Students Lodged Complaint Against Fitzgibbon in 2008
Oct 02, 2009
56 Comments
Scott T. FitzgibbonIn the Spring of 2008, a group of Boston College Law School students enrolled in Professor Scott T. Fitzgibbon’s “Marriage: Law and Theory” seminar formally approached Dean of Students Norah Wylie to express concern over Fitzgibbon’s allegedly improper conduct in class.
The group, comprising approximately one-third of the small seminar, claimed that Professor Fitzgibbon was endorsing, among other things, a traditional view of marriage and refusing to permit meaningful opposition to his views in class and on the final exam.
“He refused to include any readings from the feminist or GLBT groups into the curriculum, despite requests that he do so,” said Monica Jo Molnar ‘08, a student in Fitzgibbon’s class and a member of the group that approached Wylie.
Instead, students from Fitzgibbon’s class reported that readings from conservative authors predominated.
Students’ objections were not limited to the readings themselves. Several students in class expressed concern that their grades on the final exam would be predicated in part on their willingness to side with Professor Fitzgibbon on controversial issues.
“On the exam, Professor Fitzgibbon insisted that anything we say be supported by the class readings, but his class readings only supported one view — his,” said Molnar.
The course description for Fitzgibbon’s seminar read as follows:
Prerequisites: None
This course will consider the nature of marriage, with special attention to the analysis of friendships and other affiliations in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. It will consider some of the causes of marital breakdown. It will consider the question of the extent to which the law and the social order should support and encourage marriage and some initiatives designed to do so. It will consider the constitutional law of marriage.
As Fitzgibbon’s seminar continued, attendance began to drop, and many students became increasingly dissatisfied with Fitzgibbon’s treatment of marriage. As a result, a small group of students resolved to speak with Wylie about Fitzgibbon’s perceived bias.
The students’ request to modify the curriculum and/or to take the class Pass/Fail was denied.
The 2008 complaint against Fitzgibbon is the latest revelation in a cultural controversy that has engaged students and faculty in recent weeks at Boston College Law School. While previous opinion and commentary focused on such issues as free speech, tolerance, discrimination, mis-quotations, and the use of the BC Law trademark, this is the first time questions regarding the propriety of Professor’s Fitzgibbon’s conduct in the classroom have surfaced.
Reports from students in Professor Fitzgibbon’s Marriage Law and Theory seminar stand in marked contrast to reports from students who had taken Fitzgibbon’s 1L Contracts class. In the latter, past students have said that Professor Fitzgibbon kept his personal political beliefs out of the classroom.
Dean Wylie and Professor Fitzgibbon did not immediately return a request for comment.
Who posted this article?
marriage is a union of sexual love – that does not take 1 male and 1 female.
Sexual Love and sex are not the same, Sexual Love is not possessive nor does it serve to manipulate.
What does Sexual Love being possessive or serve to manipulate have to do with same sex relationships? What are you getting at?
Sexual Love is NOT possessive because of the complementary nature of the union between Man and Wife, "and the two shall become one flesh", for if the two were the same, Christ would have said, "and the two equal two", to begin with.
I don’t recall Christ saying anything about it at all frankly. Christ, who thought so much of marriage that he never bothered to get one? If he was so interested in setting up the foundation for such partnerships, surely he would have entered into one himself? No, he spent his life teaching people like Nancy to stop mistreating their fellow humans and reserve judgment for God, not for themselves. The Catholic Church hijacked the truth and has spent two thousand years lying to people about who Christ was.
Jesus Christ. Remember that this is a Catholic institution?
See that spire outside? It’s taller than the library. Hint.
Give it a rest, you want liberal, goto Boalt Hall.
The old man has his opinions and he’s not going to give up a lifetime of conviction to a few 20 something kids trying to prove an amorphous bias.
So you tell him how to do his job, he inserts a few articles and assigns it, he listens to you whine, then he allows you to express yourself on the exams and in class.
Your grade will still probably be the same. You know why? 1. You still need to know what he’s teaching, yes, all those arguments you don’t like. 2. He’s still going to grade with whatever bias he had. 3. Law school is just like that.
But think of it this way, you’ll arm yourself with the best conservative arguments for LIFE, not just the classroom, so you can tear them apart in an educated manner.
Go out and lobby for the rights you want and the literature you care about. Fitzgibbons isn’t your enemy. If he makes you irate, there are real conservatives out there who will make you cry at the drop of a dime.