’t Directs People to Stop Saying/Writing…”Assimilation” re: Immigration

AFAIC, GWU Law Student Government can take a long walk off a short pier.
https://reason.com/volokh/2023/02/02/fifth-circuit-holds-people-cant-be-disarmed-just-based-on-civil-restraining-order/?comments=true#comment-9909266

[Bob from Ohio]

GWU again.

Seize the endowment.

[Carl_N_Brown]

Doubleplusgood lesson in Newspeak from the Junior Ministry of Truth Brigade.

[tkamenick]

As a normative matter, I tend to agree that “alien” is unnecessarily perjorative because of the cross-over with other meanings of being non-human and not belonging. So when appropriate, I prefer using immigrant to alien. But not all aliens are immigrants and not all immigrants are aliens, and I have no problem using alien when it is accurate.

“Undocumented immigrant” is not remotely accurate and shouldn’t be used.

A student group making some proclamations about what it thinks is fine. A student group purporting to DIRECT everybody else at the school to behave a certain way is ludicrous, and the inclusion of that paragraph weakens their entire argument.

Also, TIL that the theoretically primary definition of “diction” is word choice, but I’m skeptical. I have never heard it used in that manner, I have only ever heard it used as a synonym for pronunciation (specifically, clear and precise pronunciation).

[ReaderY]

Considering that extraterritorial aliens lack personhood status for purposes of the rights of persons under the Constitution, why isn’t it a strictly accurate term?

This hullabaloo is exactly like pro-life people demanding that everyone call fetuses “babies” and forbidding use of the term “fetus” on grounds it offensively and pejoratively suggests they might be considered legally different from born babies. But they ARE legally different. And they have fewer rights. Same with aliens.

[KHP54]

Pro-lifers “demand” no such thing. Rather they point out the dehumanizing aspect in modern English usage: it’s a ‘baby” if the mother wants it; it’s a “fetus” if she wants to kill it.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

This hullabaloo is exactly like pro-life people demanding that everyone call fetuses “babies” and forbidding use of the term “fetus” on grounds it offensively and pejoratively suggests they might be considered legally different from born babies. But they ARE legally different.

Where have you seen any such demand that such language restrictions be codified as part of some official set of rules/regulations?

[Sarcastr0]

…How binding do you thin a resolution by the GW law student government is?

[Josh R]

I get that context matters, but I thought in federal law (which is bound to be the context some of the time at a law school), all immigrants (i.e., those with green cards) are aliens (i.e., non-citizens).

That being said, I dislike both “undocumented immigrants” and “illegal aliens.” The former makes it sound like the person is legally in the country and just fighting through bureaucratic red tape. The latter makes it sound like the person, in and of herself, is illegal (a bad person). I prefer either unauthorized immigrant (or alien). Immigrant is fine for people who have de facto permanent residence (they have been here for years) and alien could be used for those who recently arrived.

[Brett Bellmore]

“The latter makes it sound like the person, in and of herself, is illegal (a bad person).”

I think you’re putting too much weight on “sounds like”. And they arrive at “bad person” whether you think the “illegal” attaches to their selves, or to their actions, so what’s the big dif?

[Josh R]

You are not a “bad person” if you come to this country seeking a better life even if you do so illegally.

[Brett Bellmore]

No, you are. You’re a bad person with an understandable motive, but you’re still a bad person, because you’re taking something you’re not entitled to.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

It’s cheating: you want the better life, but without having to follow the rules.

[Nige]

The rules have been more or less designed to keep migrants as a class of labour that is both cheap and disposable.

[Brett Bellmore]

That’s not the rules, though. That’s the decision to not enforce them.

[Nige]

That’s exactly how you keep a class of people downtrodden and living in fear – arbitrary and selective enforcement of draconian rules and laws.

[Nige]

This is, of course, massive privelege speaking. Being a ‘bad person’ in the eyes of Trump voters is not, perhaps, the condemnation they wish it to be. Being an illegal alien is a misdemenaour. Between that and the apparently ability of federal prosecuters to indict ham sandwiches – therefore if Trump or Jan 6th rioters get indicted it means nothing as to their goodness, badness or likely guilt – we have the sliding scale of morality and culpability as related to law-breaking by different types of people.

[Brett Bellmore]

You probably think a bank depositor complaining about a bank robber is just “privilege” speaking, too.

Look, you, and Somin, can go on not liking the fact that we have immigration laws. Doesn’t change the fact that we do, and that they’re quite popular.

That’s why politicians who want massive immigration to suppress wages don’t repeal them, they just fail to enforce them. Then they can pretend they’re really trying, and just somehow failing.

They retain the laws and deliberately fail at enforcing them because openly admitting they don’t want us to have immigration laws would be political suicide. That’s one of my beefs with Somin: He never, so far as I’ve ever seen, ever adresses the elephant in the room: He can’t get what he wants on immigration so long as American democracy is functional.

[Nige]

No, because bank robbery is a serious crime, a misdemeanour is not.

‘He can’t get what he wants on immigration so long as American democracy is functional.’

You have just ascribed the problem to democracy not functioning.

[damikesc]

You not getting what you want is not a failure of the functionality of democracy.

[Nige]

What Brett described is, though, regardless of his wants.

[tkamenick]

Also, what’s the relevance of the UN declaration of rights? It actually weighs against the point they are trying to make.

“Everyone has the right to a nationality. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.”

Sounds good. And an alien is someone OF A DIFFERENT NATIONALITY. Use of “alien” is not depriving anybody of their nationality.

[Brett Bellmore]

They’re deliberately confusing the right to change your nationality FROM something, and a right to change it TO something. To pretend that the UN declaration of rights means people have a right to demand citizenship in countries unwilling to extend it to them.

[Tallman]

” nor denied the right to change his nationality.”

Wait until they find out the US has a special tax on doing this.

[Krayt]

“Their side” is trying to apply a tax to changing states. Why would a national tax bothe…oh, I guess it depends whose nuts they are kneeing…or kneading.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Only if you’ve got assets.

I think that’s probably about when America started its decline. When it decided to punish people for having the temerity to leave it.

[Brett Bellmore]

Don’t mix up cause and effect: You don’t have to discourage people leaving until you’ve given them reason to leave.

[Longtobefree]

Yet another clear and cogent argument against student loans.

[David Bremer]

Couldn’t disagree more. As someone who grew up poor and needed loans to pay for school, it wasn’t my peers and me engaging in these things. We were keeping our heads down, working, and hoping for jobs so we didn’t have to remain poor.

It was the kids of the politically connected and affluent (of which there are many in law school) engaging in this sort of stuff. They had time and financial means to navel gaze. Kids getting loans don’t as much.

[hoppy025]

That was true in the past. It’s not true today. Today, federally guaranteed student loans are a welfare program for left wing universities and a boondoggle for low IQ “students” who don’t get anything out of college.

[Longtobefree]

According to the various reports on loan forgiveness, most of the money is borrowed by people who could get by without it.
Back in pre-history, (1966 to 1970) you could work your way through college waiting tables and cooking pizzas, as long as you had a paper route while in high school and saved every damn dime.
Of course, colleges didn’t charge more tuition to pay for hundreds of administrative staff for things totally unrelated to a college education, and a state college degree “only” cost about two years of wages after college.

[Mr. Bumble]

1966, NJ state college tuition, $75.00 per semester.
Those state colleges are now “universities” full of six figure salary administrators.

[Tallman]

It’s even broader than that. Whenever I go back to my alma mater, I’m struck by all of the conspicuous consumption; new buildings are everywhere, and they all have large (mostly empty) atriums and extravent public artwork that even put bank HQs to shame. I suspect most students are shocked by the step *down* in amenities from their ‘poor student’ days once they get a ‘real job.’

Amusingly, the only new construction that seems fancier than (non-profit) universities may be (non-profit) museums, concert halls, and theaters.

[Brett Bellmore]

No kidding. Back in the 70’s, university cafeteria food was a joke, the dorms were fighting a running battle with the local building inspector, and off campus students lived on things like chili-mac and fried liver. I knew a guy whose ‘apartment’ was a mattress in somebody’s attic. (Mind, it was a very nice attic, even had a window, but he still reached it by climbing a ladder in his landlord’s hall closet.) Our idea of a treat was baking bread and eating it with butter.

“Poor students” were genuinely poor in those days. I got to see my niece’s dorm room one time in the 2010’s, and I honestly did not live in any place that nice until I was middle aged.

They’ve transformed student life from enduring privation to get a good job, to a 4 year vacation from economic reality you’ll be paying for the rest of your life. And it looks like most of the tuition doesn’t get spent on educating you anymore, just keeping surplus bureaucrats employed.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

off campus students lived on things like chili-mac and fried liver

Oh, we used to DREAM of chili-mac and fried liver!

{FourYorkshiremen.jpg}

[Dr. Ed 2]

Bill Bennett predicted this in the ’80s — the federal money only inflated prices and made students worse off.

[ragebot]

RANT ALERT

The real problem is rent seekers in the educational industrial complex and the shocking increase in the cost of a college education.

When my active duty ended in 1968 I enrolled in the largest state university in the state. While I did have the GI bill to help with expenses I worked as a bouncer at a local biker bar Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights. I got a free hamburger and fries along with a coke but more importantly was not able to piss away money on the weekends chasing the coeds. During the summer I was a rocker hanging sheet rock and over the Christmas break drove a cab in Miami single shifting 18 hours a day. Not saying I did not have a great time as it took me till 1975 to graduate with almost double the accumulated hours needed to graduate since I enjoyed being a student. When I finally did graduate I had almost $US14,000 in the bank while it is not uncommon for students today to graduate with a six figure debt due to student loans. I have to say my math degree, along with enough hours to probably get a poly sci degree better prepared me for grad school than a lot of the degrees in debt students are getting today.

Thing is there was a much different mentality when I was a student than today. First off there were what were called ‘flunk out courses’ (freshman English being a classic example) which raises another issue that fully 1/3 of the freshmen students entering Florida’s flagship universities (FSU and UF) are required to take remedial English or remedial math. Students back then knew they could flunk out if they did not perform in the class room while today many students feel entitled to a degree bought and paid for with ‘free’ money the don’t always realize or even expect to have to pay back. Another issue is there were not really any what I call fake degrees (all the anger study degrees for starters) that only prepared a student for a job wearing a paper had and asking ‘do you want fries with that?’

So what prompted these changes; specifically the shocking increase in the cost of a college degree. The government got into the business of throwing money at students; something that needs to end.

[Tallman]

Flunking someone out means you don’t get next semester’s tuition check #MaximizeRevenue

One of my alma maters released 1st semester grades 1 hour *after* the deadline to get a refund for 2nd semester /RANT

[Absaroka]

I completely agree. Student loans haven’t helped students; they have helped college admins.

[Krayt]

Congress can fix the problem overnight by refusing to guarantee loans to schools that increase costs by the lesser of inflation or 2% annually, and hold for 20 years.

They won’t because they rely on professors and burgeoning sinecure positions as a paid think tank. Might as well be a social security 3rd rail.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

I hope these students learn to be more effective, humble, realistic, courteous, and persuasive.

They should encourage and recommend (or request) rather than attempt to direct.

They should avoid any temptation to become xenophobes, racists, misogynists, gay-bashes, or Federalist Society members.

They should learn to stop ending a resolution with an ellipsis (unless they did not, in which case the author of this post should learn to stop claiming he will provide “the text” when providing an edited version).

(It is difficult to determine precisely what occurred, because no link has been provided to “the text” that is ostensibly being quoted.)

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

If this student group learns of Prof. Volokh’s observation concerning the resolution, perhaps the group could publish a commentary concerning Prof. Volokh’s censorship of certain words (when used to describe conservatives at an “often libertarian” blog). The students could focus on words such as “sl_ck-j_wed” and “c_p succ_r”).

The students also could circulate their observations concerning Prof. Volokh’s ostensible positioning as a champion of free expression in the context of Prof. Volokh’s censorship (with prejudice) of Artie Ray Lee Wayne Jim-Bob Kirkland for the crime of poking fun at conservatives a bit too deftly for the Volokh Conspiracy’s taste.

(One important distinction the students should recognize is that although they are in no position to “direct” anything in this regard, Prof. Volokh is entitled to impose repeated, viewpoint-driven censorship at his blog. His playground, his rules. Partisan, bigot-hugging hypocrites have rights, too, kids.)

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

If any GW students want to wear “Free Artie Ray Lee Wayne Jim-Bob Kirkland” t-shirts to class — or to Federalist Society events on campus — they should let me know. I’m buying (within reason).

[Krayt]

Such a shirt would be dangerous to wear on a campus, as it would require too much explanation to divert incoming fists.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

I could place a brief explanation on the back, although I do not recognize why such a shirt would provoke fisticuffs on a mainstream campus such as that of George Washington or UCLA.

[Old Smokin' Egg]

I note that among the “Whereas…” points cited to support the resolution, one refers to “[t]he U.S. Citizenship Act, H.R. 1177 and S. 348, introduced in February of 2021…” Since the measure hasn’t passed, it doesn’t enjoy the status of law, and there’s no reason why it should be privileged above any other bill introduced in Congress.

So, let’s suppose that our Trumpist friends in Congress introduce a bill of their own, mandating replacement of the term “undocumented immigrant” with “illegal alien” throughout the corpus of US immigration law. Would the GW students follow their lead?

[Brett Bellmore]

“So, let’s suppose that our Trumpist friends in Congress introduce a bill of their own, mandating replacement of the term “undocumented immigrant” with “illegal alien” throughout the corpus of US immigration law. ”

Is “undocumented immigrant” actually used anywhere in the corpus of US immigration law, to be replaced? If so, it must be a very recent law.

[KHP54]

That third WHEREAS is in beyond-parody territory.

[ragebot]

What is this crap about compelling speech from peeps; thought that was a big no no.

[vaadu]

Maybe GWU ought to make reading 1984 a yearly requirement.

[ragebot]

“Maybe GWU ought to make reading 1984 a yearly requirement.”

Even making reading a requirement would be a start.

[Mr. Bumble]

Bingo!

[Nige]

Better make cure Concerned Mothers For DeSantis don’t get it banned from schools, then.

[juris imprudent]

They have read it – believing it was a how-to manual.

[Krayt]

1984
The Emperor’s New Clothes
Fahrenheit 451
“Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me.”

“But in that stuff, it was abused by bad guys. We are good guys. We differ from them in that we know we are the good guy…wait. It’s exactly the same.”

[Nige]

It’s funny how the people who invoke it, especially in regards to newspeak, either didn’t read it or didn’t understand it.

[Mr. Bumble]

For an example of the need to use and understand the meaning of words see EV’s post on 50 Times…..

[Savagely Average]

COUNTERPOINT: The term ‘alien’ could positively impact noncitizens by conjuring up images of adorable baby Yodas.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Or if you’re really old, E. T.

[ragebot]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CXeHk9W-iw

[Not Unreasonable]

The student demands are just examples of indoctrination by good think and the elimination of vocabulary people can use to express themselves.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Yeah . . . where do they think they are? A conservative campus, where dogma is enforced, speech and conduct codes are imposed, loyalty oaths are collected, science is suppressed to flatter superstition, academic freedom is roundly rejected, and statements of faith are standard?

[F.D. Wolf]

As Orwell said, the point of eliminating a word from the language was to eliminate the concept. As there was no word for “freedom” in Newspeak, there was no concept of freedom. (It was an alien concept, to coin a phrase).

The Left is hostile to the concept of a unique concept of an American idea, of “Americanism”, at least to the idea that such a concept would be other than wholly negative. It is hostile to the idea of American sovereignty, really to the idea of an “America” at all. Such outdated, unfashionable ideas are only held by the backward, racist, xenophobic rubes and should be consigned to the ashcan of history.

The word “alien”, in this context. Is attacked, not because it offends the perpetually offended, but because the very idea of something outside or “alien” to the concept concedes the existence of the concept.

[Nige]

Disproportionate hatred for and fear of the migrant labour that cleans hotels and mows lawns and picks fruit is only integral to ‘Americanism’ for some.

[damikesc]

Amusing that you think that immigrants are only capable of doing grunt work.

Gotta keep them in their place, eh?

If illegals were taking a lot of white collar jobs, you’d see harsh restrictions being placed post haste.

[Nige]

Bit your own tail, there.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

I can see why the term “alien” is very us-and-them-y.

The Constitution refers to “foreign States, Citizens or Subjects,” which still uses the “othering” term “foreign” but in connection with “citizens” and “subjects,” not “foreigner” standing alone.

If Congress cleans up the statute book to drop “alien” in favor of Constitutional language that would be fine, though until then the terminology is “alien” and so don’t censor the current official terminology.

“Illegal immigrant” seems accurate enough.

Assimilation seems a reasonable demand for citizens, so long as it doesn’t involve compulsory subscription to a narrow ideology. Basic support for the Constitution would seem a key point of assimiliation, but native-born Americans seem to have trouble with that.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

But in addition to foreign citizens and subjects there are, alas, stateless persons, who aren’t covered by that languge.

Is there a non-woke term to replace “alien” in covering these three categories?

[David Nieporent]

I remember a few decades ago when Ted Turner still owned CNN, he issued an edict that whenever possible anchors were to use “international,” not “foreign,” in discussing events outside the U.S. (His logic, I believe, was that CNN aired internationally as well as in the U.S., and it was less off-putting to hear oneself described as international rather than foreign.)

Ah, yes, my memory did not fail me: https://www.tampabay.com/archive/1990/03/16/turner-bans-term-foreign-from-cnn-broadcasts/

[The Margrave of Azilia]

I know that many colleges and universities prefer to have “international students” rather than “foreign students.”

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Education might precipitate that type of thing.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

And the wish not to insult paying customers.

[damikesc]

Which was odd when something happened that required the word “foreign”.

Getting an “international” object in your eye makes literally no sense.

[Darth Buckeye]

We are the Borg. withdraw your defenses and confess judgment. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile.

[Nige]

The irony is that most of the reactionary reponses here amount to proclaiming that the resistance offered by this suggested change is, in fact useless.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

I have it – there’s a law against “alien enemies” (citizens or subjects of countries at war with the U. S.), so the rest can be “alien friends,” which sounds nice and snuggly, and accurate at least according to the old usage by which if your country is friendly (or neutral) their people are friends – though as friends they’re not supposed to do anything unfriendly.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

What do you know, it’s in Black’s Law Dictionary – “alien friend. An alien who is a citizen or subject of a friendly power….”

This would include statelesss persons because they are citizens of No Country, and No Country loves America with an intense and unconditional love.

[mydisplayname]

It is somewhat poetic that the students are offering an homage to President Reagan and his LGM-118 Peacekeepers [née missiles]. I hope they have a few minutes to discuss ethnic cleansing [née genocide] and post-traumatic stress disorder [née shell shock, later combat fatigue].

Perhaps we need to right-size [née fire some/all of] the faculty leading these students… or at least play some George Carlin recordings (perhaps while consuming some adult beverages [née beer, wine, and liquor]). While at first glance it seems that the author of the condemnation is one beer short of a six pack [née an idiot], our tradition of euphemizing is a long one: why, just last week several jurisdictions within 100 miles of GWU distributed “N”s to cover the “C”s to rename roads to “Wetbank.”

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

our tradition of euphemizing is a long one

“Traditional values” instead of racism and chanted antisemitism.

“Conservative values” instead of Islamophobia and hatred of non-white immigrants.

“Heartland” instead of can’t-keep-up backwater.

“Family values” instead of superstitious gay-bashing and misogyny.

“Republican” instead of backward and half-educated.

The list is long indeed.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Don’t forget “often libertarian”

and “libertarianish.”

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

WHEREAS: Immigration advocates have long argued that the term “alien” dehumanizes migrants and commonly conjures up images of Martians or Mandalorians that readily lend itself to xenophobic rhetoric

Mandalorians are honor-driven bad-asses. Who wouldn’t want to have that image conjured up when being referred to?

[Lawman45]

I grew up, graduated from law school, and was in practice for years before I saw the MOVIE “Alien” so I can tell the difference between fact and fiction. I do not form legal opinions based on movie scripts and neither should any other lawyer or law student.

[Flight-ER-Doc]

Students, by definition, are ignorant: Do not reward their petulance in ignorance by pretending to care what they say or demand

[Lawman45]

The TRUTH is that these persons are: (1) aliens (NOT an individual, who is a US citizen or a US national), and (2) Illegally present within the sovereign territory of the United States (NOT in a manner that is in accordance with the law).

There IS a procedure for legally immigrating to the USA. But it involves applications, background checks, and processing delays which these persons choose not to comply with.

Why? So they can “jump the line” and gain an advantage over those who FOLLOW THE LAW.

It is hard to accept that law students should praise ILLEGAL conduct by anyone.

[Mariano]

I share the sentiment of SG, but I am not a lawyer. I assume using terms in legal argument that are different from the terms in the law may risk botching the legal argument. Legal change often follows cultural change (e.g. gay marriage), but this seems to be a different matter.

Since much of the comments discuss the terms themselves rather than the legal question, let me share why changing some terms is worth considering. (I am no leftist, let alone woke).

Alien generates rejection not because it evokes Martians (?) but because it suggests that the person in question will never belong. For younger people (younger than me and nearly everyone commenting here), belonging or at least the chance to belong is a prized value.

I can see why Illegal (as an adjective applied to some immigrants) is straightforward from a legal point of view. But the term has become so politicized that it obscures true discussion. It signals a political position, as it does its counterpart, “undocumented.”
Government statistics use the word “unauthorized.” It seems better, and also neutral. I use it.

Assimilation is realistically incorrect because the effects of immigration go both ways. Immigrants change American culture too (this is obvious, isn’t it?) That’s why social science scholarship has moved towards “immigrant incorporation” or other terms. Assimilation theory, created in the 1950s, assumed immigrants had to drop their own background and simply pick up everything American. Besides the ethnocentric tenor of this, it is just incorrect. Reality is different. (BTW, notice that “assimilation” and “melting pot” are incompatible. The former implies joining in. The latter implies a mix that will change the whole.)

[Mariano]

Student Government botched this part:

“WHEREAS: In January 2021, The Biden Administration … by replacing terms such as “illegal,” “alien,” and “assimilation” with “noncitizen,” “undocumented individual,” and “integration”;

If that had been the case, the Biden administration would be showing an alarming level of ignorance, since noncitizen does not imply illegal. There are millions of people here legally who are not citizens (I was, on student and work visas, for nearly 20 years). I believe the change from the White House was about replacing “illegal alien” with “undocumented noncitizen,” which does not run into that error.

[Mariano]

Lawman45 wrote this, referring to illegal aliens:

“…So they can “jump the line” and gain an advantage over those who FOLLOW THE LAW.”

Lawman45 doesn’t know the most basic thing about immigration law. He is assuming that there is such a “line” for everyone who wants to come to the U.S. If you don’t have the education credentials (and contacts, and luck, to get a sponsoring employer) and no direct relative that is a US citizen or LPR, there is no line for you to jump. Any immigration lawyer knows this.

About half of the lowest-skilled (those without a high school diploma) in the US labor force are foreign-born, most of them here illegally. Millions of people. We have no legal way for them to come work here, yet they are about half of our “unskilled” work force. Who would pick up our strawberries, watch our kids, build our roofs, cut our grass, clean our offices, etc., without them?

There is much hypocrisy in the fact that we need them, we hire them, we use them, and then condemn them for jumping a line that doesn’t even exist.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

That misses the point. If there is no line for them to join, they are officially “not wanted”: the illegality is the same.

That may be the result of a misguided policy, and if enforcement of that bad policy leads to unwanted consequences for the economy, that may be a good reason to review the policy. But not enforcing the law short-circuits the feedback mechanism and thus, prolongs the time in which the bad policy would remain in place.

[Mariano]

Of course people can disagree on policy. But saying they are jumping a line that doesn’t exist implies that we have a system that allows those workers in, and they are just impatient and unfair.

We disagree that they are “not wanted.” The economic facts (the demographics I cited) show they are wanted. The law is misaligned with the country’s economic needs.

Generally when the law is violated, there is a victim other than the violator of the law. The case with illegal immigrants is in most cases the opposite.

[Nige]

Amazing. It’s obviously not very-well thought out, deeply cringeworthy and clearly ineffective, but drawing attention to it is sure to drive the right into a rage of righteous indignation, not that they need much help. It’s the usual amplification of incredibly minor college stuff into full-blown culture war attacks on academia. Volokh’s not stupid, he must know this.

1984 has been invoked twice. I wonder if that’s going to be banned from schools because it’s hard-core porn or whatever. There’s bits of that you could read out at public meetings that would be deemed unsuitable, after all, and that’s the standard.

[damikesc]

“Why do you rightiest whine when we continue the culture war we started and have continued for decades? Just take it”

Nah. We’ve always said “This is not the hill to die on” until the Right realized that there are fewer and fewer hills left in the first place. It is time to stop ceding ground.

[Nige]

So you picked book-banning as your hill – though other hills include abortion, hating trans people, hating gay people, denying elections, threatening civil war when your crook of an ex-president gets into legal difficulties, weeding out black scholars and scholarship from academia, tax cuts to the wealthy, demonising poor people who sneak into the country looking for work that people are only too happy to give them, cutting social security and medicaire to balance the budget after all the tax cuts to the wealthy, and being scared of Chinese balloons.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Why *not* read the dirty parts of 1984 at a public meeting? Defenders of the novel would have plenty of arguments against throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Some books are *all* bathwater, and it would be dubious to make such books “innocent by association” by comparing them to actual good books.

Educators ought to know the difference between good and bad literature.

[Nige]

Yes, well I happen to think reading out selected bits of books during three minute slots at public meetings and then lying about how six-year-olds are being exposed to them is just about the worst way to decide if the books belong in a library or not, but hey.

[Mitch]

And yet when Obama wanted to created the “DREAM” legislation (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors), the term was just fine.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

DREFMFPE

(Development, Relief, and Education for Minors From Planet Earth)

(Martians need not apply, except for Jacques Martian)