Immprof Mike Kagan on the Challenges of Teaching Immigration Law Now

Check out immprof this piece by Mike Kagan (UNLV) for the Chronicle of Higher Education: Teaching Immigration Law in the Age of Trump. Here are just a few tantalizing clips:

while I do not pretend to be neutral, it is my job to encourage open debate in class. Students who disagree with me deserve to feel free expressing themselves. … Yet, integral to this approach is a sense of boundaries distinguishing reasonable debate from base prejudices and disrespect. … But what if a student were to say that Mexican immigrants have a propensity to be criminals, or that people of Mexican descent cannot be fair-minded judges? Such comments are pure bigotry; they are prejudice without empirical foundation. Moreover, such comments could create a hostile learning environment for other students, especially if the instructor fails to reprimand them and re-establish boundaries. The trouble, obviously, is that our incoming president has said exactly these things. Does that mean the boundaries have moved? … I can see why a student might think, Shouldn’t I be able to say the same thing the president says without being reprimanded by my liberal professor?

Mike raises great questions that I myself spent time grappling with this week. It’s going to be a tough semester.

-KitJ