Update:  New York Post, NY Law Student Faces Expulsion For ‘Aggressive Pointing’ at Trans Student as Prop 1 Panel Descends Into Chaos

Olivia Reingold (The Free Press), Law Student Faces Expulsion for ‘Aggressive Pointing’:

When Houston Porter, a 28-year-old law student at Pace University, first walked into the college auditorium last month, he was surprised to see a packed house for the “Saving Women’s Sports” panel he was co-moderating.

“Our events normally don’t get that kind of turnout,” says Porter, a member of The Federalist Society, a conservative group that sponsored the panel at Pace’s law school in White Plains, New York. “So it was exciting.”

But not long after, Porter’s world started “crumbling down”—with at least one professor shouting at panelists and another allegedly rushing the stage, followed by a Title IX investigation that accuses him of having “aggressively pointed” at a transgender student and misgendering her. Now Porter faces the possibility of suspension, expulsion, and even being barred from practicing law.

About two dozen students, plus two faculty members, attended the October 15 panel against Proposition 1, a New York ballot measure that promises to codify gender identity and gender expression as protected classes in the state constitution. Porter said most attendees showed up wearing trans pride pins, but he didn’t think anything of it. In fact, he says, his LBGTQ peers were “the exact type of people” he hoped would join the discussion.

For the first 45 minutes, the panel—which included a constitutional lawyer and two Republican state senate candidates—was civil, save for a few interruptions, Porter told me.

Then Porter opened the floor to questions and “the room kind of exploded,” he said. “There were a bunch of people in my face.”

Four attendees described to me the scene that unfolded. One called it “chaos”; Pace professor Randolph McLaughlin, who specializes in civil rights law, admitted to me that he shouted at the panelists: “You don’t recognize that trans girls are girls!” Another source told me Professor Margot Julia Pollans rushed the stage and “was yelling” at the panelists. (When reached by The Free Press, Pollans said she “did not” rush the stage or yell at participants.) 

A panelist told me security had to escort them to their car and, according to panel co-moderator David Skjerli, a chair was knocked over in all the “pandemonium.” …

Nine days later, the situation became even stranger. Porter saw an email flash across his phone, titled “Notification Letter.” …

When he expanded the email, he saw a PDF attachment from Bernard Dufresne, the school’s Title IX coordinator, stating that Porter is being investigated for a potential act of “sex-based discrimination” against a transgender student who attended the Federalist Society event along with about two dozen members of the school’s LBGTQ+ affinity group. The charge? That he “aggressively pointed” at the transgender student and “purposefully referred to her as a man in front of classmates, law school faculty and administrators, and guests.” He now faces a disciplinary hearing that could result in community service, suspension, or even expulsion. He also worries that he won’t pass the “character and fitness” portion of the bar exam, which requires applicants in New York State to disclose any disciplinary actions against them. 

“Any type of punishment will be super detrimental to my reputation and to my professional career,” Porter said, wearing a suit and tie on a video call from his childhood bedroom at his family’s Westchester home. “It feels like my whole world is crumbling down. I feel like everything that I’ve been working toward might get destroyed over a misunderstanding.”

The son of a Cuban mother and Filipino father, Porter told me he is paying his way through law school via a combination of scholarships, loans, and savings he made through previous dishwashing jobs. “I haven’t told my family yet,” he said. “My parents have sacrificed so much for me to go to law school—and they’re still sacrificing so much. I just don’t want all my family’s hard work to be for nothing just a semester and a half before I graduate.”

Porter told me the allegations against him are “not true” and a “mischaracterization of the facts.”

A Pace University spokesperson declined to comment on the charges against Porter, stating that “We are aware of the matter in question, speaking with the people involved, and following our internal process.” The spokesperson added that the school “respects differing perspectives and encourages expression” but does not “condone harassment or intimidation when parties disagree.”

Porter, who is now in his third year of law school, said he wants to become a legal advocate for affordable housing. He had hoped law school would be a “marketplace of ideas,” but instead found that “if you don’t agree with the majority’s thinking, then the students will turn on you, the faculty will turn on you, and administration will turn on you.” 

“We knew the subject was touchy, but we wanted just to foster a professional discussion, and we wanted people who disagreed with us to come because even if they continue to disagree with us, we still have to talk, you know?” he said, adding that the school had previously held multiple events in support of Proposition 1 that went off without a hitch.

“It’s really scary that the future generation of lawyers who are supposed to hear both sides before they make a decision are basically convicting me without hearing my side of the story,” he said. “It makes us all better lawyers when we understand what the other side is saying, even if we may disagree with them.”

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