What I wish was different about my mission

When I first came home from my Spanish speaking mission to Salt Lake City, 2005-2007, I cherished the memories. I was definitely one of those people that called it "the best two years." I frequently told people I would have gladly done it all over again.

But as time has gone on, I have become jaded about many aspects of my mission. I don’t mean to attack anyone personally or to criticize anyone’s faith. But I feel like I must write my honest feelings and share them.

During my mission.

I was 19-21 on my mission, yet many people thought I was 15. Complete strangers didn’t even try to be polite about that. I would be grocery stopping at the store, and I’d hear something like this out of the blue, “OMG YOU LOOK LIKE YOU’RE 15 HAHAHAHAHA!!!!” That’s only a slight exaggeration. What made it surprising is that such taunts came from adults. And, to add insult to injury, they would add, “Sorry, it’s just that we’re used to bigger missionaries.” Wow, so you’re telling me I look scrawny? Thank you so much! That makes me feel better. 

[eye roll]

Would you tell an overweight person out of the blue that they need to lose a couple pounds? No. Most people know that’s rude. Then why did so many people in the great state of Utah think it was polite to tell a missionary that he looked like he was barely starting high school? In LDS culture, a mission is the pinnacle of a young man’s life. He fancies himself a hero like Indiana Jones. The last thing he wants to hear is that he looks like a baby, and especially not in such a rude way. 

Many people thought I was from Idaho. For some reason, almost every Spanish speaker confused “Ohio” with “Idaho.” I can count on one hand the number of Latinos who knew that Ohio was a separate state. Idaho and Ohio have nothing in common: their demographics are different, their cultures are different, their shapes are different, etc. The only thing they have in common is, in Spanish, their pronunciations sound vaguely familiar, but only if you’re unfamiliar with U.S. geography or if you’re not listening carefully. It frustrated me to no end that my state didn’t seem to exist to those people. It got so bad that I told them I was from New York. Even though New York is far away from Ohio, it was close enough to give them an idea, especially since most of them were very ignorant of U.S. geography.

I hated being forced to knock on doors. People criticized me for not having enough confidence to talk to complete strangers. It wasn’t that I was scared. It was that I resented pestering people. I didn’t blame them one little bit for being annoyed at us, because I would have felt the same way if I were in their shoes. 

I resent being obligated to follow an endless list of rules. Some were as arbitrary as waking up at 6:25 instead of 6:30. You know it was arbitrary because my mission president’s reasoning for it was simply, “Because we can.” Others that made no sense: listening to music in the car was not allowed (not even hymns) 6 days of the week, but it was ok on P-day, and you could listen to talks anytime. If safety was an issue, aren’t talks more distracting? And what made music dangerous 6 days of the week but suddenly it was safe on P-day? 

The culture of exact obedience to strict rules led to me being hard on myself for not following every single one of these rules. I eventually developed stress headaches. My mission president's solution was to probe into embarrassing details of private matters he had no business inquiring into. That interview did not help. If anything, it made my headaches worse. That was not an inspired decision on his part.

Those headaches disappeared after my mission.

Also, depriving a young man of virtually all contact with his family at such a tender age is just cruel. Even soldiers deployed to war zones get more contact with their families than I did. I was even so zealous that I turned down several opportunities to meet up with family members during my mission. I regret passing those opportunities up. 

After my mission.

On my mission, I had long hair parted down the middle  I now have a receding hairline and I keep my hair short. 

I thought I had a decent haircut on my mission. But apparently a lot of people thought it looked ugly. Once I changed haircuts, those people had no qualms openly belittling me for my old haircut. 

This is what I looked like back then:

September 19, 2006

October 12, 2006

Here is a classic example of the type of comments thought were ok to make about my hair:

Spanish: "Ajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajaja, ay perdon, i meant ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha, ah no perdon, es que... ajajaja, es que... te ves bien chistoso kevinasio, con tu cabello asi, perdona, me emociono facilmente con los cambios de cabello, jiji, como va todo? estas enohio? o feliz? ajajaja, olvidalo, es que mis clases me ponen loco, saludos."

English: "Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Oh, sorry, i meant [sic] ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Oh, no, sorry, it's just that... ahahaha, it's just that... you look really funny with your hair like that, Kevin. Sorry, I easily get excited about changes in haircut, hehe. How is everything going? Are you in Ohio [play on words with "are you angry?"]? Or happy? Ahahaha, never mind. It's just that my classes are driving me crazy. Cheers."

That person wasn't the only one to express such sentiments.

It is a mystery to me why so many college-age adults thought such verbal abuse was acceptable, especially over the course of many years. It occurred consistently from 2007 until I asked on the mission Facebook page in 2013 for people to knock it off. The taunting finally stopped, but I am frustrated that not a single person has apologized. And the lack of apology wouldn’t frustrate me so much if ONE person could explain to me why they thought such behavior was OK. I just don't get it. What makes all those years of taunting especially painful is feeling like my mission was a waste because, apparently, people thought I was ugly that whole time 😥☹️😞

Plus, I look back at pictures of myself from those days, and I don’t think my haircut was all that bad. Sometimes when time goes by, you look at old pictures of yourself and you cringe at how you used to dress; but that’s not my experience with my haircut.

In my opinion, it’s like when someone loses weight: you don’t belittle them for how they used to be overweight. You praise them for weight loss and you tell them they look good now.

The rude comments about my hair weren't the only thing that made me mad about mission reunions.

For example, almost nobody showed up to the reunion that my then-wife and I put together, despite the impression being made that many people would show up to it. It hurt even more when I saw people from my mission posting pictures of themselves in the SLC area for General Conference that same weekend. So, they were in the area, but they couldn’t be bothered to swing by for a few minutes?

A common farewell at those reunions was, “Bring back those wives!” As if I weren’t experiencing enough pressure from BYU’s culture of marriage fever. 

One thing that always puzzled me were the reasons people didn’t attend reunions. There was often decreased attendance at reunions whenever there was a BYU football game. One guy went on a date, as if another evening were simply impossible. I guess people didn’t care that they would get the chance to see old friends that they hadn’t seen in years and might not get the chance to see again for many more years. :/

I visited my mission a couple times. Each time, I expected a pleasant trip down memory lane. I was surprised how many members had complete amnesia about who I was. I wouldn’t have expected them to remember my name. But many of them didn’t even recognize my face. It was especially disheartening that people who I had spent a significant amount of time with, or who had invited me to their homes multiple times for dinner, didn't remember anything about me. I guess our time together meant nothing to those people?

They're not the only ones who apparently didn't care.

One companion straight up told me he didn’t want to keep in touch.

I was with my MTC companion for 9 weeks. You would think people who such that much time together at a critical stage of an important period of life would never forget each other. I still remember his name, his family, what mission he served in, and other details about him. We wrote each other letters. But when we ran into each other at a BYU football game years later, he was clueless about who I was. He remembered after I jogged his memory. But I was sad that he completely blanked on who I was and the time we spent together. He didn't even remember what mission I was assigned to. His response was, “You have a better memory than I do.”

Parts of my mission I’m still grateful for.

My mission experience wasn't all bad. It was a critical part of my growth, and in many ways it shaped me into the person I am today. I appreciate my parents' sacrifice in providing that experience to me.

My favorite thing about my mission was learning the Spanish language and familiarizing myself with the Latin American culture. That is a gift that keeps on giving. My knowledge of Spanish and Latin America led me to get a degree in linguistics, a job translating for the military, and it will be immensely useful in my practice as a future immigration attorney. In fact, it is precisely because of my experience on my mission that I have such a keen interest in advocating for the immigrant community. When you see firsthand what they suffer, it naturally makes you want to do something about it. I feel like being an immigration lawyer is the best way to give those people a voice. My fluency in Spanish has also come in handy whenever I've traveled to Latin American countries (Mexico and Ecuador so far). Even when I went to Germany and Austria, I talked in Spanish to the Latinos and Spaniards there. I met a Spaniard named "Herr Alvarado" at a cafe. When I learned he was from Spain, I told him I speak Spanish better than German. He said, "Me, too."

I am grateful to the handful of friends who care enough to keep in touch, or who at least respond whenever I reach out.

Believe it or not, I actually enjoyed the MTC. A lot of people complain about the MTC. It's understandable, because the rules there are even more strict than regular mission rules, and many of the buildings are like sterile army barracks. But most of my memories there are positive. I enjoyed that having lots of time to read, work out, and getting three buffets a day.

Law School Doesn't Prepare Students for Law Practice

Intro

My experiences outside the classroom, including my externship with Catholic Charities, my work with the immigration clinic, moot court, and working for an immigration attorney, have given me the impression that, in many ways, law school falls short in preparing students for the practice of law.

This is not mere bellyaching, nor is it an idle gripe. Rather, I believe I’ve identified a genuine flaw in the system.

I'm not the only one who feels that way. There is some scholarship, including findings from law professors and reports from practicing attorneys, to back that up. For example, Professor Robert Kuehn, of the Washington University School of Law, published a 2017 blog post detailing scholarly research that sheds light on law school’s shortcomings.

One source, an NCBE Job Analysis, found twenty-five “skills and abilities” were deemed more important than the highest rated “knowledge domain.” (See charts below)

"Knowledge Domain."
Notice that the highest domain has an importance rating of 3.06.

"Skills and Abilities."
Notice that 25 skills and abilities have an importance rating higher than 3.09

Yet, according Professor Keuhn, these “skills and abilities” generally are not developed in traditional doctrinal law classes. They are taught in experiential and first-year legal writing courses. But, under the ABA standards, they only are required to account for ten percent of a student’s legal education.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Professor Keuhn’s post cites more than a dozen surveys. Many of them are published, peer-reviewed journal articles. But you don’t have to read all of the articles from start to finish to see that law school is inadequate in important ways.

A New York Times article, which includes commentary from law school faculty at many universities, has this to say: “The fundamental issue is that law schools are producing people who are not capable of being counselors... They are lawyers in the sense that they have law degrees, but they aren’t ready to be a provider of services.”

This isn’t just frustrating for me personally. It indirectly hurts law students’ job prospects: the current law school model means that clients, in effect, underwrite much of new lawyers’ legal education. As a result, many clients refuse to have first- or second-year associates on their bills. “This has helped to hasten a historic decline in hiring.” Id.

Why is Law School Like This?

It used to be that lawyers “read law” under the guidance of a practicing attorney. That’s how Thomas Jefferson became a lawyer. He wrote the Declaration of Independence, so obviously he learned how to write like a lawyer. And he became a U.S. president.

That changed in 1870, when Harvard Law School dean Christopher Columbus Langdell introduced the case method. According to the New York Times, “This approach cultivates a student’s capacity to reason and all but ignores the particulars of practice.”

For example, Contracts and Criminal Law are standard first-year law classes. The NYT describes what students do and don’t learn in those courses:

Here is what students will rarely encounter in Contracts: actual contracts, the sort that lawyers need to draft and file. Likewise, Criminal Law class is normally filled with case studies about common law crimes — like murder and theft — but hardly mentions plea bargaining, even though a vast majority of criminal cases are resolved by that method.

Id. Despite the fact that people, including law school faculty, have known these flaws for years, they are unlikely to change because there are few incentives for law professors to excel at teaching. If a professors want “professional goodies,” like tenure, a higher salary, prestige or competing offers from better schools, they must publish law review articles, “the ticket to punch for any upwardly mobile scholar.” Id.

The irony? “Many of these articles are not of much apparent help to anyone.” The topics can be obscure as “the influence of Immanuel Kant on evidentiary approaches in 18th-century Bulgaria.” Id.

And yet an enormous part of law school tuition is spent for research and writing of law review articles. 

Add to this the fact that, even though some faculty may have some experience as practicing attorneys,  the system actively discourages extensive experience. “It is widely believed that after lawyers have spent more than eight or nine years practicing, their chances of getting a tenure-track job at law school start to dwindle.” Id.

Another one of the flaws I see with law school is that experience is peripheral to academic studies (to its credit, Akron Law does a good job of helping students find experience, which is how I found immigration law, which I discuss below). 

Fortunately, there has been a trend towards growing clinical law programs (Akron Law has several). This helps, but unfortunately, “The majority of law students still graduate without any clinical experience.” Id.

I love learning, so I enjoy the academic aspect to a certain extent. But I think experience should be central, like it is with an apprenticeship.  So, I think the apprenticeship model is one worth considering. One blog discusses legal apprenticeships.

Law School is Indeed a “Paper Chase”

One of my favorite movies is The Paper Chase. Even though it came out in 1973, its portrayal of law school is still spot on. One of the more thought-provoking parts of the movie is when Susan Fields tells her boyfriend, Harvard Law student James Hart, “You'll get your little diploma, your piece of paper that's no different than this [toilet paper] and you can stick it in your silver box with all the other paper in your life.”

An exasperated girlfriend tells her law school boyfriend he's pursuing a piece of paper,
like the one she's holding in her hand.

This may make it sound like I feel a law degree is worthless. That's not true. On the contrary, I think in many ways, it’s priceless. I've learned many things in law school that I treasure.

But think about it, you have many important pieces of paper, and pieces of plastic, in your life: your birth certificate, your social security card, your driver’s license, your student ID, your credit card, your health insurance card, etc. Each of these usually require a lot of work and/or money before you can obtain them. But remembering that none of them is be-all-end-all of your existence can keep things in perspective. There’s more to life than those pieces of paper and plastic.

So, too, with a law degree. It symbolizes three years of toil, and potentially hundreds of thousands dollars spent on tuition. I’m positive that most law graduates have earned their law degrees well. 

I just think that, for our time and money, it’s reasonable to expect that law school can do better.

Why I Stay

You may be wondering, reasonably, why I would stay at law school when there’s so much I find wrong with it. After all, I wanted to become a lawyer, so isn’t this what I signed up for?

Well, as I stated in my previous blog post, I seriously considered dropping out. If I hadn’t found my calling in immigration law, I would have done so. 

But discovering what I’m meant to do has given me the “light at the end of the tunnel.” It has given me the perspective I needed to quit fretting about grades. I don’t plan on being a cog in the machine. Rather, when I consider all the people I can help, I’m motivated to earn my law degree so I can use my legal skills to help people. And given the country conditions some immigrants come from, it’s no exaggeration to say that I can help save lives as an immigration attorney. 

I’m not trying to change the world with this blog post. I’m under no illusions about how much influence it wields. I don’t anticipate that anything I say here will cause the system to fundamentally shift (after all, it’s been that way since at least 1973). Even Susan M. Case, the author of the NCBE Job Analysis cited above, said that there is “by necessity a long period of time between identifying needed changes to the bar exam and implementing those changes.” So even if I successfully persuaded the powers-that-be that change needs to happen, that change probably wouldn’t happen before I graduate.

So, I’m simply tossing this blog post into the ether like a pebble in a pond, and hoping it makes some waves.

My blog post in the sea of information that is the internet.
Image source.

Law School is Unfair

Law School is Unfair

I came to law school expecting a challenge. I did not fear it. In fact, I welcomed the learning opportunity that was sure to come from being challenged in new ways.

However, I was not expecting it to be fundamentally unfair. 

Granted, my feelings may change by the time I graduate, but I think most people will agree with me when they look at the structure of law school. Plus, I want to open up about my own discouragements, and the wonderful realizations, I have had in the journey that is in law school.

Caveat: To any faculty reading this, know that I esteem you highly. You have consistently impressed me with your willingness to help students learn and succeed. It’s one of the many reasons I picked Akron Law over other schools that I was accepted to. The stuff I complain about are the flaws inherent in the system (law schools everywhere have always been like this), and not about you.

I. The Socratic Method

You may have heard law students speak of the dreaded Socratic method. It is “a teaching method heavily used in law schools today, based upon the technique used by Socrates in ancient Greece, in which students are led to analyze legal issues and principles through a series of hypothetical questions... from the teacher.” Socratic method, random house webster’s pocket legal dictionary (3d ed. 2007).

A typical law school class goes like this: you’re given 20-50 pages of case law to read before each class lecture. In class, rather than doing all the talking himself or herself, the professor enlists the aid of the students in discussion. The professor selects a student at random (unless there are volunteers, which rarely occurs) to discuss the cases in the reading. The professor asks what the background of the case is, what each side argued, how the court ruled, and why. Sometimes a professor really wants to drive a point home, and asks multiple pointed questions about one particular thing. 

The idea behind this method is that you teach yourself the most important nuggets of legal wisdom from important cases in the area of law that your class covers (and maybe it gets you prepared for the final, but that’s debatable). Every student is required to participate in the Socratic method multiple times throughout the semester.

On the one hand, I enjoy the Socratic method because of the way it engages students in classroom discussions. I’m a bit of a nerd, so I often volunteer to get called on, and my professors have consistently told me that I am a good class participant (volunteering has the benefit of relieving the other students from getting called on, so they don’t mind, either).

On the other hand, people rightfully dread the Socratic method because of the way the professor grills you in front of the whole class, and it can be unnerving when the professor hits you with a rapid-fire series of questions where it’s unclear what they want. It’s doubly embarrassing if you haven’t done the reading or didn’t fully comprehend it.

But love it or hate it, the Socratic method is a waste of time. Most of the topics of class discussion are rarely on the exam, which means class participation is poor exam prep (and, in turn, exams are poor preparation for law practice, which I vent about below). The time spent studying cases is often disproportionate to the material covered in the exam. It’s made worse when the discussion goes down “rabbit holes” of topics that aren’t relevant to any of the course objectives, but which the students or the professor find interesting.

Another reason I think it’s a waste of time is that class participation, though mandatory, is such a small part of your grade that it is practically insignificant. That’s a tad frustrating for me personally, because I love participating in class.

But my frustrations with the Socratic method pale in comparison with the ire I have for law school exams.

II. Exams

After the instructional period is over, and after the reading period, students are given final exams. A typical law school exam last for three hours, covering every topic learned over the past sixteen weeks. All of these are graded on a curve. I’m not good with statistics, so the exact calculations involved are a bit of a mystery to me. 

But I know it involves a median and mean that’s used to create a “bell curve.” Strictly speaking, this means it is an indicator of how you did compared to everyone else. If you managed to get more points than everyone else, you get an A. The median means that only a few people are allowed to get an A. The rest are stuck with a lower grade, even if they have a solid understanding of the material.

The absurdities of this setup are best summed up in this gem that I stumbled across in my law school library. It is so accurate that the author is only partially joking. In fact, he is so close to the truth that I can only classify this quotation as “mildly hyperbolic”:

Studies have shown that the best way to learn is to have frequent exams on small amounts of material and to receive lots of feedback from the teacher. Consequently, law school does none of this. Law school is supposed to be an intellectual challenge. Therefore, law professors give only one exam, the FINAL EXAM OF ARMAGEDDON and they give absolutely no feedback before then.

Actually, they give no feedback after then, either, because they don’t return the exams to the students. A few students go and look at their exam after it is graded, but this is a complete waste of time, unless they just want to see again what they wrote and have a combat-veteran-type flashback of the whole horrific nightmare. The professors never write any comments on the exam. That might permit you to do better next time, which would upset the class ranking.

Some professors are kind enough to distribute a model answer for you to look at. You tell the professor that you can’t see any difference whatsoever between your low-scoring exam and the model answer. He replies, “Well, there’s your problem."

James D. Gordon III, Law School: A Survivor’s Guide 46-47 (1994).

This is infuriating for me. Having your entire grade (or almost all of it) depend on a single three-hour window is flawed in many ways:

• It is not necessarily an evaluation of your understanding of the material. It is not even an indicator of your intelligence. It is an indicator of whether or not you are a good test taker. This, in turn, depends on several factors:
• Your ability to match the professor’s subjective criteria of what they’re looking for and how they want it presented.
• Whether you had a good day or bad day on test day.
• The amount of class material you’ve read is no indicator of whether you will succeed on the exam.
• Class participation is no indication whatsoever of success on the exam.
• More important, exam success is not a predictor of success in the legal profession (which makes it doubly unfair that so many employers rely so heavily on GPA).

Because of the way that law school exams are set up, you can work your tail off and still get an abominable grade (see part IV for my personal discouragement with my GPA and class ranking).

III. GPA and Class Rankings

After the professors grade the exams, they crunch the numbers to calculate each person’s grade. The final exam grade is basically your grade for the whole class (which I’ve vented about already), with a little bit of leeway to bump your grade up or down a tad depending on whether the professor was satisfied with your class participation.

In turn, the law school faculty takes each person’s class grades to determine their GPA, and they use GPA to calculate class rankings. Each student may or may not be satisfied with a respectable GPA, but for most students, class rankings are depressing because it means realizing that the majority of your classmates got a better grade than you did (even though you worked hard and suffered long for your grade).

I find GPA and class rankings preposterous because it means that law school is less about education and more about competition. Granted, for many things in life, competition is acceptable. Indeed, it may be the only way you can succeed. For example, sports, games, etc.

But education should not be fundamentally about competition. It should be about learning. If the only way to succeed in school is for others to fail, your education model is severely flawed.

IV. My Personal Experience

My feelings about GPA and class ranking may be biased because I was dissatisfied with mine during my first year. My first semester GPA was 2.97, and my ranking was in the bottom third. It was depressing to me because I didn’t slack off at all during my first semester! I felt like my GPA and ranking were a slap in the face to all my hard work. 

I was especially puzzled because I had followed every bit of advice that I had been given that would allegedly guarantee my success: 

• I did the readings;

• I met regularly with a study group (we called ourselves the Curvebusters);

• I created an outline (a summary of all the essentials learned in class), which I updated regularly; and

• I regularly did “hypos” (practice exam questions) individually and with my group, and I got feedback on my answers from professors, faculty, and other students.

My GPA and class ranking after my first semester left me feeling like I wasn’t an intelligent person after all, that I simply didn’t have the aptitude for law school, and, ultimately, that I wasn’t cut out for the practice of law. That feeling stuck with me for a long time (and I didn’t shake it until recently).

Still, I wanted to be a good student, so I sought feedback from each of my professors. This helped a little—I eeked my way up 3.06, and the bottom 55% after my second semester. In fact, I got two A-’s (Property and Civil Procedure II). But it irked me when I got a C+. I had met with the professor multiple times to get feedback on my answers to his practice questions, and he led me to believe I had a good handle on things. But apparently I was missing the mark so badly, that I got one of the worst grades in the class, and my worst grade so far in law school. I wish I would have known that before the final.

Things reached a head when I took a quiz early on during the first semester of my second year, when I took a ten-point quiz in Constitutional Law. No biggie, right? I was confident I would nail it because I had studied the constitution over the summer (including helpful mnemonic devices to memorize key clauses and amendments), I did all the readings, and I had spent a significant amount of time prepping for the quiz...

...and I got six questions right. Sixty percent.

My initial reaction was, “What gives?!?!” (actually, it was more vulgar than that, but I prefer to keep my blog family-friendly). 

Consequently, I was thoroughly fed up with law school, and I was sick of the perpetual feelings of failure. In a way, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back (and it truly was just a straw, because the points from that quiz didn’t count). I seriously considered dropping out, going back to my old job, or even teaching English in Korea.

This is why I am grateful I discovered my calling in immigration law (I’d like to give a shout out to Camille Gill, the legal staff, the other staff at Catholic Charities, and my fellow extern, Krishna Mahadevan; Professor Knowles and my classmates at the University of Akron Immigration & Human Rights Clinic; and my boss, immigration attorney Farhad Sethna).

I am fluent in Spanish, and for years I have had a deep interest in the Latin American community. This suits immigration law well, because of how many Hispanic immigrants the U.S. receives each year. I also enjoy learning other cultures, familiarizing myself with other languages, and helping the downtrodden. So I was naturally drawn towards: 

• helping victims of gang violence in Central America or political oppression in Venezuela to apply for asylum;

• helping victims of the wars in the Middle East;

• helping people escape the poverty and instability of countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo;

• helping Nepalese nationals make a new life for themselves after spending generations in Bhutanese refugee camps; and

• helping immigrants of all nationalities to apply for green cards or citizenship.

When I found my calling, it finally dawned on me that there’s more to the legal profession (and life) than GPA and class ranking. After all, I don’t think any client has ever asked their attorney, “What were your grades in law school?”

Which makes sense. Think about it, when was the last time you asked your doctor what his or her medical school grades were? It just doesn’t occur to you because it’s irrelevant. You just want a competent caretaker to diagnose your ailments and prescribe a cure or treatment.

Likewise, when you need a lawyer, you don’t care what their grades in law school were, or how they stacked compared to their classmates (you probably don’t even care if they went to prestigious university). You just want a competent attorney who can give you sound legal advice and/or win your case.

So, law school GPA and class rankings are bogus metrics that are based on arbitrary standards. Yet law schools probably aren’t going to give them up any time soon because they’ve been doing it that way for decades, and it helps them justify tuition costs.

But I’d be dumbfounded if a client, languishing in ICE detention and whose family stands to get ripped apart because of an unjust deportation order, asks questions like, “Did you get an A in Civil Procedure? What about Contracts? Leg Reg? Professional Responsibility? Oh, and I need to know your GPA and class ranking, because I’m not letting you anywhere near my case if you don’t have at least a 3.6 or a ranking above 10%.”

My experiences remind me of the ending of "The Paper Chase."

"The Paper Chase" is a movie about a first year student at Harvard Law. In the last scene, the main character receives the letter containing his grades. Without even opening the letter, he folds it into a paper airplane and discards it into the ocean. 

When I first saw that scene, it puzzled me. Now I get it. 

So, when last semester’s grades and rankings were posted, I chose not to look at them for several days. Instead, I enjoyed the serenity of a well-deserved vacation. Incidentally, my GPA and class ranking improved more when I stopped caring about them: I now have a 3.29 cumulative GPA (which includes an A in Con Law, my best grade so far) and I’m in the top 40%.

[Update, Jan. 27, 2018: I just got a letter from the dean's office saying I made the dean's list last semester because I got a semester GPA of 3.85. How about that? Funny how much my grades improved when I stopped fretting about them.]

Protecting the Nation From Domestic Terrorism Within the United States

Dear Mr. President,

Since you believe that people from a half dozen Muslim-majority countries were enough of a threat to the United States that you issued a temporary ban against them, then it would only be logical for you to also issue a temporary ban against white supremacists, since they are also a threat to the United States.

Even though I’m busy getting ready for my second year of law school, I will gladly help you draft the Executive Order needed to get white supremacists out of this country (I’ll even do it for free). I have already drafted the first three sections for you, using Executive Order 13769 as a template:

Executive Order 13808 of August 12, 2017

Protecting the Nation From Domestic Terrorism Within the United States.

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and laws of the United States of America, including relevant federal law, and to protect the American people from terrorist attacks by citizens born in the United States, it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1. Purpose. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 plays a crucial role in protecting individuals from discrimination based on sex, race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Numerous U.S.-born individuals have been convicted or implicated in hate crimes since the passage of the Civil Rights Act. Perhaps in no instance was that more apparent than the terrorist attacks of August 12, 2017, when white nationalists, neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan members clashed with counterprotesters in the streets and a car plowed into crowds, leaving one person dead and 19 others injured.

In order to protect Americans, the United States must ensure that its citizens do not bear hostile attitudes toward it and its founding principles. The United States cannot, and should not, harbor those who do not support the Constitution, or those who would place violent ideologies over American law. In addition, the United States should not harbor those who engage in acts of bigotry or hatred or those who would oppress Americans of any race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation.

Sec. 2. Policy. It is the policy of the United States to protect its citizens from other citizens who intend to commit terrorist attacks within the United States; and to prevent U.S. citizens from exploiting free speech for malevolent purposes.

Sec. 3. Temporary Banishment and Revocation of Citizenship Benefits to U.S. Citizens of Particular Concern. To temporarily reduce investigative burdens on relevant agencies, to ensure the proper review and maximum utilization of available resources for the screening of U.S. Citizens, and to ensure that adequate standards are established to prevent infiltration by domestic terrorists, pursuant to relevant federal law, I hereby proclaim that the presence in the United States of white nationalists, neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan members would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, and I hereby order their banishment from the United States of such persons for 90 days from the date of this order.

No Longer a Believer

I no longer believe in Mormonism. I still cherish the relationships I have with friends and family who continue to live the faith, but I have decided that I no longer wish to practice the Mormon religion.

There are several reasons for it: the biggest thing that caused me to seriously reconsider my participation in the Church was the policies it enacted in Nov. 2015 prohibiting children of gay parents from getting baptized. That seemed cruel to me because it seeks to punish gays (or at least distance itself from them) by scapegoating their children. And the fact that it’s similar to the Church’s policy for children of polygamists doesn’t make it any better, because it’s unfair to them, too. I just could not think of a satisfactory justification for such a policy.

I can imagine many of my believing friends are wondering how I lost my faith after “feeling the Spirit." I indeed experienced the emotionally euphoric experience that can be described as “feeling the Spirit.” It was genuine, and it was pleasant. However, I find it an insufficient basis for belief, especially considering what the LDS church asks as a result of that belief:

-Believe wholeheartedly in a controversial 19th-century religious leader.

-Believe wholeheartedly that the philosophies of the leadership of the Church, especially when pronounced as a group, are reliable enough to base important life decisions on.

-Give up a significant portion of money (in the form of tithing, fast offering, paying for missions, and other donations).

-Give up a significant portion of time (in the form of church attendance, activities, callings, etc.)

-Adherence to a dietary code which can be confusing and can seem arbitrary (tea and coffee are banned but pop is not).

-Adhere to a strict standards of sexual purity.

-Recruit others into the religion.

Those are lots of demands placed on one’s life, especially for just a feeling.

And this feeling has shown to be unreliable. The most prominent example is the ban on blacks and the priesthood.

For nearly a century and a half, every president of the Church (Young, Taylor, Woodruff, Snow, Joseph F. Smith, Grant, George Albert Smith, McKay, Joseph Fielding Smith, Lee, Kimball), along with the corresponding members of the 12 and the 70, taught, and sincerely believed, that blacks deserved to be denied the priesthood. They reasoned that God deemed them an inferior people before they were born. “Feeling the Spirit” was enough to convince them to put the ban in place and continue it for so long. Further, the reason it took so long for the Church to lift the ban was because not enough leadership “felt the Spirit” convincing them to do away with it.

If “feeling the Spirit” led that many top leaders of the Church to be wrong on such a major issue for so long, who’s to say that the current leaders haven’t been misled by “feeling the Spirit” on major issues? For example, on homosexuality (I discuss other qualms I have with the priesthood ban below).

That’s why I think the “pray to know the truth” instruction is a hollow promise, especially given the fact that the Church’s official narrative is that if praying doesn’t convince you to believe in the Church, then you did it wrong. In other words, the logic is circular, and therefore unconvincing.

As I mentioned above, I'm ashamed of the Church's history of institutionalized racism, prohibiting blacks from being ordained to its clergy, and from entering the temple (meaning their families couldn't be declared eternal). It was only in 1978 that the church lifted the ban. That was less than 40 years ago! Star Wars came out in 1977. That means Star Wars has been around longer than blacks have been able to have the Mormon priesthood. For almost a century and a half before that, they weren’t allowed to. Outrageously racist doctrinal justifications were promoted to justify it—such as the ridiculous idea that black people weren’t as valiant in the pre-mortal war in heaven, so God cursed them with darker skin. Plus, the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964, nearly a decade and a half before the priesthood ban was lifted. It took the Church way too long to figure out that that policy was racist and needed to be done away with.

And even now, the priesthood is limited to just men. The Church apparently hasn’t figured out how sexist that is, because it means that the church is operated primarily by men. Any female church leadership is chosen *by men* and is supervised *by men.* Budgets for women’s activities in local congregations have to be approved by the bishop (a man). To make things worse, there is nothing in the canon of Mormon holy books (Bible, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price) that specifically prohibit women from being ordained as clergy.

I hate the manipulative tactics the Church uses to get its membership to pay tithing (President Hinckley himself said they could be described as membership dues). 

I dislike the Church's disingenuous portrayal of its history. It’s so sugar-coated that believing membership is blown away when they discover that Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon using a rock in a hat, or that he practiced polygamy and polyandry, including with several teenage girls.

Which brings me to another thing: the Church's history of polygamy. The actual practice of polygamy doesn’t bother me if it involves consenting adults, but a lot of the polygamist brides in 19th century Mormonism weren’t exactly “consenting” or “adults.” But all that is compounded by the fact that Joseph Smith repeatedly denied allegations of polygamy and compelled others to do so, even though his polygamy is a proven fact. The Church continued to sweep his polygamy under the rug until just recently.

Also, it bugs me how the Church still symbolically holds on to polygamy by allowing widowers and male divorcees to be "sealed in the temple” (in other words, declaring that the marriage will be valid in the afterlife) to more than one woman, but not allowing widows and female divorcees to be "sealed in the temple" to more than one man. It’s a sexist practice.

And speaking of temples: I hate the secretive rituals performed in the temple, with the bizarre clothing to accompany it. People who have performed those closed-door rituals (which are borrowed extensively from the Masonic rituals) are required to wear “garments” (underwear that memorializes those rituals) for the rest of their life, and are essentially banned from other types of underwear. I find that creepy and controlling.

I hate the exclusive nature of temples, because it means that anyone who isn’t a card-carrying Mormon isn’t allowed to attend a wedding that takes place in the temple. I deeply regret that half of my siblings weren’t allowed to attend my wedding. If I get married again, I want ALL of my family to be there. There may still be extenuating circumstances why they can’t all make it, but I will ensure that my wedding does not require adherence to a religious orthodoxy (i.e. “being worthy”) in order to attend.

And I refuse to let myself be buried in those goofy-looking temple clothes. Even when I was an devout believer, I thought that was a terrible way to dress the deceased.

I despise the Church’s prudish attitudes on sexuality. I hate the private meetings that members are required to go through with clergy regarding their sexuality, because those meetings can be very intrusive. I think if a person really needs help, (for example, if they’re a sex addict, which vast majority of the Church membership is NOT), then they should speak to a professional therapist. Most of the church’s clergy mean well, but most of them have not been trained the way therapists have been trained, and that’s unfortunate.

Many people, including those in the Church who are LGBT, have suffered crippling depression for failure to adhere to the Church’s strict standards on sexuality. Young girls are made to feel like sluts for showing their shoulders, and young boys are made to feel like sexual deviants for masturbating—and it doesn’t help when they are told that sexual “sins" (even the benign practices that aren’t criminally punishable) are only slightly less bad than murder. That comes from a toxic interpretation of a passage in the Book of Mormon that’s often taken out of context and blown out of proportion (the context for that passage is a prophet scolding his son for sleeping with a prostitute). The Church needs to stop guilting people for failing to adhere to its rigid guidelines on sex (which 99.9% of adults in the world have failed to do at some point in their lives), and it really needs to be more accepting.

Finally, I like coffee. Coffee is great. If you’ve never had coffee, you don’t know what you’re missing.

Thoughts on LDS church's new policies

D. Todd Christofferson explains LDS church's new policies

As you may have heard (especially if you keep up with current events in Mormonism), The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints recently enacted new policies related to people in homosexual relationships. 

Essentially, 1) it now defines being in a homosexual relationship as apostasy (click here for more information) and 2) children of homosexual parents may not be baptized until: a) they are of legal age b) they no longer live with the parents c) they disavow the practice of homosexual relationships. Even after meeting those requirements, the mission or stake president still has to request approval from the First Presidency (the top governing body of the LDS church comprised of 3 men; click here for more information).

A day after this news broke out, the LDS church released video of an interview with apostle D. Todd Christofferson. It doesn’t answer every question, but at least it provides "authoritative commentary," in the words of one Facebook user. He confirmed what many were suspecting, that the Church views homosexual relationships as analogous to polygamous marriage, and that this policy is meant to ease the burden on the children and their families.

The whole time, my Facebook newsfeed was lit up with opinions coming from people on both sides of the issue.

I wanted to hold my peace until a statement from the Church came out. Plus, I needed time to formulate my own opinion. At first my feelings were too nebulous and ambiguous to write down. 

Now that I’ve had time to organize my thoughts, here are my two and a half cents on the controversial new policies that the LDS Church has enacted. I don't pretend to be authoritative, nor that I can provide a satisfactory perspective. I don't attempt to answer to all possible objections. I'm just throwing out some ideas from the perspective of a “TBM” (true believing Mormon).

To my friends in the LGBT community: I'm sorry. This must feel like a slap in the face. I'm not going to try to "mansplain" (or whatever would be the equivalent of an ignorant straight guy talking down and "explaining" something to a gay person). Know that many of us devout Latter-day Saints are as troubled by it as you must be. I don’t like it (there are other policies I dislike, or at least that I don’t understand).

Initially, I was troubled by it even more than the Boy Scout statement (you can read my reaction here). It would appear I'm not the only one troubled by this. Lots of people (myself included) who love the Church and believe in the gospel are hurt and confused. The thing that kept running through my mind (and still is to a certain extent) is “Why?”

I’m not sure, but perhaps there were people wondering if the Church would eventually perform gay marriages, especially now that gay marriage is legal? Did the Church want it perfectly clear where they stood (even though there probably weren’t many who doubted it)?  

For one thing, this goes to show the delicate balance the Church has to play, since it has a fundamental difference of opinion with the rest of the world. With such a touchy issue, it's difficult to please everybody. As long as the Church teaches that homosexual relationships are a sin, it will be walking on egg shells no matter what.

On an individual level, it shows just how tricky it is to keep one's feet in both worlds. In the words of Neal A. Maxwell, “Make no mistake about it, brothers and sisters; in the months and years ahead, events will require of each member that he or she decide whether or not he or she will follow the First Presidency. Members will find it more difficult to halt longer between two opinions” (click here for the full text of the speech).

I’m troubled by some of the reactions from both sides. Many of my faithful Latter-day Saints may not recognize how painful this new policy must be.  Some have even said it doesn’t affect most people in the Church. That may be true, but that doesn’t make it less troubling (imagine saying the same thing for the former ban on blacks receiving the priesthood).

And I’m troubled by the people who paint these new policies in the worst light possible, with no benefit of the doubt given (although I’m not really surprised at such people’s reaction).

When it comes to LGBT relations, the LDS church seems to go back and forth between things that the public views as positive and negative. But even the negative incidents have a positive side to them.

Positive:

- Donating to Utah Pride Center. 

- Sponsoring gay rights legislation in Utah which prohibits discrimination in housing and employment based on sexual orientation (click here for more information).

- Applauding the allowance of gay Scouts in the BSA.

- Apostle Dallin H. Oaks frowning on Kim Davis’ refusal to perform her duties as a government employee (he didn’t mention her by name, but it was clear that he was talking about her) (click here for more information).

Negative:

- Frowning on allowing gay men to be Scout masters. The Church ultimately decided to stay with the BSA, so that's got to be at least somewhat positive as far as LGBT relations.

- Officially being opposed to legalizing gay marriage (including its involvement with California’s prop 8), right up until the US Supreme Court decision legalizing it. But after prop 8, the Church didn't urge Church-wide involvement in passing related legislation, nor did it recommend which way to vote, so that should also be a plus. Also, Christofferson (the same person from the video cited above) told church members it was okay to support gay marriage, despite the Church’s opposition to it.

- Most recent statements defining apostasy, and regarding children whose parents are in a gay relationship. An LDS woman who was raised by lesbian parents expressed her opinion of the wisdom of this policy in this article. At least children of gay parents (heck, even the parents themselves) will still be allowed to associate with the church and even be “dry Mormons” (a person who is so involved with the Church that it’s easy to forget that they’re technically not baptized).

I often encountered “dry Mormons” on my mission. There were several investigators (a term we use for people looking into the Church) who adored the Church and participated in as many

activities as possible, but they couldn’t get baptized for one reason or another. 

The most common situation I encountered was that they were legally married to someone in a different country but were co-habitating with someone else here in the states. Getting a divorce from that foreign country and then getting legally married in this country often was complicated.

The ones who wanted to make it happen made it happen. But even then, it could be time-consuming.

Another common situation was a child whose parents didn’t approve of them getting baptized.  As long as the child is a minor, Church policy dictates respecting the wishes of the parents in that regard.

It was often a huge disappointment to me as a missionary because I loved these people and it was exciting to finally have investigators who *wanted* to be baptized, but weren’t allowed to because of a technicality with Church policy. That was even more discouraging to me than people who weren’t interested.

One way I consoled myself is that living out one’s faith almost always has obstacles to overcome, and as long as one has the desire and the trust in the Lord, the Lord will provide.

Another way I consoled myself was reminding myself that the Savior didn’t withhold love from those people for being unable to be baptized at the time. And I myself certainly didn’t stop loving investigators in those situations. 

Further, I know for a fact that the Savior doesn’t withhold love from children under the age of 8 (the minimum age for baptism into the LDS church).

I imagine the missionaries will encounter similar conundrums with this new policy. In that vein, I came across a thoughtful article (by a gay Mormon, no less) about people he met who had to obtain special permission before being baptized (such as being children of polygamous families or from fundamentalist Muslim countries):

"Whatever the reason, God himself understands all personal situations, blesses His children, and always charts the path they will need to follow to find baptism. In His eyes, life is just a speck in time. And an blessing we have to work or wait for, He will give us a hundredfold."

I’m reminded of a saying in the Church: doctrines don’t change but policies do. I think that’s relevant here, but I would modify that saying: the truth doesn’t change but our understanding of it (i.e. doctrine) and Church policies do change. I say that because of the many doctrines the Church used to teach but either downplays or disavows now, hence the need for continuing revelation from a living prophet (but that’s a discussion for a different day). This article on Patheos (written by the husband of a friend of mine) has some good thoughts related to that subject.

My point is this: these policies, as they are written right now, won't last forever. If they don't get eliminated entirely, they'll at least have to be modified to make exceptions that accommodate certain scenarios.

Perhaps it's a matter of perspective: if you view it as cutting off children of gays from the community of Saints, or punishing the children for their parents’ choices (as I initially thought), it would seem cruel. If you view it as relieving the family (parents and children alike) of the burden of having a child join (make a covenant with God through) a church that teaches that their parents' lifestyle is a sin, that might seem merciful.

My first thought was “How is that any different from children whose parents are co-habitating?” (I baptized several children on my mission who were in that situation). I think it goes back to how the Church views those relationships: a co-habitating heterosexual couple is not apostate, but a homosexual relationship is. Why is a homosexual relationship considered apostate? Not sure exactly why (in fact, I am not sure I completely understand the broader question of why homosexual relationships are sinful), but Elder Christofferson said, in that regard, there is a parallel to polygamy. 

If the Church didn’t view homosexual relationships as apostasy, then the policy regarding children of parents in homosexual relationships probably wouldn’t be in place. If homosexual acts in general weren’t considered a sin by the Church, there would certainly be less tension between the Church and the outside world, and fewer struggles from within.

I think it’s interesting to note:

• Mormon church’s history of polygamy outrages people of a more conservative view on marriage (although I think it's a little unfair how critics are unwilling to credit the Church for moving past it and even making it a sin that is an excommunicable offense).

• Mormon church’s history against same-sex marriage outrages people of a more liberal view on marriage.

As I said, the Church often has to walk a tight rope, since it is so different from the rest of the world. It’s impossible to please everybody.

I’ve often heard the paradoxical observation that religions that flow with the current of popular thought tend to lose committed followers. That reminds me of this article (completely unrelated to Mormonism or homosexuality) where the author expresses disillusionment with religions that try too hard to be cool and that ignore the substance of Christian worship.

It would appear there's something to be said for religions that require difficult, painful things that outsiders (and even insiders) might object to. Joseph Smith said, “A religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things never has power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation” (Lectures on Faith, p. 69).

At the end of the day, I am confident that, as Brigham Young said, God is at the helm of the Old Ship Zion. In his sermon entitled “God Is at the Helm” apostle M. Russell Ballard stated:

"Too many people think Church leaders and members should be perfect or nearly perfect. They forget that the Lord’s grace is sufficient to accomplish His work through mortals. Our leaders have the best intentions, but sometimes we make mistakes. This is not unique to Church relationships, as the same thing occurs in our relationships among friends, neighbors, and workplace associates and even between spouses and in families.

"God’s plan is in place. He is at the helm, and His great and powerful ship flows toward salvation and exaltation. Remember that we cannot get there by jumping out of the boat and trying to swim there by ourselves…

"Let us be grateful for the beautiful Old Ship Zion, for without it we are cast adrift, alone and powerless, swept along without rudder or oar, swirling with the strong currents of the adversary’s wind and waves.

"Hold tight, brothers and sisters, and sail on within the glorious ship, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and we will reach our eternal destination."

Here are my final thoughts. And these go for everybody regardless of your opinion on these new policies.

Jesus loved everyone. I’ve noticed people on all sides of this debate get into a contest over who’s the better person. In the ongoing verbal war between believers and non-believers, supporters and opponents of gay marriage, let’s remember the more important part: being kind to our neighbor. Further, actually helping people who are in need, instead of bragging about how right you think you are or putting down those you think are wrong.

The gospel isn’t about proving that you’re right and that your opponents are wrong (that’s why missionaries are discouraged from “Bible bashing”). It’s about helping people who need help.

Even though Jesus was a skilled debater, I don’t imagine him saying, “Ha! In your face! I win!” Nor did he ever say, “I’m more compassionate than you” (even though he most certainly was the most compassionate person in the history of world).

Rather, he said just the right thing to pierce the soul in order to motivate the listener to change their life for the better.

So here are some ideas regardless of your view on homosexuality or the Mormon church: 

• Participate in a gay pride parade. 

• Speak kind words to someone who feels unaccepted because of their sexual orientation. 

I know that's not much, but it's a start. Let’s both reach out in love to our brothers and sisters, without turning it into a competition over who is more caring.

The Savior's love is unconditional, regardless of religious status.

P.S. I want to point out that right now, the Church is urging its members to help refugees (definitely a positive, in my opinion). I add my voice to theirs: please help the refugees, including donating money for their aid (whether through the Church or some other charitable organization).

In my opinion, helping with the refugee crisis is more important than one’s stance on the Church’s policy.