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Rapoport: Training Law Students To Model Civility In An Uncivil Social Media World

Nancy B. Rapoport (UNLV; Google Scholar), Training Law Students to Model Civility When Social Media Makes Civility Harder to Maintain, 85 U. Pitt. L. Rev. 511 (2024): 

Pittsburgh-law-reviewThis paper, presented as part of a symposium honoring the Hon. Joseph F. Weis Jr., discusses two relatively recent law student behavioral failures, triggered in part by the effect of the anonymity of social media posts on social discourse.  It suggests better ways of dealing with public disagreements.

Because this symposium is dedicated to the legacy of the Hon. Joseph F. Weis Jr., it’s fitting to start with a story that I learned about him: Judge Weis was twenty-one years old and fighting in World War II (serving under General Patton) when he was wounded by a shell and rescued by a fellow soldier. As he would recount to his law clerks years later, that story of his rescue had very little to do with him but a great deal to do with “the bravery and heroism of another soldier. That soldier’s risks.” Professor Bill Janssen—a former Weis clerk—told that tale in his profile of Judge Weis, and he concluded that “[t]he privilege of ‘earning’ that rescue ha[d], perhaps, been motivating Judge Weis his entire life.” A large part of Judge Weis’s legacy was “‘out-nice-ing’ the other guy,”4 which is why striving for civility is a way of honoring his legacy. 

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