Has Trump Second Affected the Crim Law Classroom?

I realize we don’t exactly have a robust comment stream on the blog (yet!), but I’m curious how the change in administrations has affected the law school classroom around the country.  Because every group dynamic can be so different, it seems foolhardy to make too much of any single, few-week experience.  But for me, while I am enjoying two great sections of first year criminal law, I notice a strange (to me) tendency of students to turn towards one another, non-verbally exchanging…I’m not sure what…at any mention of a currently-societally controversial topic.  Discomfort?  Annoyance?  Bemusement?

I can only recall that I’ve mentioned Trump once directly, and it was when we were discussing why the criminal law requires an act, as opposed to punishing mere thought.  Among the litany of reasons I was running through was that we of course have a robust freedom of speech, and ‘a person (unless he is Donald Trump) of course has to think before he can speak.’  To me, that was a politically neutral—if not very funny—joke: it’s about “covfefe” and “I have the best words.”  But it seemed to go over like a rock, even as I tried to point back to those events.  Because 2025 1Ls tend not to remember those 2017 things?  That may be it, at least in part…I grow old.  Or perhaps it’s just too hard to joke about politics these days.

Oh, and there was a second direct reference—I was discussing strict liability under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, and Captain Sully’s Miracle on the Hudson (that he would be an MBTA criminal for killing those Canada Geese), and said something like, ‘That was too much for the first Trump administration…’  (Because his Department of the Interior issued a memorandum inserting a mens rea.)  Once again, that seemed a trigger for this new student-to-student reaction, despite it having next to nothing to do with Trump controversies.  Maybe any mention of the name?!

And, again, it’s not merely that “Trump” seems a trigger word…it seems more like any topic that could be touching the current political hot spots.  I wonder if in some geographic areas students tend to immediately assume any law prof mention is going to be hostile?  While in others students might even have that same immediate assumption but therefore be eager to speak on the issue?  I certainly don’t know…but am curious.

(N.B. I couldn’t help adding captions to the above photo…demonstrating that perhaps it is indeed my sense of humor at fault in the classroom as well!)