Shaker Input Needed

by Shaker Roramich, who battles the tyranny of the 5-year old's pink snow boots in the Northwest.

Dear Shakers,

I'm guest posting a plea for help, information and wit from this awesome community. First, a little background, then more specifically what I'm looking for.

I'm teaching a class on the Psychology of Gender for the first time, at a large public university. At the end of the first class, I asked students for reactions to the question "If you woke up tomorrow morning and you were the "opposite" sex* than you were when you went to bed, would your life be different? How? Better? Worse? Same?"

[*I have briefly problematized the idea of the "opposite" sex dichotomy, but it's only the first week, and that's not the issue right now (important, but not the issue for the moment).]

I asked them to bring their responses to the question back to the second class, and I made it the lead off part of the class. The first comment was from a male student who claimed that if he were a woman, he would have an easier time getting into elite law schools, that law schools have a quota of women to fill, and that the effect of the Michigan law school ruling was to make it harder for him, as a man, to get into the best/most elite schools. If I understand his somewhat tortured logic correctly, I'm pretty sure he was saying that because fewer women than men apply to law schools, and law schools "have to meet quotas," women have a better chance at getting accepted than men do; in other words, the usual claim that affirmative action hurts white men.

His claim prompted immediate reactions from a number of female students, and the conversation got tense; I was trying to simultaneously manage the tension, keep track of the comments, and get the whole class back to the larger question at hand (which was about our perceptions of gender roles), rather than referee a back and forth-er about law school specifically, and I suspect that I kinda failed somewhere in there. And I found myself having no idea about how law school admissions work, anyway. After class he forwarded me a link giving the University of Michigan law school ruling, which I think is meant to show me that the UM ruling only disallows the specific point system that the UM was using; with the presumption that female-advantage affirmative action policies still exist, and to make his point about "best and most elite" because the ruling only applies to public schools, which feeds his assumption that the private schools are still out to get him (or rather, not get him, but the random woman standing next to him, but you know what I mean, I hope).

I have several concerns; I don’t just want to shoot him down or treat him as we might a troll (a la several recent highly amusing Shapely Prose discussions!), as I need to continue to teach him for 9 more weeks. So, witty insults are fun, but not totally useful for me right now. Nor do I want to devote disproportionate time to inaccurate information from any student in general, but I feel some response is needed in this case (although I could be wrong about that), and I feel inadequate and disadvantaged by not having full and accurate information.

So, that's the background, my questions are these:

• What ideas do the fabulous Shakers have for some creative ways to respond to this student? Or more generally to students of this type (poor me, I'm so oppressed, women really have all the power)?

• Are there affirmative action quotas that are known to operate during law school admissions? What are some sources of info for me to be able to respond the issue of affirmative action policies for higher education in general (law, med, etc.)?

• Does anyone have any strategies to help me find my way in this class more generally, as I do expect there to be further situations where conversations will be tense and someone will say something inflammatory. (I did spend considerable time in the first two classes working with them on norms and standards of respect for discussions, but… still…)

Just as an aside, in case anyone is curious, not a single person during the extended discussion of the original question touched on the idea of violence or personal safety until I brought it up. When I did bring it up, a different male student voiced the following "Why do my women friends take the idea of walking alone at night so seriously? We had, what, two whole rapes on this campus last year? It's just so statistically unlikely!" Which also prompted a variety of responses, but that could be another whole post!

Many many thanks for Liss for allowing me the space to ask for your help, and many thanks in advance for any advice, wit, zingers, comebacks, classroom strategies, info on law schools, etc., that you might be able to send my way. Back channel responses are also welcome if that is better; to roramich AT care2 dot com (after you fix that address).