This comment (from a healer) goes straight to the Front Page

Alan,

Standing on the sidelines and listening/observing L'Affaire Kaplan through admittedly filtered sources, several thoughts come to mind.

Is anyone really paying attention to the primal drives that are "driving" operative behaviors? The Hmong community and Professor Kaplan come from ethnic backgrounds where betrayal and annihilation are major themes, occurring a mere 30 years apart. Hard for me to believe that this is not playing a MAJOR role.

The operative word for me is "respect". When survival is at stake, respect often goes out the window. Much of what I hear is being driven by subcortical drives committed to survival at the expense of reason. Respect requires a good deal of "neocortex", supposedly what this legal institution thrives on and teaches. ( I believe "Your Honor" is a commonly used phrase in the courtroom.) Until ALL sides involved demonstrate some degree of respect for each other (including the supposedly impartial adjudicator, the law school), I doubt this conflict will be resolved satisfactorily.

An aside: Marshall Rosenberg's "Nonviolent Communication" offers very good guidelines for communication in this sort of situation where emotions are very heightened.

The law school teaches about contracts, torts, jurisprudence. This is all based on hundreds of years of experience in dealing with aggrieved parties. This is certainly the situation here. Why doesn't the law school model these principles in this circumstance? Walk the walk! What the heck is all this back room stuff, yelling over the phone, forums, emails? Good grief! There are judges and juries all over the place on this case. Heck, why not formalize it into a mock trial and let each side present its case. It could be one of the greatest learning situations ever constructed if the parties could realize this does NOT have to be a life and death situation!

(Addendum: As currently formulated, for Professor Kaplan, it actually probably IS closer to a life and death situation given that tenure, salary, grants, social standing all may be at stake. I'm not sure what the Hmong community has to lose given that Professor Kaplan never had any intention to harm in the first place. If he said what they allege he said, yes, those would be threatening words of a narrow ignorant mind. I believe his letter of March 5 eloquently concluded any debate over whether he is a narrow minded bigot. I say this while acknowledging that Hmong survival in recent history has certainly been tenuous and sensitivity is needed.)

Having a forum to discuss "prospectively" what to do about sensitive issues seems akin to having an elephant standing in the room and discussing what to do to avoid having an elephant standing in the room! Good luck!

Stop patronizing the Hmong law students as little helpless people that have been victimized by a big powerful enemy. This WAS true in the 1960's and 1970's and needs to be acknowledged as such. I don't believe Professor Kaplan was in attendance at those events. He WAS present in 2007 at ANOTHER event! Don't confuse the two! They have little in common yet the emotional response from many parties involved is communicating that the events are equivalent. THEY ARE NOT! Pay attention to the differences!

Ray Purdy