The Faculty Lounge

Teaching Prisons and Slavery (Or, This is Not About Django)

This is not about Django. As much as I am dying to write a post about Tarantino's new film, my academic writing beckons. 

Thank you, Patrick O'Donnell, for your earlier post and bibliography on teaching prison law.  I'd like to add to Professor Dolovich's call for a curricular commitment to bringing prisons and prisoners into legal education:  We should not forget to include a consideration of how antebellum slavery shaped the development of America's early penal institutions.

I am hard at work on a project that looks at the administration of slavery in antebellum Virginia through the institutional prisms of the county jail and the state penitentiary. Many (many) years ago, while trying to nail down a dissertation topic, I became interested in the practice of confining alleged fugitive slaves in local, southern jails until they were "claimed" by their owners. (Many folks confined in antebellum Virginia’s local jails were never accused of any crimes, and were most often merely suspected of being runaways.) Hunted down on the roads and in the countrysides, people of discernible African ancestry were presumed to be fugitive slaves; no law prevented their seizure and confinement upon such suspicion.  

The project tells (what I hope to be) a new story about the history of incarceration in the early national/antebellum south and the emergence of Virginia’s administrative regime, while also offering fresh insight into how these institutions shaped – and were shaped by – the institution of slavery.  Antebellum Virginians relied upon jails to perform functions separate and apart from holding accused persons awaiting indictment or trial; such facilities became sites for the realization of the state’s interests in slave property security. Jails were frequently used throughout this period as holding pens for slave traders; as clearinghouses for putative owners’ property claims in suspected fugitives; and as marketplaces for violence, as slaveowners sought – and paid for – corporal and terroristic punishment to be inflicted upon their recalcitrant bondsmen. No similar security measures were implemented for other forms of antebellum property, reinforcing for us (as modern readers) that slave property was peculiar and that institutions of law helped to create and reinforce this peculiarity. 

Few have considered the experiences of blacks in what might be considered "civil" custody during this period; beyond those excellent monographs on slaves-as-criminal defendants (Schwarz, etc.), this other history has gone (somewhat) untold. Penal institutions in this country have troubled pasts; introducing them to our students will both spark their interests and motivate further scholarly excursions (and activism) into the field.

A Few Thoughts on Life in Administration

A year ago I took a (theoretically) half-time position on the main campus at UNC-Chapel Hill as Director of our Center for Faculty Excellence, the campus's pan-university faculty development center. We have a staff of twelve, a budget of over half a million bucks, and the mission of supporting faculty from across the whole university, across their entire careers, in their efforts to become better teachers and researchers and to step into departmental or campus-wide leadership positions.

It has been quite a year -- alternatingly exciting, exhausting, heartwarming, heartbreaking, fascinating, boring, energizing, draining, and many, many other words that end in "-ing."

I thought it might be at least a little interesting for folks to hear a few impressions from a year in academic administration. I have a few thoughts I will blog over the next few weeks, but would be happy to share my thoughts about anything you might be wondering about (assuming I have anything interesting to say and any relevant experience from which to say it). So do let me know in the comments if there's something you're curious about.

I'll start with something mundane: there is no such thing as a half-time position in academic administration. A friend told me that "half-time" translates to "every other minute," and that has certain been my experience! I haven't worked this hard since my first year of teaching 18 years ago. Teaching, and to some extent research, can be allocated distinct blocks of time; administration doesn't work that way. It defies predictability and control. It also demands a different kind of mental (and physical) energy from the life we know as faculty members. (Or to be more specific, as non-clinical faculty members.) You have to be "on" all the time - attentive, responsive, shifting rapidly from thing to thing, picking yourself up and moving from place to place. I am (all-too) rarely in the law school and very often on my bike pedaling from one campus building to another. My daily calendar, which used to have little more on it in the way of firm commitments than my teaching schedule, now has only sporadic little one-hour blocks of "free" time.

This is not a complaint I'm offering: the year has been the most fulfilling one I have had in a long while. I feel like a citizen of my whole campus (rather than just the law school), and that is a wonderful feeling. But "half-time?" No way.

Students on Grading

While the profs have been weighing in re attitudes on grading in an earlier post, I wondered if any students (if any are reading this) would like to weigh in on what they most dislike about exams - other than having to take them!

What are the most aggravating/difficult instructions or exam formats you have faced this year from professors?  I don't necessarily mean this to be tongue-in-cheek.  I would honestly be interested in knowing what would make life easier for students, within reason, to ensure that instructions and assessment methods are as clear and accessible as possible.

Junger on the Second Amendment

The editors of the CWRU Law Review have advised that they have recently published a posthumous essay on the right to bear arms by Professor Peter Junger - who was also a pioneer in the law and digital technology field.  An electronic version is available here.

What's on your mind?

Things have been a little quiet around these parts of late -- I'm guessing everyone's grading and spending time with their families.  It's been a while since we had an open thread.  I think the last one was back in October.  So I thought I'd ask, what's on your mind?  

Madoff on Tax Fairness

Ray Madoff of Boston College Law School has the latest on tax fairness in today's Washington Post.

Tidewater Virginia Street Names

Well, I've spoken several times before about Blackhead Signpost Road in Southampton County, Virginia.  I just realized that there's a Nat Turner Boulevard in Newport News.  And -- not kidding here -- it's a couple blocks over from Herman Melville Way.

World's Hardest Antebellum Building Trivia Question

It's the end of the year -- and you all have been fantastic at picking off the trivia questions.  Over time I guess the accomplishments of Owen, Richard Paschal, Jason Mazzone, Calvin Massey, Alissa Ardito, Joan Vogel, Bob Steinfeld, Joel Eisen, Robert Folsom, Brando Starkey, and anyone else who picked off a trivia question this year whom I've failed to list will live in myth and memory.  And over time the memory and the myth will converge.  That's how this memory business works, after all.

So I guess it's time to have a really tough test.  Even if the heading of this post is an exaggeration (which it may not be), this is certainly very, very difficult.   This is the hardest antebellum trivia question I've asked and it's the kind pf question I don't think is fair, really -- it's in a very obscure place.  Where is it and what is it?  And why is it important?  Good luck.  Even with the writing on the front it's an absurdly difficult  question.  Go ahead, google it.  See if that helps.  When you're ready for a hint let me know.

Hanover County Confederate Monument

Now that Richard Paschal's identified the Hanover County Courthouse, here's the picture of the Confederate monument on the courthouse lawn that I promised.

Rather impressive, but not my favorite Confederate monument.   I prefer ones with images of people, I think.  Whatever -- as I say, it's impressive.

Next up -- the world's hardest antebellum building trivia.

Colonial Courthouse Trivia

Well, usually my courthouse trivia questions are about courthouses built during the nineteenth century.  But how about one from the colonial era?  Where is the courthouse at right and what important case was tried there?  Here is another view of the courthouse.

After we get that figured out, I'll post the Civil War monument on the courthouse lawn.

Greensville Virginia World War I Memorial

Now that Owen's identified the Greensville County Courthouse in Emporia, Virginia, I want to talk a little bit about the World War I monument on the courthouse lawn.  At right is a picture of it.

Here's what I find really interesting about this -- the gun is not from the US; it's a captured German cannon.  Am I the only person who finds it surprising that we use a captured weapon as a monument?  I don't know as I've ever seen this before.  But I guess I can see this in some ways as making sense -- it's a reminder of what our soldiers faced in battle, for instance.  As the plaque in from of the gun says:

A captured Imperial German Army 150MM Field Artillery Cannon manufactured by Krupp Works in 1917.  Many thousands of Americans and allied young men gave their lives in France to enemy fire from weapons like this to make the world safe for democracy.  Placed here by local veterans of Bulla Post 46 American Legion in 1925.  On Permanent Loan by U.S. Army it is one of 8 allocated as memorials to these brave soldiers and veterans.

Now, the second thing I find surprising: the gun was restored in 2008 by the Sons of Confederate Veterans.  This is further evidence -- as if any is necessary -- of reunion through violence.  Mostly people speak about the Spanish American War as a moment of reunion; maybe we should be talking about World War I in these terms, as well.  Of course World War I was also a key moment in the African American march towards equality (see chapter 1).

I have two more trivia questions before the end of the year.  Next up ... colonial courthouse trivia.

Too Sexy for This Job?

On Friday, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that an employee could be lawfully terminated because her employer found her to be an "irresistible attraction."  The Court's decision (here) - which, in the words of a friend of mine, "reads a bit Mad Men-like" - is worth a quick read.  In this case, the employer, a dentist, developed an attraction to his dental assistant, Ms. Nelson.  Over the years, Dr. Knight made several comments about Nelson's clothing being "too tight" and warned that she might see his "pants bulging" if her clothing was "too revealing."  When Knight's wife became concerned about the nature of the relationship between the parties, she demanded that her husband terminate the assistant.  And he did.

The Court held that neither Title VII nor the state's Civil Rights Act forbade the adverse employment action, despite the plaintiff's argument on appeal that the doctor's behavior amounted to sexual harassment which would have, itself, been actionable even without termination.  The decision appears to turn on the fact that the relationship/fresh language/etc. was not "unwanted" - in other words, Ms. Nelson did not complain about Knight's language and maintained a friendship with him over the course of their working relationship.  According to the court, their workplace environment never assumed the level of "hostility" required for such claims.

A few media outlets have picked up the decision and are reporting it with surprise - reporters rarely get the law right in such blurbs, so here's the decision for you to draw your own conclusions.