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Okay, so I had my first real bitch-moment in law school today, and it was only half intentional. We were doing statutory interpretation, and the case was Tennessee Valley Authority v Hill, which historically, politically, or environmentally-minded readers may recognize as Tellico Dam versus the snail darters. ( Basically the story goes like this: )
Anyway, the long and short of it is, we were only talking about the Supreme Court case, and whether the court's decisions to uphold the Endangered Species act would have the "absurd result" that Justice Powell worried about in his dissent, and whether the ruling was a proper one. This guy in the front row says "Well, a fifteen second Google search will tell you that the dam got built, so it was obviously the will of the people that the endangered species be trumped by the economic need."
I, who was already steaming about the case itself, immediately stuck my little hand in the air and replied, "Actually, a twenty-five second Google search will reveal that it was an ill-conceived project to start with, that the Congressional committee appointed to study the dam agreed with the Court's ruling, and the only way it was built was by the senator sneaking a rider onto another bill that allowed the dam to ignore all the federal laws against it." He was, I think, appropriately chastened. I don't know what the hell he wsas googling to think that the will of the people had anything to do with that mess. Maybe he did an image search by accident.
Anyway, the professor steered us back on track, but I got a couple compliments afterwards from my classmates. I know it's not in particularly good taste to give the verbal smackdown to people in class, but I just couldn't believe that anyone would say something like that and claim to have done the research. Ridiculous.
Other than that, it was a fairly shitty day, and I can't wait to go home. But at least it kept my interest.
Anyway, the long and short of it is, we were only talking about the Supreme Court case, and whether the court's decisions to uphold the Endangered Species act would have the "absurd result" that Justice Powell worried about in his dissent, and whether the ruling was a proper one. This guy in the front row says "Well, a fifteen second Google search will tell you that the dam got built, so it was obviously the will of the people that the endangered species be trumped by the economic need."
I, who was already steaming about the case itself, immediately stuck my little hand in the air and replied, "Actually, a twenty-five second Google search will reveal that it was an ill-conceived project to start with, that the Congressional committee appointed to study the dam agreed with the Court's ruling, and the only way it was built was by the senator sneaking a rider onto another bill that allowed the dam to ignore all the federal laws against it." He was, I think, appropriately chastened. I don't know what the hell he wsas googling to think that the will of the people had anything to do with that mess. Maybe he did an image search by accident.
Anyway, the professor steered us back on track, but I got a couple compliments afterwards from my classmates. I know it's not in particularly good taste to give the verbal smackdown to people in class, but I just couldn't believe that anyone would say something like that and claim to have done the research. Ridiculous.
Other than that, it was a fairly shitty day, and I can't wait to go home. But at least it kept my interest.
