PUSHBACK WORKS: Yale Law School Dean’s “Message to Our Alumni on Free Speech.”

Via Eugene Volokh, who comments, “I should also note that, while I disagree with the calls to boycott Yale Law School graduates because of the school’s past lack of support of free speech, I have to acknowledge (as a practical matter, whatever one might think of the purely ethical questions) that those calls might have helped prompt this message—though one can only speculate—on that and might prompt Yale to adhere to these principles in the future.”

As Al Capone said, you get more with a kind word and a gun than with a kind word alone. We might hope to see our institutions headed by people who will do the right thing because it’s right, but experience — especially recent experience — suggests otherwise. Fear of consequences will have to do the work that conscience should.