Reconsidering Rape: The Consequence of Muckraking

Lane Feler wrote “Reconsidering Rape: Experience as the Life of the Law” in Issue 2 of the Morningside Muckraker, and followed it up with “Reconsidering Rape: The Conundrum of Silence” in Issue 6. Though she is now the Opinions Editor, she offers this third piece in her trilogy as a contributor, not in her capacity on the editorial board. “You may recall the description of the Man with the Muck-rake, the man who could look no way but downward with the muck-rake in his hands; who was offered a celestial crown . . . but […]

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Ferguson and Beyond: What Happened at CLS When the Media Wasn’t Looking

At the end of the Millions March protest last December, a group of Columbia Law School students simply kept walking. The streets of New York City had been calm, though filled with a larger and more diverse crowd than at previous protests, as the March’s lead organizers had hoped when they asked for a protest permit. Then, when the police permit no longer covered their route, these CLS students decided to cross the Brooklyn Bridge. As one member of the group, third-year student Nawal Maalouf remembered, police officers at […]

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Introducing The Morningside Muckraker

The idea to create the Morningside Muckraker began in Professor Sturm’s Lawyering for Social and Institutional Change class during my 2L year. The law school was our case study and as we discussed various initiatives already taking place or that we hoped would take place at the school, I suggested that they would all be helped by a space dedicated to facilitating constructive dialogue among students, faculty, administrators and alumni about the issues that mattered to these different CLS stakeholders.

Letter From the Editor: The Art of Listening – What We Heard, and What We Did

It was only when I started exploring jazz that I truly realized the importance of active listening. After countless failed solos, it struck me that the fine line between music and noise lay in listening to what the other band members were playing. Only then could the tune, the “conversation,” ensue. But despite my love for jazz, I realized upon starting law school that active listening, as a law student (and one in New York City), was not always that easy. Amid the sirens, the garbage trucks, the angry commuters in the streets, […]

The Kids Are Alright: Reflections on Law School

I’d received the news by phone. I was in Atlanta at the time, away from my family, when Mom called to let me know I’d received some massive blue box in the mail. It wasn’t a slim envelope, so we both immediately knew the thing’s import. I’d barely hung up the phone when I’d started getting questions from friends, acquaintances, family of friends, friends of family, family of acquaintances, acquaintances of acquaintances, varied in wording, but all carrying the same DNA: “Do you think I should go to law school?” Some of these people have already […]

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On Friendships

As I look back on the last three years (!) of my life, one thing sticks out above all. It isn’t the classes, free pizza, happy hours, or journal work, although all that stuff was cool too. What I’ll always remember and cherish are the friendships I’ve made here. The truth is, I didn’t expect it to be so easy. For a 1L, CLS can be an intimidating place: the subject matter in class is alien, and the students are accomplished, driven, and hyper-intelligent. I didn’t expect nastiness, but I figured law school would be more […]

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